1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: April 12, 2022
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director
Via: Fred Ramirez, Assistant Community Development Director Scott Plambaeck, Deputy City Planner
By: Joseph Onyebuchi, Associate Planner
Jesus Astorga-Rios, Planning Technician
SUBJECT: Approval of the 2021 General Plan Annual Progress Report and 2021 Housing Element Annual Progress Report
RECOMMNENDATION
1. Approve the 2021 General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report (Attachment 1); and
2. Approve the 2021 Housing Element Annual Progress Report (Attachment 3).
BACKGROUND
State-Required Annual Reporting on Local General Plans and Housing Elements
California Government Code Section 65400 mandates that each city and county planning agency prepare an annual report on the status and progress in implementation of their General Plan and Housing Elements. These annual reports —the General Plan Annual Progress Report and Housing Element Annual Progress Report (APR)—are submitted to the State’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) by April 1
st of each year for the prior calendar year. The
reports must also be reviewed by the local governing body, which can be done before or after submitting to the State. Staff submitt ed the APRs to HCD and OPR to ensure compliance with the State deadline of April 1, 2022 for the 2021 reporting period. An updated version of these reports can be re -submitted to the State at any time if any revisions are directed by the City Council.
OPR uses the General Plan APR to help identify how local planning activities relate to statewide planning goal s and policies. For the Housing Element APR, HCD provides a standard template that cities complete to fulfill statutory requirements for reporting on housing information – including housing production and affordability, implementation of Housing Element programs, and local efforts to remove governmental constraints to the
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
2 development of housing. Most notably, the Housing Element APR includes a tabulation of the City’s progress toward the 8-year Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) allocation, which is further detailed later in this report.
Although the General Plan and Housing Element APRs are State- mandated reports (for State-required long range policy documents), they also serve as useful tools for providing the City Council and the Burbank community at-large with annual updates regarding implementation of the Burbank2035 General Plan (Burbank2035) and Housing Element goals and policies. Burbank2035 was adopted on February 19, 2013 and serves as the City’s comprehensive long- range policy document that provides guidance to City decision-makers on allocating resources and guiding the City’s future physical development.
The goals and policies contained in Burbank2035 help the City to better define and ultimately achieve its physical, economic, and envir onmental goals. Included among these goals are: helping businesses to better compete in the local and regional marketplace; maintaining valued community character by ensuring responsible development while building and protecting residential neighborhoods; addressing local and regional transportation and environmental concerns; and building better neighborhoods for Burbank residents to live, work, and play. Similarly, the Housing Element APR is connected to the City Council’s A ffordable Housing Strategy, which includes, as one of the housing policy “puzzle pieces,” the goal of facilitating the construction of 12,000 housing units by 2035 . Collectively, the City Council’s housing strategy seeks to address the nearly three-to-one jobs-to-housing imbalance in Burbank and facilitate the development of new housing that is affordable to all economic segments of the community, including the City’s workforce.
DISCUSSION
Burbank2035 General Plan APR Highlights
Burbank2035 includes seven State- mandated elements (chapters) that address Air Quality and Climate Change; Land Use; Mobility; Noise; Safety; Open Space and Conservation, and Housing, as well as an optional Plan Realization Element. City departments tasked with implementation of Burbank2035 include Communi ty Development, Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Fire, Police, and Burbank Water and Power.
In addition to the above Elements, Burbank2035 includes an optional eighth element, the Plan Realization Element. The purpose of the Plan Realization Element is to ensure that the overall goals and policies set forth in Burbank2035 are implemented through direct measurable programs. Each implementation program requires City action, either alone or in collaboration with non- City organizations or with Federal, St ate and/or County agencies. Some of the implementation programs are processes or procedures that the City currently administers on a day -to-day basis , such as the review of development projects. The General Plan APR (Attachment 1) provides a summary of upd ates on various General Plan goals and policies within the 2021 reporting year. Highlights of key accomplishments from 2021 include:
3 • The completion of the Burbank Channel Bikeway in January of 2021; • Establishing and expanding the use of the Burbank Safe Storage and Help Center (SAFE);
• Securing Proposition 68 funding for the development of the Dick Clark Dog Park; • Adoption of an Urgency Ordinance to temporarily remove the Administrative Use Permit process for new restaurants; and
• Approval of private development projects that further the Burbank2035 goals and policies.
