44 Ms. Tiscornia: Thank you so much, just really quickly, I had a couple questions. I just was wondering – maybe someone asked this – why we are not meeting in person anymore. A lot of towns are. I know Woodside is, and I know the Hawthorns meeting was in person yesterday, so I just want to ask that question, really hoping that possibly Wednesday, July 13, might be in person, so we can get the view from the public. Another question was, why has there only been two notices from the Town since August that this has all been going on? I really agree with…I want to thank you, Mr. Targ and Mr. Taylor, just about taking our time and hearing the community and in doing so it would really be nice, as Greg Franklin said, to reach out to the community and really see who would like to step forward, and just talking to the community and looking who’s coming on these meetings. The majority, if not even half, a quarter, of the community knows this is going on. And why on the notice that we just got, we just received in the mail over the last several months is the majority of the high-density keep coming back to the busiest corner of Alpine and Portola Road, compacted together where the majority of the schools are located with increased fire danger and catastrophic evacuation problem, including Sequoias, and how are they going to get those elderly people out? Just to remind the public and the Committee, not to mention that this keeps coming back for Nathhorst, Alpine Road, Portola Corridor, that we have going in right behind our house Willow Commons, which is 13 units, mostly two-stories, less than 30 feet apart. We just…and then we’re adding on top of that, on this notice we just got in the mail, item B, 4395 Alpine Road, the vacant land next to Roberts, is on the proposal here, and Item D, 4370 Alpine, the corner of Alpine and Nathhorst. I just am really curious of why we keep going in circles and continuing to propose multiple properties so close together when the public repeatedly has asked not to put the majority of the high-density in one area.
Lastly, please listen to the public. The town, as Mr. Targ had mentioned, to use Town-owned land, to keep control and not turn these properties over to developers that do not live in this town and do not have the General Plan to their best interests. It seems to me that if we are trying to figure all of this demand out together to keep control and protect the Town’s General Plan, then why would we want to turn the control over to random developers by allowing this Opt-in upzone? Thank you very much.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, I think we have a new last person, Betsy Morgenthaler. Wait, Betsy, you haven’t talked, have you tonight on this?
Ms. Morgenthaler: Pardon me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: You haven’t talked tonight, right?
Ms. Morgenthaler: Oh no, I have not.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, great. Go ahead.
Ms. Morgenthaler: I’ll try to keep it brief. I trust you all have received my letter, so I’ll not repeat any of those points, but just to call out the subcommittee’s work, which has been such a bright star, particularly the sunrise clause, which has truly impressed me. But to move on from that, you’ve all been such champion listeners tonight, and the comments that have come from the public have been particularly substantive with some rather startlingly good new proposals out there, and in order to honor that and to honor where we are and the import of the next steps forward, I’m just putting out a question at 10:40 at night. I’ll admit I’m not at my best, and maybe you aren’t, either. And because this process is so darned important to us and our future, is there any possibility that we could continue this to next Wednesday n DRAFT
ight, or some Wednesday that
45 isn’t claimed this month? Do we have to wrap it up after 11:00? Because you’ve got lot on your plate to consider, and I just would love to be fresher when I listen to you go through all of that. So, thank you so much for all that you’ve put in here. I know you’ve given it your best, and I want you to have a chance to continue to do so. Thank you all.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, I see no more hands up for new comments. So, wrap up the public comments section of the meeting and now go on to if staff and consultants and Cara can answer some of the questions that people had.
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I’ll certainly do my best, and Cara might be able to help out on this as well. I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time. I’m sick, so I was just off-camera, but I’ve been here. So, there’s a question about can HCD refuse certification if we don’t have a buffer? I don’t know that answer for sure, but I am pretty sure the answer is yes, they can refuse certification if we don’t have a buffer of some type. There was a question about upzoning and if the site is more than one acre, so this is I think if the Opt-in proposal was adopted would we have an ability to limit the number of properties that were subject to that provision? And yes, as imagined, there would be a limit on the Opt-in that would be written in. Exactly what the limit is has not been proposed or discussed, but the assumption has been that there would be a limit on the number of sites that would be able to participate in the Opt-in program.
There was a question about is that four units or four units per acre, is how I understood that, and the way that it’s drafted right now is four units per acre is the way that it’s drafted. Certainly, that could change, or there could be a cap. There could be four units per acre with a maximum of six units, for example. Something like that could certainly be adjusted.
There was a comment about kind of government housing, or 1970s style housing. I just want to point out that affordable housing has changed a lot since the early days of urban renewal and affordable housing projects. If people are interested in learning more about that, let us know, and we’ll connect you to people who build very successful affordable housing projects for people. And just as a reminder, affordable housing in our county is people who work for a living. It includes people that work for me. The people that process your building permit, so that you can get a hot water heater. Those are the people we’re talking about. It's also the teachers that teach your children, qualify for these units.
There is a number of question notes about SB 9 and the kind of benefits of SB 9 the way that its written. I’ll start with this and then Cara can tag in at the end if there’s anything else to add. SB 9 has an ownership restriction that is very light, okay? It only says that they have to commit through an affidavit that they intend to live there. So, there’s no requirement that the person actually live there. They just have to say that they intend to. I believe there is also a time provision, which is kind of poorly written and it’s unclear how that would go into effect, but for our own local program, we could have an ownership requirement that we could write, I think, in a stronger language than what’s in SB 9. There’s also a question about SB 9 not being contiguous properties – and Cara, let me know if I’m getting this one wrong – but SB 9 only limits contiguous properties if they’re under the same ownership. So, one owner can’t go buy a bunch of properties in a row and develop them as a development. That’s not exactly kind of the way it sounded from some of the residents, so hopefully that helps clarify for SB 9.
There is a question about how we’re referring to Town-owned vacant land and I understand this.
There’s kind of a visceral reaction to calling the open space “vacant.” I agree with you. We’re just calling it because that’s the category under State law, because DRAFT
it’s not developed with buildings,
46 so we’re just following State law there, but I understand that that is kind of received badly, to call an open space vacant.
There is a statement that I think was a joke, but I just want to make sure, that the $50,000 figure was just for building permits. I just wanted to give people like an order of magnitude. Like, to build an ADU the order of magnitude for your permits is around $14,000 for a typical project. So, you know there are exceptions, where you’re going to have a more geo-technical study or things like that, but that gives you a sense of what the building permit fees are. That’s for a full ADU to build from the ground up.
There was a series of questions, “What happens if we don’t submit to HCD until December 1st?” if we don’t submit to HCD until December 1st, we won’t have comments back until early in 2023, and then we will not have our Housing Element certified in time. Now, as long as we’re working with HCD on the Housing Element in good faith, we think that we can go back and forth with them a little bit. The more challenging parts are the zoning requirements, and the way that the State law is written, there are consequences if we don’t have our zoning changes in place by January of 2023 that could result in less local control, so the Council has directed us to try to finish those zoning code amendments in time to maintain as much local control as possible.
There is a question, kind of more of a statement, about what are the barriers to doing an ADU campaign, or a survey? The Committee did talk about a survey a little bit. It was brought up that people might say that they’re going to do an ADU and not really understand what it means to build an ADU, and we have heard from people that the cost to build an ADU can be $750,000, and if you have a lot of physical constraints, could be even more that. We’ve heard that from multiple people that have gotten actual bids. So, we do think that those might be outliers, but we’re still talking about a lot of money, and it’s hard to convey that. Now certainly a survey could be done and certainly a campaign could be done if we were asked to do so by the Council.
There’s a question about splitting JADUs and ADUs and different things. There was consensus about this from the Housing Element Committee. Staff agrees that it’s interesting and worthwhile and a good idea to split JADUs and ADUs but that does not change our allocation formula that comes from HCD. So, we can count them separately, and I think there is value in doing so, but it does not change how HCD is going to evaluate it, and I don’t think it’s going to change how we look at the fair housing requirements I was talking about earlier, and I don’t think it would change how housing advocates would think of it, because housing advocates are also suing cities over housing elements, so that’s the other thing to think about there.
There was a question about what are the consequences if we are not approved on the first round? We don’t expect to be approved on the first round. Nobody is being approved on the first round.
We’re kind of hoping to be approved on the second round, or certainly on the third round. So, that’s the way that we’re thinking about it. The consequences are those that I just mentioned. As long as we’re working in good faith on the Housing Element, then we’re probably okay, but the zoning code amendments have more potential risk for the Town.
There is a question about why don’t we sell Blue Oaks and use the money for housing? It’s kind of a complicated legal situation. Cara can get into it if the Planning Commissioners would like, but the short answer is the way that it was dedicated to the Town is it cannot be sold and those proceeds used for affordable housing.
There was a question about the recent ADU numbers being really high. Our 2022 numbers are high. The question was how many JADUs does that include? I beli DRAFT
eve one, I believe we have only
47 ever permitted one or two junior ADUs in town. The law is relatively new for junior ADUs, requiring us to allow junior ADUs, so it’s a pretty new thing.
Then, there is kind of an implication that the 2022 numbers are very high, and we can go on those numbers. Our staff opinion is we can’t just use this one year as the number, because our 2020 numbers are very-low-income. We only had three ADUs that year. We think that there is kind of pent-up demand during the pandemic and when we were closed, and that’s why our numbers have gone up so much in 2021 and 2022, so we were trying to be realistic about those numbers going forward.
There is a question about whether we asked the property owner at the Parkside Grill shopping center if they were interested, and the answer to that is no, because we’re working with the Ad Hoc Committee, and they really emphasize preserving local businesses and didn’t really express and interest in having demolition and rebuild of a mixed-use development there. So that’s why we did not directly contact them.
There was a question about whether a deed restriction is required if you put an ADU in. The answer to that is no. It used to be required a quite a few years ago, but here is no longer a deed restriction on ADUs in terms of like a deed restriction that’s related to ownership, and then I think the question may have also been related to a deed restriction to limit renting to people of low income, and we do not have that requirement. The Ad Hoc Committee thought about that quite a bit and through that that wouldn’t be feasible.
There is a question about El Mirador and Neely. El Mirador was taken off the table because of the ownership situation at that location. One of the owners has passed away, so the information we received was that they would not be interested in doing any type of development at this time.
Then, the Neely property, we had some conversation about this and thought the fact that developing Neely would probably take some kind of Master Plan process, given the amount of public involvement there was with the winery CUP, and it would be very unlikely that a Master Plan for Neely could be completed and go into construction in time to be feasible. That may be why the Committee member made a remark such as, “It should be saved for next time,” because both of those properties don’t show much potential to be developed within the eight-year time period.
In terms of the Town committees and how they are involved in the process, the notes have been transmitted from Judy Murphy to the Housing Element directly. She has given direct reports back, and then all of the town committees were invited to agendize and talk about the Housing Element during this month that we’re in the comment period. They were told by staff to return comments directly to me and my staff so that we could transmit them to the Town Council when we go to Council with the Housing Element. In terms of emails and letters, it’s true that if you sent us an email over a year ago, we don’t still have that, necessarily, in the record. We have been keeping track of the comments from each individual Housing Element Committee meeting but all of the comments that we are receiving now, during this month, are all going to be bundled together and will all be available to the public and then will all be available to the Council so everyone will have access to them.
Related to density bonus and upzoning to 20 units per acre, you are not automatically qualified for the 80-percent density just by having 20 units per acre. You only qualify for the 80-percent density bonus if you build a 100-percent affordable project. So, like an affordable housing developer came to town and wanted to build an affordable project, a hundred percent. That’s when they would get the 80-percent density bonus.
DRAFT
48 And why have we not met in person? And will July 13th be in person? The Town Council is meeting on a hybrid basis. They are meeting, some of them are in the Schoolhouse. It’s also on Zoom.
We’ve been testing that system. It’s been going pretty well. The Planning Commission will transition to in-person meetings probably in July. We’re still working out those details, and I will be working with the Chair. The Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee hasn’t met in person because we don’t have the capability because that body is so big to also be on Zoom, and we’ve had such high level of involvement up to 160 people. We didn’t want to transition to in-person meetings and lose that level of involvement and that level of consistency that we’ve had.
So that is all the questions I can answer, and probably as many words as I can speak at this time.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Thank you so much, Laura. That was good. Okay, we’ll bring it back to the Commission now. Oh, Laura, before your voice goes away, you had lists of questions. I think we have it in our packet, but you also had it as a slide. Shall we put that up and have each Commissioner answer those questions?
Planning & Building Director Russell: We certainly can do that. When we share our screen you can’t see each other as well, which is kind of the downside to sharing the screen, but we can go through the main categories, and that might be a helpful way to do it, and then everyone can provide their feedback within those categories? Is that a good way to go? Chair Kopf-Sill: That sounds great to me.
Planning & Building Director Russell: Okay.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, yeah. Put up the categories, and then I’d like to leave time that each Commissioner could also just give general kind of comments that they want to go to the Town Council.
Planning & Building Director Russell: All right. Okay, so I think the main – Commissioner Taylor: Through the Chair, could I make one suggestion? Laura, could you just that one slide that you had, could you just email that to us, because we could pop it up on our screen in the corner and still talk to each other. Is that something that we could just do real quick? Planning & Building Director Russell: I could send you the whole PowerPoint presentation real quick. Do you want that?
Commissioner Taylor: That would be fine, if you don’t mind, because then I could look at the – Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I could do that.
Commissioner Taylor: Rather than trying to go through, because they’re spread out through the document.
Commissioner Goulden: I have a screen shot if you want me to shoot that, versus the whole thing.
Commissioner Taylor: Either one. Whichever is most convenient. That would be fine. I just think that way we can kind of get at Anne’s basic concept of we can all see the list, but we can still see each other. Thank you.
DRAFT
49 Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, Jon, you can probably do that quicker than me. Cara? As long as you don’t say anything in the email. Right?
Town Attorney Silver: Right, yes. We are facing –
Planning & Building Director Russell: Don’t say anything in the email. Just send the screenshot.
Town Attorney Silver: We’re facing a Brown Act lawsuit at this point, so why don’t you share the points with the public as well. You’ve already done that previously. But the public may have forgotten those key points, so if you could just put those on the screen real quickly so the members of the public can see that. That would be helpful.
Commissioner Goulden: Okay, you ask me to do two things. I was ready to do one. All right, here we go. Let me try to get the share. Mail.
Commissioner Targ: Hey, guys, can I also suggest if with the Chair’s permission, I’m noticing it’s 11:00. I’ve been going since about 4:30 this morning. I would notice that we until pretty recently had 130 people participating. We’re now down to a little bit less than 60. I recognize the virtue in trying to push through and I suggest that we try and schedule ourselves for this coming week for a continuation and wrapping up.
Chair Kopf-Sill: I’d really to push through. I’m gone all next week. I think a lot of people have travel.
We’ve got all the comments from residents fresh in our mind. I think we should go around and answer the questions on the table.
Commissioner Targ: If the rest of the Commission feels similarly.
Commissioner Goulden: I do, in terms of I’d like to get it done. I’m ready.
Commissioner Hasko: So, I’m on the East Coast.
Chair Kopf-Sill: We’ll let Judith go first, how about? Because when we get…Let’s put up the slide, and Jon’s going to send it to us.
Commissioner Goulden: I’ve sent it to you, but I actually can’t see how to get it onto the screen for the public. Laura, did you –
Town Attorney Silver: Yeah, Jon, you probably don’t have screen share capability, so one of the staff can put that up.
Commissioner Goulden: Okay, I think I only sent it to Laura.
Chair Kopf-Sill: I received it. Or I received something.
Commissioner Goulden; Yeah, you did, Anne, but we have to have screen share. Oh, Craig has it.
Commissioner Taylor: Maybe. Yeah, I just put up what you sent me, Jon, so everybody can see.
Commissioner Goulden: Perfect. That’s exactly what we wanted th DRAFT
e public to see.
50 Commissioner Taylor: This is what we just got emailed. Now, Cara, can I take it down now that everybody has gotten a chance to see it, just so we can see each other on the screen again? Town Attorney Silver: Yes, that’s fine. Just give people time to review it.
Commissioner Taylor: Sure. Yeah, just tell me when I can take it down, so that you feel comfortable.
Planning & Building Director Russell: So, these are the main categories that we were hoping to get feedback on, and then also speaking to the sunrise proposal from the committee. The only other thing if you wanted to provide feedback is on Glen Oaks and trying to make an attempt to preserve equestrian uses there.
Town Attorney Silver: You can take it down.
Chair Kopf-Sill: That sounds great, so these three big topics, and then sunrise, and then Glen Oaks, if everybody could talk on that. Judith, do you want to go first? I do feel bad that you’re even three hours later than the rest of us.
Commissioner Hasko: I have to get on a plane in two hours, so I’ll do my best. Okay, I’m looking at the questions. Should the Opt-in program be removed? Yes. If so, is inclusion six SB 9 units appropriate? Yes. If not, would the Commission like to see any revisions to the Opt-in program to reduce potential neighborhood impacts? The nuanced comment is I really do appreciate my – I don’t know what to call it – the additional report, I’ll call it, that Commissioners Targ and Taylor put together. The report did make improvements to the Opt-in program. I do not like it because in principle I still object to the random nature of Opt-in across neighborhoods. Even with a lot of protections I think it’s going to be like somebody winning the lottery from one perspective and having a lightning bolt strike them from the other neighbor’s perspective. So, I don’t think it can really operate fairly, although if we have to include it, I would definitely want to include the protections that have been discussed, all of the ones that Laura most recently outlined as things that could be done. But in principle, I don’t like the Opt-in program, because of the way it operates.
SB 9 is State law. There’s nothing we can do, and if we create another Opt-in, I think that’s more work, I think, for a very small number of units than it’s probably worth, and still great consternation is what I heard from the public.
The recommended buffer. I think Craig’s comments about if you have to do anything on Townowned land, you should really rethink the buffer and lower it there, and then the Ad Hoc Committee had considered lowering the moderate-income buffer as well as the above-moderate-income buffer, lowering them to 15 percent. You’ve only lowered one, and I would strongly consider lowering the moderate-income buffer to 15 percent. I think those units are going to be easier to come. We’re going to struggle with the lower and lowest tiers and how to make those practically available. And, playing around with some numbers if you did lower that, that saves two or three units. It’s not significant but where I’m going to go later it comes into play, so put a pin in that.
ADU/JADU production. I would increase it. I think the numbers from our neighbors are not realistic for us to achieve exactly in proportion, but I would increase it, because I do think the 2020 numbers were way low. We weren’t in business, and yeah, maybe there were people waiting around during that time period, and the last year or two might have been artificially high, but at the same time we’ve all learned about home improvements and working from home. And people looked at their homes and said, “What can I do?” So I don’t know if we’re really in an uptick that just evolved from a very unusual pandemic situation or not. I d DRAFT
o think there’s reason to support
51 increasing the proportion of, in particular, JADUs, because I think we can do some marketing around that. I love the comments about streamlining and rethinking what that is and considering changes to make JADUs more available on a cost basis, and I take your point. They won’t just give us credit in a different way than it needs to, but in terms of a degree of freedom to create, actually, affordable housing, I like that.
So, I think I’d like to see us work on are there changes to the program that the Town should consider? I think there probably are. We should certainly promote it and certainly get a better understanding of what the public might want to do with those, in terms of implementation, and streamline processes where we can. So, I really would like to see more around that. I think there’s an upside opportunity to create units through that. What HCD does with that, I don’t know, but I think it might actually move a dial for us, so I like that. Yeah, I would break them out. I think as we evolve our thinking on how to make that program work better, it would be good to break it out. If it’s reasonably feasible.
The last couple of points you asked us to comment on are Glen Oaks and the sunrise. So first on Glen Oaks, we should not do anything that raises the possibility that yet another equestrian facility that creates business, provides significant recreation that people cannot get in their local environments, if it goes away – these facilities are not going to be replaced – and I think you saw all of the kids that wrote in, all of the parents that wrote in. It’s a very significant draw. It’s why I moved to Portola Valley in large part, to have that environment. And, if you lose the horses, you lose the trail and the vibe, like some of the public commentary indicated. So, we should not do that. As a side note, on Glen Oaks, when I joined the Planning Commission a long time ago, they actually asked us to allow them to take and reconfigure a current space into affordable housing for their workers, and we had, if my recollection is correct, we had approved that, and it was Stanford that said no. So, I just don’t see that being a feasible thing to mix the new housing from.
Stanford and the equestrian facility, I think we had the opportunity years ago, and it was nixed at that prior time. I’m skeptical that you can do anything other than significantly impair an equestrian facility that’s run well and provides a lot of jobs and recreation to the public here. And combine it.
So, I actually don’t think Glen Oaks should be retained, and if you increase the ADUs and you decrease the buffer a little bit on the moderate-income, you’re starting to get to a somewhat balanced point of view, potentially. And I didn’t sit and do the numbers. We should do that. But I think there is a way through not needing to do that. And there are significant issues around building there, as David Murdoch indicated, from my last look at that.
And then on the sunrise, I like that. I think those are great ideas. I think we are being asked to do a ton really quickly. I don’t think there’s anybody that’s been working so hard here that doesn’t feel time pressure, and I think it gives us, if it can work, it would give us breathing room to really pressure-test some painful outcomes of the planning process. I know how hard people have been working. The staff has been working. The Ad Hoc Committee has been working, innumerable hours, and that’s been important, and it’s been very frustrating for everybody from time to time, and it’s been…I view it as we’re in like mile 22 of a marathon, from my more painful memories, personally. There’s a lot there. There’s still a little more to go, a little more sifting, and if we can have a little more time to optimize whether Ford Field really needs to be a part of the program, I’m with Nicholas. I don’t see it not being tough, but I do see it being something that we should really try not to touch or to rethink. It’s not so much it’s all or nothing. I think we have to be very careful about it. The General Plan is very reverential to trees, to horses, to the natural environment, and we shouldn’t be cavalier and very quick to do something that significantly undermines it. We’re reacting to constraints imposed by the State. We have housing needs.
Those things I’m prepared to deal with. It’s just the timeframe and the amazing ideas that we’ve gotten in the last couple of months in particular, that I don’t DRAFT
feel like I’ve got my bearings on. I
52 appreciate the sunrise idea around Ford Field, and really am thankful for that suggestion being put out there. I think those were…Oh, and the reason I want a little more time as well is to see what that Safety Element looks like as we are finalizing the details and if we can get a little more time to see where the safer areas to be bringing the housing in, that would be great to be able to do that. So, there’s a real benefit in trying to create a sunrise opportunity.
The last couple points I would offer, I don’t think it makes any sense to cluster more housing around Nathhorst. I think this area is going to be changed enough. In full disclosure, I live nearby.
It’s one thing, I think the neighbors’ letter indicated all the right points, and clustering more there right now is not the right solution and looking to see if there’s other properties, not that great efforts haven’t been done yet to identify potential properties, but to see if there are any different ways of looking at it. With a sunrise, I think we could benefit from all of that. Sorry to go so quickly, but I’m just trying to be efficient, given the time of night. I’ll let you know if I’ve forgotten anything, but those are the key points I had. They for letting me go first.
Chair Kopf-Sill: No, thank you, Judith. That’s great. Who would like to go next? Commissioner Goulden: Nicholas, you were fading.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, how about you, Nicholas? Go ahead.
Commissioner Goulden: Do you want to go now, or -?
Chair Kopf-Sill: I’m sympathetic, getting up at 4:30.
Commissioner Targ: Yeah, so I’ll go. I should probably have my cheat sheet up again.
Commissioner Goulden: Those are good. I have one.
Commissioner Targ: All right. I am pretty close to Commission Hasko. Opt-in would be out. SB 9 units are in. I like our sunrise version that we had. I don’t feel strongly about it, however, for reasons that Commission Hasko stated. That loss of the buffer for Town-owned properties, I don’t think that we need a buffer, particularly. I’ll note that the Town of Los Altos Hills has a buffer of 15 percent generically.
Chair Kopf-Sill: I’m sorry, I missed. What buffer are you recommending? Commissioner Targ: I think we can lower the buffer on Town-owned. JADUs, we should develop a more robust program. We should break out JADUs, increase the numbers, and we should also consult with an appropriate authority about distribution of, I guess, allocation into different income categories for JADUs and explore that possibility. I will admit that while we’ve been talking about this, I have just texted such a person within San Mateo County, but I don’t see any reason why we, given the decreased cost, given the decreased size, I don’t see any reason why JADUs should be treated as ADUs. Moreover, I think that there is an equity consideration of having income coming in to people in potentially smaller units and helping people stay in their houses as they advance in age. And I think that we heard a similar sentiment, so I think that JADUs make sense on a variety of dimensions that are supportive of equity. So, that’s what I’ve got.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks. Craig, do you want to go next? DRAFT
53 Commissioner Hasko: Anne, if I could, through you, Glen Oaks and sunrise. I don’t know if Nicholas had comments, but you were asking us to comment on those.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Very good. Thanks.
Commissioner Targ: So, I think that Glen Oaks and the Dorothy Ford should both be in the sunrise category. In fact, I wouldn’t preference one over the other.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks Nicholas and Judith.
Commissioner Targ: Actually, I’m so sorry. On Glen Oaks, Judith, I knew that we had wanted to move forward, and they had wanted to move forward with affordable housing, so a very interesting structure they wanted to. I didn’t realize that that was the circumstances under which that was limited. I think that we should take a run at that again, and query both the institution as well as the property owner to assess whether the circumstances have changed.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks, Nicholas. Craig, you want to go? You’re muted Craig. I hope you didn’t say anything really good there.
Commissioner Goulden: Yeah, thanks for your comments, though. It was great.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, I know. That was your best –
Commissioner Taylor: That was my best, man. Yeah, sorry. It’s late. I was just saying, I generally agree with the comments of my fellow Commissioners, and obviously the memo kind of stands on its own. I do think there’s a lot of opportunity with JADUs, particularly for seniors. The one woman that got on tonight was talking about having some company and stuff, and it’s just an opportunity, I think, for people to able to stay in their homes, potentially. So, I’d really like to see us start a survey. I know Rebecca Flynn, I think, who runs the Forum. I think she was doing an informal survey. But I think it would be great to start getting some information. I don’t think we have to wait for comments to come back to HCD and all that stuff. I think we should just get it started ASAP, because I think that’s going just help us, even if we get information in the next two months to try to finish out this year. So, I’d love to see some kind of basic survey, and I got the point that there will be some data issues with it, but I still think there’s information that would be valuable.
So, let’s see. Let me bring up the…Opt-in, as understood it last week, which was just anybody could volunteer, I don’t like. SB 9 inclusion, I think that’s fine. I mean, depending on how successful SB 9 is, there could be quite a few more if people decide that that’s really a profitable way to go, but I think the number that staff is proposing is so small that over an eight-year period that seems very…if anything, it seems very conservative, but it certainly seems appropriate.
