San Mateo

HCD told them that they didn't do their re-zoning correctly, but only required small changes. They should get re-certified soon.

​

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:

​

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

​

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

​

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." 

​

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

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. 

​

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).

​

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

I have a .pdf, prepared and forwarded to me by San Mateo Planning Commissioner Adam Nugent (with either help or agreement from Commissioner Seema Patel), that calls out methodological deficiencies with the site inventory. The draft housing element explicitly admits it did not "include the economic feasibility of specific sites, []or ... take into consideration the owner's intended use of the land now or in the future." This is an admission that the draft HE fails to follow HCD guidelines and statutory law.

PCs Patel and Nugent are YIMBYs; I have a .pdf that Nugent circulated and copied HCD criticizing deficient methodology. The draft explicitly acknowledges it does not evaluate indvidual site likelihood or include substantial evidence of owner intent to redevelop.

This was a session to initiate conversation re. housing. The first part of the event was an introduction with several cities included: Burlingame, Hillsborough, Millbrae, East Palo Alto, and San Mateo. In the second half, we broke into breakout rooms by city. I went to the Hillsborough group, which was a discussion about the Hillsborough-specific housing element update process.