Five are new single family homes on vacant lots (three of which are already approved). The remainder are Accessory Dwelling Units. Rolling Hills will continue to maintain General Plan and zoning designations that facilitate development of the required number of units and will continue to comply with the Housing Accountability Act in the event projects are proposed.
SB 166 (2017) requires that every city maintain “adequate sites” to accommodate its RHNA by income category at all times during the eight-year Housing Element period. If a designated housing opportunity site becomes unavailable, the city must demonstrate that it still has adequate capacity on its remaining sites (e.g., “no net loss”). In the event the Rancho Del Mar site becomes unavailable to produce the housing units envisioned by the overlay zone, the City would need another suitable site to accommodate those units.
Cities generally meet the no net loss mandate by providing one or more “buffer” sites in addition to their primary sites. These sites must meet HCD criteria, including the ability to accommodate 16 units at a density of at least 20 units per acre. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, due to the lack of sewer and the community’s natural hazards, Rolling Hills does not have a buffer site available.
The City will continue to explore potential housing sites that could supplement the RDM site, particularly where sanitary sewer service could be made available in the future. The City will continue to rely on accessory dwelling units to meet the balance of its lower-income housing assignment, regardless.
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-6 Quantified Objectives: No net loss of housing capacity to meet RHNA at all times Funding Source: City General Fund/ Permitting Fees
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Continuous through 2029
Program 4: Add Definitions of Transitional and Supportive Housing, Residential Care Facilities, and Employee Housing, to Municipal Code To comply with Government Code Section 65583(c)(3), the City of Rolling Hills must clarify that residential care facilities, transitional housing, and supportive housing are considered residential uses and are subject to the same restrictions that apply to the other residential uses that are allowed in a given zoning district. In other words, a single family home used as a group home for persons with disabilities is subject to the same planning and zoning requirements that apply to a single family home used by a traditional family. Most local governments have addressed this requirement by adding definitions to their zoning codes for transitional and supportive housing, as well as large and small residential care facilities.
The purpose of this program is to add those definitions to the Rolling Hills Municipal Code (Chapter 17). The definitions would acknowledge that such housing is permitted or conditionally permitted in the same manner as other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone as required by State law. The Code amendments will ensure that no special requirements are placed on residential care facilities with seven or more occupants, as required by State law.
Definitions of small licensed residential care facilities (for six of fewer residents) and low barrier navigation centers also will be added to the Code and referenced in other zoning regulations, as required by State law.
This program also includes a Municipal Code Amendment to add a definition for employee housing in accordance with the California Health and Safety Code (HSC). HSC Section 17021.5 states that employee housing providing accommodations for six or fewer people shall be deemed a single family structure with a residential land use designation. It further states that employee housing may not be considered a boarding house, rooming house, hotel, dormitory, or similar term that implies that such housing is a business run for profit or differs in any other way from a single family dwelling. State law precludes a city from requiring a conditional use permit, zoning variance or other zoning variance for such housing, and stipulates that the use of a single family dwelling for six of fewer employees does not constitute a change of occupancy for building code purposes.
Quantified Objectives: Council Action Adopting Definitions Funding Source: City General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department/ City Attorney Implementation Time Frame: Complete by December 2022
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-7 Program 5: Density Bonus Ordinance
Section 65915 of the California Government Code establishes mandatory statewide provisions for density bonuses for affordable and senior housing projects. Rolling Hills does not currently have density bonus provisions in its Municipal Code. Historically, the City has not had multifamily housing, nor any site where multi-family housing could be constructed. With the creation of the Rancho Del Mar Overlay Zone, a developer could request a density bonus and related concessions from a developer. State standards would apply in this instance. The City should adopt provisions in its Municipal Code acknowledging the applicability of State density bonus laws in the event a request is received.
Quantified Objectives: Municipal Code amendment related to Density Bonuses Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Complete by December 2022
Program 6: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Production, Monitoring, and Incentives As noted in Chapter 4, the City intends to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 29 lower income units through a combination of affordable housing on the Rancho Del Mar site (16 units) and privately constructed and rented ADUs on scattered sites throughout the city. At least 13 ADUs should meet affordability thresholds for low and very low income households.2 Creating opportunities for lower income households on scattered sites supports one of the main objectives of the State’s Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) requirements, which is to avoid the concentration of lower income housing in a single location. An ADU-centered strategy also responds to the lack of sanitary sewer, storm drainage, and public streets in Rolling Hills and the community’s rural densities and absence of supportive services.
