1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: May 23, 2023
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director VIA: Fred Ramirez, Assistant Community Development Director, Planning Scott Plambaeck, Planning Manager
BY: Amanda Landry, Senior Planner
Greg Mirza-Avakyan, Associate Planner
Joseph Pangilinan, Assistant Planner
SUBJECT: Introduction of an Ordinance to Amend the City’s Zoning Regulations to Establish Objective Design and Development Standards for Mixed-Use and Residential Projects in Nonresidential Zones
RECOMMENDATION
Introduce AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BURBANK AMENDING TITLE 10, CHAPTER 1 (ZONING) OF THE BURBANK MUNICIPAL CODE
TO ESTABLISH OBJECTIVE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS FOR
MIXED-USE AND RESIDENTIAL -ONLY PROJECTS IN NONRESIDENTIAL ZONE S (ATTACHMENT 1).
BACKGROUND
On September 28, 2022, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2011 (AB 2011), the Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022 ( Attachment 2), into law amending California Government Code Sections 65400 and 65585, and adding and repealing Chapter 4.1 (commencing with Section 65912.100) of Division 1 of Title 7 of the Government Code, relating to housing. AB 2011 becomes effective on July 1, 2023.
Amongst other provisions, AB 2011 makes certain multifamily housing development projects a by -right use subject to streamlined, ministerial review on sites within a zone where office, retail or parking is the principally permitted use and for mixed -income housing along commercial corridors, and the projects meet specified affordability, labor, and environmental requirements. Qualifying projects are exempt from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements and must be processed within 90 days
2 for projects that have 150 housing units or less and within 180 days for projects that exceed 150 housing units. Although AB 2011 allows for jurisdictions to review these projects, the review is limited to verification of compliance with objective design and development standards within the prescribed limited timeframe. AB 2011 is just one of numerous State housing bills, such as SB 35, adopted by the State Legislature in recent years that imposes new state mandated streamlined ministerial review approval processes on local agencies and limits local review to verification of compliance with objective design and development standards.
In response, the City must urgently update its Zoning Code and related objective design and development standards to account for the continually expanding site eligibility for streamlined ministerial reviews . Currently, the City does not have clear objective standards for mixed -use and multifamily housing only projects in nonresidential zones and can only apply very limited commercial standards. Failure to establish the proposed objective standards by July 1, 2023 , could result in over -scaled and contextually incompatible residential developments designed a nd built to limited commercial development standards. The resulting built form would be inconsistent with the City’s effort to facilitate development that helps to build a safe, beautiful, and thriving community. These monolithic structures could maximize development potential and, in many cases, directly abut lower scaled residential neighborhoods. Time is of the essence to adopt more robust objective design and development standards, as the City is seeking to put these objective standards in place and preserve as much local control as possible before AB 2011 goes into effect on July 1, 2023.
DISCUSSION
A project’s eligibility for streamlined, ministerial review under AB 2011 is based on criteria such as: the subject site being zoned where office, retail or parking are permitted uses by-right, the site’s distance from a freeway and oil or gas refinery, and whether it abuts a commercial corridor. This means that many commercially zoned parcels in the City may qualify as eligible sites for an AB 2011 housing or mixed-use project. In addition, other state laws, such as SB 35 , allow multifamily and mixed -use projects on properties that allow residential density pursuant to the Burbank2035 General Plan. A detailed discussion about the AB 2011 eligibility criteria is included in the Planning Commission staff report (Attachment 3). The Community Development Depart ment’s Transportation Planning Division has also prepared a citywide map showing potentially eligible parcels (Attachment 4).
As such, most of Burbank’s nonresidential properties are now potentially open to multifamily housing and mixed-use development. With the increase in state laws that require the streamlined and ministerial approval process for qualifying multifamily and mixed-use development projects, City planning staff anticipates an increase in applications for all types of streamlined ministerial reviews for sites throughout the community. However, the existing regulations for the zones where many of these properties are located are zone-specific (i.e., commercial regulations) and are not well- suited to facilitate the development of multifamily housing or mixed -use projects in nonresidential zones . In addition, many of the existing regulations do not qualify as objective development standards and are therefore unenforceable in a streamlined ministerial review process. Further, the existing commercial regulations are traditionally
3 imposed through land use permits and other entitlements that are specifically tailored for commercial projects, and not residential uses. As noted above, the streamlined ministerial reviews are limited to a verification of compliance with the objective design and development standards that were in effect at the time the applications were submitted. All streamlined ministerial reviews are pro cessed pursuant to Burbank Municipal Code (BMC) Section 10-1-19302, Subsections B-F.
While some state laws include prescriptive objective design and development standards, the intent of the proposed ordinance is to create local standards that will supplement state laws and apply to future multifamily housing and mixed -use projects even if state requirements are revised. The proposed Ordinance will establish objective standards for development and design elements where the state law is silent and will apply in its entirety when a project does not fall within the realm of a state preemption law. To preserve as much local control with objective design and development standards that are tailored to local needs, the overall strategy for the development of the proposed ordinance was to take inspiration from existing Burbank2035 General Plan policies, Zoning Code regulations, concepts, or intent where possible . This strategy ensures that the City’s values continue to be reflected in new development that is approved through the state- mandated streamlined ministerial reviews.
City Objective Design and Development Standards
The proposed Zoning Code amendments to BMC Title 10 include references to other City Objective Design and Development Standards adopted by Council resolution. This enables the City to adopt a more fluid set of objective standards that would not otherwise be found in BMC Title 10 . For instance, City staff is curre ntly developing objective standards to implement the Citywide Complete Our Streets Plan, through improvements that would be required in the public right of way to support safe mobility. Other objective design and development standards that may be added to this resolution could include elements such as completion of utility capacity studies and related improvements prior to connecting a project to public utility systems, as well as specific life safety requirements.