So then, we put an Opt-in proposal of a sort in our memo. I’m still open to the idea of trying to find well-sited, well-designed multi-family housing, so I’m not against it, but I do think – and we heard the public comment as well – we need to make sure that we don’t open up some unintended sort of consequence kind of loophole. So that would be the big thing there. The buffers, yeah, I definitely think the buffers should be lower. I think applying the same buffer to Ford Field that we’re applying to private land doesn’t seem right to me, so I’d significantly lower that one.
I also think we should just get going on a marketing plan for ADUs and JADUs. Again, I don’t see any reason that we should…because we need it regardless. So, we DRAFT
should just start. We just
54 need to get the Town Council to approve it. In terms of Glen Oaks, to the degree that we can spare the horse facility, I’m onboard with that. I’m in sort of Nicholas’s camp, that I think we try to keep them both in the sunrise category and see what we can do. I also like – Judith sort of talked about it indirectly – but if we could maybe turn them into an affiliate housing partner, because it’s for their workers, and I can understand that Stanford might have been against it, but that was a while ago, and a lot has changed, including Stanford trying to build housing, so I think it’s worth a run at, like Nicholas was saying, both the landowner and the lease, because I think they’re both still…if the lessee is still interested, I think maybe we can pressure Stanford a little bit to consider it as well.
And then obviously I think the sunrise is a brilliant idea. I don’t know who thought about it, but it couldn’t be better, so…I say that completely tongue-in-cheek. What I would say is I don’t have a particular – at least in my own head – a particular sense of exactly how it works. I would trust working with Laura and Cara to try to find something that we think is sort of feasible. All I’m really looking for is the flexibility to if we’re able to produce more housing in other ways, not to get locked in. That’s really the thing I was sort of trying to get after with that sunrise, just to give us a little more time, let the community engage, sort of full throttle. I feel like we’re getting there. You know, we had 90-plus people here. You guys have done all your Ad Hoc Housing Element meetings, so we’re kind of getting to the point if people haven’t heard about this thing by now, then they’re never going to hear about it. But I really would like to give people an opportunity to be creative. I think that’s what I’ve got. Thanks.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks, Craig. Okay, Jon.
Commissioner Goulden: Okay, I want you to know that when I did this, it wasn’t Craig. My dog decided it was time to play, and he was starting to bark. Sorry. Just so you know. Okay. You know, I’m going to use some of the same facts and actually come to some very different conclusions than my other Planning Commission members here. I thought of this…I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’ve attended a huge chunk of the Ad Hoc Housing Commission meetings. I was thinking, what advice – because I think that’s what we’re kind of being asked – would we give to the Town Council? And if I were on the Town Council, I would be looking at two options. And it would be accepting the proposal as is, or it would be saying, “Maybe remove Optin in some fashion and go with SB 9.” And those, quite frankly, would be the two that I would be looking at from an option perspective.
My rationale for that is along the lines of “the devil you know.” We’ve spent a huge amount of time; we’ve had a massive amount of public input. I think it far exceeds any other community going through a somewhat painful process. I wish we didn’t have some of the nastiness that has come out, but it’s been a massive amount of public input. So, the plan as is, I think reflects that.
And the whole point, of course, of having members from the Planning Commission, members from the Council, members from other places, was to try to get all of that out front. And I think I’m going to show my business background here is that in the sense of it’s time to make a call. It’s not the time to be introducing new ideas and new options. We need to get something in. Possibly things can be modified later, but if I’m a business manager, it’s kind of like, “Okay, what are we going to do now?” and I do not – do not – want us to end up in a position where we’re setting ourselves up to have the State come in and take control, because I think that would be disastrous.
I don’t think they’re going to be nice about it. That’s an opinion. Other people might have different opinions.
So, I think a lot of the things that have come up – and I think they’re creative, but to be honest, I think they’re coming in at the last minutes when we have to turn something within a few weeks.
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55 I’m actually a little concerned that the proposal from Nicholas and Craig all of a sudden gives a bunch of the public false hope that there’s going to be big changes. I don’t think there’s going to be. I think we have to turn something in. I think there’s some good ideas there that could be pursued, and should be pursued, but I don’t think it affects the decision right now that the Town Council has to make in terms of what are we going to turn in? I guess the option I would prefer…So that was the “as is” rationale. The option I probably would prefer is removing the Opt-in and presumably going with what staff recommended with SB 9, although you could make some variations on that. But anyway, the reason for that is actually that was something that kind of came in at the last minute at the last of the Ad Hoc meetings. And as I recall in that meeting it went over really well. Everybody thought it was great, and then they started to think about it and analyze it and say, “Oh, maybe not.” And I think that could be true with some of the proposals that have come up most recently, that all of a sudden if you actually…They sound great initially, but maybe there’s other issues, and we haven’t really thought our way thorough it. So, when people are saying, “Let’s have more meetings. Let’s talk about it more,” it’s like, yeah, we’d probably get to a better solution, but we’ve got to turn something in now.
So, what’s the best thing we have to turn in now? And maybe we can try to improve something on the side, but my business hat says, “Okay, time to make a decision. Time to move forward.” The reason I say removing the Opt-in is, I’m actually not clear reading all of it why it ends up being better. I know that there’s a potential for it to be better, and maybe we could add more constraints, but we actually haven’t articulated that and haven’t written it down, so we don’t really know what it is. It’s just kind of a feeling that we could make it better and add the right constraints. And unless we have the clarity, I don’t really want to put it in, because I think it has potential to go the wrong way if we don’t really think our way through something like that.
I also have a question around…the potential why it’s better is because it would be more restrictive than SB 9, and then I wonder why people think the numbers are higher. Presumably the only way they’d be higher is if we made it more restrictive but added other incentives, and then is that really what we want to do, given where the public seems to be on, do they want to have it show up in their neighborhood? I might also point out, though, some of the worst complaints – sort of on the flip side here – about pitting neighbors against neighbors, actually that already exists with SB 9.
So, I don’t think our Opt-in makes any…The biggest concerns people have, I think, are already there, unless you suddenly decide Opt-in is way more units per acre. But if you’re just talking before, it’s kind of already there, and if it’s easier to do it under SB 9 and there’s a financial advantage to do it, they’re going to go it legally now. So, that’s my thoughts in that area.
I had some other general comments. The General Plan. You know, the General Plan is full of guidelines and directions and where we should go. It doesn’t trump State law. You can’t turn around and say, “Oh, well our General Plan says “X”, therefore, we can ignore State law.” It doesn’t work that way. I also find frequently people like to find the piece of the General Plan that supports their point of view, and they ignore the other parts of the General Plan that don’t.
Because that frequently happens. And the whole point of having committees, commissions, town council and public input is to make the tradeoffs that aren’t immediately obvious, that there isn’t some code in place that says, “No, we have to do ‘X’.” So, if there are tradeoffs to be made, I think that’s okay, and I don’t think you can use the General Plan as an excuse not to do something, certainly not as an excuse to not implement State law.
Ford Field, and, I guess, open space in general. I’m going to trust the legal analysis that it would be okay to move it forward. Given that we don’t have any other DRAFT
viable option for Low-income
56 Income housing, I’m not sure how you could remove it at this point from the list. I know we’ve had some ideas tossed out for low-income housing, but I don’t’ see anything that actually has any chance of being accepted. So, for that sense, I don’t think you can say no. You know, if I had been on the Ad Hoc housing committee I might have proposed saying, “You know what? We’re going to have increasing population in Portola Valley. At a minimum eventually we’ll at least build out all of the currently available lots. So maybe we should try to keep all open space.” That might have been a reasonable statement to make, or maybe for the Town Council to have a guideline to the Ad Hoc committee to make. But you know what? We didn’t make that, and if we had made that, what that would mean is forcing more housing into existing residential areas. The Ad Hoc housing committee was trying to make the difficult tradeoff that everybody has acknowledged, and obviously people have different ideas of how you should deal with that, but we decided not to do that, and I think that that’s okay, and maybe that’s the right tradeoff there, that we do touch some of our, call it open space, if you will. And I will point out, it’s not like we’re devoid of open space. We’re kind of incredibly well-blessed in that area around Portola Valley. And of course we’re just getting the whole – I want to call it the woods property, but I guess we call it the Hawthorns property now – that’s going to be coming online. So, we’re pretty well off from and open space perspective.
When all is said and done, it’s a compromise. And I think we’re trying to do our best. Glen Oaks.
I gotta say, I’m a dog owner, so I kind of object to all the trails that are off limits to dogs, given how many fewer horses there are here than there were 50 years ago. I like the rural nature of Portola Valley. I kind of think we overemphasize horses. I also noted that the vast majority of all fo the letters that came in on Glen Oaks were from non-Portola Valley residents, so if I had to make a choice of saying, “Oh, do I service them, or do I push more development into residential areas?” I don’t think I would do that. I think it’s great to have, though. I mean, I have no objection if we have some workaround that would be okay, but it’s not…It’s not one of those things that’s super high on my list. Because I think we have a great rural community already, and I don’t think that would change it dramatically.
Where else do we hear? Sunrise concept. I think it falls into the same category of it’s an interesting idea, but how do we get that in now? Are there some ways to work it? That would be great, but I think we need to move now. You could interpret it as trying to push the problem into the future, and I really, really don’t want to see us end up three or four years from now having the same round of conflict within the community, and the nastiness, and things like that, because now we didn’t make our numbers, so now we’ve got to do something. Somehow it feels like we should make a decision and move on and get on with it.
ADUs. I don’t think we should be increasing the numbers in that area. I know we’ve increased it multiple times. Not multiples, but it’s been pushed up. I think it falls into the same category of yeah, there’s potential there, but we don’t know. And to try to say suddenly, “Oh, we’ve got this new plan,” or “it’s going to go up greater,” I don’t see that. Well, I don’t know that that’s true, so to try to build it into the plan doesn’t feel realistic to me. I think there’s a big issue between building them also and actually renting them, because most of the times when we had all the previous ADU discussion, people wanted to use if for their own purposes, not turn it into low-income housing. I think to truly qualify for low-income housing, you’d have to get into deed restrictions, which are long. I don’t know, 30, 50, 99 years, are all numbers that I’ve heard, which means it’s affecting heirs, or selling of the property later. It’s not a simple thing. Again, I think there’s great ideas of what we could do from a program perspective, but I don’t think we’re going to replace Ford Field with a ton of people signing up for deed restrictions over multiple years in the next couple of weeks so that we can turn in a plan that actually mak DRAFT
es sense, that hangs together.
57 But I totally applaud the ideas of “Gosh, could we get the community rolling here?” We’ve talked about, my wife and I, have talked about it with some of our friends saying, “Gosh, could we fund something, subsidize something, get something going to help make that happen?” I think that would be great, although from a personal perspective, I gotta say maybe a caregiver. I’m not sure I just want to randomly rent it to somebody on the open market to provide low-income housing in our own personal situation.
JADUs are kind of the same thing – very interesting, but there’s also a huge issue around costs of ADUs. I’ve looked up the numbers on the units. If you want to buy a prefab unit, which is about as cheap as you can get, you’re kind of looking at $300 or $400K, and then you’ve got to do the site prep and a foundation. I know a bunch of the people on some of the previous meetings that called in and talked about how they got held up on the ADU because it cost too much, because they got to the point where they had to spend $30,000 for undergrounding utilities. And it’s like, they obviously never got to the point where it was going to cost them half a million to build the place. We have friends who actually priced one out, and it was a million, a higher end one, and that was a million-plus, because they wouldn’t give them a fixed bid. So, they’re not that…So you have to be really altruistic if you’re going to build one of those, and then rent it out cheap, and do that and saddle your heirs with maybe the deed restriction for that. So, I don’t see it being, necessarily, this huge number that people see. I think I’ve picked up all the points there.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Jon. I will add my comments. Okay. Should Opt-in program be removed? You know, I’ve been a proponent of the Opt-in. I know a lot of people that would like to stay in Portola Valley but live in something smaller and not just build an ADU, because then you still own the big house. And I think it can be done in a way that’s really beautiful and delightful. I see, though, that it just causes so much angst and consternation. I think I maybe partly because I’m on the Planning Commission, I’m envisioning, yeah, there would be a lot of rules. I mean, of course, it could only be four units. Of course, if you had a big lot it wouldn’t be four units per acre.
You couldn’t just keep building and building. Of course, there would be constraints. It would be farther from the setbacks. The massing would have to be similar to what’s in the neighborhood.
So now, I’m still in favor of it, but only if we can write out the rules before it gets submitted, so that people know kind of the rough rules. I think it’s got to have something more attractive than SB 9, otherwise people wouldn’t do it, so some carrots, but then some sticks that make it better for the neighborhood. If we can’t get there, we don’t have enough time, we can’t think it through, then I want to remove it. I see that just what I’m picturing and what other people are picturing are too far different.
Yeah, I’d definitely like the six SB 9 units if the State will accept it. It seems like, you know, it’s the law of the land, so we might as well count them, because people can do them whether we count them or not. The buffer, at the last housing meeting, I said I definitely wanted to keep the 20 percent on the low-income part. I’m swayed by Craig’s argument, though, that on the Town-owned portion – so that’s 50 – it seems like we shouldn’t have to put as much buffer, so I could go for decreasing that part of the formula. I love all the programs to encourage ADUs and JADUs. As you all know I was wanting to be more lenient when we reviewed the ADU restrictions at length four years ago, or some amount of time. So, I’m in favor of that, and I love the programs, and if people will build more. I don’t really think we should put more in our plan, though. I just don’t think we have the evidence for it. We might have it in the future.
Let’s see. Oh, the sunrise. I think it’s creative, but I just don’t see being able to have the State agree to our low-income numbers by making an argument on the…I think those are tremendous numbers we’d have to have for ADUs to make those formulas work out, so I also really don’t like kicking the can down the road, and I feel like that does that.
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It gives people false hope that there’s
58 going to be a way to find some new sites that mean we don’t have to develop on the sites that are kind of painful for us. I’m just the kind of person that wants to do the hard work now and take the lumps now, and have everybody fight, fight, fight, but then have it kind of done.
Oh, Glen Oaks. That’s interesting. I think it’s a good site for housing. When I walk by there, it’s near to my property, so I’m not picking things that are just going to affect other people. I see all the letters and that people love the facility and what their kids have done there. And I love, who doesn’t love, driving by horses, so that’s good. You know, it didn’t escape me that we got dozens of letters about Glen Oaks. But not one of them suggested the new place, right? And I hear my fellow Commissioners say, “Yeah, let’s not do Glen Oaks.” Well, I could say that, too, but what are we going to put…? It was a 29 in the table. We’ve got to be able to replace it with other things, so I don’t have, when I look at all the options and numbers, I don’t have a better option than Glen Oaks, so I think it needs to stay in the plan.
Yeah, just some general comments. You have Ford Field. You know, that’s a tough one, but again, I just don’t think there were other options on the Housing Committee. We all talked and thought about it a long time. I think it’s the best way for the Town to be able to get to the affordable units. It does divide it. I’ve been happy that we were doing Nathhorst light, and not developing…The Nathhorst sites are very attractive. They’re flat. They’re by other kind of development. People get the open space from Hawthorns nearby, but I’m glad if we have a plan that doesn’t push all of those sites to the highest that we could have done.
I think this plan has done a good job on safety, which we were all so concerned with, namely fire and earthquake. Some people say it’s too much on Alpine, but it’s clear no matter where you put it, people are mostly going to funnel down on Alpine, right? So just putting people further up doesn’t help for the evacuation. I think this is fine and good.
And on the General Plan, I want to say my view of it is that it’s a strategic plan, like a company does, to give guidelines for how they’re going to look at the world for the next 10 or 20 years, and it’s so helpful because then different departments can go off and everybody’s kind of moving in the same direction and not having some people kind of aiming one way and other people aiming another. I just say that because I view it more like that, like a strategic, that we make a plan that’s going to be good for 20 years, and not like a constitution or a bible that got written once and that’s it. So, it makes sense to me. I mean, it needs to get changed. If a company had a 20-year plan and then COVID hit, you would expect them to change the plan because the world changed. I think that’s the case for us. The housing situation and the way the State is going to manage it has changed. It requires some changes in our strategic plan, for sure.
My last point I guess I want to tell the Council is that when I think about living in the town and what it’s like, we’ve had some letters, at least to the Housing Committee, I recall, where people said things like, “Oh, if such-and-such site gets developed, I’m going to move, or I’m going to think about moving, and I’ve never thought about that before, because I moved here for a rural area, and this is going to change it.” And you know, I think it’s true of all of all of us. We moved here for the rural area, right? We love it. I love the concept of the scenic corridor. I’ve always said for many years to people that what was so great about Portola Valley is you could be in a stressful job in Silicon Valley, but then drive home on Alpine, and it’s just like stress goes away. You know, for me if all of this gets built as it’s in the Housing Element plan right now, to me, Portola Valley is still going to be a great place. I’m still going to love driving down Alpine, even though now there’s going to be houses, even though those two trees might be gone, and it makes me very sad, even though there might be housing on the Glen Oaks side as I drive down. The Town Council meeting reviewed the Housing Element. John Richards gave a great speech, because he’s lived here a DRAFT
59 really long time, even as a little boy, and he talked about how there were cows where the Priory is, so the Priory is new. That changed the town, but it didn’t make it terrible. The Portola Valley Ranch was new at one point, and it changed the town, but it didn’t make it terrible, and I feel like these things on the Housing Element now are going to change the town, no doubt about it, but it’s still going to be a great place. I’m done.
Commissioner Hasko: So, Anne, I kind of kept my comment short, because I thought we were going to come back around, and it seems not to have happened. So, I will be brief, but I’m going to –
Chair Kopf-Sill: No, but that’s good, Judith. You’re right. At first that was the plan, but then people tacked on their general things, so please go ahead. That would be appropriate.
Commissioner Hasko: Yeah, thank you. On the General Plan piece, this isn’t a business. This is a community that people have invested their life savings in and that they have moved here, had their kids here. I don’t think we can liken fundamental changes in the town to a strategic plan of a business. It’s more complicated, and I recognize we have State-imposed requirements that we must accommodate. There’s no question of that, but our job is to be a voice in the balance that the community may prefer to strike, may want to strike, and that’s the context within which my comments are made. The General Plan should not be fundamentally changed. I mean, it’s a statement of principle, and not something that we should be changing every, you know, periodically, let me just say that. We should be very careful about taking a course that leads to fundamental changes in the General Plan.
I think the other thing is, our job as a Planning Commission was to take the Ad Hoc Committee input and look at it from a different perspective, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve all got a different perspective, so I think where we are, having a few new ideas is appropriate. It is our job to do that. It is not something I’m going to apologize for having after so much work. I mean, that work was fundamental to bring us to where we are. Our job is to bring a different perspective and to do an overlay on top of that for the Town Council to consider. It’s their purview and they will make the decision, but in terms of being shy about having a new idea, now is not the time to be shy about it. This is our last chance to evaluate, so I want to caution people from getting impatient.
Like I said, from my point of view, you’re near the end of the process. It is painful. Everyone is exhausted, but now is the moment you can stop and take a moment and say, “Is there something else I can consider?” We are under a timeline. I don’t think we have to have this fully baked in two weeks. We have to have it directly baked very soon, but let’s not be shy about taking a moment to be brave and really pressure-testing some of this. That’s my perspective. I just felt that these are very important principles that we’re discussing tonight. I do take exception to the idea that just because a local business had people coming in from out of town…These people didn’t even know that Glen Oaks…until two weeks ago, they didn’t know Glen Oaks was on the list. I mean, maybe they should have, but they did not, and we do not know today how many Portola Valley residents are our clients. Like, you’re making assumptions here, and we should be looking at facts and be careful about that. It is the Town Council’s decision at the end of the day, but you know, I applaud everyone’s efforts here. I think they are all very useful perspectives, but we can’t just say we’re done when there’s still a few things left to consider. So, I’ll stop there.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks, Judith. With that, I think we will – Commissioner Targ: I think I’ll join in as well, and I also kep DRAFT
t my comments short.
60 Chair Kopf-Sill: Can you give some wrap-up comments? Commissioner Targ: Yeah, so one, a General Plan isn’t a guideline. It isn’t a strategic plan. It’s a legal document that has a legal force of law behind it. Making a change to the General Plan is a fundamental change. Courts have described the General Plan as the constitution of a municipality. Making modifications to the General Plan risks taking an MND and turning it into an EIR that increases litigation risk. You shouldn’t change a General Plan as a slight matter. It is a big deal. It is a fundamental change in how the Town sees itself, projects itself. The land use designations and the text changes are changes to the constitution of the town as a matter of law and shouldn’t be done trivially.
The changes that we are suggesting here build on and are modifications, but I don’t see them as being wholly inconsistent with what the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee did. I was on that committee. I took it seriously. I continue to take it seriously. We wouldn’t be where we are right now unless that committee did the excellent that it did. But this is a different body. It has a different purpose. It has a different hat, and the number of meetings, the changes that are being made, are being suggested, and the time we’re taking is reflective of what this body is supposed to do.
I don’t apologize for that, either, and I think if we were to give it short shrift then we would have to ask, do we actually have a place in making any comment on the Ad Hoc Housing Committee’s work? And I think the answer is we have to, or we abdicate. And we do have the time, and if we simply say, “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, inconsistencies with the General Plan were being railroaded. That’s okay,” then we aren’t doing our job. Thank you.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Craig, go ahead.
Commissioner Taylor: Thanks. Through the Chair, I would like to ask the Planning Commission to decide two things. One of the proposals we made was to create a gateway zone, which was to include the Dorothy Ford Park and the baseball field. I think that’s an important thing to give us flexibility, so I think that’s one of the questions. It wasn’t on Laura’s list because it wasn’t part of the in the staff report, but I do think we should weigh in on that. And then the other thing is, just to be clear on the sunrise thing is, I think what I’m really asking is, between Cara and Laura, what language do we need that gives us the flexibility if we find other ways to produce housing that we’re not somehow “contractually obligated” to something. I think it’s important to spend some time to think carefully about the language. I don’t know what’s appropriate, whether Cara and Laura report to the Council with this stuff, or they report back to us, but I would like to see some notion of “Here’s how we could write language.” It doesn’t have to be tonight, but I’d like to get the sense of the Commissioners whether that’s something that we want, because those are the two, for me, outstanding things that I’d like to see. Thanks.
Planning & Building Director Russell: From a technical point of view on the gateway concept, technically it’s very easy in terms of capturing a full site, coming up with appropriate density numbers and thinking that through, including the church across the street, those things are simple.
I think the only policy question that I would ask you to think about is inclusion of the baseball field, what does that mean to you? Does that mean relocating the baseball field, or potentially building over the baseball field? Because I feel there’s a policy distinction there, and if you have a feeling about it, we should capture it. If you don’t have a feeling about it, that’s fine, but I would just raise that for you to think about. Depending on what constraints come up when we did a final site plan, assuming it was to be developed in the future. And then, on the sunrise concept, one of you earlier said, or someone said, “We own it. We can just do it later,” and to a certain degree that is true.
Develop Ford Field. Like, we own it – you know what I mean – but if they’re going to try to develop it in eight years, we would at least need enough time to go find an affordable housing developer DRAFT
61 and go through a tax credit application process, which takes a couple of years. This is, again, this is a policy question about spreading out the decision-making over several years, as opposed to trying to complete the decision-making now, and go into a true implementation mode. So that’s the way that I’m seeing it, so that’s just some thoughts for you to think about, but I think, technically, both things can probably be done, but as we’ve indicated to you multiple times, we just run some risk about not being certified on a first or second try, but I think you understand that as we’ve discussed before.
Commissioner Taylor: I think my real question here is should we go around and get the sense of the Commission? Do we want to vote on it, to pass it on to the Council? I guess I’d ask my fellow Commissioners. I realize it’s getting really late, but how do we communicate this to the Council? Because I think that’s what’s important to me. Obviously, at the end of the day, it’s the Council’s decision, but I think it’s important that we communicate some sense of this stuff to them.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Did you read the summary of the Housing Element Committee that Laura wrote? I’m envisioning a similar document for our Commission to go to the Town Council.
Commissioner Taylor: Do we have a set…because it seemed like you guys on the Ad Hoc element Committee had a bunch of votes, so you kind of documented the votes and then submitted that summary. I’m fine with us doing that, but do we have a sense of the Commission to sort of do that summary?
Chair Kopf-Sill: I guess I’d ask Laura. I felt like we all did do a good job going through the questions, so I think Laura would have the tallies. Do you feel like you do, Laura? Planning & Building Director Russell: Well, that group is larger, so those votes kind of made more sense. I think some of the things that you’re saying are important, but the way that you gave your answers is pretty…I believe we could summarize with bullet points and timestamps so that they could go back and watch the video. So that is an option. But to Craig’s point, I think it would be useful to the Council if people have feedback on what he was saying. Should there be a gateway zone? Should that include the baseball field as potentially being part of the site? Knowing, of course, that it would be very thoughtfully considered if the baseball field was going to be removed and couldn’t be relocated somewhere. And then, if people want to have the sunrise, have that flexibility, so I think the things would also have to be in the plan, but the idea would just be to try to achieve good numbers early on so that those projects would not necessarily have to be built.
They might. They likely would, but they wouldn’t necessarily have to be. That’s how I’m understanding if I have captured it correctly.
Commissioner Taylor: Right, and they might get altered based on if we try to get moving on it, so yeah. I think your summary is good. I guess I don’t have a sense for the Commission. Like I don’t know where Jon stands on this, because I think Jon’s like, “Well, we should just stick with what we’ve got,” and I think I’m proposing that these are a couple of things that I think we should consider on top of this, so I guess that’s all I was asking. I don’t know if it makes sense just to go back around one more time, with just these two questions as the…you know how Laura had the questions about the in the staff report? Maybe these are the two questions off the colleague’s memo. And we just do that and then we call it. I’m okay with that. I just want some way that we can kind of summarize the sense of the Commission.
Commissioner Targ: I’d be happy to have a straight up and down vote on the two issues.
DRAFT
62 Commissioner Taylor: I leave it to the rest of the Commission. I’m open, and I leave it to the Chair.
I think it’s on you, Anne, but I just want to make sure we get a sense of the Commission one way or another.
Chair Kopf-Sill: No, I’m good to kind of vote on these two things. And let me just clarify, we don’t need to make a new zone. What we’re really saying is should the baseball field itself be in play? That was not part of the draft element. It was just the open space park to the left of the baseball field. In fact, people were very clear to say, “We’re not talking about the baseball field.” So this is new, but that’s basically what we’re saying - do we want to put the baseball field in play? Commissioner Targ: It would be a new land use designation called gateway.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Right, but to me, the land use designation is a minor part of it. The key policy thing is adding the field into…that’s what the public would want to know – if now the field is added into the consideration.