As stated in Chapter 4, the City approved nine ADUs in 2021 alone, including two that are projected to be affordable to lower income households based on their small size. Thus, creating another 11 ADUs affordable to lower income households over the next eight years is an attainable goal. The Annual Housing Progress Report should address the City’s progress toward meeting this goal; if the City is falling short after two years, the strategy should be revisited and additional incentives should be developed.
Program 6 includes a number of specific elements, which are listed below:
6.1 Develop Citywide Roster of ADUs. The City developed an ADU roster in October 2021 and will expand the roster as new units are created. Currently, the roster (or data base) contains fields such as Address, Owner, month approved, square footage, and a description of each unit. This should be expanded to include information on whether the unit is occupied, the number of occupants, and the rent charged—this information would be requested from homeowners on a voluntary basis. Tracking occupancy and affordability is intended to determine how many units are serving very low- and low-income households, and to demonstrate that the City is meeting its RHNA.
2 Two ADUs meeting affordability criteria for low/very low are already under construction (see Table 4.1), leaving a balance of 11 needed.
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6.2 Annual ADU Survey and Monitoring. The City will send an annual letter to households on the ADU roster requesting information on the status of the unit. The information will be used to prepare a summary that can be referenced as part of the City’s Annual Progress Report.
As part of this task, the City will also identify instances where very low or extremely low income households (including family members, domestic employees, caregivers, etc.) are residing on Rolling Hills properties and paying below market rent (or no rent). To the extent these households are occupying independent living quarters, this data provides evidence that the City is accommodating its RHNA target for very low income households.
As part of this effort, the City will also implement an annual monitoring program to ensure that the Housing Element targets for ADUs are being achieved. A determination of the City’s progress toward meeting its RHNA target of 40 units over 2021-2029 shall be made once per year. In the event the City is not on track to meet its target, it will consider alternative means of meeting its RHNA goals within six months of this determination. These could include additional ADU incentives, modifications to the affordable housing overlay zone, and other actions that would facilitate production of additional affordable units.
6.3 Develop Inventory of Potential ADUs. Over time, the City will develop a parcel data base of potential (or “unintended”) ADUs, which are existing habitable spaces that could potentially be converted into independent dwelling units. This would include guest houses, pool houses, and similar accessory structures that are used by the primary residence. As the inventory is completed, owners would be advised of the opportunity to convert the space into a legal ADU.
6.4Incentives for ADU Construction. The City will develop incentives for ADU construction.
Different incentives may be developed for those building new homes (i.e., reduced fees for including an ADU in a new residence), those adding a new ADU on their property, and those converting existing habitable floor space into an ADU. In accordance with California Health and Safety Code (HSC), Section 65583(c)(7) (effective January 1, 2021), the City will explore the use of State CalHome, LEAP, REAP, and SB 2 funding to help local homeowners build or finance ADUs on their properties. Access to these funds typically requires rents that are affordable to low and very low-income households.
6.5 Pre-Approved ADU Plans. The City will determine its eligibility for State grant funding to develop “pre-approved” plans for ADUs that can be used by Rolling Hills residents. These architect-developed plans would be specifically tailored to meet the RHCA design guidelines and would respond to the topography and access constraints found on most Rolling Hills lots. Enabling homeowners to use pre-approved plans may reduce architectural design costs, and potentially reduce construction costs. This can make ADUs more feasible and allow them to be rented more affordably.
6.6 Coordination with RHCA. The City will coordinate with the Rolling Hills Community Association to ensure that RHCA’s design review practices and procedures do not constrain ADU construction or add to their costs. City staff will meet with RHCA staff and the RHCA Architectural Committee regularly to coordinate review, advise RHCA of State laws relating to ADUs, and address any issues that may arise in the future. The City will also work with the Rolling Hills Community Association to explore reduction of annual HOA fees for 625
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-9 property owners agreeing to limit rents on their ADUs.
6.7Septic Tank Replacement Grants or Financial Assistance. The City will pursue funding for a grant which can be used to assist homeowners with septic tank replacement when paired with the addition of an ADU. The grants would be targeted to lower income seniors who may seek to add an ADU but lack the financial resources to replace their septic tanks.
6.8 Non-Profit Construction of ADUs. The City will explore the possibility of engaging a nonprofit housing developer in a program to develop ADUs in partnership with interested Rolling Hills property owners. Participation could be limited to qualifying lower income residents, or to homeowners who agree to limit rents to levels that are affordable to lower income households. Such a program was successfully implemented by the City of Santa Cruz, in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, and could be considered locally.