The City Objective Design and Development Standards would assist the City in its effort to preserve as much local control as possible when complying with state mandates requiring streamlined ministerial reviews. The development of the City Objective Design and Development Standards is a collaborative effort among Community Development, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, Burbank Water and Power, and City Attorney’s Office staff, and will be presented separately to Council in the weeks leading up to July 1, 2023.
PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION
The Planning Commission considered the proposed Ordinance during a noticed regular public hearing on April 24, 2023. After receiving staff’s presentation, public testimony, and Planning Commission deliberation, the Planning Com mission was unable to reach a consensus, resulting in a 2-2 vote, with one commissioner absent.
Commissioners Wick and Elric voted to adopt staff’s recommendation to approve the proposed Ordinance and commented that the Ordinance would ensure that there were at least some Burbank-specific objective development standards in place that will apply to AB 2011 multifamily and mixed-use projects in nonresidential zones, rather than none, as
4 it currently stands, when the new law goes into effect. Chair Rizzotti and Commissioner Monaco voted against staff’s recommendation and expressed their displeasure with the state mandated requirements and their belief that these state-mandated projects would adversely impact Burbank. In addition, they commented that their votes were based on their belief that now is the appropriate time to challenge the State’s overreach on this matter and that the City should deny future applications of this type submitted for streamlined ministerial design review s. The record of the meeting and Commission discussion are summarized in Attachment 5.
STAKEHOLDER AND PUBLIC INPUT
As the impending AB 2011 effective date of July 1, 2023, is fast approaching, the window of opportunity to develop a comprehensive and effective set of objective design and development standards and conduct public outreach is very limited. Typically, Zone Text Amendments ( ZTAs) of this nature involve extensive outreach includ ing multiple community meetings, as well as Planning Commission and City Council study sessions, prior to the public hearings. With the limited timing, the Planning Commission hearing for the proposed ZTA was noticed in accordance with BMC Section 10-1-1994 in addition to being advertised through the City’s calendar, e-Notify and social media platforms. Public comments were received in advance of the Planning Commission meeting, as well as at the hearing. A virtual community meeting was held May 10, 2023, with notification for the community meeting being distributed through a newspaper of general circulation, the City’s e-Notify, social media, the City calendar, and the Planning Division website.
Notification for the City Council public hearing was also distributed through a newspaper advertisement.
Furthermore, extensive public outreach plans are in place for the three in-process specific plans, and members of the public will have multiple additional opportunities to engage and provide feedback on the development standards through those specific plan efforts.
The specific plan efforts include the preparation of more targeted objective design and development standards for those concentrated geographic areas, which also cover a wide swath of areas in the City of Burbank that are affected by the various state-mandated streamlining programs. Once the Specific Plan design and development standards are completed, they may include standards more specifically tailored to affected areas within the City, and the relevant Zoning Code sections will be updated accordingly.
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
Pursuant to California Government Code Sections 65912.114(o) and 65912.124(o), a local government may adopt an ordinance to implement the provisions of California Government Code Title 7, Division 1, Chapter 4.1, Article 2 (Affordable Housing Developments in Commercial Zones) and Article 3 (Mixed -Income Housing Developments Along Commercial Corridors (enacted by AB 2011), and the adoption of such ordinance shall not be considered a “project” subject to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Therefore, the proposed ZTA is not a “project” subject to CEQA.
5 FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact to the City’s General Fund by adopting the proposed Ordinance.
The purpose of the Ordinance is to provide certainty where there is none and put in place clear objective design and development standards that are easy to implement and verify, which will provide greater clarity in the streamlined ministerial design review process for both staff and applicants. Further, the proposed ZTA does not introduce additional discretionary review procedures that would necessitate additional staff time or consultant resources or otherwise require funding from the General Fund.
Similar to SB 35, AB2011 also imposes mandatory shortened review timeframes for eligible streamlined ministerial projects, which requires existing staff to expedite these reviews, and prioritize them over other core City services. In response to AB 2011, SB35/AB2011 processing fees are proposed as part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 -2024 Citywide Fee Resolution being presented to Council for consideration. These proposed fees are intended to cover the processing of SB35 and AB2011 applications. For FY 2023- 2024, the City is proposing an AB 2011 deposit fee of $18,039.71, which ensures the City recovers the cost of staff time needed to review and complete the processing of these applications.
CONCLUSION
The proposed Ordinance will assist staff and applicants to work together to build a safe, beautiful, and thriving community by establishing a more complete set of mixed-use and multifamily residential development standards . The proposed Ordinance will also implement objective standards that can be applied to the streamlined ministerial review process required by AB 2011, including mixed-use projects that are already conditionally permitted in the current code.
This effort will help the City of Burbank to achieve several goals:
A. To provide the Burbank community, as well as the City’s decision makers an opportunity to identify important objective design concepts that need to be either refined or incorporated into a set of objective design and development standards.
B. To maintain a s much local control as possible and protect existing residential neighborhoods, by implementing consistent design language and thoughtful development standards to facilitate the anticipated infill projects and help protect existing neighborhoods.
C. To avoid lackluster projects from being approved by-right through the streamlined ministerial review process with ill-fitting commercial regulations.
D. To remove outdated and cumbersome design requirements that would not apply to a streamlined ministerial review project, and that create an impediment to much- needed housing-production.
E. To clarify when local objective design and development standards apply and when they are preempted by state law.
6 ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – Ordinance
Attachment 2 – Assembly Bill 2011
Attachment 3 – April 24, 2023, Planning Commission Staff Report Attachment 4 – Citywide map showing AB 2011 potentially eligible parcels Attachment 5 – April 24, 2023, Planning Commission Minutes Correspondences