1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: May 6, 2025
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Patrick Prescott, Community Development Director
VIA: Fred Ramirez, Assistant Community Development Director Scott Plambaeck, Planning Manager
Amanda Landy, Principal Planner
Greg Mirza-Avakyan, Senior Planner
Sara Durghalli, Assistant Planner
BY: Bobby Keatinge, Associate Planner
SUBJECT: Approval of the 2024 General Plan Annual Progress Report and 2024 Housing Element Annual Progress Report
RECOMMENDATION
1. Approve the 2024 General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report (Attachment 1).
2. Approve the 2024 Housing Element Annual Progress Report (Attachment 3).
BACKGROUND
State-Required Annual Reporting on Local General Plans and Housing Elements California Government Code § 65400 mandates that each city and c ounty 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 (APR) and Housing Element APR – are submitted to the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) (formerly named the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) ) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) by April 1st of each year for the prior calendar year . In an email sent on February 20, 2025, HCD announced a one-time extension to May 15, 2025 for local governments who were impacted by the highly destructive wildfires that began in January 2025. The reports must also be reviewed by the local governing body, which can be done before or after submissionto the State. After review by the City Council, staff will submit the 2024 APRs to HCD and LCI to ensure compliance with the new State deadline of May 15, 2025.
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
2 Updated versions of these reports may be re-submitted to the State at any time if any revisions are directed by the City Council.
LCI 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 tabulati on 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 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 Housing Element was adopted on September 27, 2022, and covers the planning period from October 15, 2021, through October 15, 2029. The Housing Element is a policy document that identifies the housing needs of the community and strategies to meet those needs.
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.
The Housing Element APR also helps the City keep track of progress toward implementing the City Council’s Affordable Housing Strategy, which includes, as one of the housing policy “puzzle pieces ,” the goal of facilitating the development 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.
3 DISCUSSION
Burbank2035 General Plan APR Highlights
Burbank2035 includes the following 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, and in 2022, along with the updated 2021- 2029 Housing Element and Safety Element , the City also adopted Environmental Justice policies. City departments tasked with implementation of Burbank2035 include Community Development, Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Fire, Police, and Burbank Water and Power.
The purpose of the optional eighth element of Burbank2035, 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 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 updates on various General Plan goals and policies within the 2024 reporting year listed in detail in Attachment 2.
Highlights of key accomplishments from 2024 include:
• Extension of Urgency Ordinance Extending Interim Development Standards in Response to Senate Bill 423
• Establishment of Regulations and Development Standards for Firearm and Ammunition Retail Uses
• Amendments to the Streamlined Ministerial Review and Approval Process for Development Projects Subject to Streamlined Ministerial Review • Adoption of the Housing Element Opportunity Site Overlay Zone • Adoption of an Ordinance Establishing Development Standards required by SB 9 • Adoption of Economic Development Strategic Plan 2024-2028 • Approval of 3201 W. Olive Ave Project
• Approval of 910 S. Mariposa Project
• Implementation of Downtown Burbank San Fernando Boulevard Reconfiguration Project, Phase 1
• Implementation of East Olive Avenue Reconfiguration Project • Construction of the Front Street Bikeway Project
Housing Element APR
The Housing Element APR describes the City’s progress toward implementation of the Housing Element programs within the reporting period of 2024. In particular, the report documents how much net new housing development, and at which affordability levels, 4 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 objectives 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 LCI. 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 jurisdiction is assigned its “fair share” of housing production at specified affordability levels. The 2024 APR for Burbank, and all jurisdictions within the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) region (inclusive of the counties of Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura), falls within the 6
th RHNA cycle extending from 2021 through calendar year 2029.
The City’s RHNA allocation and progress for the 2021- 2029 6 th planning cycle is shown
in the summary table below, which is taken directly from “Table B” of the Housing Element APR 2024 (Attachment 3). As identified in the table, 363 net new housing units were issued building permits in 2024, to be counted toward the City’s 8,772 total unit allocation for the 6th planning cycle.
