Fremont City Council Meeting: 07/12/22 07:00 PM
3300 Capitol Avenue Div/Dept: Planning
Fremont, CA 94538 Category: Plans, Policies and Studies
SCHEDULED
Sponsors:
STAFF REPORT (ID # 4660) DOC ID: 4660
Updated: 7/8/2022 8:09 AM by Susan Gauthier Page 1
DRAFT 2023-2031 HOUSING ELEMENT – Public Hearing (Published Notice) to Provide Input on a Draft of Fremont’s 2023-2031 Housing Element Update, An Eight-Year Plan to Meet the Housing Needs of Everyone in the Community.
Contact Persons:
Name: Wayland Li Joel Pullen
Title: Principal Planner Planning Manager
Div/Dept: Planning Planning
Phone: 510-494-4453 510-494-4436
E-Mail: [email protected] [email protected]
Executive Summary: Under State law, all local governments in California are required to adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community by adopting a Housing Element as part of their General Plan. State law also requires that local governments update their Housing Element every eight years to periodically address the changing housing needs of their communities, establish an action plan, and report on progress toward meeting their goals. All local jurisdictions in the Bay Area, including the City of Fremont, are currently updating their Housing Elements for the upcoming 2023-2031 planning period.
Staff has prepared a draft Housing Element for public review. The purpose of this report is to provide the City Council with an overview and solicit comments and feedback to be incorporated into the draft document. Following incorporation of City Council and public comments, the draft Housing Element will be submitted to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for an initial review. After receiving comments back from HCD, staff will prepare a revised public draft for City Council review and adoption.
BACKGROUND:
Update Process: The preparation of a Housing Element is driven by specific statutory requirements under State law. Pursuant to California Government Code Sections 65580- 65589.8, all local jurisdictions in California are required to update the Housing Element of their General Plans every eight years. For Bay Area jurisdictions, Housing Elements must be adopted by the start of the 2023-2031 planning period in January 2023. An adopted Housing Element must then be submitted to HCD to certify that the document meets all requirements under state law.
Fremont has made a draft Housing Element available for public review consistent with Assembly Bill (AB) 215 (2021), which requires local governments to make the first draft available for public comment for at least 30 days and take at least ten additional business days to consider and incorporate public comments into the draft revision before submitting to HCD. HCD will then review the draft and provide written findings within 90 days. After receiving comments back from HCD, staff will prepare a second draft for City Council’s consideration.
Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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Facilitating Public Participation: In preparing the 2023-2031 Housing Element, staff is striving to facilitate meaningful public participation from all segments of the community, particularly those with special housing needs. Staff will continue public engagement efforts until the Housing Element is adopted and certified. The current draft of the Housing Element has been informed by the public engagement process so far, as summarized below.
• Council, Board, and Commission. Staff visited City Boards and Commissions, as well as City Council, to present an “Introduction to the Housing Element Update” presentation. At each meeting, the City solicited input and recommendations from Board and Commission members, as well as public commenters.
o Fremont Unified School District/City Council Liaison Committee (February 7, 2022)
o Human Relations Commission (February 28, 2022)
o CDBG Advisory Committee (March 16, 2022)
o Planning Commission (March 24, 2022)
o Senior Citizens Commission (March 25, 2022)
o Youth Advisory Commission (April 4, 2022)
o City Council (April 5, 2022)
o Recreation Commission (May 3, 2022)
• Outreach to Lower-Income Residents. Recognizing that lower-income residents may have limited accessibility to Board and Commission meetings due to schedules, language barriers, and technology issues, staff brought community outreach directly to residents. Specifically, staff held separate listening session events at homeless shelters and affordable housing developments:
o Listening Session at Sunrise Village Shelter. Sunrise Village is a homeless shelter for families with children and individuals in South Fremont. Staff visited Sunrise Village on May 18, 2022 to provide residents with an introduction to the Housing Element Update and hear their feedback on affordable housing and homelessness priorities. The session was conducted concurrent with evening childcare activities at the shelter so that parents could attend.
o Listening Session at Pauline Weaver Senior Apartments. Pauline Weaver Apartments is an affordable housing development for seniors in South Fremont.
Staff visited the complex on May 2, 2022 to provide residents with an introduction to the Housing Element Update process. Staff returned on May 23, 2022 to conduct a listening session to hear residents’ feedback and input regarding affordable housing development in the City.
o Listening Session at Cottonwood Place. Cottonwood Place is an affordable housing development for seniors in Centerville. Staff visited Cottonwood Place on May 4, 2022 to provide residents with an introduction to the Housing Element Update process. Staff returned on May 25, 2022 to conduct a listening session to hear residents’ feedback and input regarding affordable housing development in the City.
o Listening Session at Oak Gardens. Oak Gardens is an affordable housing development for seniors, with services intended for seniors who are Deaf and/or Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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hard of hearing. On June 21, 2022, staff visited Oak Gardens to provide residents with an introduction to the Housing Element Update process. The event was conducted in both English and American Sign Language (ASL).