Housing Element APR
The Housing Element APR describes the City’s progress toward implementation of the Housing Element programs within the reporting period of 202 1. In particular, the report documents how much net new housing development , and at which affordability levels, has occurred during the reporting year. The housing units are tracked by calculating the number of development applications submitted, project entitlements approved, building permits issued, and building permits that received final Certificate of Occupancy approval.
The APR also includes status updates on the City’s progress in meeting the objectives for each of the numerous programs noted in the Housing Element.
Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) – 5th Cycle Summary Progress toward achieving the mandated RHNA allocation is a key component of the annual Housing Element APR submitted to HCD and OPR. The RHNA establishes exactly how many new homes –and at what affordability levels –a jurisdiction is required to plan for within an eight-year planning cycle to address regional and State housing needs. Through the RHNA allocation, each juri sdiction is assigned its “fair share” of housing production at specified affordability levels. The 2021 APR for Burbank, and all jurisdictions within the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) region (inclusive of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Imperial, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Riverside), falls within the 5
th RHNA cycle extending from 2014 through calendar year 2021.
The City’s RHNA allocation and progress for the 2014- 2021 5 th planning cycle is shown
in the summary table below, which is taken directly from “Table B” of the Housing Element APR provided in Attachment 2. As identified in the table, 384 net new housing units were issued building permits in 2021, to be counted towards the City’s 2,684 total allocation for the 5
th planning cycle.
4 Additional Reporting on Housing Applications In-Process Housing units that count toward satisfying the City’s RHNA allocation may only include those for which building permits have been issued. However, the complete Housing Element APR provides a more complete picture of the City’s housing production and progress toward the RHNA allocation within the reporting year by acknowledging housing projects that are still in the construction and development pipeline process (i.e., projects submitted in 2021 that have not yet been approved, or projects that received an entitlement, but have not yet been issued a building permit) . Table A of the Housing Element APR (Attachment 3) indicates that there were 1,585 housing units that have been submitted and are in process throughout 2021 and 862 units have been issued planning entitlements and are in process to receive a City building permit. Overall, the City continues to make progress beyond what is captured in the RHNA table.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Affordability
The City is also required to identify housing reported by affordability level based on the household income limits published annually by the State. Typically, housing units can only be reported as affordable if their approval was subject to an affordability covenant limiting the rents or sales prices that could be charged for those units. However, HCD allows jurisdictions to report certain non-deed-restricted housing units , such as ADUs, as affordable in their Housing Element APR if sufficient documentation substantiat es those units as being affordable. For example, a jurisdiction can provide a survey of comparable
Income Level
RHNA
Allocation
by Income
Level
(2014-
2021)
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Total
Units
to
Date
(all
years)
Total
Remainin
g RHNA
by Income
Level
Very
Low
Deed
Restricted
694
3 3
691
Non-Deed
Restricted
Low
Deed
Restricted
413
5 265
148 Non-Deed
Restricted
20 51 44 145
Mode
rate
Deed
Restricted
443
61 382
Non-Deed
Restricted
6 11 12 32
Above Moderate 1134 19 14 275 17 35 53 140 199 752 382
Total Burbank
RHNA Allocation
2684
subtotals 19 14 275 17 61 115 196 384 1,081 1,603
Burbank’s 5th Cycle RHNA Summary Table:
5 housing units within the surrounding area showing at what income levels the ADUs would be affordable based on the rents listed for those units.
City staff used this approach for the 2018 – 2020 APRs, which were approved by HCD in each reporting year. Staff applied the same methodology for the 202 1 ADU permits and determined that 177 ADUs could be considered affordable. The ADU survey was completed in 2019 by Karen Warner Associates–the City’s consultant for the Housing Element Update currently underway – and can be used for the 2021 report. 1 The ADU rent survey is provided in Attachment 4.
