South Pasadena

South Pasadena is hiring a consultant on Wednesday and spending $150k to try to amend the Housing Element so that it would produce less housing because they believe you guys will accept it. Their city attorney has specifically said you guys are amenable to lowering the height limit that was agreed upon.

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Megan, you have repeatedly claimed that the Housing Element is a "Contract with the State" but you let Los Angeles ditch its entire AFFH program. And now South Pasadena is trying to get out of its "Contract with the state."

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Does the Housing Element really mean anything at all if you allow cities to get accepted and then backtrack on all their commitments?? Or does it only apply to Republican cities that Gavin doesn't like?

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Here is the scope of service:

https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3040422/Attachment2-ExhibitATheArroyoGroup.pdf

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And here is the item on the agenda:

https://d2kbkoa27fdvtw.cloudfront.net/southpasadena/442df75cf241e8dcd014dabd83192d2c0.pdf

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 Debrief of the 9/26 City Planning Commission hearing and decision.

Coalition letter from business groups w/ the specific policy asks were not addressed by the Planning Commission. Perhaps they felt like they were following the Mayor's lead. Commissioners spoke about single family neighborhoods but no movement/changes on the policy.

2. Strategy for the City Council (date?) No date, PLUM first and then goal is to have the full council vote happen before Dec. 13.

              A. PLUM Committee Members (Chair – John Lee, Vice Chair – Heather Hutt, Members: Katy Yaroslavsky, Imelda Padilla, Kevin de Leon)

Bit of a question as to what role Councilmember Lee will take. Will he lead as a Chair or be more of a figurehead until the new council takes over next year?

Mayor Bass doesn't seem to be focused on spending political capital on making changes. Perhaps the Council (and specific members) will have more of an interest in making these changes?

              B. Other Councilmembers most likely to be interested: CD1 and CD4 are big for single family zoning. CD 5, 4, 3, 2 for more technical asks/improvements. CD12 for getting an understanding of an appetite to open up the conversation. CD 13 open to single family conversation.

3. AECOM Feasibility Analysis of the CHIP and its implications for this next stage

AECOM analysis - engineering consulting firm and GC that Planning hired to do feasibility and market data to validate CHIP. AHLA leading an effort within this space to help inform advocacy, will circle back. There could be an opportunity to show how much development capacity (in terms of #s) is missed by excluding R1 zoning, in exhibit D (ie up to 40,000 or 60,000 parcels).

LA County's Housing Element calls for a study of their parking requirements and identifies those requirements as a constraint to housing. They hired consultants to study the issue and the consultants are recommending reductions in parking requirements. The workshop was to gather public input. I put in comments in favor of eliminiating parking requirements. Some other commenters were skeptical of parking reofrm.

I've drafted a post for the Abundant Housing LA blog (forthcoming) where I will go into detail on this, but I left the meeting frustrated at how esoteric it would have seemed to anyone not already in the weeds, how mostly the usual suspects showed up, and how we heard a lot of complaining about RHNA without a corresponding recognition of the severity of the housing affordability crisis.

It felt like a conflict between city employees (which were trying to decrease their RHNA allocation) and YIMBYs.

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There was a big question about whether or not cities should be able trade their RHNA allocations, and how to take into account things like cost of infrastructure.

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I pushed to encourage the state to use market prices as part of assessing pent-up housing need.

Housing element was approved as written. A few comments from Public Counsel, Building Industry Association, and environmental activist Lynne Plambeck. Commissioners were concerned about high low income housing goal and asked if SB 9 will help. Planning director responded that while SB 9 will increase total capacity  it will not increase the number of sites necessary for low income housing due to HE specific requirements for eligible sites. Commissioner also wanted it to go back to commission after HCD made more comments but it was batted down by staff as they are working towards a public hearing at BOS on October 19 as they intend to have it submitted to HCD by the statutory October 31 deadline and not use the grace period. Looks like staff is fine with doing whatever HCD wants just to get it approved and the element certified, and there was little push back against it.

South Pasadena to zone for 2,067 units with a buffer of 127 units beyond that, which represents around an 18% increase over existing housing stock. The Planning Director explained that HCD requires the city to estimate units produced at 80% of zoned capacity. Most units will be developed on sites with existing uses since there aren’t many vacant sites in South Pasadena. 1,695 units will be on non-vacant sites needing a zone change; a plan must be adopted saying that the city will make the required zone changes. Some examples of planned densities include 60 du/ac base density at the Ostrich Farm, with a 70 du/ac density at the vacant lot, 70 du/ac at the Tyco Building, 50 du/ac along Mission Street, and 60 du/ac along Fair Oaks Avenue corridor. One planning commissioner asked whether development within the planned increased densities would be possible within established height limits (70 du/ac planned density within a 45’ height limit on Fair Oaks) and was told that this density could not be reached without exceeding the height limit. It was suggested that a concession could be used to increase the allowed height beyond 45’ using state density bonus law. 

The Vons site (Site 22) is shown as 50 du/ac on one image and 70 du/ac on another; it is meant to be 70 du/ac on both.  

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Link to meeting on Youtube (Housing Element begins around 17:30):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3EGBTgtm7I