Commissioner Taylor: But it’s more than that, because we’re combining the areas to make it one area, so we have more flexibility, so I think that’s an important piece. And as Laura was saying earlier, the zoning is the thing we have to get done by January. Some of this other stuff we may have a little bit more time, but if we don’t get our zoning done, then other bad things potentially could happen, so –
Chair Kopf-Sill: But there’s lot, so zoning we’re going to do, just in most cases we’re leaving the zoning until later, so it feels like jumping the gun to talk about the zoning word. I get it, though. I think what we’re doing is adding the baseball field and combining it, and I get that combining is more flexibility than single two lots.
Commissioner Targ: So, you’re planning the entire area as a whole? Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah.
Commissioner Targ: And that requires a land use designation? Or is it very helpful to have a land use designation that does that, so you know what –
Planning & Building Director Russell: I would describe… The way I understand their proposal is to say to plan the site as a whole, and try to preserve the baseball field, or perhaps another recreational use and try to preserve the oak trees, and try to preserve the gateway feeling of having open space coming into town, and when you have the whole site in play, then you have more flexibility to do that.
Commissioner Targ: And it allows you to harmonize it with the General Plan.
Planning & Building Director Russell: So that’s the way I’m understanding it. So, it’s kind of bringing all those pieces.
Commissioner Goulden: When you word it that way, I go, “Sure,” but does that mean you’re trying to take off the table some of the proposals we have to turn in now to get an approved HCD plan, because –
Planning & Building Director Russell: No.
DRAFT
63 Commissioner Goulden: If we don’t have a distinct…Okay, well then sure. Why not? Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes, this one stands alone.
Commissioner Goulden: And the same thing is if we can have flexibility on…obviously, we should try to write it up so that we have as much flexibility as possible as we move forward. I mean, yeah.
Sure, as long as it doesn’t change turning in something that actually is going to be approved.
Commissioner Taylor: And that’s why I brought this up, because I felt like it kind of got a little bit off the rails. I mean, there’s some goals we’re trying to accomplish that would be nice, but I don’t think that fundamentally changes what the Ad Hoc Housing Element is proposing. This zone and then some flexibility on when we start working on the Ford Field housing project, and as Laura said, since it’s Town-owned property, we have an option, potentially, to push that back a little bit.
Then I think the rest of this stuff of working on marketing plans for ADUs and JADUs and other stuff, that can all happen, and it doesn’t in any way conflict with the proposal that’s been put forward. So, no I’m completely good with these sort of as additive on to what’s there.
Commissioner Goulden; But the Ford Field piece, though, given it’s the only piece that actually meets the low-income housing requirement, goes in, presumably is going to end up as a proposal in the plan. We don’t get to opt out of it some future point. [crosstalk]
Commissioner Goulden: Maybe. It would be unlikely.
Commissioner Taylor: Well, again, the only thing I’d say, Jon, and I’ll – [crosstalk]
Commissioner Taylor: Is just if we…This is maybe magical thinking, and I’m willing to accept that.
If we magically found some other El Mirador or whatever magically opened up in the next three years, Ford Field might be off the table. But, from the plan we have to submit for January, it’s on the table. Absolutely.
Commissioner Goulden: Okay.
Commissioner Taylor: Yeah, okay? So that’s the slight distinction. Yeah, other than that, I’m totally with you
Commissioner Goulden: Yes, we’re good.
Chair Kopf-Sill: I’m good with that, yeah, that we submit the Ford Field plan to the State, but then we work like the devil to find other things. That’s great. I just don’t want to mislead the public that there are any likely other things. On the baseball thing, I think I’m not in favor of this. I love the idea of flexibility and yeah, let’s have the site bigger and decide what to do, but I feel like this is a big switcheroo on the public, just like on Glen Oaks when the Glen Oaks participants realized that Glen Oaks was on the housing list, we got dozens and dozens of letters. The baseball field, that’s going to be a new piece of info, that the baseball field might be in play. Are we saying, though, that the thing we submit, that we’re recommending the Town Council submit is 50 units on the – Commissioner Hasko: Not for me.
DRAFT
64 Commissioner Taylor: We’re suggesting that the gateway zone is created, that we have the flexibility to plan in that zone.
Chair Kopf-Sill: And then what gets submitted –
Commissioner Taylor: Fifty units in the gateway zone.
Chair Kopf-Sill: I see.
Commissioner Taylor: And we get the Ladera Church half-acre, and we can put ten there, or something else, that could be a gateway zone. That could be part of this stuff that we’re trying, ultimately, to achieve, so I mean, I think the idea is you just set aside a zone. You say, “We’re going to basically be holistic about the planning here,” and then we’ll have to figure it out, but I don’t think we have to decide all of that today. I agree – I don’t think it’s a big switcheroo – but it does have potential, and I think people are going to want to comment on it as well, but that’s okay.
That’s why it’s a draft. We’re going through a draft process, so that by the time we get to a final process, people have all had their say.
Commissioner Goulden: I’m thinking, if you word it that way, I’d say no. Leave the gateway out.
We don’t understand it well enough. I don’t understand well enough to say go with it. I don’t necessarily see it leading to a plan.
Commissioner Taylor: Well, how is it different than what we have now? Worst case, you put it on the Dorothy Ford Park, and you have exactly what you have now, and by making it a larger planned area we might be able to have joint parking. We might still be able to keep the field. We might move it a little bit. We have flexibility to do more with that zone, so that’s why I think that zone is pretty important.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Could I just argue back? With the plan we have now, it gives total angst to the people that love those two trees and the thought that they might go away. If we do the gateway zone, it gives total angst to the people that love the trees and the people that would just die if the baseball field went away. I think it gives…people are going to worry about everything rather than… I know what you’re hoping, is that there might be a path in there to save some stuff.
Commissioner Targ: So, what you’re proposing instead is what we should do is we should just build it on the baseball field as a proposal and just have angst for one group, a different group.
Commissioner Goulden: Well, but we don’t know if the baseball field will work. It depends on getting the easements, the deed restrictions removed. It’s kind of like, okay another last-minute thing.
Commissioner Taylor: But what’s less…We have three years to figure it out. That’s the point.
Commissioner Goulden: Yeah. And at the last minute we’ve got something else coming up, and it just stretches everything out and drives everybody crazy.
Commissioner Targ: You guys, I think we need to have a vote on this stuff. [crosstalk, inaudible]
Commissioner Hasko: It’s 3:15, my time.
DRAFT
65 Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, let’s go.
Commissioner Taylor: You’re going to have to get on a plane pretty soon.
Commissioner Hasko: Yeah.
Commissioner Goulden: Thank you, Judith, for staying all this time.
Commissioner Hasko: No worries.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Can we just…I think I know what the vote is, but who is in favor of creating the gateway zone?
Commissioner Taylor: I think we probably need a motion of some kind.
Planning & Building Director Russell: I don’t think you need a motion. This is just to reflect into the notes.
Commissioner Taylor: Does a straw poll…? Okay, great, great. Sorry, Chair. Go ahead.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay. Who is in favor of the gateway zone? I see Nicholas, Craig – Commissioner Hasko: I would do it.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Judith. Okay. Who is against recommending to the Council the gateway zone at this point? Me and Jon. Okay.
Commissioner Taylor: Okay, should we do the same thing, the hands vote, on the flexibility on Ford Field on when we actually start the development? This is making sure we don’t lock ourselves in on day 1, so this is the idea that because it’s Town-owned property, we can spend a little bit more time looking at it.
Chair Kopf-Sill: So how are you going to state this? You’re going to advise the Town Council to not start development until, let’s say, three years? Because I don’t know the process well enough.
I would want to work backwards from when you need to get it built, and I just don’t have enough information now to know if –
Commissioner Goulden: What I thought you were proposing was that we write up the plan with enough flexibility that we could modify it as we go if we’re meeting the numbers.
Commissioner Taylor: Yeah.
[crosstalk]
Commissioner Goulden: That’s not the same as saying, “Oh, wait, we’re not going to worry about Ford Field until two or three years, to see how everything else went.” Those are two different things.
Commissioner Targ: We may well.
Commissioner Goulden: Well, we might, but I don’t want to say I’m voting for deciding to hold it all up. I would say try to wri
DRAFT
te in flexibility, yeah. I don’t want to be more specific.
66 Commissioner Taylor: I’m okay with that. I guess what I was after, I just wanted the Council to make sure they’re considering not starting the Ford Field low-income like January 30th. I mean, they may choose, but I think what we talked about tonight was if we give ourselves a little bit of room, they we may have some other options that we can work on and give us – [crosstalk, inaudible]
Commissioner Goulden: Yeah, or is somebody going to take up the whole rallying of the town and soliciting all the people to produce the ADUs and leading the roll on raising the money? I don’t know that anybody is going to sign up to do that. If they did, that would be great.
Commissioner Hasko: What is it that we’re trying to clarify for the Town Council? I’m getting a little unclear.
Commissioner Goulden: Good point. You’re right.
Commissioner Hasko: Like what do want an up or a down on? We’re not deciding. You’ve got some people who want a sunrise, and some people who don’t. But what more clarity are we trying to give the Council? Like that, or something more?
Commissioner Taylor: No, I think it’s just, it’s the sunrise. I just want to be careful. When we say the sunrise, it’s just the idea that we would hold off…I don’t know quite how to say it that I don’t offend Jon right now. Not offend. You know what I mean. I want to hold off long enough to try to gather some more information. I still want it to be in the plan. I want us to say, “If we don’t find something better, we’re going to do this,” but I just don’t want us to start doing this on day one.
That’s what I’m trying to get after. Which is the sunrise, but – Commissioner Hasko: Let me play it back to you. You support the sunrise.
Commissioner Taylor: Yes.
Commissioner Hasko: Are you contingency planning if the Town Council rejects a sunrise of like three years?
Commissioner Taylor: No. I was just trying to figure out a different way to word what sunrise means. Just take it as the sunrise. I’m fine. It’s late and I’m tired.
Commissioner Hasko: You’re trying to accurately describe the sunrise concept. Okay. So, there would be a time period in which, unless other properties are identified, or other sources of the different categories of units are available, you would at maybe two years in – and I take your point, we’re being unscientific here – but not before two years would that final decision be made about whether we’re going to go a non-Ford Field route or start the Ford Field process. Is that accurate? Commissioner Targ: You may end up with a different design if you end up with fewer required, so it’s not as…so at the forum in two years we will have not more than 50 units based upon trajectory of dwelling unit generation.
Commissioner Hasko: So, it seems to be two things. One is don’t start Ford Field for a year or two, or two to three years, whatever. And then, at that point, stop. Look at the data, and then plan Ford Field if it needs to be used, and if it does, what number we’re now seeking for that, and what the configuration would be. Is that accurate? I’m only trying t DRAFT
o paraphrase here.
67 Commissioner Targ: That’s right. But you’re doing super well at 4:22 Eastern time, or 3:22.
Planning & Building Director Russell: I think we can do that as long as we say if we need the units, we’re going to build 50 units there.
Commissioner Hasko: Yeah.
Commissioner Targ: Right. It’s not more than. So, it gets you to 50 units, and then you can back out of that, depending on where you are.
Planning & Building Director Russell: Okay, then technically all we have to do is change the language and the timeframes that are in the draft Housing Element, and then transmit your intent to the Council so they understand why you wanted more time, but we’re still turning in a Housing Element that says, “Do a project at Ford Field, but evaluate it two years in and figure out exactly what that project should be.” That’s the Housing Element we’re basically turning in, knowing that it it’s not needed, then it wouldn’t be built, because it’s the Town’s property. If there is another way to reach the goal.
Commissioner Taylor: I’m good with that. I’m glad you can speak coherently right now.
Commissioner Goulden: I’m good with that. I’m good.
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I’m actually hearing consensus, but – [crosstalk, inaudible]
Commissioner Goulden: And I’m really impressed that Judith could get that out.
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, it’s amazing.
Commissioner Hasko: I just need to over-clarify at this time of day, so it kind of works.
Commissioner Goulden: She’s waking up, actually.
Commissioner Hasko: Yeah. Anything else?
Chair Kopf-Sill: I’m good. How about anybody else? Can we think about adjourning?
COMMISSION, STAFF, COMMITTEE REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (2) Commission Reports
(3) Staff Reports
ADJOURNMENT [12:24 a.m.]
Commissioner Taylor moved to adjourn. Seconded by Commissioner Goulden, the motion carried 5-0.
DRAFT
NO NET LOSS LAW AND THE RHNA
BUFFER
Summary of No Net Loss Requirements Law
This memo summarizes why it is important to identify more sites than the minimum required for Housing Element certification.
The No Net Loss Requirements Law (Government Code § 65863) ensures that assumptions jurisdictions make in their Housing Elements match what is actually built. A jurisdiction's Housing Element must identify adequate site to accommodate its regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) at all income levels.
A jurisdiction must make sure it maintains sites that can accommodate both the number of units projected and number of units at each income level.
Unless jurisdictions have more sites in their Housing Element inventory than the minimum required, they may fall out of compliance if they:
1. Reduce a site’s residential density, or
2. Approve development applications with fewer units on the site than identified in the Housing Element; or
3. Approve development applications with higher income units than stated in the Housing Element.
Since it is likely that developments will have fewer affordable units than jurisdictions assume in their Housing Element, a buffer of 15-30+ percent of RHNA is highly recommended. The buffer can be in the form of including additional sites or projecting site capacity at less than the maximum density.
Process
When development proposals are received, jurisdictions must compare the proposal to the assumptions in the Housing Element. If the proposal has fewer units, or different affordability assumptions, jurisdictions must demonstrate:
1. Buffer- That their Housing Element has enough of a buffer that there are still available sites to meet the RHNA;
2. Higher than expected units - That other developments identified in the Housing Element came in above the assumptions in the Housing Element; or
3. Developments on sites not in the Housing Element - That sites not identified in the Housing Element are moving forward with housing.
If none of the above are true, jurisdictions must
4. Identify other sites- Identify other sites that are eligible based on the criteria for Housing Element site inventories within 180 days of approval of the development project that created the shortfall.
Attachment 5
5. Rezone – Identifying other sites may require rezoning to accommodate the shortfall within 180 days after the approval of the development which created a shortfall.
The RHNA Buffer
To reduce the likelihood of having to rezone, it is a best practice to have 15 to 30+ percent more units listed in the inventory than are required for RHNA. This is especially important for the moderate, low and very low income categories.
HCD allows jurisdictions to use the density of a site as a proxy for lower income, as long as certain statutory requirements are met, counting sites zoned at a minimum of 20 or 30 units per acre as affordable depending on jurisdictional size1
. This is called the default density. While this policy is helpful in getting a certified Housing Element, it is likely that some sites that were considered affordable in the inventory based on their densities will not actually produce enough or any affordable housing. In this case, the buffer is extremely important because jurisdictions then have the flexibility to use other identify sites to make up the difference. For example:
In the Housing Element a jurisdiction listed a one acre site, zoned at 30 units per acre. The jurisdiction assumed, for Housing Element purposes, all 30 units were affordable.
A few years after the adopting the Housing Element, the jurisdiction gets a proposal for 30 units on the site, but only 5 of those units are affordable.
Unless the jurisdiction had a buffer, there would be a shortfall of 25 affordable units and the jurisdiction would need to rezone or show additional capacity somewhere else.
The need for a buffer or extra sites is most likely to arise in affordable units, because of the default density. However, cities could run into problems with market rate units if developments come in at lower densities than anticipated. For example:
A jurisdiction listed a 2 acres site, zoned at 15 units per acre, with a total of 30 units above moderate units. If the actual development is 20 units there would be a shortfall of 10 above moderate units.
The difference can be added together. If both examples happened in the same jurisdiction, they would remain in compliance for above moderate because the shortfall of 10 is more than offset by the 25 extra from the first scenario. However, they would still need to make up the 25 low and very low units on another site or through rezoning.
A jurisdiction can provide a buffer for the RHNA in multiple ways, the most common is including more sites than necessary in the inventory. Other ways to buffer are to be conservative about the capacities of sites in the inventory or rezoning sites to a density above what is needed to accommodate the allocation.
While it is important to be realistic about what can feasibility be built on the inventory sites, these buffers give jurisdictions needed flexibility over the planning horizon to stay in compliance with the law since many factors affect development trends and decisions. 1 20 DUA for suburban jurisdictions; 30 DUA for jurisdictions in a metropolitan county.
Helpful Links
• HCD No Net Loss Law Government Code § 65863 Memo
• HCD Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook (Government Code § 65583.2)
USING ADUS TO SATISFY RHNA
Background
Jurisdictions are allowed to use ADUs to help satisfy their RHNA requirements; however, the process is somewhat different than other aspects of the sites inventory. The standard method is to estimate the number of ADUs that will be developed in the planning period, then distribute those estimated units into each of the income categories.
Estimating Production
The estimate should be based on the average number of ADU building permits issued each year, multiplied by eight (because there are eight years in a housing element cycle). Most cities base their determination of annual ADU permits by averaging the building permits approved each year since 2018, when state law made it easier to construct the units. This is generally considered a safe harbor.
There is a small amount of flexibility in the calculations. If numbers were low in 2018 (or 2019) but were high in 2020, 2021, and 2022, a jurisdiction could potentially use 2019-2021 or 2020-2022 as the baseline.
Because this is outside the safe harbor, these calculations would need to be bolstered by a logical explanation for the methodology, e.g., the jurisdiction further loosened regulations in 2019.
Projecting a higher number of ADUs than what has been demonstrated through permit approvals in recent years may be possible, but more challenging. A slightly larger number may be warranted if a robust, funded, and clear plan to increase production has been put in place. However, you are strongly encouraged to coordinate with HCD before deviating from the standard methodology.
ADU sites are not listed in the site inventory, rather they are summarized and tallied in their own subsection.
Attachment 6
Determining the Income Distribution
ABAG conducted an analysis of ADU affordability and concluded that in most jurisdictions, the following assumptions are generally applicable. Many jurisdictions are choosing to use these numbers in lieu of conducting their own affordability analysis.
Table 1. Percent of ADUs Affordable to Different Income Categories Percent Income Category
30% Very low income
30% Low income
30% Moderate income
10% Above moderate
Please contact your County Collaborative Technical Assistance Provider for more information on affordability. A few key points are summarized below:
• Use building permits issued for the estimate.
• Jurisdictions do not need to list the addresses for potential ADUs. • Make sure the assumptions in your Housing Element match the numbers reported in past year APRs.
Please visit the ABAG Housing Technical Assistance page for more information, including a webinar that covers this topic.
Sample Housing Element Write Up
The following is what a jurisdiction might include in their sites inventory section of the housing element.
Since City amended its ordinance in 2019, the number of ADUs permitted has significantly increased. City’s ordinance goes beyond state law and allows 1,200 square foot ADUs. Additionally, the City website has an entire section devoted to ADUs with clear information about the standards and approval process. On average, the building department provides comments to completed ADU applications in 10 days. 2018 is not used as a base year because the old ADU standards were very restrictive and the City did not have much information on its website. Production has been consistently higher since the new ordinance went into effect.
Since 2019, the City has issued an average of 12.75 ADU permits per year, as listed below.
Year Building Permits
2017 2
2018 1
2019 10
2020 15
2021 10
2022 16 (estimate based
on first 6 months)
Based on the annual average of 12.75 ADU permits per year since 2019, the City is projecting 102 ADUs being permitted over the eight year planning period and is using ABAG’s survey data to distribute the projected units by income category:
Income Category Percentages Totals
Very low 30% 30
Low 30% 31
Moderate 30% 31
Above moderate 10% 10
Based on these calculations, the City is able to meet approximately 1/7 of its RHNA through ADUs, and must accommodate another 598 units on the sites detailed in the sites inventory. See table below for a summary:
V Low Low Mod Above Mod Total
RHNA 200 200 100 200 700
Pipeline / Approved Units 0 0 0 0 0
ADUs 30 31 31 10 102
Remaining RHNA 170 169 69 190 598
ADUs and Level of Scrutiny of Other Sites in Housing Elements Cities that are heavily dependent on redevelopment sites (or technically nonvacant sites) face more scrutiny in their lower income sites inventory. ADUs can help some cities avoid this additional scrutiny/analysis. To simplify: if greater than 50 percent of the lower income RHNA can be satisfied by vacant sites, under construction (pipeline) projects, and projected ADUs, cities can avoid the higher standard.
For example: If the lower income RHNA is 100 and there are ten units under construction and sites for ten vacant units, a jurisdiction can avoid the heightened scrutiny if ADU projections are at least 31 units for the housing element period. (Half of 100 is 50. 10 under construction plus 10 vacant plus 31 ADUs is 51, or greater than 50.)
___________________________________________________________ TO: Planning Commission
FROM: Commissioner Nicholas Targ
Commissioner Craig Taylor
DATE: June 29, 2022
RE: Public Review Draft Housing Element
Dear Chair Kopf-Sill and Planning Commissioners:
As you requested at the Portola Valley Planning Commission meeting of June 15, 2022, two Planning Commissioners were appointed to a sub-committee to evaluate and make recommendations concerning certain housing production options included within the Town of Portola Valley ("Town") draft Housing Element ("Housing Element"). The following recommendations are made with respect and appreciation for the significant work of the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee and the extraordinary work and commitment of time by Town Planning Staff and its consultants.
Background:
Several Planning Commissioners at the June 15, 2022, Planning Commission meeting expressed concern, in particular, with respect to two measures included in the draft Housing Element. A subcommittee was formed to identify potential options. The two measures of particular concern include:
• Opt-in Rezoning Program. Concerns relating to this element included, among others: (1) the ad hoc placement of increased intensity within the Town; (2) potential to create disruption within locally affected communities; (3) strong, adverse reaction to the proposal by many Town residents; and (4) establishment of an unwanted economic incentive structure ("prisoner's dilemma") that could lead residents to seek to re-zone their property in fear that a neighbor might seek to rezone their property, first (and devalue the neighboring property). Additional concerns were raised, including, among others, the lack of a stated cap based on the total number of properties that could be rezoned or the number of housing units produced, and the absence of limitations include in SB 9 (e.g., required duration of ownership before re-sale of property).
TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
COLLEAGUES MEMO
Attachment 7
• Inclusion of the "Ford Field Site" (also known as, the "Dorothy Ford Park") on the "Vacant Sites" List for the potential development of the Town owned property with 50 very-low income units of housing. Concerns relating to this element included, among others: (1) Lack of consistency with the Town of Portola Valley's General Plan, including among other provisions: (a) Major Community Goals, which is included for ease of reference as, Exhibit "A", (b) Open Space Element,
1 (c) Recreation Element,2 (d) Scenic Roads and Highways Element (see especially, "Local Scenic Roads", paras. 3310 to 3314),3 (e) "Alpine Scenic Corridor Plan";4, 5 (2) whether the property could, in fact, be developed taking into consideration setback constraints (e.g., scenic corridor, creek); and (3) questions relating to the terms under which the property was conveyed to the Town.
The Sub-committee wishes to highlight the question of consistency with the General Plan by noting the final element of the General Plan, "Major Community Goals":
To control the size, siting and design of buildings so that they, individually and collectively, tend to be subservient to the natural setting and serve to retain and enhance the rural qualities of the town.
General Plan, Major Community Goals, item 16 (emphasis added). 1 The Open Space element of the General Plan provides, "All of the parcels between the Alpine Road and Los Trancos Creek from the town boundary south to Arastradero Road should be acquired, or kept in private ownership, but retained as open space with compatible uses." General Plan, Open Space Element, "Relationship of Implementation Devices to Open Space Proposals", appendix at page 25. 2 The Recreation Element of the General Plan provides, "Ford Park… [includes] parking, trails and paths, and extensive natural areas for non-intensive recreation. The natural quality of much of this park is important in providing a natural setting when entering Portola Valley from the north." General Plan, Recreation Element, para. 2314. 3 The Scenic Highways and Roads Element of the General Plan provides: "Alpine Road is now a route of great natural beauty and variety. The creeks it follows through the foothills are lined with tall trees, and the countryside has kept much of its rural tranquillity (sic). The mountain canyon is still wild and new views open up at each turn of the road. A superb scenic route already exists. It is threatened by change. The challenge is to find and pursue the ways that can protect and preserve this route through the mountains for our present enjoyment and the delight of future generations." General Plan, Scenic Highways and Roads Element at para. 3310 In particular, with respect to Alpine Road, the Scenic Highways and Road Element establishes, “[t]he policy of the Town of Portola Valley has always been to maintain a tranquil, rural atmosphere, and to preserve a maximum of green open space. The Alpine Scenic corridor should be developed in accordance with the policy. The natural look and feeling of the land between the road and the creek should be maintained. Trees and natural growth should be preserved and increased. Recreational uses should be in keeping with a peaceful and rural atmosphere.” Id. Scenic Highways and Roads Element at para. 3312. 4 The Alpine Scenic Corridor Plan, which helps implement and is part of the General Plan, provides that the purpose of the Alpine Scenic Corridor Plan, "is a schematic guide for the conservation and development of the corridor." Id. at para. 6201. With respect to Ford Field, in particular, the Alpine Scenic Corridor Plan provides: "Ford Field and the “Rossotti” soccer field, both of which have been acquired by the town, provide permanent open space within the corridor." Id. at Appendix 1, "Actions Taken To Date", Item 5. 5 The Alpine Scenic Corridor Plan identifies that "[t]he Alpine Scenic Corridor is of particular importance since it serves as the gateway from the more developed urban peninsula to the rural setting of Portola Valley." Id. at 6203.
Consideration of Measures:
The following provides an evaluation of the "Opt-in" and "Ford Field" measures, and offers recommendations for your consideration.
A. Opt-in Rezoning Program
Several approaches could be adopted to eliminate or substantially modify the Opt-in Rezoning Program, while continuing to meet the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) targets.
1. Staff Alternative: Elimination of Opt-in Rezoning Program Following the Planning Commission meeting of June 15, 2022, Town staff issued a staff report for the June 20, 2022 Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee, which proposed an alternative to the Optin Rezoning Program, including:
Add a very small number of SB9 units, and reduce the buffer for the above moderate income category. That scenario is shown in Table 2. The result is a projection of 114 units instead of 120 and a 15% buffer instead of 21% buffer for above moderate.