The rent survey analyzed 50 ADU rental listings within Burbank and other surrounding San Fernando Valley communities. Using the standard that households should spend no more than 30% of gross income on housing costs, the affordability distribution of the units was as follows (assuming one-person households for all units):
• 44% of the units surveyed were Above Moderate Income (greater than 120% of Area Median Income, or AMI);
• 10% of the units surveyed were Moderate Income (120% of AMI); and, • 46% of the units surveyed were Low Income (80% of AMI).
The above affordability percentages from the survey were then applied to the City’s 268 ADU building permits reported in the 2021 Housing Element APR to determine what percentage could be reported as non- deed restricted affordable units. As a result, the RHNA table shows 145 Low Income non- deed restricted ADUs (46% of all ADUs reported), 32 Moderate Income non-deed restricted ADUs (10% of the ADUs reported), and 140 Above Moderate Income non-deed restricted ADUs (44% of the ADUs reported).
Other Tracked Data
The Housing Element APR in Attachment 3 also includes blank tables and an additional tab for new information that has not been previously collected. These tables have been left blank because the data requested therein is not currently applicable to Burbank.
Specifically, Table H is a new addition to the Housing Element APR and requests information on locally owned surplus sites. Before Staff can provide said information to the state, Surplus Land Act regulations require that local agencies declare potential sites as surplus, which would require Staff to report to Council a list of potent ial sites as a matter of public record before December 31
st of the previous year. Staff is in the process
of collecting this information and will present a list of potential locally owned surplus sites before December 31
st of this calendar year for the 2022 Housing Element APR.
Looking Ahead to the 6th Cycle RHNA Allocation
The 2014-2021 5th Cycle has concluded and staff is in the process of preparing an update to the City’s Housing Element for the 6 th Cycle planning period of 2021- 2029. Staff provided an overview of Burbank’s 6th Cycle RHNA allocation at the December 15, 2020 City Council me eting (Attachment 5). The 2021- 2029 6th Cycle Housing Element will establish goals, policies, actions, and programs necessary to facilitate the development of the City’s final RHNA allocation of 8,772 dwelling units.
1 Referenced in the Notes Column in Section A2 of Attachment 3 6 Submittal to HCD and OPR
Government Code Section 65400 requires the local planning agency to provide the APRs to the legislative body (i.e., City Council or Board), HCD, and OPR by April 1 st of each year for the prior calendar year reporting period. The statute does not specify in which order they are to be provided, and HCD does not require the APRs to be reviewed or approved by the legislative body prior to submitting to HCD. In order to ensure that the City remains in compliance with State law, staff submitted the latest version of the 2021 General Plan and Housing Element annual reports (Attachments 1 and 3) to HCD and OPR by April 1, 2022. If the APRs are approved by the City Council, staff will provide notification to HCD and OPR of the Council’s approval of both reports. If the City Council makes changes to one or both reports, staff will submit the updated reports to HCD and OPR.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associated with City Council review and City submission of these annual reports with HCD and OPR.
CONCLUSION
The General Plan and Housing Element annual reports describe the progress of the City’s ongoing efforts to implement and assess identified goals, policies and objectives in the General Plan and Housing Element. Demonstration of ongoing complianc e with State - required reporting ensures that the City maintains eligibility and competitiveness for ongoing grant funding opportunities that may help to implement these goals and policies.
Staff recommends that the City Council approve the 2021 General Plan Annual Progress Report (Attachment 1) and the 20 21 Housing Element Annual Progress Report (Attachment 3). Future progress reports will continue to be provided to City Council on an annual basis.
ATTACHMENTS
1 – 2021 General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report 2 – 2021 Plan Realization Update Table
3 – 2021 Housing Element Annual Progress Report
4 – Accessory Dwelling Unit Rent Survey and Affordability Analysis 5 – December 2020 Staff Report: Update to Burbank’s 5th cycle RHNA requirement