To: Portola Valley Town Council Members and Community
From: Willow Commons
Date: Monday September 8, 2025
Subject: Additions to Staff Report regarding Financial Contribution from Affordable Housing Fund – Willow Commons Permanent Supportive Housing Project for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
We believe that the Town's memo is missing some significant background as its basis for recommending granting a fraction of our original formal proposal (2021) asking for $3.5m financial support from the affordable housing fund. I am sharing some of that background here along with some facts about how low income housing is customarily supported. But before offering that background and those facts I’d like to share a recommendation for a framework to be used when considering supportive funding for affordable housing projects.
A Framework for Affordable Housing Fund decision making:
Here is a framework for minimum support of affordable housing projects going forward that would help the council, planning department and future developers to know what the town values and minimum levels of support a project can expect.
Not all affordable units are the same. Some of the main differences are affordable units that are a small percentage of a project are viewed as inclusionary units that allow entitlement for a market rate project as a condition for approval and are entitled to some density benefits. These projects don’t need financial support due to enabling a project that makes economic and/or strategic sense - the Priory, Blue Oaks and Stanford Wedge are good examples. Therefore it is recommended that fee waivers or financial support only for projects that have at least 50% of the total units that are at Low Income or lower level of affordability.
Affordability Depth is another key dimension - that is at what level the income level restriction as a function of the San Mateo Area Median Income (AMI) level. Rents are then limited based on these income levels with the basic equation of being no more than 30% of the maximum income level based on unit/family size. The big fact to know is Very Low Income (VLI) generally just cover the hard costs so they can’t support debt or other ways for long term operations like building operating and building reserves. This is why you will typically only see a fraction of project building serving VLI or ELI income levels.
We would not recommend supporting units that use Moderate Income level as it is 120% of San Mateo AMI, this can be financed. A one bedroom Moderate income rent would $4,500/mth.
Recommendation is to only support Low-Income and lower levels of affordability.
Lastly, the dimension on who the project serves. Supportive Housing is expensive because of added building space for program and community. Willow Commons has 40% of the total square footage for common non-residential programming space. This results in much higher construction costs and operating costs on a per/unit basis. The higher the percentage of permanent supportive housing, the higher the financial support to make the project a reality.
Here is a matrix recommendation that I have shared with the town council members and staff before:
Minimum Level of Town Financial Support For Affordable Housing Projects with at Least 50% of units at Low-Income or Lower income thresholds. Financial Support for projects that are 100% affordable or have high levels of supportive units or use design and quality materials should be adjusted upwards.
Level of Affordability Financial Grant for Deed
Restricted Unit
Permanent Supportive
Housing Deed Restricted Unit
Moderate Income (120-80%
AMI)
$0k $100k
Low Income (80-50% AMI) $100k $200k
Very Low Income (50-30%
AMI)
$250k $350k
- Only for projects with at least 50% of units deed restricted at 80% or lower affordability level (AMI)
- Grants based on fund availability
- Adjust support levels annual based housing price increase for Portola Valley or inflation which ever is higher
- San Mateo2025 Income and Rent limits tables:
https://www.smcgov.org/media/154289/download?inline=
Lastly, I would add a Linkage Fee for any projects in PV - both Residential and Commercial that require building permits to continue to add funds to the Affordable Housing Fund - this is what neighbors do like Los Altos.
Background on the Willow Commons Request and Experience When embarking on this project we were given clear encouragement by a town staff that had a degree of longevity with the town and who quickly recognized that this project offered more units and a more difficult classification (low income rather than moderate) than the project around which the “in lieu” fund was created. They also recognized that given the town's history of having no multifamily housing, no permanent supportive housing and no deed restricted affordable housing (what some call 'true affordable housing'), that the completed project would enable the town to be able to highlight the project in future HCD reports. Given all of this we were highly encouraged to trust the process rather than hold out to have the request resolved before going forward, which is more typical for a project like this, and we were led to believe that the amount of our request was absolutely reasonable given that no other projects had come forward requesting money from the fund in its 10 year history.
Our patience has been tested and so has our faith in our town.