2. Planning Commission Sub-committee Alternative: Establish Housing Element Program to Evaluate Properties Volunteered by Owners for Rezoning It is the sense of the Planning Commission Sub-committee that the primary objections to the Opt-in measure relate to: (1) lack of a cap on number units and number of properties that may be upzoned; (2) absence of prioritization of volunteer properties based on, e.g., considerations of design, coherence with community requirements (e.g., parking, fire, safety, traffic circulation), and depth of affordability; (3) relationship to housing production development need to achieve RHNA targets; and (4) documentation that approved projects would be superior in design, community requirements, and scope than otherwise approvable under Town ordinance. Were these issues addressed, the Sub-committee would recommend including an Opt-in measure as a program within the draft Housing Element.
Further, in recognition of the possibility that housing production may not meet RHNA targets, the Planning Commission Sub-committee recommends for consideration that: (1) volunteered properties and project designs be evaluated during years one through three of Cycle 6, based on identified criteria; and (2) at the start of year four, (a) consider top-evaluated projects for rezoning and entitlement with a cap of three properties for entitlement, and (b) to the extent housing production is not on a path to meet RHNA targets, commit to re-zoning and entitling not more than four properties for a total of sixteen housing units, including not fewer than one low or very-low income units per up-zoned property.
This approach would retain the original goal of the Opt-in measure-- allowing members of the Portola Valley community to volunteer to help the Town meet its RHNA targets and achieve the goal of greater diversity and inclusion, while helping to ensure properties considered for up-zoning are appropriately prioritized (e.g., rather than selected, potentially, on a "first-in" basis). The proposal would also help ensure the Town meets its RHNA targets, by establishing a "sun rise" commitment, while being appropriately modest in its goals for a new program.
B. Dorothy Ford Park's Inclusion on the Vacant Sites List for 50 Very Low Income Housing Units
Members of the Planning Commission expressed reservations regarding the development of the Dorothy Ford Park property for reasons discussed above.
1. Staff has identifies that there is no apparent legal prohibition on development of the Dorothy Ford Park property, based on covenants or other promises at the time of the property's acquisition.
Planning staff responded to the question whether the property's development-potential is limited under the terms of its transfer to Town ownership. Staff reported that no evidence was found that the property's use is limited on the basis of restrictions established at the time of transfer.
2. The Planning Commission Sub-committee recommends consideration whether any or significant portions of the Dorothy Ford Park property is required to meet RHNA targets, given lack of General Plan consistency, site constraint issues, housing production associated with Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADUs), and other up-zoning opportunities, including, potentially, combining portions of the adjacent Ford Field baseball field into a newly designated "Gateway" land use/zoning district.
The Planning Commission Sub-committee recommends for consideration, establishing a new land use designation/zoning district including the Dorothy Ford Park and the adjacent baseball property as a contingent ("backstop") measure to be developed as a single property to: (a) achieve RHNA targets, (b) maintain the rural gateway aspect of the area consistent with the General Plan, (c) retain the baseball field to the extent feasible in a reconfigured form, and (d) establish other community serving (e.g., fire protection/risk mitigating purposes). The Planning Commission Sub-committee also recommends for consideration that significant efforts be made to identify a substitute or additional development site that meets or helps achieve RHNA targets and that is less impactful to the environment and existing Town General Plan policies and mandates. It is anticipated that the entitlement and development of a newly established "Gateway" land use/zoning district could be achieved within a period of five years, were no more suitable development site identified. a. Further Evaluation of Housing Production through ADUs and JADUs Review of ADU and JADU production within San Mateo County neighboring towns strongly suggests that with a stronger ADU/JADU program (e.g., incentives and education) a larger number housing units could be produced as compared to the estimate included in the draft Housing Element.
As far as we understand (1) a systematic evaluation of comparable "hillside" towns has not been conducted, (2) a change to state law, now, preempts home owner association (HOAs) covenants, codes and restrictions (CC&R) that preclude ADU/JADU development. Therefore increased ADU/JADU production likely (this change in law is especially significant given that the Town is
home to several large HOAs), and (3) the effect of enhanced ADU/JADU production has not been evaluated either with respect to increased production or changed distribution of affordability.6 If production rates are assumed to be comparable on a per capita basis (or somewhat less7 ) to
neighboring towns, the proposed development scale at the Dorothy Ford Park (or other location) could be reduced.
Town Population ADU/JADU
Generation
(Three Year Period)
Estimated Annual
Production
Total
Atherton 7,188 35 35 280
Atherton
population scaled
to Portola Valley
Population
4,462/7,188
(0.62)
21.6 173
Woodside 5,310 16.6 units from 2019 to
2021 (with 19 permits
issued in 2021)
25 200
Woodside scaled
to Portola Valley
4,462/5,310
(0.84)
21 168
Hillsboro 11,394 280
Hillsboro scaled
to Portola Valley
4,462/11,394
(0.39)
109.6
Portola Valley
draft Housing
Element
4,462 7 11.5 92
Based on the above, the Portola Valley draft Housing Element projects fewer ADUs/JADUs during Cycle 6 by 81 units, 76 units, and 18 units as compared to the towns of Atherton, Woodside and Hillsboro, respectively. Given the disparity in production, the Planning Commission Subcommittee suggests for your consideration that with program enhancements it is likely that the ADU/JADU production estimate could be substantially increased. The Planning Commission Subcommittee suggest for your consideration consulting with an ADU/JADU expert to establish an appropriately grounded modification to the current ADU/JADU production estimates. b. Further Evaluation of Alternative Development Sites
6 The Town of Atherton has a number of programs to promote a high level of ADU production. Atherton's draft Housing Element builds on its existing program to maintain and increase ADU and JADU product. Please as summary of existing and proposed programs included as Exhibit "B". 7 It is noted that certain other towns have topography more favorable for ADU/JADU development (e.g., flatter, less geotechnically complicated soils), therefore, a reduce production rate may be a prudent assumption.
Several alternate properties for increased density (20%) were identified and other creative approaches to lessening or avoiding impacts to the Dorothy Ford Park were identified during the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee process. A number of these proposals were deemed either inappropriate, too divisive, too complex, or too speculative given the limited time to produce the draft Housing Element. Were the Dorothy Ford Park property in combination with the adjacent baseball field to remain a contingent, or "Sunrise" alternative-- guaranteeing the production of housing units necessary to achieve RHNA targets within a set period of time, were no acceptable alternative identified-- additional time would be available to potentially identify a less impactful substitute site for up-zoning.
The inclusion of the 1.88 acre baseball field located adjacent to the Dorothy Ford Park could either serve as a housing development site or, potentially, be reconfigured to accommodate a less impactful housing development site that straddles portions of both the ballfield and the Dorothy Ford Park, and potentially retains the baseball field. An alternate locations for a relocated baseball field may also be available. Therefore, it is recommended that a new "Gateway" land use designation/zoning district be established, as discussed above, including both the Dorothy Ford Park and the adjacent baseball field.
While there are presently two deed restrictions (held by the California Department of Parks and Recreation) that preclude development/reconfiguration of the baseball field site, the Department of Parks and Recreation has authority to lift the deed restrictions. Please see Department of Parks and Recreation Grant terms and deed restriction attached, hereto, as Exhibit "C". It is noted that because the State provided two grants totaling $232,000 for the ballfield's restoration, it is reasonable to believe that that the Town would be required to repay some or all of that amount to the State.8
Funds for this expenditure could include the Town's Housing Trust fund.
Other housing sites beyond the Ford Field baseball field may also be available, it being understood that the baseball field is an important part of the Town. The Planning Commission Sub-committee recommends for your consideration including the Dorothy Ford Field as a "backstop" housing site, and that significant efforts be made to identify a less impactful substitute housing site that meets applicable RHNA targets.
Conclusion:
Due to a number of external factors developing the Housing Element has been on a compressed schedule. The consequences of the proposed House Element to the General Plan are significant and need to be work through, avoided, or mitigated to the extent feasible.
Based on the above the Sub-committee suggests for your consideration that:
• Enhancements to ADU/JADU education and incentives be included in the draft Housing Element;
8 The period of each grant is 16 years (June 30, 2015 to June 30, 2031) with each deed restriction covering the same period.
• The "affordability distribution" of JADUs be re-evaluated, recognizing the increased "affordability-by-design" inherent in the nature of JADUs; • A carefully crafted, voluntary up-zoning program that preserves and enhances Portola Valley values and contributes to RHNA targets should be encouraged; • The Dorothy Ford Park property along with the adjacent baseball field should be included in the draft Housing Element as a new "Gateway" land use designation/zoning district as a contingent, "backstop" alternative. The Town should undertake significant efforts to identify one or more substitute site(s) for up-zoning to lessen impacts to the environment and the General Plan. The Town should also evaluate locations to relocate the existing baseball field. However, if the Town is not on a trajectory to meet its RHNA targets in year three of Cycle 6 through other measures and/or substitute site(s), as determined by objective criteria in consultation with the California Department of Housing and Development, efforts should be made to collaborate with a non-profit housing developer to develop the Gateway designated properties in a manner that meets Town RHNA targets, recreational objective (e.g., baseball field), other community serving priorities; and, General Plan policies and goals, to the extent feasible.
We appreciate the opportunity to offer the Sub-committee's views for your consideration.
Exhibit "A"
Town of Portola Valley General Plan, "Major Community Goals"
Introduction and Community Goals
7 Major Community Goals
1010 The goals included below are general in nature and basic to the entire general plan.
Goals related to specific aspects of the plan are stated in other appropriate sections. The plan is designed and intended to assist in achieving these major local goals:
1. To preserve and enhance the natural features and open space of the planning area because they are unusual and valuable assets for the planning area, the Peninsula and the entire Bay Area.
2. To allow use of the planning area by residents and others but to limit that use so that the natural attributes of the planning area can be sustained over time.
3. To conserve the rural quality of Portola Valley and maintain the town as an attractive, tranquil, family-oriented residential community for all generations compatible with the many physical constraints and natural features of the area. Rural quality as used in this plan includes the following attributes:
a. Minimal lighting so that the presence of development at night is difficult to determine, so that the subtle changes between day and night are easily discernible and so that the stars may be readily seen at night. b. Minimal man-made noise so that the prevailing sense tends to be one of quiet except for the sounds of nature.
c. Man-made features which blend in with the natural environment in terms of scale, materials, form and color.
d. An overall impression of open space, natural terrain and vegetation, interrupted minimally by the works of people.
e. Narrow roads bordered by natural terrain and native vegetation. f. Unobtrusive entrances to properties, primarily designed to identify addresses and provide safe access.
g. Minimal use of fencing except when necessary to control animals and children on properties and then of a design which is minimally visible from off-site.
h. The ability to maintain horses on private properties and to enjoy a trail system throughout the town.
i. Paths and trails that allow for easy access throughout the town. j. Agricultural pursuits in appropriate locations.
Introduction and Community Goals
8 4. To guide the location, design and construction of all development so as to:
a. Minimize disturbances to natural surroundings and scenic vistas. b. Reduce the exposure of people and improvements to physical hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, fire, floods, traffic accidents and to provide evacuation routes for emergencies.
c. Protect the watershed of the planning area.
d. Ensure that projects complement and are subordinate to their natural surroundings.
e. Minimize the use of non-renewable energy resources, conserve water, and encourage energy conservation and the use of renewable energy sources.
5. To protect, encourage and extend the use of native plant communities, grasses and trees, especially oak woodlands, because they reduce water usage and preserve the natural habitats and biodiversity.
6. To ensure that growth and development within the planning area is evaluated against required regional environmental standards.
7. To subject new developments with potential for adverse fiscal and other effects on the delivery of essential public services to an impact analysis to avoid unreasonable financial burdens on the town and other affected local governmental agencies and ensure the continued availability of essential public services.
8. To provide civic and recreation facilities and activities that are supported by the local citizenry and that encourage the interaction of residents in the pursuit of common interests and result in a strong sense of community identity.
9. To provide scenic roads, trails and paths to enhance enjoyment of the planning area and to increase convenience and safety.
10. To encourage the increased availability and use of public transportation and shared private transportation in connecting the town to regional shopping, employment and recreational areas and to the regional transportation network.
11. To provide for those commercial and institutional uses which are needed by the residents of Portola Valley and its spheres of influence on a frequently recurring basis and which are scaled to meeting primarily the needs of such residents. Commercial and institutional uses that meet the frequently recurring needs range from those that most residents of the town and its spheres of influence could be expected to use frequently, typically daily or weekly, to those that, while not frequented so often by most residents, still
Introduction and Community Goals
9 could be expected to be used primarily by residents of the town and its spheres of influence. Those uses that meet the more frequently recurring rather than occasional needs of the residents are preferred.
12. To limit growth in order to minimize the need for additional governmental services and thereby maintain and preserve the town's predominately volunteer local government, a government which fosters a sense of community.
13. To work with neighboring communities, when appropriate, to identify and develop solutions to interjurisdictional problems.
14. To ensure that development will produce a maximum of order, convenience and economy for local residents consistent with other stated goals and objectives.
15. To foster appreciation of the heritage of the planning area by encouraging the recognition and preservation of important historic resources.
16. To control the size, siting and design of buildings so that they, individually and collectively, tend to be subservient to the natural setting and serve to retain and enhance the rural qualities of the town.
Exhibit "B"
Town of Atherton Draft Housing Element: Excerpts Outlining Measures to Increase ADU/JADU Production
Town of Atherton 2023-2031 Housing Element – DRAFT 38
June 2022
3.370 Site Inventory Analysis
There are no R/ECAPs or edge R/ECAPS located within the Town of Atherton. Edge R/ECAPS within unincorporated San Mateo County have proximity to portions of Atherton along the western edge of Town bounding El Camino Real. Of the sites identified for inclusion in a multi-family overlay zone, one site, 23 Oakwood Blvd, is in proximity to an edge R/ECAP in unincorporated San Mateo County.
The complete inventory of identified opportunity sites is included as Appendix 5 and expanded up in section 3.410.
3.380 Contributing Factors and Fair Housing Action Plan The primary factor contributing to fair housing challenges within Atherton is the cost of land acquisition. Per an analysis completed in 2022, the average land acquisition cost for a single acre in Atherton is approximately $8 million. This analysis was performed to gain a deeper understanding of the feasibility of creating fair housing opportunities through new multifamily development. As part of this, the Town developed scenarios for multifamily development at varying density levels and made assumptions about the cost to acquire and build at these densities, as well as the likely resulting price of the units for buyers or renters. The results of this complete analysis will be included in the Final Housing Element to be completed this year.
The Town finds that allowing for multifamily densities is likely a feasible strategy to create additional market rate units. To also accommodate affordable units as part of these projects, the Town will adopt an Inclusionary Zoning ordinance that would require a minimum of 20% of units built in these overlay zones to be affordable to lowerincome households. The Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance, described in section 3.811 C, will require that a minimum of 20% of the dwelling units constructed in the RM-16, RM8 and RM-6 overlay districts be affordable to low- and moderate-income households.
A deed restriction shall assure that the affordability of the units remains in place for a minimum of 50 years.
It is projected that 22 new housing units affordable to above moderate-income households will be constructed on these properties during the 6th RHNA cycle, and 4 units would be constructed affordable to moderate-income households, pursuant to the Inclusionary Zoning ordinance. Additional detail on the Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance is provided in section 3.814.
Additionally, the Town is continuing to see success in the creation of additional ADU units. The Town estimates that 60% of new ADU units to be built will be rented at very low or low-income levels. Based on existing precedent, these units are often used for housing for a senior family member, employees of the homeowner, students, or in other
Town of Atherton 2023-2031 Housing Element – DRAFT 39
June 2022
similar circumstances where the renter would otherwise be unable to find similar accommodations locally. This prevents the ADU occupants from displacing others from low-income housing that is available locally.
ADUs have several other advantages. They can be constructed at significantly lower cost than the cost to build a new multifamily unit. They can be located anywhere within the Town, which means such low-income units are geographically spread throughout Atherton. They are also politically popular and easy to permit.
The Town is pursuing several strategies to further utilize ADUs as a tool for providing fair housing opportunities, including:
Expanding community outreach to realize additional ADU development. Developing assistance programs for JADUs to make alterations easier and more cost effective so that additional units can be developed within the existing building envelope of houses and made available at more affordable rates. Amending the Zoning title to eliminate the occupancy limitation on other accessory units, such as guest houses and pool houses.
Creating an inventory of existing pool houses and guest houses, and then working with a nonprofit to connect homeowners to prospective renters. Adopting an affordable housing impact fee on single family construction. The Town will make available funds from this program to provide very low-income rental assistance for eligible households identified by HIP.
The Town’s complete strategy related to encouraging ADU production and the rental of these units is provided in section 3.812.
Additionally, the Town will be providing additional fair housing resources and training for property owners, real estate agents, and tenants, per section 3.823 E. This will be provided through a collaboration with other cities and towns, Project Sentinel, or another similar organization. This will provide information on reasonable accommodation and issues related to income and other forms of discrimination. This training could be mandated for multi-family developers, property owners and any resident renting an ADU or similar unit. The Town will also create a webpage to host this information and improve awareness around fair housing training, issues and available programs. The webpage will also provide information on filing fair housing complaints with HCD or HUD.
Lastly, as part of its multifamily inclusionary housing requirement and ADU rental strategy, the Town will implement a program to affirmatively market low-income units to households that are under-represented in the Town in comparison to neighboring jurisdictions and the County.
Town of Atherton 2023-2031 Housing Element – DRAFT 78
June 2022
The Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance described below, will require that a minimum of 20% of the dwelling units constructed in the RM-16, RM-8 and RM-6 overlay districts be affordable to low- and moderate-income households. A deed restriction shall assure that the affordability of the units remains in place for a minimum of 50 years.
Time frame for implementation: Ongoing (Long-term Action), multifamily rezoning to occur simultaneously with Housing Element adoption.
Agency/Official responsible for implementation: Planning Proposed Measurable Outcomes: Construction of net 112 new above-moderate income dwelling units (i.e., 80 SB 9 lot splits, 10 vacant sites and 22 multifamily rezoning sites) in the 2023 -2031 planning period.
Funding Sources: General Fund, Planning Department Budget
3.812 New Construction of Affordable Accessory Dwelling Units In 2020, the Town amended the Zoning Ordinance to encourage the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and junior accessory dwelling units (JADUs)by removing constraints on their development and providing other incentives including exempting the ADU floor area from the maximum site floor area limit. During the last 3 years of the 5th RHNA cycle, the Town issued an annual average of 35.3 building permits per year for attached and detached ADUs. In 2020, permits were issued for 34 ADUs, in 2021, permits were issued for 32 ADUs, and in the first three months of 2022, permits were issued for 3 ADUs and an additional 9 ADUs had received Planning Department approval. Projecting the 12 ADU permits issued or approved in the first three months of 2022 to the full year, a total of 40 units should be permitted in 2022.
The Town realized high ADU construction with minimum education and outreach to the community. The Town plans to greatly expand community outreach to realize additional ADU development. Specifically, the Town will distribute, at least annually, community outreach mailing and social media posts, host at least one community workshop on new ADU development standards and provide information on the Town’s website and at the Town counters on the ease of ADU development. With the
Town of Atherton 2023-2031 Housing Element – DRAFT 79
June 2022
Town’s current pace of ADU applications, the Town forecasts the development of 280 new ADUs over the next planning period. With additional outreach, the Town plans to meet or exceed this current pace of production over the next eight years. The Town expects that these units will be divided between very low- (30%), low- (30%), moderate- (30%) and above moderate- (10%) income categories based on the ABAG/UC Berkeley Affordability Study.
In addition, the Town intends to take the steps listed below to facilitate ADU rental to lower income households, additional ADU creation, construction and conversion:
A. Many Atherton properties include pool houses and guest houses.
These buildings are limited to 30-day occupancy per year. To facilitate additional rental of ADUs the Town will amend the zoning code to eliminate this provision and allow pool houses and guest houses to be rented as ADUs. The Town will distribute a town wide mailer informing property owners of this change and encouraging rental of their units. The Code change would be limited to the renting of one ADU per property.
B. At the time of construction or conversion, the Town requests the owner fill out an ADU rental survey indicating the amount of rent to be charged for the unit. By comparing this rent to the San Mateo County monthly maximum affordable housing cost by household chart, the affordability level of each unit is determined. This is an ongoing program.
C. A Town wide mailer will be completed to create an inventory of existing pool houses and guest houses. Using this inventory, the Town would work with a non-profit (HIP) to connect homeowners to prospective renters.
D. To encourage rental of ADUs and JADUs, the Town will partner with a non-profit organization (HIP) to facilitate the rental advertising, screening and partnering process.
E. The Town is considering adopting an affordable housing impact fee on single family construction. The Town will make available funds from this program to provide very low-income rental assistance for eligible households identified by HIP.
Town of Atherton 2023-2031 Housing Element – DRAFT 80
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Time frame for implementation: Ongoing (Long-term Action)
Agency/Official responsible for implementation: Town Planner Proposed Measurable Outcomes: 252 new accessory dwelling units in the very low-, low- and moderate-income categories and 28 new accessory dwelling units in the above moderate-income category in the 2023 -2031 planning period.
Funding Sources: General Fund, Planning Department Budget, affordable housing in-lieu fees
3.813 Multifamily Housing Development on School and other Properties Menlo School is a private grade 6 - 12 school located at 50 Valparaiso Avenue sited on 26.7 acres of property (including 50% ownership of Cartan Athletic Field and Wunderlich Athletic Field) serving approximately 795 students.
Menlo College is a private 4-year college located at 1000 El Camino Real sited on 31 acres of property (including 50% ownership of Cartan Athletic Field and Wunderlich Athletic Field) serving approximately 750 students.
Sacred Heart Schools is a private preschool, K - 12 institution located at 150 Valparaiso Avenue on 60 acres for property serving approximately 1,195 students.
Public schools in Atherton include Encinal Elementary, Laurel Elementary, Las Lomitas Elementary, Menlo-Atherton High School and Selby Lane Elementary.
A. Public and Private Schools: Public and private school properties are zoned PFS (Public Facilities and Schools) District in Atherton. The PFS District currently allows multiple-family residential uses that could accommodate housing for very low- and low-income households associated with primary nonresidential use of property on the same site. No maximum density is specified in the PFS District for the multiple-family residential uses allowed in the zoning district. There is, however, a maximum height limit of 34 feet specified in the district regulations.
Atherton Planning Staff has had discussions with representatives of the three private schools and the public school in Town about the development of low- and moderate-income housing on their campuses.
Those discussions include:
Exhibit "C"
Ford Field Deed Restrictions and State Grant Terms
WESTRIDGE DR
A
L
P
NI E
R
D
ALPINE
RD
118
3350
Town Lot:
3399 Alpine Road
Portola Valley, CA 94028
Town Parcel # 077-272-010
7.67 Acres includes both
Ford Field and Open Space Preserve
Deed Restriction Area:
Ford Field Baseball facility to be
dedicated for restricted use
Approx. 1.88 acres
p:\hyarcview
® TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
Exhibit A
Deed Restriction Diagram
TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
COPYRIGHT 2001 225 112.5 0 225 Feet
Page
For Illustration only N.T.S.
157 of 631
WESTRIDGE DR
A
L
P
NI E
R
D
ALPINE
RD
118
3350
Town Lot:
3399 Alpine Road
Portola Valley, CA 94028
Town Parcel # 077-272-010
7.67 Acres includes both
Ford Field and Open Space Preserve
Deed Restriction Area:
Ford Field Baseball facility to be
dedicated for restricted use
Approx. 1.88 acres
p:\hyarcview
® TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
Exhibit A
Deed Restriction Diagram
TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
COPYRIGHT 2001 225 112.5 0 225 Feet
Page
For Illustration only N.T.S.
173 of 631
TO: Town Council
Planning Commission
Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee
Town Committees
Town Residents
FROM: Laura C. Russell, Planning & Building Director
DATE: June 8, 2022
RE: Public Review Draft Housing Element and Guide to Providing Comments
The Public Review Draft Housing Element is now available for review and comment. This draft is the culmination of 10 months of work by the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee with the benefit of extraordinary public participation. This memo provides a brief explanation of what is included in the Draft Housing Element and how to participate in the process. A background section follows for people that are new to the process. Extensive additional information is at www.portolavalley.net/housingelement.
The Housing Element is required to follow highly detailed State laws and is required to include certain information. Staff recognizes that some of these requirements make the document difficult to navigate and review. The table below provides guidance on the sections and how the community may wish to focus its review and comments.
The Public Review Draft Housing Element includes the following sections:
Contents Notes
Section
1. Introduction: Explains the purpose,
process, and contents.
2. Housing Needs Assessment: Includes an
analysis of population and employment
trends, the Town’s fair share of regional
housing needs (RHNA), household
characteristics and the condition of housing
stock.
This background contributed to the
analysis on the types of housing that are
needed by existing and future residents.
Highlights have been previously reviewed
by the Town Council, Planning
Commission, and residents at a
Community Meeting
Attachment 8
3. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
(AFFH) Summary: Summarizes the ways
the Town is affirmatively furthering fair
housing under the requirements of
Assembly Bill 686. Affirmatively furthering
fair housing means “taking meaningful
actions, in addition to combatting
discrimination, that overcome patterns of
segregation and foster inclusive
communities free from barriers that restrict
access to opportunity based on protected
characteristics.”
This is a summary of the full report in
Appendix C.
The Action Plan repeats some of the
Programs that are in Section 7 but
organized according to AFFH issues.
4. Constraints: Reviews governmental
constraints, including land use controls,
fees, and processing requirements, as well
as non-governmental constraints, such as
construction costs, availability of land and
financing, physical environmental conditions
that may impede the development,
preservation, and maintenance of housing.
This section captures many factors the
Town cannot change.
Reviewers are encouraged to focus on
the things the Town can influence and
whether the constraints have been
adequately described.
5. Resources: Identifies resources available
for the production and maintenance of
housing, including a discussion of federal,
state, and local financial resources,
regulatory resources and programs
available to address the Town’s housing
goals.
This section includes a wide range of
financial and institutional resources that
may not be appropriate for any one project
but can be referenced quickly in the future.
6. Adequate Sites: The land suitable for
residential development to accommodate
the Town’s RHNA.
This is a very important section and
includes the Housing Sites Inventory.
Reviewers are encouraged to focus on
this section with special attention on
which sites have been selected, the
density level of those sites, the Opt In
Rezoning Program, and Affiliated
Housing.
7. Goals, Policies, and Programs: Details
specific goals, policies, and programs the
Town will carry out over the planning period.
This is a very important section and
includes the key components of the
Town’s housing plans.
Reviewers are encouraged to focus on
this section with special attention on
the goals and policies and whether the
program actions are appropriate.
Appendices
A Community Engagement: Details the
Town’s robust community engagement
program.
This summary includes detailed
information about the engagement process
and is included for information only.
B ABAG Housing Needs Data Report This is a background document prepared by the Association of Bay Area
Governments (ABAG) and is included for
information only.
