1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: March 14, 2023
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director
VIA: Fred Ramirez, Assistant Community Development Director Scott Plambaeck, Planning Manager
BY: Joseph Onyebuchi, Associate Planner
Joseph Pangilinan, Assistant Planner
SUBJECT: Approval of the 202 2 General Plan Annual Progress Report and 202 2 Housing Element Annual Progress Report
RECOMMENDATION
1. Approve the 2022 General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report (Attachment 1); and
2. Approve the 2022 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. After review by City Council, s taff will submit the APRs to HCD and OPR to ensure compliance with the State deadline of April 1, 202 3 for the 202 2 reporting period. Updated versions of these reports may be re - submitted to the OPR at any time if any revisions are directed by Council.
OPR uses the General Plan APR to help identify how local planning activities relate to statewide planning goals 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 development of housing. Most notably, the Housing Element APR includes a tabul ation
2 of the City’s progress toward the eight-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 Council and the Burbank community 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 environmental 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 Council’s Affordable 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, 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 Community 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, State and/or County agencies. Some of the implemen tation 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 updates on various General Plan goals and policies within the 2022 reporting year.
Highlights of key accomplishments from 2022 include:
• Adoption of an update to the Burbank Municipal Code concerning Development Impact Fees;
3 • Adoption of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan;
• Adoption of 2022 California Building Standards Code Ordinance; • R-1 and ADU/JADU updates to the City’s Zoning Ordinance; and • Adoption of 2022-2027 Homelessness Plan
Housing Element APR
The Housing Element APR describes the City’s progress toward implementation of the Housing Element programs within the reporting period of 2022. 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 Certificate of Occupancy approval. The APR also includes status updates on the City’s progress in meeting the objective s for each of the numerous programs noted in the Housing Element.
Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) – 6th 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 requi red to plan for within an eight-year planning cycle to address regional and State housing needs. Through the RHNA allocation, each jurisdiction is assigned its “fair share” of housing production at specified affordability levels. The 2022 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 6th RHNA cycle extending f rom 2021 through calendar year 2029.
The City’s RHNA allocation and progress for the 2021-2029 6th 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, 840 net new housing units were issued building permits in 2022, to be counted towards the City’s 8,772 total allocation for the 6th planning cycle.
4 ** The 6th Cycle RHNA includes units that received building permits on and after 10/15/2021 ***Total Remaining RHNA subtotal includes Projection Period totals (6/30/2021 -10/14/2021), not included in this table
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 202 2 that have not yet been approved, or projects that received an entitlement, but hav e not yet been issued a building permit) . Table A of the Housing Element APR (Attachment 3) indicates that 683 housing units were submitted in the 2022 reporting period and of those 683 units, 73 units have been approved . 840 units were 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 Burbank’s 6th Cycle RHNA Summary Table
Income Level
RHNA
Allocation
by Income
Level
(2022-2029)
2021* *
2022
2023-
2029
Total
Units to
Date (all
years)
Total Remaining RHNA
by Income Level
Very
Low
Deed
Restricted
2,553
3 0
3 2,550
Non-Deed
Restricted
0 0
Low
Deed
Restricted
1,418
5 0
241 1,177 Non-Deed
Restricted
56 116
Moder
ate
Deed
Restricted
1,409
0 69
102
1,307
Non-Deed
Restricted
1 25
Above Moderate 3,392 52 630 713 2,679
Total Burbank
RHNA Allocation
8,772
Subtotals 117 840 1,059 7,713***
5 jurisdictions to report certain non-deed-restricted housing units , such as ADUs, as affordable in their Housing Element APR if sufficient documentation substantiates t hose units as being affordable. For example, a jurisdiction can provide a survey of comparable housing units within the surrounding area showing at what income levels the ADUs would be affordable at based on the rents listed for those units.
Staff used this approach for the 2018 through 2021 APRs, which was accepted by HCD in each reporting year. Consistent with years prior, s taff applied the same methodology for the 2022 ADU permits and determined that 314 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, and can be used for the 202 2 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 372 ADU building permits reported in the 202 2 Housing Element APR to determine what percentage could be reported as non -deed restricted affordable units. As a result, the RHNA table shows 171 Low Income non -deed restricted ADUs (46% of all ADUs reported), 37 Moderate Income non-deed restricted ADUs ( 10% of the ADUs reported), and 164 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 requiring information that is not applicable to the City of Burbank or has not been collected for the 2022 reporting period. These tables have, therefore, been left blank.
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 Commission), HCD, and OPR by April 1 st of each year for the prior calendar year reporting period . In order to ensure that the City remains in compliance with State law, staff must submit the latest version of the 2022 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 Council, staff will provide notification to HCD and OPR of the Council’s approval of both reports. If Council makes changes to one or both reports, staff will submit the updated reports to HCD and OPR.
1 Referenced in the Notes Column in Section A2 of Attachment 3 6 ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The General Plan and Housing Element Annual Progress Reports do not qualify as a project as defined in the California Code of Regulations Section 15378(a). The reports are administrative activities conducted by the City that will not result in direct or in direct physical changes in the environment. Further, the Annual Progress Reports are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to California Code of Regulations Section 15601(b)(3). The activity is covered by the commonsense exemption that CEQA applies only to projects, which have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. Where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment, the activity is not subject to CEQA.
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 compliance 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 2022 General Plan Annual Progress Report and the 2022 Housing Element Annual Progress Report. Future progress reports will continue to be provided to City Council on an annual basis.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – 2022 General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report Attachment 2 – 2022 Plan Realization Update Table
Attachment 3 – 2022 Housing Element Annual Progress Report Attachment 4 – Accessory Dwelling Unit Rent Survey and Affordability Analysis