The town enjoys the benefits. Specifically it highlights and takes credit for partnering to bring a project like Willow Commons to fruition in the town. The supportive words have been great but sadly the hard reality has been quite different. Everyone on this council and the one before knows first-hand the challenges the town has created for this project. While we recognize the town has had its own challenges, it is hard to square where the actual priorities were. We share some facts below.
The main point is that instead of helping, the town detracted and created significant actual hard cost increases and delays for the project. Furthermore, the project identified several issues with town policies, ordinances and infrastructure that remain unresolved, so if there is a next affordable project it will unfortunately have similar issues and cost impacts.
The town benefits from Willow Commons having created permanent supportive housing apartments for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) - the first Deed-Restricted Affordable housing project and the first Intellectual or Developmental Delays (IDD) Permanent Supportive Housing project in the town’s history.
Why Local Contribution is Needed
- Catalyst for Other Funding: County, State agencies and philanthropists expect a meaningful local financial commitment before awarding allocations.
- Customary Practice: Neighboring cities routinely make substantial grant-equivalent contributions.
Here are some recent similar neighboring project examples.
This chart below depicts per unit contributions from neighboring communities for recent small scale affordable housing projects. None of these other projects were for 100% affordable and permanent supportive housing. For comparison sake we have added three ‘Portola Valley’ lines. The highest one (third one down) reflects a contribution that includes the full funding requested as well as fees waived and the $1.5m from the county. The black line represents per unit cost of 11 units, which is what is currently part of the regulatory agreement for the site. The orange line represents per unit cost of 16 units, for which a regulatory agreement has been signed, but not yet sent to the county. (See appendix for information about unit count.) The next PV line (fourth from bottom) reflects a contribution of the $1.6m being proposed as well as fees waived and $1.5m from the county. The final/lowest bar is the current situation in which Willow Commons received $180k fee waivers and $1.5m from the county.
Here are the project details, they all have different characteristics but almost none are 100% affordable AND Permanent supportive housing, which is the hardest.
City / Project Year LI Units Local Contribution $/Unit
San Carlos –
Cherry Street
2020 33 (VLI) $12.8M ~$388k
Menlo Park – Belle
Haven
2024 10 $3.6M City + $1.5M County ~$360k
PV – Willow
Commons full
request.
2025 11 (9 IDD $3.75M Town + $1.5M County ~$477k
Palo Alto – Wilton
Court
2019 59 (21
IDD)
$20.5M ~$347k
PV- Willow
Commons with
proposed $1.6m
2025 11 (9 IDD $1.6m City + $1.5m County ~$281k
Palo Alto – Mitchell
Park
2022 50 (25
IDD)
$3.0M City + $7.5M County* ~$210k
Los Altos – Distel
Circle
2022 90 $4.6M City + $14.6M County* ~$213k
PV – Willow
Commons Actual
2025 11 (9 IDD) $180k + $1.5m County ~$152k
Sources: San Carlos staff reports (2020); Almanac News (2024); Palo Alto Online (2019); Eden Housing & AbilityPath releases (2022–2024); SF YIMBY (2025).
LI - Low-Income 50-80% of Area Median Income (AMI) VLI - Very Low Income Classification (30-50% of AMI) IDD - Intellectual or Developmentally Delayed * Land
Policy Context: Why Local Subsidy is Critical and Typical for Supporting Projects Primarily Composed of Affordable Units and Supportive Housing.
- Los Altos Affordable Housing Alliance (Sept 22, 2021): Emphasized that financing 100% affordable housing requires meaningful public investment because restricted rents cannot support construction debt. It showed the local town contributed 20-40% of the project development costs, typically being in the $125k-$300k/unit. Portola Valley Unit costs are higher due to land costs, lower density and higher building codes.
It also illustrated, Inclusionary units(where a project has 10-20% of below market units) are cross-subsidized in mixed-income projects and generally don’t need subsidization as entitlement of the market rate units makes the project feasible. Recent local examples of inclusionary units are Blue Oaks and Stanford's Portola Terrace (Wedge) projects. Source: Los Altos Affordable Housing Alliance 9/22/2021 letter to the editor
- 2017 MTC/BAHFA Report, 'Funding Affordable Housing Near Transit in the Bay Area Region':
Found that local contributions averaged ~$145k per unit and were decisive in enabling 100% affordable developments. Inclusionary projects typically did not require this support. This is quite dated and understates today's costs and supports needed. Portola Valley’s costs are significantly higher due to land, lower density zoning and more stringent building codes. Source: 2017 MTC/BAHFA Report
Local Control: Why did the Project Not use Other Financial Resources:
Section 8 or Low Income Tax Credits?