C AFFH Report and Fair Housing Action Plan This is a very detailed report that closely follows the guidance from the State. It was
prepared by a nationally recognized
consultant that specializes in fair housing.
The Town does not have much discretion
to change what is included.
D Evaluation of Past Performance: Reviews
the prior Housing Element to measure
progress in implementing policies and
programs.
Public Comments
Please submit public comments by 5:00 pm on Friday, July 8, 2022.
You may submit comments either in person, my postal mail, or electronically:
1. In person – please visit Town Hall during normal business hours; Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5 PM. Town Hall is located at 765 Portola Road, Portola Valley, CA 94028
2. By mail – please include “Draft Housing Element Comments” in the address line of the envelope. Mail to Town Hall (see address above)
3. Electronically – please email [email protected] or submit a comment through the “Submit a comment for the Housing Element” button located on the top of the Housing Element Update webpage:
https://www.portolavalley.net/housingelement
If attaching documents to your comments, please ensure all attachments are in PDF format and are no larger than 1 GB in size. You may consider dropping off larger documents to Town Hall if necessary.
Next Steps
Upcoming meetings on the Draft Housing Element include the following:
• Wednesday, June 15 – Planning Commission
• Monday, June 20 – Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee
• Town Council is to be determined
After Town Council review, staff will update the Draft Housing Element based on the comments received and submit it to the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for their review. In the fall, the Town will conduct additional public meetings to update the document according to HCD comments.
To stay up to date on the process, sign up for eNotices and select “Housing News”
Background for Those New to the Process
The Housing Element is one of the mandatory elements of the General Plan and serves as the “guiding document on future growth and development” and provides goals, polices, and programs that help the Town plan for the housing needs for all segments of the Town’s population. California municipalities must update their Housing Element every eight years. As described by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), California has required that all local governments (cities and counties) adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community.
State law (Government Code Sections 65580-65589.8) requires that every city/town and county in California adopt a Housing Element approximately every eight years. Portola Valley’s current Housing Element covers the planning period from 2014-2022 and was adopted in 2015. The new Housing Element will cover 2023-20311. In addition, HCD reviews and certifies that each jurisdiction’s Housing Element meets all the requirements of the law. The approval and certification process takes several months.
Every jurisdiction in California receives a target number of homes to plan for. This is called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation or RHNA (pronounced ‘ree-nuh’). Cities/towns do not need to build the housing, but do need to put in place the proper zoning and address constraints so the private sector can build the housing. The RHNA is broken down by income category. Portola Valley’s income specific estimated RHNA is:
Income Level Number of Units
Very Low Income (<50% of Area Median Income) 73
Low Income (80% of Area Median Income) 42
Moderate Income (80-120% of Area Median Income) 39
Above Moderate Income (>120% of Area Median Income 99
Total 253
1 Some stakeholders use the start date of 2022, because some of the modeling starts in this year. Because Portola Valley’s Housing Element will likely not be adopted until 2023, this report uses the later date.
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Submitter DB ID 6466
IP Address 2600:1700:a460:1a80:55e2:8b96:fb48:b0b6
Submission Recorded On 06/10/2022 10:41 AM
Time to Take the Survey 13 minutes, 22 secs.
First and Last Name
MJ Lee
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
[email protected]
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
Thank you to the AHHEC members and town staff for all the effort you have put in for this Housing Element.
I only have 2 suggestions:
I think Jeremy mentioned in a meeting a total number of parcels under 1 acre in town, but I could not remember the number and could not find such a fact in the HE. On page 42, there is a list of the Residential Density Combining Districts. I think it would be helpful if you could add the number off parcels there are in each type of district. Also, you reference the zoning map but do not include it in this HE. I had to search for it on the town website. It would be helpful to know how many parcels are eligible for ADUs under the town's current regulations, and to easily see (perhaps through color coding) in which districts in that zoning map that ADUs would or would not be eligible.
My second point is on Appendix B Housing Needs Data Report. On page B-1 it says that home prices increased 148.6%, in 2010-2020 and then on pg B27 it says homes increased 184.6% since 2001. Based on Figure 23, i think the 148.6% might be a typo.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
Attachment 9
6/15/22, 5:40 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6467 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6467
IP Address 2600:1700:a460:1a80:55e2:8b96:fb48:b0b6
Submission Recorded On 06/10/2022 12:47 PM
Time to Take the Survey 8 minutes, 56 secs.
First and Last Name
MJ Lee
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
[email protected]
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
I apologize that I had a number of missing words in my original submission. I think for some reason the text was not saved correctly after it gave me an error message about a missing required field. Please delete the original entry and use this instead.
Thank you to the AHHEC members and town sta! for all the e!ort you have put in for this Housing Element.
I only have 2 suggestions:
First, I think Jeremy mentioned in a meeting the total number of parcels that are under 1 acre in town, but I could not remember the number, and I could not find such a fact in the HE. On page 42, there is a list of the Residential Density Combining Districts. I think it would be helpful in the HE if you could tabulate the number of parcels in each type of district. Also, you reference the zoning map but do not include it, and I had to search the town website to find the zoning map. I think it would be helpful to easily see which parcels are eligible or not eligible for ADUs under the town's current regulations, by including the zoning map and colorizing the eligible districts.
My second point is on Appendix B Housing Needs Data Report. On page B-1 it says that home prices increased 148.6%, in 2010 to 2020. But on page B27 it says homes increased 184.6% since 2001. Based on Figure 23, i think the 148.6% might be a typo.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:41 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6468 1/2
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7. Submitter DB ID 6468
IP Address 2601:647:6180:4c0:dc8b:8d29:74f9:d22f
Submission Recorded On 06/13/2022 10:23 AM
Time to Take the Survey 5 minutes, 33 secs.
First and Last Name
Trish Heald
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
6/15/22, 5:41 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6468 2/2
8. I do not agree with the proposal to include opt-in single-family rezoning (pg. 96) in our town housing element plan. If four-plex/acre units are incorporated into my neighborhood, I believe it will materially affect property values. I also believe opt-in rezoning has the potential to pit neighbor against neighbor because one property owner benefits financially at the expense of other neighbors who may get financially shafted. Also, if my neighbor is gonna put in a 4-plex, it doesn’t make any economic sense for me to invest more money in my property--and I need to know that now (before I replant my front yard or add an ADU).
The draft housing element update plan (HEP) incorporates 12 Opt-in rezoning units (pg. 105). Here are my suggestions for eliminating opt-in rezoning from the plan:
1. The HCD “advises communities to ‘buffer’ their assigned RHNA numbers with additional housing units ranging from at least 15% to 30% of their assigned RHNA” (pg.89). The proposed HEP buffer in the draft plan is 21% (pg. 89). Since the buffer is not required--only advised--how about we drop our buffer to 15% (the minimum advised). Instead of a 53-unit buffer, we end up with a 37-unit buffer. That’s a “savings” of 16 units, thereby wiping out the need for a 12-unit opt-in rezoning.
and/or
2. Add 12 units to the ADU number and eliminate the opt-in rezoning. I understand there are limits to the amount of ADUs the state will accept as reasonable--fair enough. However, I don’t believe 12 additional ADUs will make a material difference to the number we already have in the plan (92, per pg. 97). If a case can be made for 92 ADUs, it can be made for 104 ADUs. For the sake of stable neighborhoods, it’s worth the ask. Also, the 92 ADU number is again based on a (non-required) buffer of 21%. Reduce the buffer to 15% and make the argument even easier. On the basis of the Proposed ADU & JADU Policies and Programs (pg. 92), and the knowledge that rezoning of neighboring properties is not an option (if we eliminate it from the plan), I posit that there will be enough demand for ADUs over the course of 8 years to cover 12 more than the current estimate. We, for one, are adding our name to that list. But, we will not invest in an ADU if there is a risk of a 4-plex conversion in our neighborhood.
Thank you for your consideration.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:41 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6469 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6469
IP Address 2600:1700:a460:2c90:2972:72fc:d8c4:43c3
Submission Recorded On 06/13/2022 1:31 PM
Time to Take the Survey 11 minutes, 6 secs.
First and Last Name
Meg Abraham
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
California
Zip Code
94028
Comment
The plan to allow opt in for rezoning to multi-housing is a terrible change that violates the spirit of the town plan and the needs of the community. It set neighbors against neighbor. This town council is rushing through a housing plan that they know is not supported. Please do not submit this plan as the new council will be bound to respond to voter dissatisfaction and to renegotiate it or refuse to act on it. There is good reason to believe we can meet our housing obligations without rezoning. I ask the Council to stop the rush, step back, and do your job of representing what is in the towns interests as opposed to your personal beliefs and desires.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:42 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6470 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6470
IP Address 98.37.253.213
Submission Recorded On 06/13/2022 1:48 PM
Time to Take the Survey 11 minutes, 14 secs.
First and Last Name
Joshua Portner
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
PORTOLA VALLEY
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
In both the assessment and policies for JADU/ADU the Town is using data from a time that ADU's were highly restricted (prior to the most recent zoning amendment). This data would seem to skew the total amount of potential ADU creation downward.
Furthermore in the incentive policy no where does the Town incentivize the creation of ADU/JADU's by either eliminating or reducing their impact to the total AMFA calculation (in other cities called total FAR). For instance in Palo Alto, the City of Palo Alto grants a square footage exemption of 800 SF for an ADU and 500 SF for a JADU or 800 SF total (For an ADU/JADU). This would allow houses already built to maximum development standards to build either an additional attached JADU/ADU or detached ADU. While the Town is seeming to accept the ADU requirements of 800 SF exemption for detached ADU (per state law), they are not recognizing the potential exemption for either attached ADU's or JADU's. This exemption would provide further incentive for already maxxed projects to build more housing stock.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
adu-summary-handout-november-2020.pdf
CONVERSION REQUIREMENTS
An ADU conversion may be comprised solely of the conversion of area within an existing structure, or a hybrid of using existing area and adding an addition. An existing structure may be rebuilt in place to the same building envelope.
If a homeowner does a hybrid conversion ADU, comprised of both existing and new floor area, then the standard ADU regulations for new attached units or detached units (e.g. setbacks) shall apply to the new floor area. Up to 150 square feet may be added to an existing structure for ingress and egress only without rending the project a “hybrid conversion.” Please refer to “Conversion ADU” on the included summary table and PAMC Chapter 18.09.
OTHER REGULATIONS
One ADU and one JADU may be located on a lot that has, or proposes, a single-family dwelling unit.
For properties with a JADU, the property owner shall occupy the JADU or primary residence. No impact fees on ADUs less than 750sf, impact fees for larger ADUs to be proportional to main house size.
Deed Restriction recorded with the County will be required prior to permit issuance for a JADU. Street address assignment is required for the new dwelling unit. ADU/JADUs may not rent for periods less than 30 days. ADU/JADUs may not be sold separately from the primary residence. Fire sprinklers are only required for ADUs when required for the primary residence; compliance with Cal. Fire Code is still required.
ADU/JADUs are not considered a new residential use when calculating utility connection fees; no new or separate utility connections are required
For ADUs, major appliances shall mean a minimum two burner installed range, and an oven or convection microwave, as well as a minimum 16 cubic foot freezer and refrigerator combination unit. Kitchens shall also include counter space for food preparation equal to a minimum 24-inch depth and 36-inch length, and a sink that facilitates hot and cold water. For JADUs a minimum 10 cubic foot freezer/refrigeration combination unit is required rather than a 16 cubic foot unit. Attached ADUs shall not have an internal connection between the primary unit and second unit.
JADUs are allowed to have an internal connection.
Protected trees that are removed to accommodate an ADU shall be replaced per the Tree Technical Manual requirements. Consult with Urban Forestry about specific requirements. New ADU/JADUs on properties that are listed on the city’s historic inventory, the California Register, or National Register of Historic Places, shall comply with Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for treatment of historic properties. For more information, visit https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/ gov/depts/pln/historic_preservation/default.asp
Please review the ADU/JADU regulations in Chapter 18.09 of the Code for complete details.
Summary Guide to
ADUs and Junior ADUs
This document is a summary of regulations for accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units and is not a substitute for the specific regulations in Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 18.09.
For more information, please call 650-617-3117 or email [email protected].
REVISED 11/30/20
Table 1: Development Standards for Units Described in Government Code Section 65852.2(e) Single-Family
Conversion of Space
Within an Existing
Single-Family Home
or Accessory
Structure
Construction of
Attached ADU
Within the Space of
a Proposed SingleFamily Home
New Construction of
Detached ADU
Conversion of Non
Habitable Space
Within Existing Multi
family Dwelling
Structure
Number of Units Allowed(1) 1 (ADU or JADU) 1
25% of the existing
units (at least one)
Minimum size (2) 150 sf
Maximum size (2) N/A (3) 800 sf
Setbacks
N/A, if condition is
sufficient for fire and
safety
Underlying zone
standard for Single
Family Home
4 feet from side and
rear lot lines;
underlying zoning for
front setback
Daylight Plane
Initial Height N/A
(ADU must be within
space of SingleFamily Home)
Angle
Maximum Height (4)
N/A 16
Res. Estate (RE)
Open Space (OS)
All other eligible zones
Parking None (5)
Square Footage Exemption Up to 800 sf for an ADU and up to 500 sf for a JADU (6) Reference 65852.2(e)(1)(A) 65852.2(e)(1)(A) 65852.2(e)(1)(B) 65852.2(e)(1)(C) (1) An attached or detached ADU may be built in conjunction with a JADU on a lot with an existing or proposed single family h (2) Lofts where the height from the floor level to the underside of the rafter or finished roof surface is 5' or greater shall c (3) Up to 150 sf may be added for ingress and egress.
(4) Units built in a flood zone are not entitled to any height extensions granted to the primary dwelling. (5) Existing attached garages converted to a JADU may provide replacement parking as uncovered spaces in any configuration on the (6) Lots with both an ADU and a JADU may exempt a maximum combined 800 square feet of the ADU and JADU from FAR, Lot Coverage, an Table 1: Development Standards for Units Described in Government Code Section 65852.2(e) Table 2: All other Units Multi-Family Attached ADU Detached ADU JADU
Conversion of NonHabitable Space
Within Existing Multifamily Dwelling
Structure
Conversion or
Construction of
Detached ADU
New or Converted Space
New or Converted
Space
25% of the existing
units (at least one) 2 1 1
150 sf
N/A
900 sf or 1,000 sf for
two or more
bedrooms; 900 sf or 1,000 sf
for two or more
bedrooms
500 sf
no more than 50%
of the size of the
single-family home
N/A
4 feet from side and
rear lot lines;
underlying zoning for
front setback
4 feet from side and rear lot lines; underlying zone standard for front setback
N/A 8 feet at lot line
45 degrees
N/A 16
30 feet
25 feet
16 feet
None (5)
Up to 800 sf for an ADU and up to 500 sf for a JADU (6) Up to 800 sf (6) Up to 500 sf (6) 65852.2(e)(1)(C) 65852.2(e)(1)(D) PAMC 18.09.040, Ordinance 5507 (1) An attached or detached ADU may be built in conjunction with a JADU on a lot with an existing or proposed single family home. (2) Lofts where the height from the floor level to the underside of the rafter or finished roof surface is 5' or greater shall count towards the unit’s floor area.
Existing attached garages converted to a JADU may provide replacement parking as uncovered spaces in any configuration on the lot including within the front or street side yard setback for the property Lots with both an ADU and a JADU may exempt a maximum combined 800 square feet of the ADU and JADU from FAR, Lot Coverage, and Maximum House Size calculations.
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Submitter DB ID 6471
IP Address 23.81.112.241
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 11:51 AM
Time to Take the Survey 23 minutes, 55 secs.
First and Last Name
George Savage
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
Please see attached PDF titled "Draft housing element plan comments - SAVAGE FINAL".
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
Draft housing element plan comments - SAVAGE FINAL .pdf
1180 Westridge Drive
Portola Valley, CA 94028
14 June 2022
Dear Town Council Members:
Opt-in up-zoning, as proposed on page 96 of the Housing Element Update Draft, creates powerful economic incentives to fundamentally alter the rural character of Portola Valley. The program effectively places developers in charge of the rapid urbanization of our town, which is unconscionable since the program is not needed to meet the town’s RHNA allocation. This provision should be removed from the Draft prior to approval.
Opt-in up-zoning harnesses fear and greed to encourage rapid development. Neighbors are forced into an economic prisoner’s dilemma: The first up-zoner in a neighborhood reaps a financial windfall at nearby property owners’ expense. The only way to reclaim some of the value lost to the new high-density project next door is also to up-zone and move out, ideally before someone else does. The ensuing race for the exits depresses land values, benefiting developers and cascading into the sort of overnight over-development seen in other formerly pristine places.
Once opt-in up-zoning arrives the Town will be flooded with sales agents and developers spending lavishly to entrench the new psychology: “Act now, before it’s too late!” The most immediate effect will be a new climate of mutual suspicion between neighbors. We are seeing the first signs of this already.
The authors of the Draft tell us that all-but-one seller moving out over the next eight years will ignore the multi-million-dollar payday created by opt-in up-zoning. They forecast redevelopment of the equivalent of a single three-acre property over the entire planning cycle.
This estimate is not supported by evidence, argument, or logic. It is simply not credible.
There is no need for opt-in up-zoning even if we accept the forecast. The official 12-unit estimate represents 3.9% of total proposed dwellings. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) “advises communities to ‘buffer’ their assigned RHNA numbers with additional housing units ranging from at least 15% to 30% of their assigned RHNA numbers.” The current Draft forecasts a “buffer” of 21%. Eliminating opt-in up-zoning with no other change results in a 16.2% “buffer,” which is greater than HCD’s 15% minimum recommendation.
Let’s go further and assume that it is critical to maintain the arbitrary 21% “buffer” proposed in the current Draft. This can be accomplished by a reasonable adjustment in the ADU forecast.
Town staff estimate 11.5 ADUs per year over the eight-year planning horizon, despite being on track to approve 15 ADUs this year alone. Future ADU demand is likely to increase after implementation of the streamlined approval process outlined in the Draft. Adjusting the forecast to 13 ADUs per year replaces all 12 forecast housing units lost by eliminating opt-in upzoning.
2 Opt-in up-zoning creates enormous economic incentives that, once established, will urbanize our town at a pace limited only by developer demand. The outcome will violate the existing General Plan and the vision for the Town established by Bill Lane and other Town founders; a vision that motivated most of us to move here in the first place.
I urge you to remove opt-in up-zoning from the proposed Housing Element Update.
Sincerely yours,
George M. Savage
6/15/22, 5:44 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6472 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6472
IP Address 73.241.134.136
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 12:21 PM
Time to Take the Survey 11 minutes, 55 secs.
First and Last Name
Fred Wang
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
We are strongly opposed to opt-in single-family rezoning - it creates a "zero-sum game" situation where some owners may see financial benefit at the expense of their neighbors; in other cases, the owners who opt-in don't even live on those properties or are even part of our community. This option has a negative impact on the largest number of community residents both financially as well as from a livability standpoint. It also completely upends decades of development planning where owners building new homes worked with the neighbors and town to design low-impact residences - now these multi-unit homes completely bypass those processes everyone else had to abide by. We should take this option off the table entirely.
To offset those units we should use some combination of cutting back the number of buffer units, increasing the ADU count, and increasing the units in the centrally located multi-unit developments proposed.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:45 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=2&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6473 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6473
IP Address 67.180.10.155
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 1:52 PM
Time to Take the Survey 5 minutes, 54 secs.
First and Last Name
David Madison
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
As others have noted, the optional upzoning proprosal is a mine field of potential litigation, neighbor against neighbor conflict, and property value damage. Imaging your long time neighbor passes away, the inheritors take the best offer which happens to be from a developer who will build multiple units in order to make the project viable. You are left with a multi-unit property next door in an otherwise R1 neighborhood. We can only imagine what this will do to the adjacent property values, my guess is that it would have a significant negative effect.
We don't need this included in order to make the buffer number, please leave it out.
Meeting the RHNA numbers presents enough of a challenge without offering a plan that provides more than the minimum requirement.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:45 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6474 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6474
IP Address 99.4.122.156
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 6:49 PM
Time to Take the Survey 19 minutes, 50 secs.
First and Last Name
Barb Blum
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
PV
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
What has happened to preserving the history of this town as it relates to horses? Portola Valley's rural character came about through ranching, and horses were an integral part of that. Horsemen like Bill Lane and Admiral Quilter envisioned and built the beautiful trails throughout this town. How is it that Stanford is being asked to remove another 60 horses at Glen Oaks, on the heels of winning the right to remove all those at the Wedge, without a thought as to where these animals will go? And for what? So faculty and staff housing that is NOT "very low income" nor "low income" can be built on the site? Anyone who has worked with children and horses understands the emotional and therapeutic support these animals bring. Glen Oaks is the only place in town where children who want to participate in Pony Club can do so, WITHOUT owning a horse. It is untenable that we would allow, and even encourage Stanford to kick out the horses (let's remember that Leland Stanford was a huge supporter of horses, having his own Standardbred breeding operation. https://harnessmuseum.com/content/leland-stanford ). Please, let's revisit this and take Glen Oaks OFF the Sites Inventory. One other note...Stanford owns plenty of other land close to campus that could be used for housing, on the east side of Hwy 280. Yes, that's not PV, but it is San Mateo County.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:46 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6475 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6475
IP Address 98.47.120.123
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 7:19 PM
Time to Take the Survey 15 minutes, 53 secs.
First and Last Name
Alexandra Lopez
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
As a 25 year resident of Portola Valley and someone who has kept horses in Portola Valley for 40 years, I want to express my concern about the consideration to remove yet another equestrian facility from our community. I started riding here as a school girl living in San Francisco, and cherished my daily drive to this beautiful community that embraces the balance of nature, horses, and family life. This is one of the things that makes our town special. I still remember when we found our house 25 years ago and I was elated at the thought that I could finally move to be where my horses were, no the other way around.
I am also concerned specifically about the conversation surrounding the Glen Oaks facility and some rather cavalier comments some have made in the recent meetings. I believe these are people who simply do not truly understand the impact of the operation. It is one of only two equestrian facilities in this are where a young child can start their journey into equestrian life. Our son began riding at the Glen Oaks riding school when he was 8. Two weeks ago, at age 17, he was honored to represent the United States in the Nations Cup competition in Canada, and it all began with lessons on a pony at Glen Oaks. There is a thriving business there and it makes a difference in the lives of countless children.
Please give serious consideration to both ensuring you can provide affordable housing AND preserving land for one of the staples to our community: the horses and the horse people who live here as a result.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:47 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6476 1/2
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7. Submitter DB ID 6476
IP Address 2601:647:6100:4a60:19f1:6cd4:ffb2:452d
Submission Recorded On 06/14/2022 9:16 PM
Time to Take the Survey 16 minutes, 59 secs.
First and Last Name
Anne Ashmead
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
Dear Town Council Members:
I truly hope that Portola Valley does not move forward with any opt-in up-zoning. This change in policy would significantly alter Portola Valley and at an accelerating rate. I honestly can't image that anyone in this town would approve of this policy. This policy would be unbelievably unfair to all that own property in Portola Valley. I am sure that we can meet the requirements of the RHNA using ADU's, Willow Commons, and possibly the Stanford Wedge units (if that project goes forward, which I hope it does not, especially since the units rendered are not attractive and are too visible to the street). I would hope that we do not rush into anything because I do think that there is the possibility that these mandates could be decreased due to the objections and protests by many communities in the state. Please remove the possibility of any up-zoning in Portola Valley. This would be a huge mistake that would unfairly affect all homeowners in PV.
I am resending George Savage's words below as he mirrors my opinion. "Opt-in up-zoning, as proposed on page 96 of the Housing Element Update Draft, creates powerful economic incentives to fundamentally alter the rural character of Portola Valley. The program effectively places developers in charge of the rapid urbanization of our town, which is unconscionable since the program is not needed to meet the town’s RHNA allocation. This provision should be removed from the Draft prior to approval.
Opt-in up-zoning harnesses fear and greed to encourage rapid development. Neighbors are forced into an economic prisoner’s dilemma: The first upzoner in a neighborhood reaps a financial windfall at nearby property owners’ expense. The only way to reclaim some of the value lost to the new highdensity project next door is also to up-zone and move out, ideally before someone else does. The ensuing race for the exits depresses land values, benefiting developers and cascading into the sort of overnight over-development seen in other formerly pristine places.
Once opt-in up-zoning arrives the Town will be flooded with sales agents and developers spending lavishly to entrench the new psychology: “Act now,
6/15/22, 5:47 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6476 2/2
8. before it’s too late!” The most immediate effect will be a new climate of mutual suspicion between neighbors. We are seeing the first signs of this already The authors of the Draft tell us that all-but-one seller moving out over the next eight years will ignore the multi-million-dollar payday created by opt-in up-zoning. They forecast redevelopment of the equivalent of a single three-acre property over the entire planning cycle. This estimate is not supported by evidence, argument, or logic. It is simply not credible.
There is no need for opt-in up-zoning even if we accept the forecast. The official 12-unit estimate represents 3.9% of total proposed dwellings. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) “advises communities to ‘buffer’ their assigned RHNA numbers with additional housing units ranging from at least 15% to 30% of their assigned RHNA numbers.” The current Draft forecasts a “buffer” of 21%. Eliminating opt-in upzoning with no other change results in a 16.2% “buffer,” which is greater than HCD’s 15% minimum recommendation.
Let’s go further and assume that it is critical to maintain the arbitrary 21% “buffer” proposed in the current Draft. This can be accomplished by a reasonable adjustment in the ADU forecast. Town staff estimate 11.5 ADUs per year over the eight-year planning horizon, despite being on track to approve 15 ADUs this year alone. Future ADU demand is likely to increase after implementation of the streamlined approval process outlined in the Draft. Adjusting the forecast to 13 ADUs per year replaces all 12 forecast housing units lost by eliminating opt-in up- zoning.
Opt-in up-zoning creates enormous economic incentives that, once established, will urbanize our town at a pace limited only by developer demand. The outcome will violate the existing General Plan and the vision for the Town established by Bill Lane and other Town founders; a vision that motivated most of us to move here in the first place.
I urge you to remove opt-in up-zoning from the proposed Housing Element Update." Thank you for finding a better solution for all of us,
Anne Ashmead
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/15/22, 5:48 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6477 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6477
IP Address 2602:306:cf32:3d0:4916:6910:6823:6eca
Submission Recorded On 06/15/2022 12:36 PM
Time to Take the Survey 8 minutes, 40 secs.