6.9 Monitor Best Practices in ADUs. The City will continue to track statewide and national trends in ADU management, incentives, and regulations. The focus will be on cities in California that are comparable to Rolling Hills in density, character, and constraints, with an eye toward cities that are relying on ADUs to meet a substantial share of their RHNA for lower income households. Programs that are potentially transferable to Rolling Hills will be considered for local implementation.
6.10Update Municipal Code Provisions for ADUs. By October 15, 2022, the City will update its ADU ordinance to reflect changes to State law made since the last revision to the ordinance in February 2020. This includes eliminating references to a maximum bedroom count in an ADU and including provisions for complete applications to be deemed approved if they are not acted upon within 60 days.
6.11Outreach to ADU Permit Recipients. The City will monitor ADU approvals, including sixmonth “check-ins” with all applicants receiving ADU permits until the units are completed.
These check-ins will include status updates on the projects, including whether a building permit has been issued and what progress is being made. In the event an applicant chooses not to follow through on an approved ADU, staff will make an effort to document the reasons and evaluate any changes that might be made to the City’s ADU program to improve completion rates. This information should be part of the City’s annual housing progress report.
In addition to the specific measures listed above, City staff will continue to assist homeowners who are interested in adding an ADU, and will work with applicants to facilitate ADU review, permitting, and approval.
Quantified Objectives: (1) Citywide ADU roster of 40 ADUs by 2029, including at least 13 ADUs rented at levels meeting affordability criteria for lower income households
(2) ADU Survey, administered once a year
(3) Inventory of potential ADUs
(4) ADU Incentives
(5) Two to four pre-approved ADU architectural plans
(6) Municipal Code Revisions (see 6.10 above)
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-10 (7) 100% completion of ADUs receiving permits
Funding Source: City General Fund/ State grants
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department/ City Attorney Implementation Time Frame: (1) Rosters and Surveys prepared by 2022 and updated annually (2) ADU incentives by 2023
(3) Approved architectural plans by 2024, or as funding allows (4) Amend Municipal Code Chapter 17.28 (Accessory Dwelling Units) for consistency with State law by October 15, 2022 (5) Establish protocol for 6-month check-ins with ADU permit recipients by January 1, 2023
(6) Annual monitoring report on ADU production
Program 7: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Outreach, Education, and Information Program 7 addresses public outreach, education, and information on ADUs. Like Program 6, it has multiple elements.
7.1 Biennial Mailing. The City will send a mailing to all households in Rolling Hills at least once every two years advising them of the opportunity to create an ADU, the potential benefits of having an ADU, and potential incentives in the event the ADU will be occupied by a household worker, caregiver, family member, or other household meeting the definition of a low or very low income household. The mailing may consist of an article in the City’s monthly newsletter.
7.2 Website. The City will develop a landing page on its website with information on ADU opportunities (“Thinking about building an ADU?”). The website landing page will include information on the types of ADUs an owner may consider (detached, attached, junior, etc.), the typical cost and cost considerations, financing options, tax implications, development standards, tenant selection, and so on. The information should also be provided in printed form for interested homeowners.
7.3 RHCA Design Guidelines Update. The City will work with the Rolling Hills Community Association to facilitate an update of the RHCA Design Guidelines so that they address ADUs. Currently, the Guidelines do not acknowledge ADUs at all. The Update would provide objective design standards for ADUs that are consistent with Rolling Hills zoning standards as well as the design guidelines that currently apply.
Quantified Objectives: (1) Mailings to all Rolling Hills households (at least once every 2 years)
(2) Updated City website
(3) Updated Design Guidelines document
Funding Source: City General Fund, State grants
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: (1) First mailing by December 2022 (2) Website update by June 2023
(3) Update of design guidelines by 2024
Program 8: Assist Senior and Disabled Households
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-11 The City will continue to address the housing needs of seniors and persons with disabilities by connecting those in need with social service agencies, non-profits, volunteer organizations, and other service providers, and by coordinating with the RHCA in the services and programs it provides. As noted in the Needs Assessment, more than one-third of the city’s residents are over 65 and about 10 percent have one or more disabilities. The City will work with seniors, especially those on fixed incomes, to evaluate housing needs and resources. Within 18 months of Housing Element adoption, the City Council will convene a study session jointly with the RHCA Needs of Seniors Committee and at least one local non-profit serving seniors (such as Peninsula Seniors) to discuss the needs of Rolling Hills seniors and potential programs to address these needs.
Several of the programs listed elsewhere in this Element (shared housing, assistance with home maintenance, reduced utility rates, etc.) are primarily intended to benefit lower income seniors.