Portola Valley won’t compete well for Low Income Tax Credits (LITC) or Project Based Section 8 funding. Projects utilizing these sources have to compete based on criteria which don’t work well for small projects and Portola Valley specifically. Projects get scored based on cost/unit, level of public transit, retail resources, post office and other key items. Across all of California in 2023 there were only 184 projects successful in winning Low Income Tax Credits. Of the 184 projects, the more valuable ones called 9% credits, the project sizes averaged 51 units/project (too big for PV), and only $4.7m/project or $92k/unit. 4% credit projects were even bigger at 117 units/project averaging $7.2m/project or $61k/unit.
More importantly, those programs generally impact control of critical admissions and operating policies and have other demands which will not be attractive to Portola Valley or local philanthropic donors.
Portola Valley Benefits
Willow Commons checks many boxes for Portola Valley. It is a project that the community and staff can and should feel proud of. The project counters many years of bad press and claims that the town is avoiding affordable housing. One of HCD’s primary issues with our housing element was how we are dealing with Fair Housing and also creating affordable housing with ADU’s using the affordability allocation methodology versus creating deed restricted affordable housing. Lastly, Willow Commons was one of only a handful of County projects awarded affordable funding and at the maximum of what they do for direct financial support, further pointing to the importance of the project.
Source:
https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2023/06/20/portola-valley-community-celebrates-groundbr eaking-for-first-affordable-housing-project-in-town/#:~:text=The%20groundbreaking%20for%20th e%20Willow,Valley%20on%20June%2014%2C%202023.
The town highlights as the key example in its Housing Element and last two annual HCD Progress Reports the Willow Common’s project for Affordable Housing progress and for addressing Fair Housing Goals, so it is taking credit and benefiting. The project created ~25% of the total Low Income units for the full eight year RHNA cycle through to 2031 and created the first Permanent Supportive Housing units in the town. To date, the only financial support has been $180k in fee waivers.
1. Portola Valley’s Approved Housing Element:
https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showdocument?id=18176&t=638457695180547968
2. Portola Valley 2024 HCD Annual Progress Report:
https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/18283/638485133561170 000
3. Portola Valley 2023 HCD Annual Progress
Report:https://www.portolavalley.net/home/showpublisheddocument/19552/638828383 188400000
4. Portola Valley Web Site:
https://www.portolavalley.net/departments/planning-building-department/development-p rojects/willow-commons
Portola Valley Difficult Affordable Housing History
On July 22, 1998, 27 years ago the Blue Oaks development was approved. The 30 Blue Oaks lots approved by Portola Valley had the condition of including four lots (13% inclusionary) to create 8 Below Market Rate units consisting of four duplexes with deed restrictions for moderate income.
Other concessions made by the developer for entitlement approval were trail easements and new trails, emergency roads, improvements to Los Trancos Road and local water supply improvements. All of those conditions for the project were done except for the 8 below market units. The town allowed occupancy even though the condition was not met. However, the developer had only two years to complete the subdivision improvements. Source: Almanac 7/29/1998 Portola Valley: Construction ready to Start on Blue Oaks Subdivision
In 2009 PV took title to the lots and after 3 years of work concluded it could not get an affordable developer to build the duplexes. In 2012 the town tried to buy the 900 Portola Rd lot but failed and instead sold the Blue Oak Lots and created the basis for the Housing fund which now stands at $4.9m.
No affordable units have been built since then and the efforts described above point to how difficult it is to create affordable units. In summary, we have had several efforts over the last 30 years that resulted in no affordable units being created in Portola Valley.
Source: https://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing-elements/docs/portola valley 5th adopted012615.pdf Willow Common’s is the only project that has created affordable units. Its 2021 request is typical for a project like this in general and specifically, this produces more units (16 versus 8) than the original project and at lower affordability levels (Low Income instead Moderate). It also ticks an additional HCD box of serving as Permanent Supportive Housing for adults with IDD.