First and Last Name
Alice Schenk
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
PORTOLA VALLEY
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
I vigorously support the comments of George Savage in regard to the item in the Housing Element proposal involving the upzoning of properties in Portola Valley. He is spot on with regard to the end results of such a disregard to the town's charter and community standards. The idea of pitting neighbor against neighbor, enticing development in inappropriate neighborhood settings, and the possibilities go on. This is a terrible idea and is NOT supported by the majority of the residents. Please toss that bad idea asidel Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
1 Dylan Parker
From: Brigitte Hajos
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2022 9:06 AM
To: housing
Subject: Glen Oaks/Isola Riding Facility Closure in Favor of New Housing - Public Comment NO Dear Housing Committee:
Woodside and Portola Valley are some of the last equestrian bastions in the Silicon Valley area. They are horse land and closing still more horse riding facilities pushes horses and equestrians out of The Valley. Too many public riding facilities have been closed and we are losing precious opportunities to save the sport and these precious animals. When riding facilities close horses are sold off. Many are put down or end up in slaughter houses if there are no imminent buyers.
Horses are majestic creatures with therapeutic powers far beyond most people’s understanding. When horses are trained to participate in equestrian sports everyone wins, children, adults and even the autistic and handicapped as horses can be used for movement therapy.
Every time a horse facility is closed Portola Valley loses more of its horse community flair and more cars come to the roads. More cars means horses and riders are more endangered and pushed out of the area. Crossing the roads to trails is already so difficult because of cars going too fast. We need more awareness to equestrians and not less.
What we need to do is to designate horse riding facilities as public lands like parks. So the public never loses the connection to these precious animals and the equestrian way in Portola Valley is preserved.
Sincerely,
Brigitte Hajos
Equestrian and Horse Lover
1 Dylan Parker
From: Town Center
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2022 12:46 PM
To: housing
Subject: FW: Planning Commission [DO NOT EDIT SUBJECT]
From: David Cardinal
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 10:09 PM
To: Town Center <[email protected]>
Subject: Planning Commission [DO NOT EDIT SUBJECT]
Craig, et al – The 20% is pretty simple and pretty practical. Basically it is because “things get in the way” and not every parcel that looks promising is going to be possible for development. ‐‐ David ‐‐David Cardinal / Stanford University / Extremetech.com David Cardinal's Profile | Stanford Profiles
http://www.extremetech.com/author/dcardinal
David Cardinal | LinkedIn
http://www.cardinalphoto.com
1 Dylan Parker
From: Melissa Thurman
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2022 9:12 PM
To: housing
Subject: Fw: Comments on the Housing Element Plan
From: Susan Ford <
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2022 5:36 PM
To: Melissa Thurman <[email protected]>
Cc: Susan Ford
Subject: Comments on the Housing Element Plan
Dear Melissa,
I am writing as a follow on to the comments I made last night at the Planning Commission meeting (06/15/22). I am the widow of the man who gave the land, known as the Dorothy B. Ford Park to the town of Portola Valley in 1971. His name was Tom Ford and he settled in Portola Valley in the 1960s and was instrumental in the incorporation of Portola Valley.
He gave the gift of land to the town on two conditions. First, that the land stay in open space. And second, that the park be named after his mother, Dorothy B. Ford. I believe that the town would be breaking that promise to him and our family by developing it. That land is a place of solace for our community and it needs to be kept intact. Like every family in our community, our family has benefited from the beauty and recreation afforded by the park. Some of my favorite memories are of watching my son play Little League at Ford Field. And while I know that the baseball field is not at risk, taking half the park away would be devastating and demoralizing to the community that loves it.
Like everyone else, I am sympathetic to the need to develop more housing and understand that the state has declared that each country must create new housing. I urge you to find other suitable locales and know that they exist. The town does not need to take away a park from the residents. And, the town must keep its promise to the original donor of the property. Tom gave the land out of his love for the town and out of his love of open space. The town must honor its commitment.
Melissa, please put this letter in the next meeting digest for all council, commission, the ad hoc housing committee and the 'committee of committees' members.
Thanks so much. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Susan Ford Dorsey'
650‐619‐9951
1 Dylan Parker
From:
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2022 4:07 PM
To: [email protected]; housing
Subject: #Housing #INFO Housing Element comments
These are my personal opinions (not as the PVForum moderator). I do not work for any government agency.
I want to start with giving a huge thanks to the volunteers on the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee, Town Council members, and to the Town Planning department that have spent the hours and hours of time and effort on behalf of the Town working to craft a reasonable Housing Element solution. The draft Housing Element has a lot of well thought out proposals.
However, I am opposed to the proposal to build a 50‐unit housing complex on the open space next to Ford Field. This sets a dangerous precedent for our town. A very large, high‐density complex on our open space does not match our Town charter or character and does not protect our open space. Putting housing on open space, tearing down the ancient Oak trees that symbolize our town and our very commitment to preserving our natural surroundings, and planning for potentially three‐story buildings is an unfortunate choice to meet the housing mandate. In addition, the plan would destroy even more open space to add an undefined “community space.” The concentration of these households in one area at the edge of town suggests there is little intention to have these families integrate into the Portola Valley community. Are we saying that these very low‐income households of essential workers are “undesirable” and should be kept apart from the rest of the Town, should be confined in their own tight space with inadequate parking, should not be integrated into our Town life, and should not use our existing community amenities?? Why do we want to concentrate the housing for essential workers in one place, on our public open space? I completely understand the rationale (the State gives 100% affordable housing credit for 20 units/acre zoning whether affordable housing is actually built or not), but I cannot justify placing a huge high‐density complex on our limited open space at Ford Field and crowding our community playing field.
I firmly believe that we can produce other, better alternatives that spread those 50 affordable homes more around town.
We really do not want to communicate the message to HCD that our open space is available for building high density housing. This would be simply telling HCD that all our open space is now available for housing. Just because it is an expedient way of meeting HCD’s guidelines that are really meant for higher density cities with a lot of infill lots along public transportation corridors does not mean that it makes sense for Portola Valley, our charter, and our challenging geography. It has been abundantly clear through hours and hours of work and testimony, that Portola Valley residents want a more dispersed solution to meet state mandates with lower density housing and smaller units spread around town and not built on open space.
I’d like to ask that we consider some more ideas to find replacement units for those 50 very low‐income affordable units at Ford Field. I’m listing several, some of which are new and others which focus more attention on some of the ideas that have been advanced already.
I ask that residents in Town keep in mind that the core idea is to disperse more lower density affordable housing throughout the safer areas in Town. That means many more properties will need to step up to consider some of these ideas and volunteer to add new housing, particularly affordable housing, to their properties and everyone in the vicinity of those properties will need to accept the need for a few more homes on their street. One hopes that when
2 faced with either ruining Ford Field and our open space or having a few new neighbors of all income levels, everyone in Town will be willing to be more open‐minded, generous, and welcoming.
1. Money. There is NO other more compelling rationale to demonstrate our commitment to building affordable housing units in Town than to raise the money to do so upfront. If we expand our affordable housing fund to $25 to $30 million (or more) and establish that the money is for low/no cost loans and partial grants to build affordable units for very low‐income households on properties spread throughout the safe areas in Town, then we make the most concrete indication that the housing will actually be built which is HCD’s main priority in approving a housing element. That sum of money should cover ~50 small to medium affordable housing units (avg ~700 sf, ranging from 300 to 1200 sf.) An established fund of money set aside with detailed requirements for its use will ensure that property owners in Town who have the available space and interest in building an ADU or “plex” type housing will be able to do so without money being the constraint. Key to our Housing Element for Portola Valley is providing HCD with a plan that is realistic in its execution, i.e., that has a very high probability of having the affordable housing units built. We need to put money behind that to emphasize our commitment to our plan. It is very important for Portola Valley to establish upfront how critical it is to retain our natural character while putting in place money and realistic plans to welcome a wider range of incomes among us.
2. Specific List of Committed ADUs: we have spoken at length about the potential risk of providing a plan that is made up of mainly ADUs, many of which are unlikely to be rented out at affordable rates. However, we have not spoken enough about ways to reduce that HCD denial risk. The simplest way is to establish:
a. Money to specifically build affordable rentals as mentioned already. Specifying that the affordable housing fund will be used to provide low/no interest loans and grants to residents to help pay for these ADUs in exchange for affordable housing rents with additional incentives made for units with 2‐3 bedrooms to accommodate a family. Residents could build their ADU and use the affordable rent to pay back the loan, with the property owner eventually gaining complete ownership of the structure after a specified number of years.
b. Specifying individual property addresses that plan to add housing is the most realistic way of rationalizing the use of ADUs and low density housing proposals. c. Provide a list of specific properties where residents are willing to commit to building an affordable ADU/ Jr ADU that would be rented out.
d. Provide a list of specific properties where residents wish to turn an accessory building into an ADU or regularize an unpermitted structure into an ADU or turn internal space into an internal ADU. e. Provide a list of specific properties where residents wish to voluntarily up zone their property. f. The Town needs to make plans to contract with an affordable housing group to provide the logistics, screening, and management of the rentals for the low‐income housing built with the Town fund loans and grants. Providing that service will make having affordable ADUs much more realistic for the Town and easier to administer for residents. (in the plan already) g. Building costs in the Bay Area create significant impediments to building and the massive increased costs of building in Portola Valley don’t help. Smaller makes sense when building affordable homes. If Belmont considers 540 sf for one bedroom, 815 sf for two bedrooms and 935 sf for 3 bedrooms to be reasonable for their affordable housing site, there’s little reason for us to plan for any larger units to meet our affordable housing goals. Working with ADU builders to design units that fit in with the style of PV homes would go a long way to making it easier for residents to add them to their properties. Working with soils, civil, and structural engineers to provide more “generic” plans for these structures that take into account the usual (and unusual) PV soil conditions would also reduce soft and construction costs. (in the plan already)
3. Empty lots. Completely missing from the latest Housing Element plan is a listing of the current vacant, privately‐ owned property in Town. Although we have only a few such undeveloped lots, they should definitely be specifically listed in the plan for new housing, even if it is only for one SFR and one market rate ADU (or two for
3 larger empty properties). It seems the Town should contact all the owners of these vacant lots to find out what their plans are and inform them of their available options. The lots can build a new home with one or more ADUs. Assuming the lot is in a safer area of town, SB9 allows each of those empty lots to be turned into 4 homes with AMFA square footage limits (2 larger homes and 2 smaller adus.) or split into two lots with two units on each. Voluntarily up zoning the lot to 4 medium size homes could help us with the numbers and spread more of the new housing around the Town. Perhaps bumping up AMFA square footage (modestly) as an incentive to make some of the units affordable will spur the owners to build one or more affordable units on their empty property. Considering allowing these lots to be split into smaller ¼ acre or ½ acre lots would allow for more affordable home ownership without affecting the neighborhoods. The reality is probably half the residents of Portola Valley live on less than half an acre and there has been no decrease in home values for Portola Valley in recent years in these areas of higher density. The opposite, actually.
4. Affordable housing at Woodside Priory. If the affordable housing builder considers it viable to build 50 units at Ford field, then why are we not speaking with the Woodside Priory about developing some of their acreage into higher density affordable housing and helping them source the funding. If there is state and federal grant money available, why not work with the Priory to help fund the building of additional housing on their property? They have large empty lots at 200 and 210 Portola Road at Gambetta as well as in the back of their property totaling more than 5 vacant acres. A combination of federal, state, local, and private grants and donations along with a low/no interest loan could allow WP to move forward with additional housing for their staff and for others who work in town or educators at other schools. With 5 acres to work with, 50 affordable units are feasible at lower density than proposed at Ford Field.
5. Sequoias: They have proposed 23 units, all of them moderate or above. Perhaps they can be convinced to add 5 additional affordable smaller units to their site plans. Helping with funding for those affordable units might make them more viable.
6. Older properties: We need to take a look at all the properties that have not changed hands in more than 40 years (and have not had had any significant remodeling). After a few hours on the computer, I created a spreadsheet of 75 properties of 1 acre, 2 acre, or 3+ acres in the safer parts of Town that according to Zillow have not changed hands in 40, 50, even 60 years and would appear to have not done any major remodeling. The list is by no means exhaustive. Many of these properties are owned by residents who are in their 80’s and 90’s and many have a high likelihood of changing hands during the next 8 years. Others are currently rented out after their elderly owners passed away. These properties very probably all have the space to add an ADU (or 2 ADUs for the larger properties). The owners (or heirs) may be very interested in doing so if funds were available at low cost. The current owners might want to build housing for their adult children or relatives to allow them to return to Portola Valley. They might be interested in adding 3 SB9 units or splitting their property in half for a total of 4 units to put the property in a better position to be handed down to their children. They could volunteer to modestly up zone their property to 4 units/acre if their property meets safety guidelines, which would increase the value of their property if they want to develop it or split it into smaller lots and sell them. Further study is necessary to determine owner interest, feasibility, safety, privacy, etc. The Town should contact them to understand what their future plans are for their properties. It’s important that these owners be informed that they have many more options for their properties than they did just a few years ago. If each of those large properties added just one affordable ADU, we could eliminate the Ford Field apartments. Furthermore, having 4 medium homes on a very few of the flatter two‐ or three‐acre properties, if well designed and screened, would have little impact on the neighbors.
In addition, there are many larger older properties in town that have changed hands in the past 20 years but have also not made any changes to the properties, and many have all these same options as well for adding some housing if the property meets safety guidelines. The more people who sign up to add some additional housing to their property, the more the new units can be spread around at low density. Remember, the point is to find 50‐100 properties willing to add one or more affordable housing units so that we can eliminate the 50‐ unit affordable apartment complex planned for Ford Field. Current zoning rules currently put size limits on the
4 total square footage of all the units on a property and even if AMFA was modestly increased to encourage more ADUs, the effects on the surrounding neighborhood would likely be minimal.
7. Small zoning changes. Giving homeowners some additional floor area if they are willing to build an ADU (with increased floor area if it is rented out affordably for a specified amount of time) might spur some of the larger properties to add an ADU to their property. Additional incentives for affordable housing should be created.
Modest changes to the zoning code that allows larger ADUs instead of a larger house and a smaller ADU might help encourage a few new homes on properties.
8. “Plex‐type” housing units where duplex, triplex or quadplex units are built to look like one main structure so that the new homes might fit better into some of the neighborhoods. Four homes totaling 7000 sf could be designed to look just like one McMansion of the same size of which we have several.
9. Small cottage cluster housing projects with significant screening with the neighbors and privacy between units.
There are a large number of attractive tiny home and ADU manufacturers that create affordable one‐ or two‐ story small homes that would work well on an up zoned safe lot with minimal visual effects on the neighbors.
Instead of envisioning mobile home parks, think instead of cute storybook tiny homes. According to the Housing Element we have a big need for small affordable homes for single retirees and couples. Attractive 400 square foot, 1‐bedroom homes (+ loft) can be bought premade for as little as $100,000 plus site prep and utility hookups. Some examples: eESCAPE | Tiny Houses (escapetraveler.net)
10. Hawthorns Historic Complex: I know I started this missive stating how important our open space is and that is still the most important issue for Portola Valley along with spreading new units throughout the Town. But please stick with me while I explain this idea. Hawthorns has a 9,000‐sf historic home built in 1887 that the MidPen OSD wants to restore. Hawthorns Historic Complex | Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (scroll down the website for more information about the site). The historic complex also has 6 or 7 other accessory buildings including cottages, barns, coachman’s quarters, and a garage. It seems to me that restoring this complex into actual housing in a way that keeps the original authentic historic look and allows the complex to serve as both a visitor’s center as well as to house some Mid Pen rangers, employees, and farmworkers would actually provide increased security for the open space preserve and restore the historic buildings while provided sorely needed housing for workers interested in maintaining open space. The 9,000‐sf home could be partially the visitor’s center or office space downstairs and the upstairs could be efficiency apartments for MidPen staff and others.
The other buildings could be turned into housing units. The value of this site is that the housing and buildings have already been developed and are not “open space” and are not visible from Alpine Road while the remaining 70 acres would continue to be open space and be better monitored by people living on site. Why not create 15‐ 20 (?) small to medium units in these existing buildings on this already developed site of several acres? MidPen is seeking partners to develop the buildings. Of course, it only takes money... MidPen is having a public neighborhood meeting about the site next month on June 28 at 7 pm in Portola Valley. Register here :
Hawthorns Area Plan | Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District
11. Back lot of Spring Down. I remember some mention in the past that the owners of Spring Down originally wanted to develop housing on their back lot. Why not reopen that discussion for a few small units?
12. White property on Portola Road (Jellich Ranch). The Whites are building a well‐conceived housing project on Alpine Road with mostly 500 sf units for developmentally delayed adults. Would they consider adding a few affordable units to their own large property on Portola Road?
13. 3330 Alpine Road, next door to the Ladera Church. The 2.5‐acre property (partially constrained by slope on the upper portion) would appear to be rented out. Perhaps the owner would be interested in up zoning that property at the entrance to Town for mixed housing and work with Ladera Church on their project.
5 14. Mixed use commercial. Giving the rest of the owners of the commercial areas in town the option to expand their buildings by adding a second floor to add some housing units or on their parking lot makes sense. It does not eliminate any existing commercial. It just gives the owners the option to have the flexibility to rebuild at some future point to add some very limited small housing to their complexes without overly affecting the surrounding area. Even if the owners don’t have specific plans to do so in the next 8 years, there is nothing to stop us from adding that as an option to our Housing Element and rezoning to mixed use commercial and using the potential housing essentially as part of the housing buffer, if there is interest among the property owners to have the increased flexibility.
15. Survey of property stock: https://forms.gle/UnW2Y8QpFuS5kXBR7 We still need to have a complete survey of the Town’s property stock with details of the safety issues affecting each lot and the type of existing housing and accessory buildings available as well as each owner’s inclination for any future potential development on their property. I urge everyone in town to complete the survey at the link above. Feedback from both properties who are NOT interested in adding an ADU (or making any changes to their property) as well as properties that are interested in adding an ADU or up zoning their property is extremely useful to provide a complete Housing Element report. The plan is to provide the data collected to the Town. The survey also will be critical for the next RHNA cycle if we want to argue that PV is completely built out.
No non‐public information is asked or required in the survey. You can leave questions blank if you don’t wish to answer. If you have a non‐conforming accessory building on your property, you can leave off your street number of your address to maintain additional privacy and anonymity.
Some results from those who have completed the survey:
8 respondents were interested in adding an ADU or efficiency unit 4 wish to convert an existing accessory building.
An additional 2 contacted me privately about wanting to legalize unpermitted or nonconforming housing units.
Several respondents were not interested in adding an ADU because they either already have a legal one or they have significant geological/wildfire safety issues that limit additional building.
One of the interesting data tidbits from the limited responses is that of the several properties that already have ADUs, they range in sizes from 220 sf, 360, 400, 470 sf, 595 sf, 750 sf, to 1000 sf. Smaller is more common, realistic, and popular (and rented out).
I added a question later to the survey about funding affordable units. Five out of the 15 subsequent responses expressed interest in contributing to an affordable building fund or investment fund or in being open to some form of modest tax increase similar to our utility tax.
16. ADU interest list. The following is the list of properties that either have expressed interest (or I have heard that there is interest) in an external or internal ADU, or JADU, or efficiency apartment or in regularizing an unpermitted structure or converting an accessory building to an ADU or adding SB9 units. There is definite interest throughout Town for adding ADUs. I’ve left the listing relatively anonymous. We just need to keep collecting interested properties and letting owners know about their rights and options. Key will be providing some funding for those willing to build (and rent out) an affordable housing unit on their property.
Paloma Rd –(Alpine Hills/Westridge) - 2.6 Acres
Cheyenne Pt – (Alpine Hills) - 1 acre
Golden Oak Dr –(Alpine Hills) - 1.4 acres
Golden Oak Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1.03 acres
Cherokee Ct – (Alpine Hills ) – 1 acre
Meadowood Dr – (Alpine Hills) - 1 acre
Hillbrook Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1.1 acre
Grove Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1 acre
6 Pomponio (PV Ranch) – 0.5 acres
Longspur (PV Ranch) – 0.5 acres
Alpine Road (Alpine Road) – 1 acre
Alpine Road (Corte Madera/Brookside) - 0.37 acres
Alpine Road (Corte Madera ) – 0.3 acres
Portola Road (Corte Madera) – 1.2 acre
Corte Madera Road (Corte Madera) – 0.48 acres
Wayside Rd (lower Wayside) – 0.7 acres (in very high fire zone so may not be feasible to add housing)
17. Other small zoning changes – My survey has brought out several unique situations that with small zoning changes would enable additional ADUs to be built. This includes ideas of modest increases in AMFA to add an ADU, more AMFA for an affordable ADU, getting rid of the 85% rule to allow more internal ADUs, changing the slope density rules to give back lost AMFA (if large earth movement is not required and the slope is not excessive), etc. Given the uniqueness of every property in Town, it would be useful for the Town to query property owners as to what roadblocks exist in the code that prevent them from adding a discrete ADU or from modestly up zoning their properties in ways that would not overly impinge on their neighbors. For example, changing the zoning rules for horse ownership to match the State horse zoning rules that allow a horse on 0.5 acre as opposed to 1 acre might enable a few adus.
18. Septic and sewer issues need to be solved. Allowing the addition of a greywater system should enable properties to add an ADU without extensively changing their septic tanks or leach fields. The Town needs to work with the SMC Environmental Health Department to work out regulations to allow greywater systems to reduce the need for leach field and septic tank changes or additions. Properties that are close to existing sewer lines should be able to join in the system affordably. West Bay Sanitary is in the process of changing its hookup fees so it might make it more feasible for new joiners.
19. Reversible zoning changes. Finally, the verbiage of any zoning changes put into our Housing Element and our general plan should include language that reverses high density zoning changes at Ford Field if it is included in the final Housing Element in the event our RHNA numbers are reduced or in the event we meet our targets in advance of required dates or prior to the building of any high‐density housing on the open space next to Ford.
There should be some sort of priority given to the recommended solutions with the Ford Field open space considered only as a last resort if we are truly not able to come up with a list of 100 specific locations for lower density affordable housing units.
Neighborhoods: Ultimately a balance needs to be struck between private property rights and the rights of neighbors to enjoy their own properties with a certain measure of privacy, safety, and the expectation for continued value of their homes. One would hope that each street in our small town would get together with their neighbors and talk about what would make the most sense in terms of adding a few additional new housing units on their street that would have the least impact on the quality of life for the street. If there is agreement and buy‐in and a willingness to be open to some limited development, I think the near hysteria could be reduced about the Housing Element and ultimately Portola Valley’s character can be preserved without developing a huge 50‐unit complex on our open space at Ford Field. I know that in my neighborhood, if one or two flatter one‐acre properties near me wanted to add 1 or 2 ADUs or medium size homes and was planning to do so in a manner that provided adequate screening and tasteful design, I would much prefer that to having a large high‐density complex next to Ford Field and it would have little impact on my quality of life or on my property value.
I encourage residents in Town to keep exploring practical solutions, fill out the survey, and contribute money to the affordable housing fund so we can create an equitable Housing Element that welcomes new families of all income levels without drastically changing the Town’s natural environment.
7 Thanks again to the Town and the volunteer Ad‐Hoc Housing committee members for working so hard to find reasonable solutions for affordable housing for our Town.
Regards,
Rebecca Flynn
Cheyenne Pt
(Personal comments)
6/17/22, 2:10 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6477 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6477
IP Address 2602:306:cf32:3d0:4916:6910:6823:6eca
Submission Recorded On 06/15/2022 12:36 PM
Time to Take the Survey 8 minutes, 40 secs.
First and Last Name
Alice Schenk
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
PORTOLA VALLEY
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
I vigorously support the comments of George Savage in regard to the item in the Housing Element proposal involving the upzoning of properties in Portola Valley. He is spot on with regard to the end results of such a disregard to the town's charter and community standards. The idea of pitting neighbor against neighbor, enticing development in inappropriate neighborhood settings, and the possibilities go on. This is a terrible idea and is NOT supported by the majority of the residents. Please toss that bad idea asidel Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/17/22, 2:10 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6478 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6478
IP Address 2601:647:6100:2380:7826:fec0:3b5d:d023
Submission Recorded On 06/15/2022 9:00 PM
Time to Take the Survey 18 minutes, 42 secs.
First and Last Name
Kristin Bree
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
For the optional opt in up zoning can a neighborhood with a preexisting HOA forbid it from occurring. If this is the case and other neighborhoods like Alpine Hills will most likely not qualify because of fire danger/slope would this lead to a preponderance of up zoning in Corte Madera/Nathorst lots over one acre?
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/17/22, 2:11 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6479 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6479
IP Address 2601:647:6080:a0e0:70ad:1a40:afe:dc17
Submission Recorded On 06/16/2022 8:05 PM
Time to Take the Survey 10 minutes, 12 secs.
First and Last Name
Majda Jones
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
I would like to know several things:
—How many units are planned along Alpine Road (apparently by far the majority) and how many along Portola Road? How many vehicles ( estimate, of course) will be added to Alpine Road? —Why is no new housing proposed for the interior of PV? —Integration/ modification of plans may be needed with the new fire hazard plan soon to be released by Woodside Fire. This consideration should preface all other planning, if we want to stay informed and safe.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/17/22, 2:11 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6480 1/2
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7. Submitter DB ID 6480
IP Address 2601:647:5a00:a6f0::37a4
Submission Recorded On 06/17/2022 9:40 AM
Time to Take the Survey 10 minutes, 14 secs.
First and Last Name
Peter Lipman
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
6/17/22, 2:11 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6480 2/2
8. To: Portola Valley Town Council
Portola Valley Planning Commission
Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee
Subject: Draft Housing Element: “between a rock and a hard place” The “one size fits all” approach taken by our State Legislature for the next RHNA cycle is utterly inappropriate for Portola Valley. No consideration is provided for the limiting local conditions of severe natural hazards (especially earthquake, fire) and steep terrain, inadequate local infrastructure (limited sewer systems, unreliable overhead power and phone lines, narrow roads subject to blockage from downed trees and power lines, lack of cellula connectivity), and limited facility accessibility (public transportation, proximity to business services, etc). The Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee has struggled admirably but has been given an untenable assignment.
Nevertheless, what response is most appropriate to the RHNA mandates to increase the housing stock by 20 percent in the next 8-yr cycle for a largely built-out town that has had no population growth during recent decades? Do we roll over, abandon the General Plan, and drastically change the town’s character, or do we offer a more restrained response, as comparable nearby towns (Woodside, Los Altos Hills) appear to be proposing? Among the many RHNA issues that confront the Town, brief comments on just two problem elements:
1. Proposed hi-density development of Dorothy Ford Park. Was Ford Field donated to the town of Portola Valley by Tom Ford (co-founder of the town, along with Bill Lane) for use as a recreational open-space park in memory of his mother, Dorothy Ford, as stated by Susan Ford in comments to the Planning Commission meeting on June 15? This assertion seems supported by the large bronze plaque beneath the two grand live oaks located centrally on the property. If so, how can converting this gifted property treasure for a housing development be justified as any sort of “good-faith” approach by th town? And was the Ad-Hoc Housing Element Committee even made aware of this apparent disconnect between designated gifted purpose and the newly proposed development use (I’d not heard any indication of this during several recent on-line AHHEC meetings)?