The City also will support expanded opportunities for persons with disabilities, including the use of universal design principles and accessibility standards in new construction and ADUs. As part of this program, Rolling Hills will also work with the Harbor Regional Center to implement outreach services to Rolling Hills families on services available to persons with developmental disabilities. The City’s website will be updated to include links to housing and supportive services for seniors and disabled persons.
Quantified Objectives: Website landing page with senior housing resources Facilitate age-in-place retrofits for 10 senior households City Council study session on needs of seniors and potential actions to assist Rolling Hills seniors
Funding Source: City General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department/ City Manager Implementation Time Frame: June 2023 (for website)
Council Study Session before December 2023
Program 9: Assist Extremely Low-Income Households
Extremely Low Income (ELI) households have incomes that 30 percent or less of the County median. In 2021, the income thresholds for ELI were $24,850 for a household of one; $28,400 for a household of two; $31,950 for a household of three; and $34,450 for a household of four.
Based on CHAS data, there are 25 ELI households in Rolling Hills, representing about 3.5 percent of the city’s households. The CHAS data indicated that all 25 of these households were homeowners, suggesting they are primarily seniors on fixed incomes. The City will explore ways to assist elder Rolling Hills homeowners on fixed incomes with home maintenance, repair, and retrofit activities. It will also direct these households to appropriate resources, such as shared housing services and programs to reduce utility costs.
There are additional ELI households in Rolling Hills that may not be counted in the Census data, including extended family members living in independent quarters on a property, or domestic employees (housekeepers, au pairs, personal assistants, etc.) living in guest houses, accessory buildings, or in separate quarters within the primary residence. The City will address the needs 628
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-12 of these households by prioritizing applications for ADUs and encouraging homeowners to create opportunities for domestic employees and family members to live “on site.” A study sponsored by SCAG in 2020 determined that 15 percent of the ADUs in the coastal Los Angeles area were likely to be available at rents affordable to Extremely Low Income Households.3 A 2018 study further found that 17% of the ADUs in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver were occupied by a friend or family member for free. 4 A 2014 study found that 18%
of the ADUs in Portland were occupied for free or extremely low cost.5 A 2012 UC Berkeley publication indicates that up to half of all ADUs are occupied at no cost. 6 Based on these analyses, the City is estimating that seven “rent free” or extremely low income rentals will be added to the Rolling Hills housing stock by 2029. It will seek to document and measure progress toward this objective by soliciting voluntary reporting of such units by individual homeowners. As noted in Program 6.2, an annual survey is proposed to be administered to all registered ADU owners in the city. This would enable tracking of rent-free or reduced rent ADUs.
Quantified Objectives: Provide seven housing units affordable to Extremely Low Income Funding Source: City General Fund/ Permitting Fees
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Prepare inventory of Extremely Low Income (ELI) units by 2024, update annually
Facilitate housing assistance to at least three ELI senior homeowners by 2025
Program 10: Support Regional Efforts to End Homelessness Extremely low-income persons also include those who are homeless or may be at risk of becoming homeless. Although the point-in-time surveys for the last five years have not counted any homeless residents in Rolling Hills, the City recognizes that homelessness is a regional problem that requires regional solutions. Rolling Hills will continue to allow emergency shelters and single room occupancy hotels in the Rancho Del Mar Overlay Zone and will monitor the effectiveness of its regulations in its Annual Housing Progress Report.
The City will continue to work with adjacent communities on emergency shelter referrals. As a member of SCAG and the South Bay Cities COG, staff and elected officials participate in forums and discussions of homelessness, and potential programs and resources to end homelessness and increase the supply of shelter, transitional, and supportive housing in Greater Los Angeles.
Quantified Objectives: Participation in point in time surveys; participation in at least one regional meeting annually on strategies to end homelessness Funding Source: City General Fund/ Permitting Fees
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department/ City Manager Implementation Time Frame: Ongoing, 2021 through 2029
3 SCAG Regional Accessory Dwelling Unit Affordability Analysis, 2020 4 Jumpstarting the Market for ADUs. Terner Center (for ULI), San Francisco, 2018 5 ADUs in Portland OR. Environmental Solutions Management, 2014 6 Scaling Up Secondary Unit Production in the East Bay. Berkeley Institute of Regional Development, 2012 629
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-13 Program 11: Permit Streamlining
The City will continue its efforts to expedite permit processing, ensure efficiency, and reduce administrative and processing costs for new development. This could include provisions for reduced fees for ADUs that are rented at below market levels, or occupied by qualifying lower income households. As part of the annual budgeting process, the City will ensure that fees are appropriate for the services provided, and will consider ways to improve the permitting and entitlement processes.