Portola Valley’s Impact on Willow Commons
While we feel the above comparison of our project to the one which created the fund should be enough to deserve the requested funding, there are additional reasons we feel the full funding is warranted: The town caused direct real cost increases to the project and significant delays. Here are several issues which caused the project to be delayed by over a year and added over $1m in actual costs:
1. Willow Commons was not a prioritized project (see below for actual data reflecting what the town priorities were)
2. Portola Valley’s unprecedented staff turn over
3. Essentially no assistance with core town infrastructure issues
1. Single family homes were the priority. PV Data on Planning Department Priorities:
5/1/25 excerpt of our public comment to the town council on Portola Valley HCD 2025 Annual Progress Report:
“What is to be congratulated in the report is to see that despite losing virtually all the staff over the last two years, having more than one Interim Planning Director and staff, and establishing a laundry list of programs requiring staff time and emphasizing prioritization on producing affordable units, we were able to process dramatically more projects than we have since 2018. ● 2018-2023, we averaged about 10 projects and 10 units/year ● In 2023, we produced 19 units, consisting of 8 projects/units and the Willow Commons project at 11 units, so without Willow Commons, it was an average year. ● In 2024, we processed 31 units in 24 projects (most were properties with a single-family home rebuild and an ADU).
With fewer staff and no permanent leadership, we processed 2.5 to 3.0 times as many units and projects as we have on average since 2018. Well Done!
But I can speak personally to the fact that that progress came at a cost. Despite the Willow Commons being named in Program 5-3 as a prioritized project, it suffered a consistent pattern of weeks and months of silence and unresponsiveness from the planning department. After significant and costly delays, the Willow Commons issues were addressed individually, rather than by amending ordinances and resolving the root cause of the problems. As a result, the next multifamily or affordable project will likely have a similar frustrating experience. (We are still awaiting a response for a request associated with Program 4-4 in the Progress Report.)”
As we have said, I think the town claiming it gave prioritized and technical support to the project in the last 2 HCD Annual Progress Reports on Program 5-3 was incorrect and disingenuous.
2. We experienced four town managers (two interim), four planning directors (still interim) and two town attorneys resulting in poor management of the project and reliance on outside consultants. We have had no PV planning staff on the project so we lost all town and project history with each turnover. As you saw in the town memo, the PV staff in 2022 planned for project fees to $23k. The actual fee amount was over $250k, 11 times the estimate. The town paid that significant extra expense to outside consultants that were poorly managed. Sadly, the Willow Commons project paid multiples of that amount. Most on this council know the number of times we had to escalate to you to get responses that went over three months and at some points of no response from the town.
3. Lack of infrastructure support, which is critical for 100% affordable projects. CalWater, PGE, Westbay Sanitation are not adequate for multifamily housing even on Alpine Rd. Willow Commons has had to spend over $1.25m on infrastructure and got extremely limited assistance in dealing with conflicting requirements from Woodside Fire, CalWater, WestBay Sanitation, County emergency standards and our town policies.
Conclusion
The town has a question to answer - does it want to be a meaningful Willow Commons partner? The County’s answer was YES and Willow Commons received one of the rare and largest financial grants from the county with no strings attached.
To date, the town has not helped and rather, has hurt the project. We are not complaining but we are pointing out facts and a sad reality. While the fee waiver is appreciated, it has been PV’s only affordable housing program in the General Plan. (As an aside, Willow Commons should not have financed those fees, paying for them and then waiting for reimbursement. By doing this we may have unwittingly sheltered the town from the visibility to costs that might have caused the town to manage the outsourced planning resources better. Doing that would have saved the town a significant amount of money and would have saved the project significant dollars and prevented schedule delays.
Recommendation; make a fee waiver decision on an affordable project approval and with a budget.
Have the Planning Department pay the fees to increase accountability and alignment.) If it can not meet our $3.5m grant request, we don’t think it is because the town doesn't have the money as it does ($4.9m).
We don’t think it is because this is out of line with what a project like this would receive from its local city - because it is not.
It isn’t because the town doesn’t get excellent value for the investment, because it does.
If there is concern about setting a precedent, it could be positioned just as a one-time reimbursement for the costs and schedule increases to the project resulting from the town staffing problems.