2. Opt-in Single-Family Upzoning. This small proposed component seems especially inappropriate as presently described in the draft Housing Element, because likely severely adverse lifestyle and economic impacts on adjacent properties are ignored, and the validity of any coherent zoning regulation is negated.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
Dorothy Ford Park-sm.jpg
6/17/22, 2:11 PM ShowFormFileN (4032×3024)
https://www.portolavalley.net/Home/Components/Form/Form/ShowFormFileN?ID=5a1e59d7bec04e23ae4ccefe252b352e 1/1
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Submitter DB ID 6481
IP Address 2601:647:6180:2f10:18f6:254b:15a4:200a
Submission Recorded On 06/18/2022 2:32 PM
Time to Take the Survey 8 minutes, 54 secs.
First and Last Name
Nancy Lund
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Portola Valley Town Historian
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
To the members of the AHHEC Committee:
Many years ago, I wrote the following article, probably for the town newsletter, following my research into Ford Field. I hope the information will be useful to the present discussion.
Portola Valley residents have worked to preserve the beauty of the land since the earliest days of the town. As one way to accomplish this, the Town Council created an open space fund in the late 1960s and invited citizens to contribute to it.
In 1971, the town made its first significant purchase of open space. It was the 7½ acres between Los Trancos Creek and Alpine Road that we now know as Ford Field. It cost $90,501. $58,051 of this came from the Open Space Reserve that included many donations from citizens. $32,450 was tax money.
The largest donor, Tom Ford, was given the honor of naming the property. He chose to honor his mother Dorothy.
Here is an excerpt from a letter dated April 27, 1971 that Tom sent to then Mayor Eleanor Boushey:
You have advised that the Town council has offered to name the newly acquired park on Alpine Road opposite Westridge drive in honor on one of the members of my family. I appreciate very much the Town’s offer and would like to have it named Dorothy Ford Park in honor of my mother who died in 1964.
Although mother spent most of her life elsewhere, she was born in California in 1898. Her marriage to my father took place in San Mateo County in 1920. Mother was always an ardent lover of nature. Her own home bordered a beautiful park though which she loved to take long walks. Mother greatly admired the natural beauty of Portola Valley when she visited us. I know that she would have been most enthusiastic about the Town’s acquisition of the park.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/20/22, 8:48 AM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6481 2/2
6/20/22, 8:48 AM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6482 1/2
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7. Submitter DB ID 6482
IP Address 2601:1c2:4e80:e130:1d23:4d8c:de86:80a0
Submission Recorded On 06/19/2022 5:51 PM
Time to Take the Survey 13 minutes, 54 secs.
First and Last Name
Maria Southgate
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
Would appreciate a reply and clarification to the questions posted below.
I believe many residents would also be interested in this information. Thank you, Maria Suggestions and Incentives
-What is rental income for units based on very low, low, moderate, and above moderate categories? Some residents might consider very low rent if in addition to cash/rent, the renter helps out on the property (gardening, child care, cooking, etc). -Town could consult an estate planner well versed with land issues. Town could share information on options related to estate planning that could also potentially help town fulfill state mandates.
-Are there current tax breaks for providing low income housing? -If land is donated under the condition of being open space and instead ends up being high density housing, the Town needs to consider the impact on future donations of land.
Clarification of Information
-Aside from rezoning, what possible deed restrictions could be put in place by participating? -If you pursue a lot split, what are the property tax ramifications? -Regarding the amnesty process to reverse previous limits on buildings: If a restriction were reversed, what else might the property owner need to do to have it count?
6/20/22, 8:48 AM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6482 2/2
8. -What counts if there is an existing building on a property that the owners would like to be counted. Does State require a new construction permit to make a unit count, or is just a remodel enough?
-Could the town purchase land by contract providing a reverse mortgage to the land owner? Follow up
-Does Town have a draft of specific commitments to lower fees and streamline the approval process for ADU/JADU projects? 21 Elements states: "larger number may be warranted if a robust, funded, and clear plan to increase production has been put in place". -Increase pressure on Town to contact CALE (Ca Alliance of Local Electeds), to ask why they have not taken this step to research. Replies that I've heard have not been adequate. Contacting CALE as a resource does not necessarily mean we want to join their lawsuit. -Does Town pay property tax? Would this change if there is housing put on Town owned land? In order to keep costs down for lower rents, is there a benefit to building on Town owned land?
765 Portola Road shows $0 due in County accessor records, and 3329 Alpine doesn't show. -How does the Town Administrator prioritize the meeting of state requirements, sticking to the General Plan, safety issues, resident demands, and maintaining a healthy financials for our Town?
-Has there been any follow up regarding state auditor questioning of the number of units required? Is there an argument against the number of units required due to water restrictions?
Personal Opinion:
I grew up here and feel it is very important to maintain our pastoral environment for the future. The Ford Open Space heritage oaks are unique and an important symbol as you enter our town.
-Pls don't remove Glen Oaks Stable. Already one stable in that area is being removed by The Wedge project and it would be sad to see another removed.
Perhaps a few housing units could be put on the land without displacing the stable? -I don't understand removal of Town Center sites, or the possible zoning for mixed use commercial/residential.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/20/22, 8:48 AM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6483 1/2
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7. Submitter DB ID 6483
IP Address 75.111.68.57
Submission Recorded On 06/20/2022 7:54 AM
Time to Take the Survey 0 minutes, 52 secs.
First and Last Name
Karen Askey
Email address ( will not be publicly displayed)
Organization ( Enter name of organization, business, or non profit if you are submitting comments on their behalf.) Not answered
City
Portola Valley
State
CA
Zip Code
94028
Comment
6/20/22, 8:48 AM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6483 2/2
8. At all the Housing Element Committee meetings this year, there has been a consensus among residents that they want new development to be dispersed throughout town AND to keep our community as low-density, staying true to our General Plan.
A concern with the current Housing Element draft is that there is strong potential for overdevelopment, from both the 21% buffer and higher-density rezoning.
Why can’t we lower the buffer to 15%, per state guidelines? Let’s remember the buffer is NOT a mandate.
I believe that the ADU target numbers are too low, as they currently reflect primarily ADUs and not JADUs. Out of the 92, how many are JADUs? We are on pace to have at least 15 ADUs this year, and with the proposed amnesty program and streamlining, we should see that number rise each year.
What if we reach our target of 92 at the end of 4 years? How do we stop over developing, as my understanding is that we cannot rezone those higherdensity lots? Simply put, we need to ADD in JADU numbers to the bottom line. JADUs are low-cost, serve lower-income segments, and easy to implement. They do NOT increase any footprint and would be dispersed throughout town.
Just think of all the homes in Portola Valley that already have a room with a separate entrance! Why hasn’t the town surveyed our homeowners to establish proof to the state that we can meet those increased numbers? We are developing incentive programs and tenant-matching programs. Portola Valley is graying, and many of us aging residents are or may be willing to offer a JADU to a caregiver, student or the like.
If we add 40 JADUs to this plan, just 5 per year, we can eliminate:
Opt-ins, which many residents have voiced disapproval
Glen Oaks, so that we preserve more of our scenic corridor We can also bring 4395 Nathorst down to 6 units per acre as discussed in earlier meetings. (This will limit any bonus density.) It is imperative to survey our residents immediately, reaching EVERY homeowner. Yes, it’s work, but it’s worth it as this Housing Element is consequential and impacts Portola Valley’s path not just for the next 8 years, but for future generations to come. I raise my hand to help with this endeavor.
With respect to high-density housing, we should use town-owned land so we can control the use of bonus density. I am not opposed to the concept of developing on Ford Field, but if, and only if, it can be proven that land was not donated by Tom Ford with the intent it be open space in perpetuity.
I am also in favor of the recent Planning Committee suggestion to utilize a “sunrise” provision, in which we focus on ADUs/JADUs but have a back-up o rezoning if we don’t meet our targets over the next few years.
We must ensure that we do not overdevelop and avoid high density wherever possible. Thank you.
Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
1 Dylan Parker
From: Scott Kingsbury
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2022 3:01 PM
To: housing
Subject: Housing Plans for our area...
Friday, 17 June 2022
To whom it may concern:
I am writing to you with great concern about the plans for more houses in the area.
The plans, as I understand them, will have disastrous effects on our local equestrian community.
This includes the Stanford Red Barn, PVTC, Glen Oaks, Portola Farms, Webb Ranch, Portola Pastures, Page Mill Pastures, the Woodside Horse Park, Rancho Viejo and a few other small facilities.
The replacement of our beloved and necessary equestrian facilities with housing units will be a devastating blow to horse owners, vets, farriers ("horse-shoers"), trainers, feed and tack stores and all of the ancillary businesses who would be impacted by this. It would be devastating for the horses as well because there just aren’t places to house them in our area.
Please consider our concerns as you meet to discuss moving forward. I fully understand the need for affordable housing... but not at the expense of such a large part of our local community and economy.
Sincerely yours,
(The Rev.) Scott Kingsbury
(Retired)
1 Dylan Parker
From: Bill Russell
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2022 11:54 AM
To: [email protected]; housing; Bob Adams; robert allen; Tammy Cole; ellen vernazza; Bruce B. Roberts; Peter Draeger; jamie koblick; Jeff Booth; Chuck Falore; Mary Khan; Greg Franklin; Kimberley Cashin
Subject: Re: (PV Forum) # Housing
COMMENTS TO THE DRAFT HOUSING ELEMENT
It is requested that the following proposed sites be removed from the recommendations:
l. Opt-in Rezoning Program sites (12 projected units).
2. 4395 Alpine Road housing Site ( 23 projected units).
As discussed in detail below neither project is needed to meet the state mandated 253 RHNA requirement and neither program has any meaningful support from the town citizenry.
OPT-IN SINGLE FAMILY REZONING WILL POTENTIALLY DESTROY THE CHARACTER OF
PORTOLA VALLEY
The committee is proposing "voluntary" opt-in zoning across all of Portola Valley. This proposal, if adopted, will permit any homeowner in Portola Valley (regardless of neighbors' objections) to construct up to four dwelling units per acre on all properties in Portola Valley that are one acre or greater in size. This is a dramatic shift from the one acre/one residence zoning that has prevailed throughout this town's history, embodied in its general plan and enabling zoning, and relied upon by every homeowner who has ever purchased a single family residence on one acre within the town. Instead of the town-wide zoning being one home per acre it will be four homes per acre. The immediate and long term impact will be as follows:
l. The economic value of every existing one acre/one home residence within the town will decrease substantially. Potential purchasers of these homes will not pay as much, knowing that he/she could be surrounded by multi-famiy structures, the result of which would be to reduce the value of the home purchased as well as its quiet enjoyment. For those of us who have lived in this town for 20, 30, 40 years or more, it is often the case that our home is our primary economic asset. To haphazardly open the door to dense development with a reduction in economic value and peaceful enjoyment of that asset is entirely without justification. There is no town wide support for this proposal and it is not needed to reach the 253 RHNA mandate.
2. There is nothing in the committee proposal permitting any neighbor from preventing the development of another's property for four units. To the extent that the development qualifies as "affordable housing" bonus density law may apply, permitting increased density beyond four units per acre. When an ADU is constructed notice must be given to neighbors, giving them a right to object. Nothing in the current proposal requires that this be done. To the extent that this qualifies as "affordable housing" construction may proceed on a "by right" basis meaning that no significant objections may be made.
2 3. This proposal will create a race to the bottom: those homeowners who see a neighbor selling his property for multi-family development may feel pressure to do likewise with his own parcel for fear of having the neighbor's development reduce the value of his own home unless he gets on the band wagon and seeks out a developer.
4. The town reaction to this proposal is known to the housing committee. When the proposal was initially made the actual location of those properties whose owners were interested in upzoning were disclosed. Many lived on Georgia Lane. When the neighbors on that street determined what their neighbors were contemplating there was an uproar. Objections were vehemently made, lawyers were consulted and potential chaos was the order of the day. In the current draft plan the location of those properties whose owners are interested in upzoning is not disclosed. Could this be because the committee saw the hue and cry that arose from this proposal and does not want a repeat performance?
5. The draft plan forecasts the construction of but 12 units under the opt in zoning program over the next eight year cycle. There is absolutely no evidence of any kind that, once it gets rolling, the ball will stop at 12 units.
And there is nothing within the proposed legislation that limits the number of four unit/acre projects that can be approved. Even if there were such a limitation, any developer denied permission would be heard to argue that his constitutional rights to equal protection and due process were being denied by allowing others to develop, but not him.
This proposal is an ill conceived plan created by the housing committee, not borne out of any demand from the residents of this town. Being charitable, perhaps the committee was simply trying to spread the burden of increased housing density through the town. My central belief: the fairest and best way to share the burden is to (l) construct affordable housing on town owned lands that are economically and geographically removed from existing single family neighborhoods and (2) construct ADUs and JADUs which present almost no interference with either the economic value or quiet enjoyment of homeowners adjacent to those ADUs and JADUs. In contrast, once you start down the path of changing the zoning and use of private property on which every homeowner has relied in purchasing his home there is no turning back; only a lifetime filled with lawyers and acrimony between neighbors.
4395 ALPINE ROAD HOUSING SITE
To begin at the beginning: the committee originally proposed involuntary re-zoning of selected homes within the Nathhorst Triangle without any consultation with the affected homeowners and without any site visits to determine the viability of any such zoning changes. There was an immediate and vociferous cry of foul from the homeowners in the Nathhorst Triangle and adjacent Applewood Development. In fact everyone throughout the town that spoke on the subject said that involuntary zoning changes to residential properties against the express wishes of homeowners was inappropriate. Regardless of the attitude of those living in the triangle or Applewood, the committee, from day one, has focused, and continues to focus, on singling out the Nathhorst Triangle for development.
After abandoning the involuntary re-zoning plan the committee next proposed development of two vacant lots next to Robert's and immediately adjacent to existing Nathhorst Triangle Homes, and the parking lot behind Robert's, as well as re-development of the office complex at the entrance to the Nathhorst Triangle and Applewood Developments: four possible sites, all concentrated at the Triangle in the middle of the scenic corridor.
The first domino to fall was the vacant lot on Alpine, now known as the Willows Project. It is an approved 13 unit development for disabled adults. Even though no one with a heart could seriously oppose the concept, it was the wrong project at the wrong place. The 13 units represent a significant fire risk and a significant interference with the quiet enjoyment of the homes that are immediately adjacent to it.
3 Now, under the current draft plan, the committee proposes allowing the development of the vacant lot next to the Willows Project so that the owner of that property can build 20 units per acre which, if it is qualified affordable housing, means that the owner will be able to build 36 units on one acre. Once again, such a density substantially creates a major fire risk and a major impediment to the peaceful enjoyment of those Nathhorst Triangle homes that are immediately adjacent to it, not to mention its impact on the scenic corridor and evacuation in the event of a disaster. Such a development is the documented exact opposite of what the town's residents want: the committee's own survey of everyone in the town revealed that the least desirable solution to the housing issue was the construction of dense, apartment- like structures.
Wouldn't it simply make more sense to not include this vacant lot as as part of the RHNA program which makes development a pre-approved "by right" project without the right to any meaningful control over the development itself and, instead, remove it from a 20 unit/acre district and just allow the owner of this vacant land to make application to the town for development either within existing zoning laws or as a recognized and appropriate exception to the zoning (think variance). In such a case the town maintains very real control over the nature and extent of the development of this property. It is not a rejection of the right to develop, only imposition of the customary restraints that affect and protect all of us. And the owner of this vacant lot has experience working with the Town as he is also the owner of the Willows Project next door.
NEITHER OPT-IN ZONING NOR THE 4395 ALPINE ROAD PROJECT ARE NEEDED TO MEET THE STATE MANDATED RHNA REQUIREMENT (253 UNITS)
The housing committee proposed site descriptions are listed on page 104 of the draft plan (all number references are to pages of the draft plan unless otherwise indicated). The committee proposes presenting a plan for 306 units to the state in the draft plan.
The state mandate only requires that there be a realistic presentation of 253 units, not 306 or any other number.
If the Opt-in plan and 4395 Alpine are removed from consideration there will still be 271 units for state consideration, eighteen more than are required.
" Every jurisdiction in California receives a target number of homes to plan for. This is called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation or RHNA...Portola Valley's income specific estimated RHNA is....253 units. " (Page 4 June 8, 2022 Memorandum Town of Portola Valley from Laura C. Russell, RE: Public Review Draft Housing Element and Guide to Providing Comments.)
"After Town Council review, staff will update the Draft Housing Element based on the comments received and submit it to the State Department of Housing and community Development (HCD) for their review. In the fall, the Town will conduct additional public meetings to update the document according to HCD comments," Page 3 of June 8, 2022 Memorandum Town of Portola Valley.
The current state wide legislation effectively eliminates local control over housing and associated planning.
Although all cities and towns within California must comply with the state mandate, no city or town is required nor can any such jurisdiction be compelled to give more than the RHNA allocation. In the case of Portola Valley that is 253 units. The state will review the town designation of units and determine whether or not they reasonably meet the 253 requirement; if so, the state has no authority to insist that any local town or city provide additional possible units as a buffer against the possibility that construction may not go forward. If the state rejects any of the proposed 253 units then the state must give its reasons and provide Portola Valley with an opportunity to replace the rejected sites with new ones. At that time, and after further resident participation, new sites can be proposed. These may include development of units at Town Center, or the road remnant near the frog pond, or the Ford Baseball Field itself or any number of realistic possibilities. All options will be open.
What is clear is that it is currently unnecessary, as part of a first draft, to anticipate rejections and propose additional units when those proposals are poor choices and, in the case of upzoning, a very dangerous
4 choice. And when the town's residents themselves are not in favor of providing a buffer beyond what is required, why do so? We are at the beginning of the process working with the state. By analogy, consider the draft plan to be a first date. How far would /should any of us go on a first date? The committee proposes presenting 306 units to the state, 53 more than are required. This amounts to a 21% bonus when the state itself "recommends" (no legal requirement) as little as a 15% bonus. More importantly, the committee's analysis of bonus is incorrect even if a bonus of some kind is to be applied. The purpose of a bonus is to protect against the possibility that some of the designated units won't actually be constructed. However, no bonus percentage (of any kind) should be applied to those units where there is no or very little likelihood of non-development.
For example, pursuant to HCD guidelines, "in addition to vacant and underutilized land resources, a community may satisfy their RHNA requirements though "alternative means" which may serve as credits toward their RHNA. These alternative means include the consideration of proposed, pending, or approved development projects that haven't received a certificate of occupancy prior to the start of the 6th cycle on June 30, 2022" (page 90).
According to the draft report 52 units fall within this category, 13 units being from the approved project at 4388 Alpine Road (aka Willow commons, now in development) and 39 units from the Stanford Wedge. Thus, 52 units from the RHNA mandate of 253 units should be removed from any bonus calculation, leaving 201 units (253 minus 52) to which a bonus percentage could conceivably apply.
However, "per HCD guidance, a community may also credit the number of ADUs that are anticipated to be developed during the 6th cycle housing element planning period toward their RHNA requirements. The forecasted development of ADUs during the planning period must be based on an analysis of prior years' building permit and and local development regulations that promote ADU development." (page 90) The draft plan proposes 92 units as credits against the RHNA allocation (page 93). Considering the streamlined process that is now underway (pre-approved plans, abbreviated administrative procedures, amnesty programs for ADUs constructed without town approval, etc.) the estimate of 92 is probably overly conservative and there need not be any bonus calculation against the 92 units. However, even if one wanted to ignore all that will happen going forward and just rely on historical numbers (which includes the pandemic years) the total number of ADUs' building permits issued between 2017 and 2021 is 39 or an average of 7.8 per year. Projected over the 8 year cycle means that, at an absolute minimum, there will be 62.4 ADUs and not the 92 currently projected by the housing committee. It is worth noting that the average of 7.8 ignores the fact that from January through May 2022 there have already been 7 building permits issued. (page 92). As stated above, the number of units to which one could reasonably apply a bonus calculation is 201. If you then subtract the 62.4 units derived from a very conservative ADU calculation, a bonus should apply to no more than 138.6 units (201 minus 62.4). Fifteen percent of 138.6 units is 20.79 units which, when added to the 253 is 273.9 units. Presenting a proposal with 271 units, which is still l8 over the 253 requirement, should be more than sufficient.
EPILOGUE
The State of California has forced this Apocalyptic world of uniformity upon local towns and cities, entirely disregarding the unique characteristics of such places in the hope of forcibly creating a world where everyone gets to live every where they want whenever they want. Here's my personal experience: when I graduated from law school and went to work for a big city law firm I had the option of working in San Francisco or the branch office in Los Angeles. At that time, my firm paid more to its beginning associates than any other firm in California : $15,500 per year if you worked in San Francisco or $16,000 per year if you worked in Los Angeles. $500 was real money so I moved to Los Angeles, with the intention of living in Malibu overlooking the Pacific
5 or living in Beverly Hills overlooking Rodeo Drive. To my everlasting humiliation I discovered that I could afford neither, meaning that I might have to live in a neighborhood that was farther from my work than these two venues. Before selecting that option I contacted the mayors of Malibu and Beverly HIlls and demanded that I be admitted under the Affordable Housing Programs that each such city surely had. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that there was no such thing. Having graduated from law school I knew "my rights" so I called Governor Reagan to complain. He was entirely sympathetic and said "Young man, just you wait, in a short 50 years, every hamlet throughout California will have the Affordable Housing Plan of which you speak and then you will be able to live wherever you want whenever you want, regardless of your income or your age or the impact on your chosen community." And now my dream is coming true and I can live in Pacific Heights or Montecito or even Portola Valley! The End.
Bill Russell
1 Dylan Parker
From: Joanne Donsky
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2022 6:12 PM
To: Rebecca Flynn
Cc: [email protected]; housing
Subject: Re: [PVForum] #Housing #INFO Housing Element comments Thanks for offering some terrific ideas, Rebecca.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 16, 2022, at 4:07 PM, Rebecca Flynn wrote:
These are my personal opinions (not as the PVForum moderator). I do not work for any government agency.
I want to start with giving a huge thanks to the volunteers on the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee, Town Council members, and to the Town Planning department that have spent the hours and hours of time and effort on behalf of the Town working to craft a reasonable Housing Element solution. The draft Housing Element has a lot of well thought out proposals.
However, I am opposed to the proposal to build a 50‐unit housing complex on the open space next to Ford Field. This sets a dangerous precedent for our town. A very large, high‐density complex on our open space does not match our Town charter or character and does not protect our open space. Putting housing on open space, tearing down the ancient Oak trees that symbolize our town and our very commitment to preserving our natural surroundings, and planning for potentially three‐story buildings is an unfortunate choice to meet the housing mandate. In addition, the plan would destroy even more open space to add an undefined “community space.” The concentration of these households in one area at the edge of town suggests there is little intention to have these families integrate into the Portola Valley community. Are we saying that these very low‐income households of essential workers are “undesirable” and should be kept apart from the rest of the Town, should be confined in their own tight space with inadequate parking, should not be integrated into our Town life, and should not use our existing community amenities?? Why do we want to concentrate the housing for essential workers in one place, on our public open space?
I completely understand the rationale (the State gives 100% affordable housing credit for 20 units/acre zoning whether affordable housing is actually built or not), but I cannot justify placing a huge high‐ density complex on our limited open space at Ford Field and crowding our community playing field.
I firmly believe that we can produce other, better alternatives that spread those 50 affordable homes more around town.
We really do not want to communicate the message to HCD that our open space is available for building high density housing. This would be simply telling HCD that all our open space is now available for housing. Just because it is an expedient way of meeting HCD’s guidelines that are really meant for higher density cities with a lot of infill lots along public transportation corridors does not mean that it makes sense for Portola Valley, our charter, and our challenging geography. It has been abundantly clear
2 through hours and hours of work and testimony, that Portola Valley residents want a more dispersed solution to meet state mandates with lower density housing and smaller units spread around town and not built on open space.
I’d like to ask that we consider some more ideas to find replacement units for those 50 very low‐income affordable units at Ford Field. I’m listing several, some of which are new and others which focus more attention on some of the ideas that have been advanced already.
I ask that residents in Town keep in mind that the core idea is to disperse more lower density affordable housing throughout the safer areas in Town. That means many more properties will need to step up to consider some of these ideas and volunteer to add new housing, particularly affordable housing, to their properties and everyone in the vicinity of those properties will need to accept the need for a few more homes on their street. One hopes that when faced with either ruining Ford Field and our open space or having a few new neighbors of all income levels, everyone in Town will be willing to be more open‐minded, generous, and welcoming.
1. Money. There is NO other more compelling rationale to demonstrate our commitment to building affordable housing units in Town than to raise the money to do so upfront. If we expand our affordable housing fund to $25 to $30 million (or more) and establish that the money is for low/no cost loans and partial grants to build affordable units for very low‐income households on properties spread throughout the safe areas in Town, then we make the most concrete indication that the housing will actually be built which is HCD’s main priority in approving a housing element. That sum of money should cover ~50 small to medium affordable housing units (avg ~700 sf, ranging from 300 to 1200 sf.) An established fund of money set aside with detailed requirements for its use will ensure that property owners in Town who have the available space and interest in building an ADU or “plex” type housing will be able to do so without money being the constraint. Key to our Housing Element for Portola Valley is providing HCD with a plan that is realistic in its execution, i.e., that has a very high probability of having the affordable housing units built. We need to put money behind that to emphasize our commitment to our plan. It is very important for Portola Valley to establish upfront how critical it is to retain our natural character while putting in place money and realistic plans to welcome a wider range of incomes among us.
2. Specific List of Committed ADUs: we have spoken at length about the potential risk of providing a plan that is made up of mainly ADUs, many of which are unlikely to be rented out at affordable rates. However, we have not spoken enough about ways to reduce that HCD denial risk. The simplest way is to establish:
a. Money to specifically build affordable rentals as mentioned already. Specifying that the affordable housing fund will be used to provide low/no interest loans and grants to residents to help pay for these ADUs in exchange for affordable housing rents with additional incentives made for units with 2‐3 bedrooms to accommodate a family.