Quantified Objectives: Compliance with all provisions of the Permit Streamlining Act Funding Source: City General Fund/ Permitting Fees
Responsible Agency: City Manager/ Finance Director/ Planning and Community Services Department/ LA County Building and Safety
Implementation Time Frame: Ongoing, 2021 through 2029
Program 12: Facilitate Communication with Affordable Housing Service Providers, Developers, and Advocates
The City of Rolling Hills periodically receives requests from housing advocates, non-profit developers, and service providers to disseminate information on affordable housing needs and opportunities and work collaboratively to address housing issues. City planning staff regularly field requests from for-profit and non-profit developers, participate in regional housing meetings and discussions, and work with other cities to explore creative, effective ways to meet housing needs. In the event a non-profit agency or developer wishes to submit a grant application that will increase housing affordability for senior or low income Rolling Hills residents, staff will provide administrative support wherever possible.
Quantified Objective: Hold at least one meeting a year with one or more non-profit housing sponsors to discuss housing opportunities and needs in Rolling Hills
Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Convene one meeting before December 2022. Convene additional meetings at least once a year from 2023 to 2029.
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-14 Program 13: Shared Housing
Shared housing enables homeowners to offset their housing costs by receiving rent, or get additional help in managing housing duties. It also creates a resource for lower income households in the community, including college-aged students and young adults, caregivers, domestic workers, landscapers and building industry workers, child care workers, teachers, and other public service employees. It can also be a resource for seniors, some of whom may no longer wish to live alone or lack the financial resources to live alone.
Residents in Rolling Hills have access to two nearby shared housing programs: Focal Point at the South Bay Senior Services Center in Torrance and the Anderson Senior Center in San Pedro. Both these centers offer resources to assist seniors locate roommates interested in sharing housing. These programs make roommate matches between seniors based on telephone requests.
Numerous other home sharing services have emerged over the last decade. These include SHARE! Collaborative Housing, a public-private partnership supporting shared single family housing for persons with disabilities in Los Angeles County; Affordable Living for the Aging, which matches younger single tenants with seniors in Los Angeles County; and Los Angeles County HomeShare, which serves residents of all ages throughout the County. There are also private services such as Silverleaf (Long Beach) that facilitate home sharing for a fee.
The City will continue to apprise residents about shared housing programs by providing information at the public counter and online.
Quantified Objectives: Continue to provide informational brochures advertising shared housing programs at City Hall and on the City’s website Funding Source: City General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Establish website links by December 2022 631
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-15 Program 14: Sewer Feasibility Studies and Phase One Construction As indicated in Section 5.3.5 of this Housing Element, Rolling Hills does not have a sanitary sewer system. With a few exceptions, the entire city is served by private septic systems. Septic system installation is costly and requires customized design to reflect steep terrain. The cost of installing sanitary sewers and storm drains would be even more costly, as it would likely require easements, force mains, and lift stations.
The City recently completed design drawings for a sanitary sewer extension through adjacent Rolling Hills Estates that will bring service to Rolling Hills City Hall and the Tennis Courts. A future phase of this project could continue southward along Portuguese Bend Road, allowing some Rolling Hills homes and a number of vacant properties to be served by sewer. A survey done by the City in 2021 indicated there was strong support for a sewer extension project, contingent on the cost to each homeowner. There is currently no funding source for such an extension. Grant funding would be required, as it would reduce the cost burden on homeowners and make the project more feasible.
The City will continue to work toward addressing this constraint during the 2021-29 planning period. This includes:
• Developing the initial phase of the project, serving City Hall and the Tennis Courts • Conducting feasibility and cost studies for a future phase to serve privately owned homes and parcels in the northern part of Rolling Hills • Pursuing funding for future phases
• Continuing to poll Rolling Hills residents on their level of support for the project In addition, the City continues to monitor water quality issues related to its MS 4 permit for stormwater discharge. Efforts to address runoff quality and implement best management practices to reduce pollution are ongoing and will continue.
Quantified Objective: (1) Complete 1,585-foot sanitary sewer extension to City Hall/ Tennis Courts (Phase I)
(2) Complete feasibility / cost study of sanitary sewer extension (3) Obtain grants for Phase I project construction
Funding Source: General Fund/ State grants
Responsible Agency: City Manager
Implementation Time Frame: Complete Phase I by 2024
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-16 Program 15: Consider Participation in CDBG Urban County Program At least once every two years, the City should re-evaluate the feasibility of joining the Los Angeles Urban County CDBG program in order to create a funding source for home improvements for qualifying lower income Rolling Hills residents. The decision should consider the potential amount of funding that could be received by the city, and potential uses for that funding, as well as the administrative costs, reporting requirements, and staff resources required to carry out the program. In the event the City receives CDBG grants, it could consider using the funding to assist qualifying lower income households with energy efficiency improvements, housing rehabilitation and improvements, or septic tank replacement.