However, if the argument is that we need to hold off because other projects are coming, I think you should agree on what is the right level of support for Willow Commons, pay out an amount now and if no projects come forward in the next 12 months the remainder is released. The town should not sit for decades on the funds given its past history and known challenges.
How the County Structured Their Financial Support of Willow Commons The staff memo raises some concern about the financing request, for example, triggering Prevailing Wage requirements. We are happy to share information about how the County, with similar restrictions having to do with use of public funds, was able to resolve the issues as they made their $1.5m contribution to the project.
Appendix:
Willow Commons number of units?
The original approval in December of 2021 was for 13 units. The project made a change for several of the units making them configurable to either 1br/1ba or 2br/2ba to offer flexibility on the request of the service provider to the residents. This change is reflected in the recorded Regulatory Agreement of March 14, 2025 which is for 11 total units for the permanent supportive housing project, 2 less than the original approval. An amended Regulatory Agreement that is notarized and executed on May 28, 2025 has not yet been recorded that acknowledges the flexible layout that allows for the 1br/1ba treatment of 5 units (that had previously been considered as part of a 2br/2ba configuration). This increases the total units of the project to 16 with each of the units meeting the state definition of a dwelling unit. In addition the unit count is consistent with zoning and will increase our town unit count but will not change the way Willow Commons is operating. This has not been recorded and is not included in our HCD reported production numbers at this time..
For affordable projects the unit count is the total number of units as all projects include some number of management units to make the project work. Those are included in the unit count for the project and in the regulatory agreements.
Cost to build affordable or Multi-family units in Portola Valley:
Unit costs are over $1m/unit - based on three recent Portola Valley actual construction costs Project Year Units Cost $/unit $/sf comment
Priory 2022 6 $6.5m $1.1m $833
Willow
Common
2025 11
16 $23m
$23m
$2.1m
$1.4m
$1,538
$1,538
40% non
housing;
high infra
costs; and
6 discrete
buildings*
Ladera
Church
2023 1 $371k $371k $463 Replace
existing
ADU with
mfg built
*The project design process took care to ensure that this first multifamily project in the town would ‘blend in’ with the existing look and feel of Portola Valley which is why the design resulted in six buildings rather than one single larger structure.
Why is affordable housing so expensive? (recent Rand Study comparing CA, TX and CO https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/04/why-is-it-so-expensive-to-build-affordable-hom es-in.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSoft%20costs%E2%80%9D%20in%20California%20are,and%20S an%20Francisco%20metro%20areas.)
a. Land costs (very high and low density so high per unit) b. Soft Costs - Professional (architectural, engineering, design, legal very high) c. Time - entitlement and building
d. Density (lack of)
e. Zip Code Bidding (94028)
f. Building code (PV has very high and challenging building standards compared to many towns)
September 10, 2025
Portola Valley Town Council
Re: Willow Commons
Subj: A!ordable Housing Fund Grant Request
Dear Council Members:
I write to you today to o!er my full support for Jim and Patti White’s request for financial support in the form of a $3.5m housing grant funded from the town’s A!ordable Housing Fund. My firm, Gonsalves & Stronck Construction Company Inc. (G&S) was the general contractor for the unique and innovative Willow Commons project. In addition, I am a lifelong local (Woodside) resident whose three children attended Ormondale and Corte Madera Schools and as a local builder have built numerous large-scale projects in town over the years including The Sequoias, Alpine Hills and Ladera Oaks.
In considering the White’s request, the council must weigh the role the town played in driving up the cost of construction. With more than forty-two years of building experience and over $3.2 billion successfully built I can personally attest that I have never experienced a more dysfunctional plancheck/building permit process than what we endured in the never-ending cycle of plan review and resubmittals. Specifically, as everyone is aware, the town’s revolving door of sta! changes severely impacted on continuity, institutional knowledge and frankly, sta! ownership and responsibility. This disfunction caused numerous delays (measured in months), uncertainty (conflicting code interpretations) and wasted e!orts on our design and construction sta!. In contrast, all my previous experiences with town sta! over the past 25 years have been cooperative and successful.
It should also be mentioned that in the process of creating the town’s housing plan, it appears that the town sta! failed to coordinate (or even reach out) to the local utility providers. There remain serious questions whether the local infrastructure as currently configured can adequately support future high density housing projects without large scale upgrades. In the case of Willow Commons this resulted in delays, inordinately high engineering fees, connection fees, and infrastructure cost.