5 Table B
Regional Housing Needs Allocation Progress
Permitted Units Issued by Affordability
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 2024 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 482 housing units were submitted during the 2024 reporting period. Table B of the Housing Element APR (Attachment 3) indicates that in 2024, 293 residential units received building permit s. 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
Income Level
RHNA Allocation
by Income Level
(2022-2029)
2021
2022
2023
2024
Total
Units to
Date (all
years)
Total Remaining
RHNA by
Income Level
Very Low
Deed
Restricted
2,553
3 0 0 10
154
2,399
Non-Deed
Restricted
0 0 0 141
Low
Deed
Restricted
1,418
5 0 0 0
443 975 Non-Deed
Restricted
56 116 136 66
Moderate
Deed
Restricted
1,409
0 69 0 0
148
1,261
Non-Deed
Restricted
1 25 30 16
Above Moderate 3,392 52 630 153 130 996 2,396
Total Burbank RHNA
Allocation
8,772
Subtotals 117 840 319 363 1,741 7,031
6 jurisdictions to report certain non- deed-restricted housing units, such as ADUs, as affordable in their Housing Element APR if sufficient documentation substantiates those 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.
An ADU rent survey (Attachment 4) was completed in 2025 by the Planning Division and can be used for the 2024 report.
1 As part of the t he ADU rent survey, the City received 105 ADU responses, of which 86 provided full rent information. 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 the household size is one- person in single units, two persons in one- bedroom units, and three persons in two bedroom units):
• 37.21% of the units surveyed were affordable to Acutely Low Income households (0-15% AMI)
• 2.33% of the units surveyed were affordable to Extremely Low Income households (15-30% AMI)
• 12.79% of the units surveyed were affordable to Very Low Income households (30- 50%)
• 24.42% of the units surveyed were affordable to Low Income households (50-80% AMI)
• 5.81% of the units surveyed were affordable to Moderate Income households (80- 120% AMI)
• 17.44% of the units surveyed were affordable to Above Moderate Income households (>120% AMI)
Staff applied the above percentages to the total number of ADUs that received building permits in 2024. A similar affordability survey approach was utilized for the 2018 through 2023 APRs, which was accepted by HCD in each reporting year. The analysis determined that of the 270 ADUs that received building permits in 202 4, 141 are projected to be affordable to Very -Low Income households, 66 are projected to be affordable to Lower Income households, 16 are projected to be affordable to Moderate Income households with the remaining 47 being affordable to households with an Above Moderate income level.
Other Tracked Data
The Housing Element APR 202 4 also includes blank tables requiring information that is not applicable to the City of Burbank or has not been collected for the 2024 reporting period. These tables, therefore, have been left blank.
1 Referenced in the Notes Column in Section A2 of Attachment 3 7 Submittal to HCD and LCI
To ensure that the City remains in compliance with State law, staff must submit the latest version of the 2024 General Plan and Housing Element annual reports to HCD and LCI by May 15, 2025. Provided that the APRs are approved by Council, staff will proceed with notifying HCD and LCI of the Council’s approval of both reports. Should Council make changes to one or both reports, staff will proceed with adjusting the reports accordingly and submitting them to HCD and LCI.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The APRs are administrative activities conducted by the City that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment , and as such, they do not qualify as a project as defined in the California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 15378(a). Further, the Annual Progress Reports are also exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) , pursuant to California Code of Regulations § 15061 (b)(3). The activity is covered by the common sense 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, such as the APR’s, 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 the annual reports to HCD and LCI.
CONCLUSION
The General Plan and Housing Element APRs 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. Demonstrating 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 Council approve the 2024 General Plan Annual Progress Report and the 202 4 Housing Element Annual Progress Report . Future progress reports will continue to be provided to Council on an annual basis.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – General Plan Annual Implementation Progress Report 2024 Attachment 2 – Burbank 2035 General Plan Realization Element APR Update 2024 Table Attachment 3 – Housing Element Annual Progress Report 2024 Attachment 4 – Accessory Dwelling Unit Rent Survey and Affordability Analysis