• Additional Outreach Efforts.
o Project Team Office Hours. Throughout the update process, the Housing Element project team has offered residents the opportunity to sign up for 30-minute one- on-one conversations to discuss the Housing Element update.
o Housing Element Workshop Event. The City partnered with Fremont For Everyone (FFE), Abode Services, and California YIMBY to host an educational event about the Housing Element update on April 27, 2022.
o Fremont Street Eats Table. Fremont Street Eats is a popular weekly food truck event held by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce every Friday from May through October. On May 13, 2022, staff had a booth at Street Eats to engage residents in the Housing Element update process. Staff shared a poster about the Housing Element update and spoke with interested residents.
o Alameda County Assessor’s Office Homeowner Resource Fair. On May 25, 2022, the city provided a venue for a tri-city Homeowner Resource Fair, which was focused on how homeowners could add an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) to their property. In addition to co-presenting ADU information, staff shared a poster about the Housing Element update while tabling and spoke with interested residents.
o Developer Panel. On November 29, 2021, City staff, in partnership with the Alameda County Housing Collaborative, held a developer panel featuring both market-rate and affordable housing developers. Developers spoke about policies and programs that they felt were most effective at stimulating housing production.
o Community-Based Organizations Panel. On April 25, 2022, City staff, in partnership with the Alameda County Housing Element Collaborative, held a panel with representatives from seven local-community-based organizations (CBOs) with a focus on fair housing issues.
PROJECT ANALYSIS:
Draft Housing Element:
Under State law, a Housing Element must contain several mandatory components, as summarized in the graphic below.
Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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Key points regarding each of those components are discussed below.
• Evaluation of Previous Housing Element. A Housing Element must review the outcomes of the previous element’s goals, objectives, policies, and programs to identify major accomplishments and identify areas in which the City faced challenges that resulted in falling short of stated goals. Notable accomplishments from the previous Housing Element include:
o Facilitated development of affordable housing. The City updated its Affordable Housing Ordinance, lowered impact fees on affordable housing by almost 50%, adopted a Commercial Linkage Fee, and facilitated the construction of multiple affordable housing developments including:
▪ Laguna Commons: 64 units
▪ Stevenson Place: 80 units
▪ Innovia: 287 units
▪ Pauline Weaver Senior Apartments: 89 units
▪ Fairfield Apartments: 102 units
▪ Central Commons: 19 units
▪ Metro Crossing A1 and A2: 130 units
▪ City Center Apartments: 59 units
▪ Granite Ridge Apartments: 72 units
▪ Doug Ford Senior Apartments: 60 units
Even with strong affordable housing efforts, Fremont fell short of affordable housing production targets during the 2015-2023 planning period, and additional measures will be needed to meet affordable and market rate production targets during the 2023-2031 planning period.
o Provided Shelter services to homeless in need. The City offers a diversity of effective shelter programs, each tailored to a different need. Key accomplishments include:
▪ Transitioned the Winter Warming Center into a Winter Shelter to provide overnight shelter to unhoused residents.
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▪ Adopted ordinances allowing faith-based organizations to establish temporary shelters and safe-parking sites at existing
religious facilities.
▪ Facilitated the expansion of the Bay Area Community Services Wellness Center into a Homeless Wellness Center to provide housing placement and dignity services.
▪ Adopted a Shelter Crisis Resolution, which better positions the City to receive State funds to address homelessness and provides greater flexibility in prescribing standards of housing, health and safety when necessary to expedite the use facilities for shelter.
▪ Established the Housing Navigation Center, which has 45 shelter beds and supportive services, providing clients with shelter. ▪ Transitioned the Winter Shelter program into a non-congregate hotel voucher program in Winter 2021-22, in response to the
COVID 19 pandemic.
• Housing Needs Assessment. A Housing Element is required to summarize and analyze the general demographic characteristics, housing stock and economic conditions in Fremont. Understanding existing conditions is essential for crafting effective housing policies and actions. Notable findings from the Housing Needs Assessment include:
o Fremont is part of a growing region. From 2000 to 2020, the Bay Area’s population grew by 14.8%. Fremont’s population growth during that period slightly outpaced the region at 15.1%. Plan Bay Area 2050 forecasts that the Bay Area will add 1.4 million new households, for a total of 4 million households, between 2015 and 2050.
o Fremont is a community that has become increasingly unaffordable. Since 2001, the typical home value has increased 171.8% in Fremont from $434,160 to $1,180,200. Since 2009, the median rent has increased by
64.0% in Fremont, from $1,550 to $2,210 per month.