In closing, the Willow Commons project is an incredible addition to the fabric of Portola Valley that everyone should be proud of and deserves the full support of the council as expressed by approving the full a!ordable housing fund grant request.
Sincerely,
William Stronck
Why the Council Should Support the Whites’ Grant Request for $3.5M from the Town’s Affordable Housing Fund
[For transparency and as a reminder, I was recused from all discussions related to Willow Commons with the Town, Town staff and other Council members - private and public - during my 4 year term on Council bw 2020-2024. With these remarks I am weighing in on this project for the first time, and am glad to have the opportunity to do so.]
1. The Fund exists for precisely this reason.
● Subsidizing the cost of building affordable units is exactly why the Fund exists, and it is customary, if not necessary, for local municipalities to contribute so units actually get built (as referenced in detail in the Whites’ letter - and other examples including most municipalities in the Bay Area.). This is an opportunity for Portola Valley to stand with neighboring communities that are investing in real projects.
2. The Town has been sitting on the funds for too long. ● The Fund has been in place for over 13 years with no awards to date, despite multiple attempts to allocate dollars to affordable housing (Blue Oaks, 900 Portola, and the Whites’ first request in 2021).
3. Willow Commons delivers real, 100% low-income permanent supportive housing toward RHNA and Housing Element/AFFH obligations with HCD. ● Willow Commons units contribute 20-35% of the Town’s low-income requirement for the current 8 year RHNA cycle in the Housing Element site inventory (pages 124 and 141), depending on unit scenario:
○ 9 deed-restricted units = 20% of PV’s low-income category ○ 11 as-built units = 24% of PV’s low-income category [actual current scenario] ○ Up to 16 units (offered by the Whites nearly a year ago) = 35% of PV’s low-income category
● Because Willow Commons is not just 100% affordable but also “permanent supportive housing”, it advances AFFH (a requirement from HCD) for people with disabilities - something the Town has promoted (and taken credit for) in its last two Annual Progress Reports to HCD.
● Deploying funds where delivery is real maximizes RHNA progress. This project offers immediate, bankable progress.
4. Willow Commons was built the “Portola Valley way.”
● The design is a two-story, smaller-scale cluster of buildings set behind a modest one-story commons building (with plans for a community coffee shop), with a courtyard including intentional native green space and architecture that echoes others along the 1 Alpine Scenic Corridor – vs. typical affordable housing that has greater massing and height, and no common/community space.
● The design aligns with preferences expressed in the Town-wide survey and the 18-month AHHEC process (2022).
5. Willow Commons is a bright spot amid 2 years of negative media and HCD scrutiny. ● Over the past two+ years, PV has faced negative regional and national media coverage for housing resistance/decertification.
● Funding Willow Commons is a tangible, immediate fair-housing action that helps reverse the Town’s anti-housing reputation.
● Rejecting the request or underfunding from a fund that has not been used in 13 years would likely amplify criticism and increase HCD scrutiny as the Town is attempting to update its Housing Element.
6. Willow Commons is an unprecedented philanthropic opportunity. ● $23M provided privately by a single philanthropist is highly unusual in the Bay Area (typical projects rely on complex public + tax-credit + pooled philanthropy). I cannot find another example like it.
● The Town should fully welcome and embrace this partnership — for what it has already contributed, and for future opportunities in our community. Typically you would see a municipality court and proactively provide incentives for an opportunity and affordable housing partner like Willow Commons, instead, the Whites have experienced an expensive adversarial response from the Town – this is a opportunity to course-correct going forward.
7. The Town recommendation of a $1.35M grant is too low. ● Anyone that has done a construction project knows that time is money. Over the four years (2021–2025), Town process, staffing turnover, and politics added ~$1M in incremental costs for the Whites, making a $1.35M grant effectively $350,000 in net affordable-housing value (since the first $1M merely backfills Town-caused overruns). ○ In addition to hard construction costs, soft costs skyrocketed as the Whites tried to navigate the process with a revolving door of Town staff and consultants; as an example, the White’s legal bills alone exceeded $200K.
