From: Jennifer Torres
To: Jennifer Torres
Subject: FW: Priorities Abound
Date: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 11:43:14 AM
From: Mary Hufty <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2024 12:21 PM
To: Jon Biggs <[email protected]>
Subject: Fwd: Priorities Abound
Some feed back from my last letter. I thought this comment was thoughtful. It is sort of like the Sunrise provision right?
Sent from my iPhone
Mary Hufty
Portola Valley Town Council
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ulrich Aldag < >
Date: January 20, 2024 at 10:19:27 PM PST
To: Mary Hufty <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Priorities Abound
Therefore, I suggest to submit the Housing Element in its last version but with a legal reservation in a cover letter such as;
"We are submitting this Housing Element as required by…, however with the following reservations:
a) The Fire District responsible for our Town has not yet assessed the overall high-to-very-high fire hazard of our town and special sections thereof. The District is still working on it without a final result. b) The Town is also facing substantial and serious problems with the evacuation routes in case of a wildfire or earthquake. Remedying these problems might exceed the financial means available to the Town. The Town is still working with the Fire District on a suitable solution.
Dear Town Council,
The latest HCD response brought up a number of questions in my mind that I thought were worth exploring. The information I found might help inform your decisions, so I thought it was worth sharing with the Town Council and the community at large.
Karen Vahtra
How are other similar smaller communities without vacant parcels and limited commercial development addressing Housing Mobility?
I found three reasonably similar jurisdictions with a certified Housing Elements: Los Altos Hills, Hillsborough, and Piedmont. Los Altos Hills was certified on 5/30/2023, Hillsborough on 11/30/2023, and Piedmont on 11/23/203. All three municipalities have different approaches to housing mobility than Portola Valley’s Opt-in Diversification program.
Los Altos Hills has RHNA sites at Foothill College, St. Nicholas Catholic School, and a cluster of seven parcels for upzoning along Arastradero Road and Twin Oaks Court right along 280.
They have a program A-12 to allow existing conforming single family residents to be converted up to three units (i.e. duplex or triplex) in specific areas that are in lower fire hazard areas with adequate sewer and water service abilities. The Housing Element states a goal of a conversion of 50 single family homes to duplexes or triplexes throughout the planning period although rezoning is to occur by Q1 2027.
Piedmont has a program to require the construction of an ADU or JADU either when redeveloping a property or on vacant land and also allowing up to 81 units per acre.
Hillsborough is creating two widely distributed overlay districts. In RD-1 (4,083 parcels), the lot area minimum is decreased from 1/2 to 1/3 of an acre. In RD-2 (13 parcels), the lot area minimum is decreased from 1/2 to 1/4 of an acre. Hillsborough also allows two detached ADUs on lots of two acres and larger.
Are we the only municipality who has resorted to using open space or parks? Piedmont includes both recreation facilities and open space.
North of Moraga Avenue are two parcels, totaling approximately 13.4 acres, that contain Coaches Field and Kennelly Skate Park recreational facilities, the City’s Public Works Department corporation yard, two small parking lots, and open space on sloping terrain. South of Moraga Avenue are two parcels, totaling approximately 4.85 acres, that provide an open space area, named Blair Park. — Piedmont Housing Element What are some of the penalties received in Southern California to date since they are one year ahead of Northern California?
Last month, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin blocked the city from issuing all building permits except for new residential development as a penalty for Beverly Hills’ failure to approve a sufficient blueprint for affordable housing. — LA Times 1/18/2024 If we expand the Opt-in Diversification Program to parcels between 1/2 acre and 1 acre, how many parcels will this decision affect and where are they located? The number of parcels in town with between 1/2 an acre and 1 acre is around 250. These parcels are all in the western side of town: in the Corte Madera, Brookside, Woodside Highlands, Wyndham Drive, and Portola Valley Ranch neighborhoods. Portola Valley Ranch consists of 205 homes each with about 1/2 an acre of land; some have small amounts less than 0.50 of an acre but only have one ingress and egress. Woodside Highlands is a Very High Fire Zone and limited ingress and egress. All the remaining parcels except for 4 on Wyndham Drive are in the Corte Madera area. This section of town is nearby both the San Andreas and Berrocal faults and is bisected by the Black Mountain fault running right through the neighborhood:
The easiest way I found to gather this data for the more diverse areas was to use an online realty site which listed the number of acres in the description of the home. A few parcels had no information. The method to obtain this list was based upon a simple visual search and is not completely thorough but gives a good idea of the neighborhoods and streets likely to be affected. These parcels are between 0.5 and 1.0 acres:
Evacuation Routes and Earthquake Faults — Geological Safety Committee 01-08-2024 Agenda Packet
Note, the Planning Department’s number listed in the agenda packet (31) is similar but not exactly the same (27). Ten of these properties are between 3/4 of an acre and 1 acre and are highlighted in yellow.
Increasing density in this neighborhood could cause problems during an emergency situation.
With increased density on these narrow roads, street parking will likely increase. If either an earthquake occurs or a wildfire, the streets may be impassible for emergency vehicles.
Conclusion
From my research similar municipalities with certified Housing Elements have developed a program similar to a town wide Opt-in program although each are quite different in nature to our approach and each other.
P.S. To look at all the other municipalities Housing Element data, I have included hyperlinks to their respective documents.