• Constraints Analysis. The Housing Element must identify and analyze potential and actual governmental and nongovernmental constraints to the maintenance, improvement, or development of housing for all income in the community. Notable findings from the constraints analysis include:
o Community concern regarding housing growth. In a 2018 community-wide survey conducted by FM3 Research, 65% of Fremont residents felt that the rate of growth and development in Fremont was “too fast”. A negative perception of growth can fuel community opposition to specific development proposals, which can be a constraint to housing. Although a majority of residents felt that the rate of growth was “too fast”, a vast majority of residents also responded that the cost of housing was an extremely serious/very serious issue (84%), and traffic congestion was an extremely serious/very serious issue (86%). Connecting new housing to solutions for affordability and traffic congestion will be an important part of the 2023-2031 Housing Element.
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• Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). AB 686, passed in 2018, created new requirements for jurisdictions to affirmatively further fair housing as part of the Housing Element Update process. These requirements are intended to address racial inequalities seen today throughout the Bay Area which developed through historical policies and practices enacted at federal, state, regional and local levels and across the public and private sectors. To affirmatively further fair housing, communities are required to increase housing opportunities in high resource neighborhoods and bring additional resources to traditionally under-resourced neighborhoods. Several findings from the AFFH analysis are provided below:
o While Fremont has more moderate- and high-income earners than average in the region, the city is not exclusively affluent. Fremont does not contain any neighborhoods with more than 75% lower and moderate-income (LMI) residents; however, it does contain tracts with a majority (50%-75%) of LMI residents. Within Fremont, LMI households tend to live within transit-oriented neighborhoods that have many rental housing units. High-income households live in neighborhoods further from transit with a high percentage of owner- occupied dwellings. ADUs may be one method of increasing affordable housing opportunities in income-exclusive neighborhoods in the City.
o Within the Bay Area, Fremont is a high-resource community, meaning that it has high-quality schools, thriving industries, and healthy environmental conditions so that lower-income residents who live in Fremont have better life outcomes than in other places in the Bay Area. The highest resource areas are also those with the highest median incomes and lowest proportion of the lower-income and moderate-income population.
• Sites Inventory. State law requires local governments to prepare an inventory of land suitable for residential development, including vacant sites and sites having the potential for redevelopment, and reconcile that capacity with the community’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) – the share of the regional housing need assigned to each jurisdiction. Fremont’s RHNA for the 2023-2031 planning period is summarized below.
2023-2031 Regional Housing Needs Allocation for Fremont Income Group Units Percent
Very Low-Income Units (0-50% AMI) 3,640 28.2%
Low-Income Units (50-80% AMI) 2,096 16.3%
Moderate-Income Units (80-120% AMI) 1,996 15.5%
Above Moderate-Income Units (120+% AMI) 5,165 40.0%
Total Units 12,897 100.0%
Based on a combination of pipeline development projects, ADU projections, and zoning capacity on vacant and underutilized sites, staff’s assessment is that sufficient existing capacity exists to meet the City’s RHNA targets. When HCD reviews the draft Housing Element, they will review the city’s inventory and determine whether this assessment is correct. If HCD concurs, no rezoning of land will be required to meet the City’s site inventory requirements in this Housing Element cycle.
Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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The “no net loss” provisions of SB 166 (2017) requires that an adequate supply of land resources for housing development exists throughout the duration of the 2023- 2031 planning period. This means if housing sites identified within the city’s Housing Element are developed with non-residential uses, lower residential densities, or residential uses at affordability levels higher than anticipated by the Housing Element, the Housing Element could be determined to be out of compliance. To address no net loss requirements, a buffer above base RHNA requirements is included in the sites inventory to provide some leeway for continued compliance with SB 166 during the planning period.
Vacant parcels utilized in the past two housing element cycles and non-vacant parcels from the last housing element cycle can be reused in this housing element cycle to accommodate lower-income housing, but state law now requires by-right approval of housing on these sites when at least 20 percent of the units are made affordable to lower-income households. A program is included in the draft Housing Element to create an overlay zone implementing this requirement.