Quantified Objectives: Prepare staff report to City Council regarding participation in Urban County CDBG program
Funding Source: City General Fund
Responsible Agency: City Manager/ Finance Director
Implementation Time Frame: By 2023, and every two years thereafter Program 16: Code Enforcement
The City will continue code enforcement and nuisance abatement activities to ensure the safety and habitability of housing in Rolling Hills. While property maintenance in Rolling Hills is excellent, there is a need for ongoing enforcement of planning and building codes. The City has a “Code Enforcement” webpage with online forms for reporting suspected violations, including those relating to vegetation management and outdoor lighting as well as unpermitted construction or nuisances. Periodic information on code enforcement resources and requirements is also provided to residents through the City’s monthly newsletter.
Quantified Objective: Respond to 100 percent of resident Code Enforcement inquiries Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Ongoing, 2021-2029
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-17 Program 17: Reduce Home Energy Costs
Energy bills can be a significant cost burden, particularly for households on fixed incomes with large homes to heat and cool. The City has adopted the Green Building Code and enforces Title 24 energy efficiency requirements through its contract with the Los Angeles County Department of Building and Safety. New residential projects, including new homes, ADUs, renovations, and additions, will continue to be required to meet Title 24 standards. These requirements result in energy savings which reduce gas and electric consumption and home utility bills.
Rolling Hills also works with Southern California Edison to distribute information to residents on energy conservation and weatherization, including information on financial assistance and lower utility rates for low-income customers. The City will provide links on its website to assist lower income residents in accessing information on reduced utility rates. Rolling Hills is also a member of the South Bay Environmental Services Center, which provides information on energy incentives, audits and rebates. These programs will continue in the future.
The City will also support resident installation of solar energy systems. A growing number of Rolling Hills homeowners have installed photovoltaic panels, increasing energy independence and resilience while reducing home energy costs.
Quantified Objective: (1) Provide links on City website related to energy conservation, weatherization, and financial assistance
(2) Adopt updated Building Code standards for energy efficiency Funding Source: General Fund, LIHEAP
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Website Update, with links: Complete by January 2023 Program 18: Facilitate New Construction and Home Improvements The City will continue to work with property owners, architects, and builders to enable new housing to be built in the City. Continued cooperation and communication between City staff, applicants, and neighbors will facilitate the construction of new housing. The City is committed to efficient planning, building, and inspection procedures, and regularly seeks ways to improve the process and reduce delays.
With few vacant lots remaining, most construction projects in Rolling Hills consist of home additions, repairs and modernization, or replacement of existing dwellings. Continued investment in Rolling Hills housing stock is strongly encouraged and will continue to be supported in the future. Although the City does not provide direct financial assistance to lower income homeowners, it assists owners in keeping costs down through permit streamlining and fees that are generally below average compared to other cities in Los Angeles County.
Quantified Objective: 5 new single family homes (above moderate income) Funding Source: Private Funds (Permitting Fees)
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department, LA County Building and Safety
Implementation Time Frame: Objective covers the period from 2021 through 2029 634
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-18 Program 19: Remediate Geologic Hazards
The City will continue to explore solutions to ground stability and landslide problems. Grading, new structures and additions typically require a soils and geology report along with grading and building permits. The City has developed strict grading practices that limit grading to no more than 40 percent of the lot and require maintenance of natural slopes. These practices are necessary to safeguard the public against ground instability.
The City will support repair work on landslide-damaged homes and hillsides that have been damaged or compromised by past landslides. The City will strive to avoid further loss of its housing stock as a result of natural disasters, including landslides and wildfires.
Quantified Objective: Geologic studies for new development and major grading permits Funding Source: City General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department/ City Manager Implementation Time Frame: On-going, 2021 to 2029
Program 20: Fair Housing Services Program Administration The City will complete a Fair Housing Outreach and Enforcement Options Memorandum to determine options for ensuring that existing and prospective residents have access to fair housing services, and that property owners are apprised of Fair Housing laws and practices.
This could include an agreement contract with a third party fair housing services provider to promote and affirmatively further fair housing opportunities for all persons regardless of race, religion, sex, marital status, ancestry, national origin, color, familial status, disability, or other characteristics protected by state and federal fair housing law. Other alternatives for outreach, education, and enforcement may be considered. Based on the findings of the Memorandum, the City will implement Fair Housing measures, including Programs 21 and 22 described below.