○ The Whites requested funding before construction began in 2021; the Town declined pending policy work and did not agendize approval again until now - delays that further increased costs.
● Building 100% affordable and permanent supportive housing for a 100% IDD population is more expensive than mixed unit affordable projects because of required common, programmatic, and ancillary spaces. To use funding comps for projects that are not 100% affordable, and not permanent supportive housing, is not an 2 apples-to-apples comp. The higher the percentage of permanent supportive housing, the higher the financial support needed to make a project a reality. ● Building “the Portola Valley way” – smaller-scale, lower-density clustered housing rather than a single, dense, multi-story mass - costs significantly more. ● The Town’s proposal of a $1.35M grant equates to $123K for each of the 11 as-built LI units, which puts local funding for this project in the lower third of regional project examples despite it being a higher-cost model because it’s 100% affordable, permanent supportive housing.
● If the Council declines the full grant request but still pursues all 16 units in the Housing Element inventory, it should invite the Whites back to request the incremental funding for the additional units before proceeding.
Thank you,
Sarah Wernikoff
9-10-25
3 September 10, 2025
Dear Town Council Members,
With respect to Agenda Item 7 in your meeting tonight, I would like to offer my thoughts.
I am a big supporter of Willow Commons and commend the White Family for leading Portola Valley into our affordable housing efforts.
I am completely in favor of waiving the $70,026 in planning fees, utilizing our Affordable Housing Fund, and hope we continue the same practice for other low-income projects.
With respect to the second request of $3.5 million, that is a big ask. I like Mr. Linder’s recommendation of a lower amount on a per unit basis. I am concerned, however, that $150,000 per unit may be too high, given the size of our fund. If we subsidize Willow Commons for $1.35 million, our balance would be about $3.5 million. We must consider the impact of subsidizing more low-income units within this housing cycle and the future. Between Ladera and Christ Church, who are hoping to offer homes to low-income families, we could have up to 25 new homes. At $150,000 subsidy per home, that would amount to $3,750,000, and our fund could not cover that along with planning fee waivers. Perhaps an amount of $75,000 to $100,000 per unit is more practical and prudent to ensure future low-income housing development?
Let’s not forget that our RHNA allocation from 2023-2031 is for 73 very-low income and 42 low-income units. We must plan accordingly.
I am hopeful that some of our Affordable Housing Funds might be used to incentivize ADU/JADU production as well, and ask that you take that into consideration.
Thank you for your consideration and for all you do for our Town.
Karen Askey
Portola Valley Town Council
9 September 2025
Councilmembers;
I must object to the proposal to grant the Willow Commons Housing project $1.35 million from the Affordable Housing Fund.
While the Willow Commons is an admirable project and supported by the Town for its objective as well as in support of the Town’s RHNA for this cycle, allocating 28% of the Affordable Housing fund for only 8% of the RHNA requirement for very low and low income housing is completely inappropriate.
The current RHNA requirement for Portola Valley is 73 very low income units and 42 low income units.
Most agree that achieving the very low income target is particularly challenging. We now have 3 more projects that could help Portola Valley achieve its objectives and all three are equally deserving of financial incentives. Furthermore, it is unlikely that Portola Valley will see any growth in the Affordable Housing Fund in the future, so it might be wise to reserve some of the fund for the next RHNA cycle.
In my opinion, a more rational incentive allocation of the Affordable Housing fund would be to allocate 75% of the fund to very low income units and 25% to low income units. Using this formula would result in $49,908 per very low income unit and $28,915 per low income unit. If the fund is allocated fully to very low income units the value would $66,544 per unit (this is my preferred allocation). I would also suggest that any waiver of fees (paid from the Affordable Housing Fund) should be subtracted from the per unit subsidy. I also believe that this subsidy should be granted to homeowners that deed restrict ADUs or junior ADUs. However, these numbers would not reserve any of the fund for the next RHNA cycle, and it would be prudent to carry some funds forward. I do not support providing a significant portion of the fund to the first person to request it.
The Council may have different formulas for allocation of the funds, but I strongly suggest that we allocate limited resources fairly and to those projects that need incentives to proceed.
Thanks for consideration,
Dale Pfau
Read as public comment for
#7b during the meeting and
copies were distributed to the
Council