• Policies and Programs. The draft Housing Element includes a set of goals, policies, and implementing programs intended to promote the preservation, rehabilitation, and production of housing throughout Fremont. As mentioned in the “Evaluation of Previous Housing Element” discussion, Fremont is a leader in promoting affordable housing in the region and has established a strong existing policy foundation for the 2023-2031 Housing Element. Nevertheless, additional policies and programs are proposed to further the City’s housing goals, including the following:
o Develop and Refine Objective Design Standards Consistent with State Law to Provide a Predictable Basis to Review Housing Projects. The City shall revise existing design guidelines to encourage the highest level of design quality, while at the same time reducing delays and uncertainty for developers by providing clear direction on the required standards.
o Amend Regulations to Facilitate Production of ADUs. The City shall amend the zoning ordinance to facilitate the production of ADUs, including removal of unnecessary aesthetics-based standards for rear yard ADUs that will not be easily viewable from the public right of way, and elimination of minimum size requirements to allow for innovative and efficient ADU designs.
o Housing Education Campaign. Develop an awareness campaign to bolster community support for affordable housing and increase awareness of the benefits and need for providing housing within the community. This campaign could include a central website dedicated to all housing-related information from the City; social media content about housing needs, challenges, and resources; informational interviews for reporters with staff who work on housing challenges and programs; and demonstration projects that exhibit how proposed solutions can work in various settings.
o Further Reduce Parking Requirements in Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Areas. The City shall amend the zoning ordinance to further reduce parking requirements within the TOD overlay district. The City shall study the Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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feasibility of eliminating all residential parking minimums in TODs or eliminating minimums for small units and affordable units.
o By Right Approval of Projects with 20% Affordable Units. Pursuant to AB 1397, the City shall amend the zoning ordinance to require by-right approval of housing development that includes 20 percent of the units as housing affordable to lower-income households, on sites being used to meet the 6th cycle RHNA that represent a “reuse” of sites previously identified in the 4th and 5th cycles.
o Facilitate Hotel Acquisition/Rehabilitation. In the current economic climate, conversion of hotels and motels into affordable housing has been more feasible than conversion of existing market-rate apartments. In the past planning cycle, the City provided funding for the planned conversion of the Islander Motel into an affordable housing complex. The City is also pursuing funding through the State of California’s Homekey program to purchase existing motel and convert it into permanent supportive housing for formerly unhoused individuals. The City shall continue to look for opportunities to convert underperforming hotel properties into permanent affordable housing.
o Objective Design Standards for Historic Homes. The City promotes preservation of historic resources through a program that screens possible historic resources when projects come in for alteration or demolition. There have been several successful large residential projects in the City that incorporate historic resources and allow them to be adapted into modern housing. Additionally, the City has received much interest from homeowners of individual historic homes in adding an ADU consistent with the City’s adopted objective design standards for ADUs on historic properties. In order to reduce the processing time and uncertainty for applications involving historic resources, the City will develop a set of objective design standards for the review of projects involving historic homes.
o Set Density Minimums Outside of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Areas.
In order to ensure that inventory sites with a mixed-use zoning district have housing production consistent with the City’s projections, the City shall establish a density floor for mixed use development in MX and non-TOD commercial districts that allow mixed use development.
o Update Mixed-Use Zoning Standards. Developers have expressed that ground-floor retail requirements require substantial subsidy in order to construct. The City’s current mixed-use standards are difficult to understand and apply to non-standard sites. The City shall update the mixed-use standards to enhance clarity and promote thriving retail corridors that are feasible to develop. The update shall be consistent with SB 330 in that it shall not reduce the density or intensity of residential development permitted on mixed-use sites.
o Short Term Rental Ordinance. The City does not currently have an ordinance in place specifically for the regulation of short-term rental units. Based on current estimates, there are more than 300 short term rental units active in Staff Report (ID # 4660) Meeting of July 12, 2022
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the City. Some of these units are full homes or apartments for rent, which removes units from the long-term housing rental market. Others consist of portions of units that are occupied by an owner or tenant. The City shall implement a short-term rental ordinance that discourages or disallows short- term rentals that remove housing units from the market. The City shall also consider a program to promote the conversion of short-term rentals into long- term rental housing options, like ADUs.
FISCAL IMPACT: None.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW: Pursuant to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), preparation of a draft Housing Element and submitting to HCD for review is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15262, as the project involves only feasibility or planning studies for possible future actions which have not been approved or adopted. The City will prepare the necessary environmental review, consistent with CEQA, for future adoption of the 2023–2031 Housing Element Update.
LINKS: Link to Draft Housing Element: www.fremont.gov/housingelement
RECOMMENDATION: Review, conduct a public hearing, and provide comments on draft 2023-2031 Housing Element.