City will also contact the fair housing service provider annually to obtain information on cases and referrals originating in Rolling Hills.
Quantified Objective: Fair Housing Outreach and Enforcement Memorandum Active contract with a fair housing
services provider
Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: City Manager
Implementation Time Frame: Complete memorandum Bby December 2022; renew Agreement as needed
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-19 Program 21: Fair Housing Outreach
The City will provide information on fair housing resources on its website, including a links to the fair housing services provider. Other outreach measures to be implemented include posting regulations regarding housing discrimination, as well as phone contacts, at City Hall and periodically providing this information in the City’s newsletter.
The City will also provide a referral process for any person who believes they have been denied access to housing because of their race, sex, marital status, ancestry, national origin, color, familial status or disability. In the event a complaint is received, the City will refer the party to a fair the City’s housing service provider for follow up and work with the complainant to resolve the issue.
Quantified Objective: Active contract with fair housing services provider Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: City Manager
Implementation Time Frame: Ongoing, 2021-2029. Website update by December 2022.
Program 22: Fair Housing Training for Staff
At least one City staff member will attend an on-line fair housing certification training class on an annual basis. These classes are typically three-hour sessions in which participants are informed and educated about federal and California fair housing laws, compliance, and illegal housing practices. The trainings cover prohibited and best practices, including language guidance for advertising housing for sale or for rent, and protected classes under federal and California law.
In addition, the City will regularly evaluate the need for multi-lingual services, including translation of material on its website into other languages. It will also continue to implement its reasonable accommodations ordinance and monitor data on persons with disabilities in the city to ensure that barriers to mobility are eliminated to the greatest extent possible.
Quantified Objective: Annual staff training
Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: City Manager
Implementation Time Frame: Initiate in 2022 and continue annually through 2029 Program 23: Written Procedures for SB 35 Projects
As required by State law, the City will prepare written procedures and application materials for projects seeking to use SB 35. Affordable multi-family housing development on the Rancho Del Mar site would be potentially eligible. The procedures would follow the provisions established by the Affordable Housing Overlay Zone, and include the objective standards and application procedures identified when that zone was adopted. Once completed, the information will be included as a PDF link on the Planning and Community Services Department website for easy access.
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-20 Quantified Objective: Posted information on SB 35, including application form
Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Complete by December 31, 2022 Program 24: Updating of Linked Files on Planning and Community Services Department Landing Page
AB 1483 requires that every city post current information on fees, zoning standards, design guidelines, processes and procedures, nexus studies and other pertinent information on its website. Although Rolling Hills complies with this requirement today, reorganization of the material could provide greater clarity and easier access to this information. For example, the website could include a link to the RHCA design guidelines, as well as updated flow charts and graphics showing approval processes. As noted under Program 7.2, the website also should include dedicated information about Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and the steps residents can take to add an ADU on their property.
Quantified Objective: Reorganized and updated Planning and Community Services Department website
Funding Source: General Fund
Responsible Agency: Planning and Community Services Department Implementation Time Frame: Complete by December 31, 2023 637
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-21
6.3 Summary of 2021-2029 Quantified Objectives
Table 6.1 provides quantified objectives for housing construction, rehabilitation, and conservation by income group. The new construction objectives align with the RHNA numbers that appear earlier in the Housing Element. The rehabilitation objective aims to assist 10 very low-income senior households over the eight year period. The conservation and preservation objectives correspond to the approximate number of households in Rolling Hills by income group based on Census data. The objectives aim to preserve housing for 100 percent of these households. There are no housing units in Rolling Hills that are at risk of conversion from affordable to market-rate.
Table 6.1: Quantified Objectives by Income Group for Rolling Hills (2021-2029) Income Category New
Construction Rehabilitation
Conservation/
Preservation
Extremely Low [1] 7 5 25
Very Low 13 5 45
Low 9 45
Moderate 11 25
Above Moderate 5 500
Total Housing Units 45 10 640
Source: SCAG Adopted Regional Housing Needs Determinations (November 2012) [1] City’s RHNA for “Very Low” income is 20 units. This has been allocated proportionally to “Extremely Low” and “Very Low” based on Table 3.8, which indicates the current proportion of “Very Low” income households in these two groups.
Extremely low income households represent 35% of the “very low” total.