Residents could build their ADU and use the affordable rent to pay back the loan, with the property owner eventually gaining complete ownership of the structure after a specified number of years.
b. Specifying individual property addresses that plan to add housing is the most realistic way of rationalizing the use of ADUs and low density housing proposals. c. Provide a list of specific properties where residents are willing to commit to building an affordable ADU/ Jr ADU that would be rented out.
d. Provide a list of specific properties where residents wish to turn an accessory building into an ADU or regularize an unpermitted structure into an ADU or turn internal space into an internal ADU.
3 e. Provide a list of specific properties where residents wish to voluntarily up zone their property.
f. The Town needs to make plans to contract with an affordable housing group to provide the logistics, screening, and management of the rentals for the low‐income housing built with the Town fund loans and grants. Providing that service will make having affordable ADUs much more realistic for the Town and easier to administer for residents. (in the plan already)
g. Building costs in the Bay Area create significant impediments to building and the massive increased costs of building in Portola Valley don’t help. Smaller makes sense when building affordable homes. If Belmont considers 540 sf for one bedroom, 815 sf for two bedrooms and 935 sf for 3 bedrooms to be reasonable for their affordable housing site, there’s little reason for us to plan for any larger units to meet our affordable housing goals. Working with ADU builders to design units that fit in with the style of PV homes would go a long way to making it easier for residents to add them to their properties. Working with soils, civil, and structural engineers to provide more “generic” plans for these structures that take into account the usual (and unusual) PV soil conditions would also reduce soft and construction costs. (in the plan already)
3. Empty lots. Completely missing from the latest Housing Element plan is a listing of the current vacant, privately‐owned property in Town. Although we have only a few such undeveloped lots, they should definitely be specifically listed in the plan for new housing, even if it is only for one SFR and one market rate ADU (or two for larger empty properties). It seems the Town should contact all the owners of these vacant lots to find out what their plans are and inform them of their available options. The lots can build a new home with one or more ADUs. Assuming the lot is in a safer area of town, SB9 allows each of those empty lots to be turned into 4 homes with AMFA square footage limits (2 larger homes and 2 smaller adus.) or split into two lots with two units on each. Voluntarily up zoning the lot to 4 medium size homes could help us with the numbers and spread more of the new housing around the Town. Perhaps bumping up AMFA square footage (modestly) as an incentive to make some of the units affordable will spur the owners to build one or more affordable units on their empty property. Considering allowing these lots to be split into smaller ¼ acre or ½ acre lots would allow for more affordable home ownership without affecting the neighborhoods. The reality is probably half the residents of Portola Valley live on less than half an acre and there has been no decrease in home values for Portola Valley in recent years in these areas of higher density. The opposite, actually.
4. Affordable housing at Woodside Priory. If the affordable housing builder considers it viable to build 50 units at Ford field, then why are we not speaking with the Woodside Priory about developing some of their acreage into higher density affordable housing and helping them source the funding. If there is state and federal grant money available, why not work with the Priory to help fund the building of additional housing on their property? They have large empty lots at 200 and 210 Portola Road at Gambetta as well as in the back of their property totaling more than 5 vacant acres. A combination of federal, state, local, and private grants and donations along with a low/no interest loan could allow WP to move forward with additional housing for their staff and for others who work in town or educators at other schools. With 5 acres to work with, 50 affordable units are feasible at lower density than proposed at Ford Field.
5. Sequoias: They have proposed 23 units, all of them moderate or above. Perhaps they can be convinced to add 5 additional affordable smaller units to their site plans. Helping with funding for those affordable units might make them more viable.
6. Older properties: We need to take a look at all the properties that have not changed hands in more than 40 years (and have not had had any significant remodeling). After a few hours on the
4 computer, I created a spreadsheet of 75 properties of 1 acre, 2 acre, or 3+ acres in the safer parts of Town that according to Zillow have not changed hands in 40, 50, even 60 years and would appear to have not done any major remodeling. The list is by no means exhaustive. Many of these properties are owned by residents who are in their 80’s and 90’s and many have a high likelihood of changing hands during the next 8 years. Others are currently rented out after their elderly owners passed away. These properties very probably all have the space to add an ADU (or 2 ADUs for the larger properties). The owners (or heirs) may be very interested in doing so if funds were available at low cost. The current owners might want to build housing for their adult children or relatives to allow them to return to Portola Valley. They might be interested in adding 3 SB9 units or splitting their property in half for a total of 4 units to put the property in a better position to be handed down to their children. They could volunteer to modestly up zone their property to 4 units/acre if their property meets safety guidelines, which would increase the value of their property if they want to develop it or split it into smaller lots and sell them.
Further study is necessary to determine owner interest, feasibility, safety, privacy, etc. The Town should contact them to understand what their future plans are for their properties. It’s important that these owners be informed that they have many more options for their properties than they did just a few years ago. If each of those large properties added just one affordable ADU, we could eliminate the Ford Field apartments. Furthermore, having 4 medium homes on a very few of the flatter two‐ or three‐acre properties, if well designed and screened, would have little impact on the neighbors.
In addition, there are many larger older properties in town that have changed hands in the past 20 years but have also not made any changes to the properties, and many have all these same options as well for adding some housing if the property meets safety guidelines. The more people who sign up to add some additional housing to their property, the more the new units can be spread around at low density. Remember, the point is to find 50‐100 properties willing to add one or more affordable housing units so that we can eliminate the 50‐unit affordable apartment complex planned for Ford Field. Current zoning rules currently put size limits on the total square footage of all the units on a property and even if AMFA was modestly increased to encourage more ADUs, the effects on the surrounding neighborhood would likely be minimal.
7. Small zoning changes. Giving homeowners some additional floor area if they are willing to build an ADU (with increased floor area if it is rented out affordably for a specified amount of time) might spur some of the larger properties to add an ADU to their property. Additional incentives for affordable housing should be created. Modest changes to the zoning code that allows larger ADUs instead of a larger house and a smaller ADU might help encourage a few new homes on properties.
8. “Plex‐type” housing units where duplex, triplex or quadplex units are built to look like one main structure so that the new homes might fit better into some of the neighborhoods. Four homes totaling 7000 sf could be designed to look just like one McMansion of the same size of which we have several.
9. Small cottage cluster housing projects with significant screening with the neighbors and privacy between units. There are a large number of attractive tiny home and ADU manufacturers that create affordable one‐ or two‐story small homes that would work well on an up zoned safe lot with minimal visual effects on the neighbors. Instead of envisioning mobile home parks, think instead of cute storybook tiny homes. According to the Housing Element we have a big need for small affordable homes for single retirees and couples. Attractive 400 square foot, 1‐bedroom homes (+ loft) can be bought premade for as little as $100,000 plus site prep and utility hookups. Some examples: eESCAPE | Tiny Houses (escapetraveler.net)
5 10. Hawthorns Historic Complex: I know I started this missive stating how important our open space is and that is still the most important issue for Portola Valley along with spreading new units throughout the Town. But please stick with me while I explain this idea. Hawthorns has a 9,000‐sf historic home built in 1887 that the MidPen OSD wants to restore. Hawthorns Historic Complex | Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (scroll down the website for more information about the site). The historic complex also has 6 or 7 other accessory buildings including cottages, barns, coachman’s quarters, and a garage. It seems to me that restoring this complex into actual housing in a way that keeps the original authentic historic look and allows the complex to serve as both a visitor’s center as well as to house some Mid Pen rangers, employees, and farmworkers would actually provide increased security for the open space preserve and restore the historic buildings while provided sorely needed housing for workers interested in maintaining open space. The 9,000‐sf home could be partially the visitor’s center or office space downstairs and the upstairs could be efficiency apartments for MidPen staff and others. The other buildings could be turned into housing units. The value of this site is that the housing and buildings have already been developed and are not “open space” and are not visible from Alpine Road while the remaining 70 acres would continue to be open space and be better monitored by people living on site. Why not create 15‐20 (?) small to medium units in these existing buildings on this already developed site of several acres? MidPen is seeking partners to develop the buildings. Of course, it only takes money... MidPen is having a public neighborhood meeting about the site next month on June 28 at 7 pm in Portola Valley. Register here :
Hawthorns Area Plan | Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District
11. Back lot of Spring Down. I remember some mention in the past that the owners of Spring Down originally wanted to develop housing on their back lot. Why not reopen that discussion for a few small units?
12. White property on Portola Road (Jellich Ranch). The Whites are building a well‐conceived housing project on Alpine Road with mostly 500 sf units for developmentally delayed adults.
Would they consider adding a few affordable units to their own large property on Portola Road?
13. 3330 Alpine Road, next door to the Ladera Church. The 2.5‐acre property (partially constrained by slope on the upper portion) would appear to be rented out. Perhaps the owner would be interested in up zoning that property at the entrance to Town for mixed housing and work with Ladera Church on their project.
14. Mixed use commercial. Giving the rest of the owners of the commercial areas in town the option to expand their buildings by adding a second floor to add some housing units or on their parking lot makes sense. It does not eliminate any existing commercial. It just gives the owners the option to have the flexibility to rebuild at some future point to add some very limited small housing to their complexes without overly affecting the surrounding area. Even if the owners don’t have specific plans to do so in the next 8 years, there is nothing to stop us from adding that as an option to our Housing Element and rezoning to mixed use commercial and using the potential housing essentially as part of the housing buffer, if there is interest among the property owners to have the increased flexibility.
15. Survey of property stock: https://forms.gle/UnW2Y8QpFuS5kXBR7
We still need to have a complete survey of the Town’s property stock with details of the safety issues affecting each lot and the type of existing housing and accessory buildings available as well as each owner’s inclination for any future potential development on their property. I urge everyone in town to complete the survey at the link above. Feedback from both properties who are NOT interested in adding an ADU (or making any changes to their property) as well as
6 properties that are interested in adding an ADU or up zoning their property is extremely useful to provide a complete Housing Element report. The plan is to provide the data collected to the Town. The survey also will be critical for the next RHNA cycle if we want to argue that PV is completely built out. No non‐public information is asked or required in the survey. You can leave questions blank if you don’t wish to answer. If you have a non‐conforming accessory building on your property, you can leave off your street number of your address to maintain additional privacy and anonymity.
Some results from those who have completed the survey:
8 respondents were interested in adding an ADU or efficiency unit 4 wish to convert an existing accessory building.
An additional 2 contacted me privately about wanting to legalize unpermitted or nonconforming housing units.
Several respondents were not interested in adding an ADU because they either already have a legal one or they have significant geological/wildfire safety issues that limit additional building.
One of the interesting data tidbits from the limited responses is that of the several properties that already have ADUs, they range in sizes from 220 sf, 360, 400, 470 sf, 595 sf, 750 sf, to 1000 sf. Smaller is more common, realistic, and popular (and rented out).
I added a question later to the survey about funding affordable units. Five out of the 15 subsequent responses expressed interest in contributing to an affordable building fund or investment fund or in being open to some form of modest tax increase similar to our utility tax.
16. ADU interest list. The following is the list of properties that either have expressed interest (or I have heard that there is interest) in an external or internal ADU, or JADU, or efficiency apartment or in regularizing an unpermitted structure or converting an accessory building to an ADU or adding SB9 units. There is definite interest throughout Town for adding ADUs. I’ve left the listing relatively anonymous. We just need to keep collecting interested properties and letting owners know about their rights and options. Key will be providing some funding for those willing to build (and rent out) an affordable housing unit on their property.
Paloma Rd –(Alpine Hills/Westridge) - 2.6 Acres
Cheyenne Pt – (Alpine Hills) - 1 acre
Golden Oak Dr –(Alpine Hills) - 1.4 acres
Golden Oak Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1.03 acres
Cherokee Ct – (Alpine Hills ) – 1 acre
Meadowood Dr – (Alpine Hills) - 1 acre
Hillbrook Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1.1 acre
Grove Dr – (Alpine Hills) – 1 acre
Pomponio (PV Ranch) – 0.5 acres
Longspur (PV Ranch) – 0.5 acres
Alpine Road (Alpine Road) – 1 acre
Alpine Road (Corte Madera/Brookside) - 0.37 acres
Alpine Road (Corte Madera ) – 0.3 acres
Portola Road (Corte Madera) – 1.2 acre
Corte Madera Road (Corte Madera) – 0.48 acres
Wayside Rd (lower Wayside) – 0.7 acres (in very high fire zone so may not be feasible to add housing)
7 17. Other small zoning changes – My survey has brought out several unique situations that with small zoning changes would enable additional ADUs to be built. This includes ideas of modest increases in AMFA to add an ADU, more AMFA for an affordable ADU, getting rid of the 85% rule to allow more internal ADUs, changing the slope density rules to give back lost AMFA (if large earth movement is not required and the slope is not excessive), etc. Given the uniqueness of every property in Town, it would be useful for the Town to query property owners as to what roadblocks exist in the code that prevent them from adding a discrete ADU or from modestly up zoning their properties in ways that would not overly impinge on their neighbors. For example, changing the zoning rules for horse ownership to match the State horse zoning rules that allow a horse on 0.5 acre as opposed to 1 acre might enable a few adus.
18. Septic and sewer issues need to be solved. Allowing the addition of a greywater system should enable properties to add an ADU without extensively changing their septic tanks or leach fields.
The Town needs to work with the SMC Environmental Health Department to work out regulations to allow greywater systems to reduce the need for leach field and septic tank changes or additions. Properties that are close to existing sewer lines should be able to join in the system affordably. West Bay Sanitary is in the process of changing its hookup fees so it might make it more feasible for new joiners.
19. Reversible zoning changes. Finally, the verbiage of any zoning changes put into our Housing Element and our general plan should include language that reverses high density zoning changes at Ford Field if it is included in the final Housing Element in the event our RHNA numbers are reduced or in the event we meet our targets in advance of required dates or prior to the building of any high‐density housing on the open space next to Ford. There should be some sort of priority given to the recommended solutions with the Ford Field open space considered only as a last resort if we are truly not able to come up with a list of 100 specific locations for lower density affordable housing units.
Neighborhoods: Ultimately a balance needs to be struck between private property rights and the rights of neighbors to enjoy their own properties with a certain measure of privacy, safety, and the expectation for continued value of their homes. One would hope that each street in our small town would get together with their neighbors and talk about what would make the most sense in terms of adding a few additional new housing units on their street that would have the least impact on the quality of life for the street. If there is agreement and buy‐in and a willingness to be open to some limited development, I think the near hysteria could be reduced about the Housing Element and ultimately Portola Valley’s character can be preserved without developing a huge 50‐unit complex on our open space at Ford Field. I know that in my neighborhood, if one or two flatter one‐acre properties near me wanted to add 1 or 2 ADUs or medium size homes and was planning to do so in a manner that provided adequate screening and tasteful design, I would much prefer that to having a large high‐ density complex next to Ford Field and it would have little impact on my quality of life or on my property value.
I encourage residents in Town to keep exploring practical solutions, fill out the survey, and contribute money to the affordable housing fund so we can create an equitable Housing Element that welcomes new families of all income levels without drastically changing the Town’s natural environment.
Thanks again to the Town and the volunteer Ad‐Hoc Housing committee members for working so hard to find reasonable solutions for affordable housing for our Town.
Regards,
Rebecca Flynn
Cheyenne Pt
8 (Personal comments)
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1 Dylan Parker
From: Peter Lipman
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2022 2:25 PM
To: housing
Subject: Status of Dorothy Ford Park
Status of Dorothy Ford Park
Comments in response to the staff memo attached to agenda for the June 20 meeting of the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee, especially the section tilted “Legal Status of Ford Field:”
1. The correct town name for this property is “Dorothy Ford Park” (Town Open Spaces map:
https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/2747/637741239556330000). Use of the name “Ford Field” is confusing and misleading because it obscures the 50+ year history as a designated open space park. Many residents associate this name only with the baseball field.
2. Regardless of whether the town was the legal purchaser of Dorothy Ford Park (as stated in the June 20 AHHEC memo), the more relevant good-faith issues are the source(s) of funds and the intent for the purchase. Rather than just questioning the veracity of statements from Susan Ford Dorsey, couldn’t AHHEC staff look for information from town records or from long-time residents? Several such folks, including town historian Nancy Lund, have confirmed that Tom Ford was the lead donor for acquisition of this property, supplemented by contributions from other town residents. And the Town Open Spaces Map above lists this property as “Acquired by the town . . . with a gift by Tom Ford.” This seems closely analogous to purchase of the Shady Trail open space parcel directly by the town in 2007, but with funds donated by more than 90 town residents. For both acquisitions, the good-faith intent of the donors clearly was to help the town preserve open space properties.
3. If the RHNA-Housing Element process would lead to growth of the town housing stock and attendant population by about 20 percent during only the next eight years, won’t there be need for even more recreational open space, rather than less?
4 What is relevance of current zoning status for Ford Park, cited as O-A (R-E/2A/SD-2) in the June 20 memo? Does the town have a zoning category for any open-space parklands (none seems depicted on the Town Zoning Map: https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/6770/635634073606070000). Don’t all other town open space properties currently carry comparable R-E zoning designations (seemingly inappropriately?)?
5. If a town property that has been in use as an open-space park for the past 50+ years is to be recommended for repurposing as a high-density development with major long-term consequences for the town, shouldn’t input be obtained from the Portola Valley Open-Space Advisory Committee, which is charged with advising on acquisition and maintenance?
6. A final concern: does the conceptual site plan, included in the PVHE draft (p. 100) as evidence that high-density development of the site is feasible, include adequate parking spaces? This plan, which depicts 50- family housing units at a site remote from commercial business and work locations and without publictransportation options other than to local schools, contains less than one parking site per housing unit. Even so, virtually all available space on the site, other than the building footprints, would be paved for access roads and parking. Aren’t most families, even those with “below-average” income, likely to have two (or more) vehicles?
2 Where to park the excess, except at the baseball field, thereby further negating use of remaining parts of the park as open space?
Peter Lipman
650-269-5295
1 Dylan Parker
From: Maria Cristina
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2022 5:55 PM
To: housing; Portola Valley - Planning
Subject: PV Housing Incentives, suggestions and questions.
Please advise: Do I need to bring up these issues at a Committee meeting to have them answered? Suggestions and Incentives
-What is rental income for units based on very low, low, moderate, and above moderate categories? Some residents might consider very low rent if in addition to cash/rent, the renter helps out on the property (gardening, child care, cooking, etc). -Town could consult an estate planner well versed with land issues. Town could share information on options related to estate planning that could also potentially help town fulfill state mandates. -Are there current tax breaks for providing low income housing? -If land is donated under the condition of being open space and instead ends up being high density housing, the Town needs to consider the impact on future donations of land.
Clarification of Information
-Aside from rezoning, what possible deed restrictions could be put in place by participating? -If you pursue a lot split, what are the property tax ramifications? -Regarding the amnesty process to reverse previous limits on buildings: If a restriction were reversed, what else might the property owner need to do to have it count? -What counts if there is an existing building on a property that the owners would like to be counted.
Does State require a new construction permit to make a unit count, or is just a remodel enough? -Could the town purchase land by contract providing a reverse mortgage to the land owner? Follow up
-Does Town have a draft of specific commitments to lower fees and streamline the approval process for ADU/JADU projects? 21 Elements states: "larger number may be warranted if a robust, funded, and clear plan to increase production has been put in place". -Increase pressure on Town to contact CALE (Ca Alliance of Local Electeds), to ask why they have not taken this step to research. Previous replies that I've heard have not been adequate. Contacting CALE as a resource does not necessarily mean we want to join their lawsuit.
-Does Town pay property tax? Would this change if there is housing put on Town owned land? 765 Portola Road show $0 in County accessor records, and Ford Field 3329 Alpine doesn't show.
In order to keep costs down for lower rents, is there a benefit to building on Town owned land?
2 -How does the Town Administrator prioritize the meeting of state requirements, sticking to the General Plan, safety issues, resident demands, and maintaining a healthy financials for our Town? -Has there been any follow up regarding state auditor questioning of the number of units required? Is there an argument against the number of units required due to water restrictions? Personal Opinion:
I grew up here and feel it is very important to maintain our pastoral environment for the future.
The Ford Open Space heritage oaks are unique and an important symbol as you enter our town. -Pls don't remove Glen Oaks Stable. Already one stable in that area is being removed by The Wedge project and it would be sad to see another removed. Perhaps a few housing units could be put on the land without displacing the stable?
-I don't understand removal of Town Center sites, or zoning for mixed use commercial/residential.
Thank you all for your efforts.
1 Dylan Parker
From: Laura Russell
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2022 10:48 AM
To: housing
Subject: FW: Follow Up - Attached Chart of Site Inventory Plan with JADUs broken out Attachments: PV Housing Element Alternate Plan 62022.pdf From: Karen Askey
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2022 10:18 AM
To: Jocelyn Swisher <[email protected]>; Jeff Aalfs <[email protected]>; Sarah Wernikoff <[email protected]>; Laura Russell <[email protected]>; Bob Turcott <[email protected]>; Sarah Dorahy <[email protected]>; Aimee Armsby <[email protected]> Subject: Follow Up ‐ Attached Chart of Site Inventory Plan with JADUs broken out Hi, all -
I submitted this chart as well on the town site, but again not sure it will get to you.
I took a few minutes to prepare an alternate site inventory which breaks out JADUs, which can then eliminate some higher-density projects and the opt-in program. Happy to walk folks through it! PDF of chart attached.
Thank you!
Karen
On Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 7:59 AM Karen Askey wrote:
Hi, Housing Element Committee members -
Hope you all had nice weekends.
I just submitted my comments through the town site, but given their lateness, I thought I'd send to all the members for which I have emails, just to make sure they get to you.
I will be at the meeting today, but my thoughts take up more than two minutes on this consequential issue.
Thanks for your consideration and "see" you later today.
Karen
At all the Housing Element Committee meetings this year, there has been a consensus among residents that they want new development to be dispersed throughout town AND to keep our community as low-density, staying true to our General Plan.
A concern with the current Housing Element draft is that there is strong potential for overdevelopment, from both the 21% buffer and higher-density rezoning.
Why can’t we lower the buffer to 15%, per state guidelines? Let’s remember the buffer is NOT a mandate.
2 I believe that the ADU target numbers are too low, as they currently reflect primarily ADUs and not JADUs. Out of the 92, how many are JADUs?
We are on pace to have at least 15 ADUs this year, and with the proposed amnesty program and streamlining, we should see that number rise each year. What if we reach our target of 92 at the end of 4 years? How do we stop over developing, as my understanding is that we cannot rezone those higher-density lots?
Simply put, we need to ADD in JADU numbers to the bottom line. JADUs are low-cost, serve lower-income segments, and easy to implement. They do NOT increase any footprint and would be dispersed throughout town.
Just think of all the homes in Portola Valley that already have a room with a separate entrance! Why hasn’t the town surveyed our homeowners to establish proof to the state that we can meet those increased numbers? We are developing incentive programs and tenant-matching programs. Portola Valley is graying, and many of us aging residents are or may be willing to offer a JADU to a caregiver, student or the like.
If we add 40 JADUs to this plan, just 5 per year, we can eliminate:
Opt-ins, which many residents have voiced disapproval
Glen Oaks, so that we preserve more of our scenic corridor We can also bring 4395 Nathorst down to 6 units per acre as discussed in earlier meetings. (This will limit any bonus density.)
It is imperative to survey our residents immediately, reaching EVERY homeowner. Yes, it’s work, but it’s worth it as this Housing Element is consequential and impacts Portola Valley’s path not just for the next 8 years, but for future generations to come. I raise my hand to help with this endeavor.
With respect to high-density housing, we should use town-owned land so we can control the use of bonus density. I am not opposed to the concept of developing on Ford Field, but if, and only if, it can be proven that land was not donated by Tom Ford with the intent it be open space in perpetuity.
I am also in favor of the recent Planning Committee suggestion to utilize a “sunrise” provision, in which we focus on ADUs/JADUs but have a back-up of rezoning if we don’t meet our targets over the next few years.
We must ensure that we do not overdevelop and avoid high density wherever possible. Thank you.
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6/23/22, 12:11 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6487 2/2
8. Optional: You can upload a copy of your comments.
6/23/22, 1:20 PM Manage Survey Statistics - Text Report https://www.portolavalley.net/Admin/Components/Form/Statistics/TextStatisticsDetail/?page=3&size=30&formId=75&itemID=94609&id=6490 2/2
8. Dear Town Council:
Opt-in up-zoning, as proposed on page 96 of the Housing Element Update Draft, creates powerful economic incentives to fundamentally alter the environment and wildland habitats of Portola Valley. This program allows developers to profit from urbanization of our town and destruction of its WUI which is unconscionable since the program is not needed to meet the town’s RHNA allocation.
Opt-in up-zoning harnesses fear and greed to encourage rapid development. Neighbors are forced into an economic prisoner’s dilemma: The first upzoner in a neighborhood reaps a financial windfall at nearby property owners’ expense. The only way to reclaim some of the value lost to the new highdensity project next door is also to up-zone and move out, ideally before someone else does. The ensuing race for the exits depresses land values, benefiting developers and cascading into the sort of overnight over-development seen in other formerly pristine places.
Once opt-in up-zoning arrives the Town will be flooded with sales agents and developers spending lavishly to entrench the new psychology: “Act now, before it’s too late!” The most immediate effect will be a new climate of mutual suspicion between neighbors. We are seeing the first signs of this already The authors of the Draft tell us that all-but-one seller moving out over the next eight years will ignore the multi-million-dollar payday created by opt-in up-zoning. They forecast redevelopment of the equivalent of a single three-acre property over the entire planning cycle. This estimate is not supported by evidence, argument, or logic. It is simply not credible.
There is no need for opt-in up-zoning even if we accept the forecast. The official 12-unit estimate represents 3.9% of total proposed dwellings. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) “advises communities to ‘buffer’ their assigned RHNA numbers with additiona housing units ranging from at least 15% to 30% of their assigned RHNA numbers.” The current Draft forecasts a “buffer” of 21%. Eliminating opt-in upzoning with no other change results in a 16.2% “buffer,” which is greater than HCD’s 15% minimum recommendation.
Let’s go further and assume that it is critical to maintain the arbitrary 21% “buffer” proposed in the current Draft. This can be accomplished by a reasonable adjustment in the ADU forecast. Town staff estimate 11.5 ADUs per year over the eight-year planning horizon, despite being on track to approve 15 ADUs this year alone. Future ADU demand is likely to increase after implementation of the streamlined approval process outlined in the Draft. Adjusting the forecast to 13 ADUs per year replaces all 12 forecast housing units lost by eliminating opt-in up-zoning.
Opt-in up-zoning creates enormous economic incentives that, once established, will urbanize our town at a pace limited only by developer demand. The outcome will violate the existing General Plan and the vision for the Town established by its founders; a vision that motivated most of us to purchase homes here.
We strongly urge you to remove opt-in up-zoning from the proposed Housing Element Update.
Sincerely,
Andrew & Sylvia Thompson
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