County grand jury has recently found that ADU-heavy housing-element strategies are bad. TBD whether the grand jury finding will matter to HCD.

Three general policy changes were discussed:

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1. Rezoning: previous draft relied on rezoning primarily in the North Fair Oaks to meet the county's RHNA affordable quota. Housing advocates provided public comment urging the board to expand rezoning to also include higher opportunity neigborhoods. Supervisor started the conversation in firm support for this effort, and Pine and Corzo backed him up. Mueller suggested the Board not weigh in on the issues and essentially let the planning department work it out, which was met with criticism

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1. Tenant protections: Corzo and Pine have been working on a tenant protection ordinance to strengthen just cause standards and explore options of a rental registry, etc. Advocates called on the county to incorporate these updates into the housing element. The county attorney provided clarification to the board that the housing element would have supremacy over an ordinance, and any future ordinance would need to comply with the element. The board generally agreed that since the ordinance is already in the works, there was no need to further slow down the element drafting process by incorporating tenant protections

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Housing for special needs: Board discussed a number of options that would strengthen the element's language regarding supportive/accessible housing. One such revision they seemed in favor of regarding lowering minimum parking requirements for housing for disabled individuals. The board agreed that that policy "made sense." 

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The Board ultimately pushed final decisions on these measures to the next meeting. The Board also discussed how the supervisors intended to allocate their Measure K money, but I didn't stick around for that. 

https://sanmateocounty.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=998929&GUID=0D46FA6C-A477-4001-8780-87E9B4ED1E73&G=1088EC25-A43A-408F-A57C-73C0A70269AB

It was a general public study session where feedback was provided to support more affordable housing in our city in support of state laws

Housing-related

- Presentation of the proposed 2022-23 city budget prepared by city staff

- Proposed budget included four housing staff, as recommended by city staff (part of the larger unfreezing of hiring following COVID)

- $250k additional will go toward implementing the Anti-Displacement Strategy due to allocation via the People's Budget

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Public comments of pro-housing folks emphasized:

- Importance of Increasing housing staff to 4 full-time members in the budget, as the City Manager’s office would appreciate

- Enforcement must be a core focus of the anti-displacement strategy planning and research work when shared and discussed at next council meeting

- Some anti-housing commenters reiterated typical NIMBY talking points

- Several public comments emphasized pro-police talking points amid recent fireworks in downtown

William Gibson - presented on (reduced) constraints, concerns from community re housing, HE goals, # of pipeline projects and ADUS. Commissioner comments. Inappropriate parcels should be identified directly to him. 

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Comments by Green Foothills, community members, including advocate for senior housing and advocates against sprawl. Commenters focused on the numbers being high and incorrect assumptions (e.g. ADUs = housing and all vacant SFH lots will be built out).

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Commission voted to submit as-is to the Board of Supervisors (did not respond to any of the public comments). 

Report from staff on housing progress in current RHNA cycle showed RWC meeting goals in low-income and market-rate, but falling short in very-low and moderate income housing. Several comments from councilmembers in support of legalizing plexes citywide. One councilmember brought up deed restrictions in master-planned part of city (Redwood Shores) as potential barrier to development.