Table 6.2 summarizes the 2422 Housing Element programs listed in this chapter. It includes a quantified objective and timeframe for each program, as presented above. 638
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-22 Table 6.2: Housing Element Action Plan Summary
# Program Timing Quantified Objective
1 Prepare Annual Progress Report on
Housing Element implementation
Annually, by April 1 One Report per year
2 Facilitate affordable housing on Rancho
Del Mar Housing Opportunity site
Annual meeting with
School Superintendent
Subdivision by 2024
16 lower-income units by
2029
3 No net loss monitoring/ other housing
opportunities
Continuous, through
2029. Address in
Annual Report.
No net loss of housing
capacity for duration of
planning period
4 Add definitions of transitional,
supportive, employee housing and
residential care facilities to Municipal
Code
December 2022 Council action adopting
definitions and
identification of permitted
uses
5 Adopt density bonus provisions in
Municipal Code
December 2022 Council action adopting
density bonus provisions
6 Accessory Dwelling Unit production,
monitoring, and production
• Updated ADU
ordinance by 10/15/22
• ADU Roster in 2021
• Annual ADU survey,
starting in 2022
• Pre-approved plans in
2024
• ADU incentives in
2023
• Annual monitoring
program (2023)
40 ADUs by 2029,
including at least 13 ADUs
affordable to lower income
households
7 Accessory Dwelling Unit Outreach,
Education, and Information
• First biennial mailing
by end of 2022
• Website update by
6/23
• Update of design
guidelines by 2024
• Outreach mailer to 639
households
• ADU website landing
page
• ADU section added to
RHCA Guidelines
8 Assist senior and disabled households • Website update by 6/23
• Housing assistance
during 2021-2029
Assist 10 lower income
senior households with
age in place retrofits
9 Assist extremely low income households • Prepare inventory of ELI units by 2024
7 ADUs affordable to ELI
households
10 Support regional efforts to end
homelessness
Ongoing • Participate in point-intime surveys
• Attend one mtg a year
11 Permit streamlining Ongoing Compliance with Permit
Streamlining Act
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Housing Goals, Policies, Objectives, and Programs Page 6-23 # Program Timing Quantified Objective
12 Facilitate communication with affordable
housing service providers, developers,
and advocates
By December 2022 • Convene at least one
meeting a year
13 Shared housing By December 2022 • Provide information on website, plus print media
resources
14 Sewer feasibility studies and Phase I
construction
Phase I construction
(serving City Hall) by
2024
• Sewer extension to City
Hall/ Tennis Courts
• Feasibility study for
sewer extension
15 Consider participation in Urban County
CBDG Program
By 2023 Staff report and Council
discussion
16 Code enforcement Ongoing 100% follow up
17 Reduce home energy costs By 2023 Website update
18 Facilitate new construction and home
improvements
Ongoing 5 market-rate single family
homes (including 3 already
approved)
19 Remediate geologic hazards Ongoing Geologic studies for new development
20 Fair housing services contract and
program administration
Develop fair housing
compliance program by
December 2022 Develop
agreement in 2022;
renew annually or as
needed
Contract with fair housing
service provider Fair
Housing Planning Memo
21 Fair housing outreach Website update by
December 2022
• Contract with fair
housing service provider
• Website links or landing
page
22 Fair housing training for City staff Initiate in 2022 Annual training for at least one staff member
23 Prepare written instructions for SB 35
applications
Complete by December
31, 2022
Guidance memo and
application form
24 Update Planning and Community
Services website
Complete by December
31, 2023
Updated website
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APPENDICES
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-1 Appendix A:
Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Evaluation Overview
In 2018, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 686, adding a requirement that local housing elements address each community’s obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing.” AB 686 defined this is as:
“taking meaningful actions, in addition to combatting discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics. Specifically affirmatively furthering fair housing means taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.”
In April 2021, the California Department of Housing and Community Development issued its formal guidance memo on how local governments should address this new requirement in their housing elements. The guidance memo indicates the ways in which the AFFH mandate affects outreach and community engagement, data collection and analysis, the site inventory, identification and prioritization of “contributing factors,” and the goals, policies, and programs of the housing element. It also includes data sources and other resources for local governments.
Chart A-1 summarizes the AFFH mandate; the requirements are extensive. As a result, the City of Rolling Hills has provided this appendix to address the mandatory components rather than including this information in the body of the Housing Element. The findings of this assessment have informed the policies and programs in the Housing Element.
There are limitations to the analysis presented here. Rolling Hills is a small community, comprised of a single Census Tract Block Group. It is affluent and homogenous and does not have pockets of poverty or notable disparities between its neighborhoods. Many of the AFFH maps developed by HCD simply affirm this, rather than revealing spatial patterns within the city limits. The underlying goal, which is to reduce impediments to fair housing in the city and improve housing opportunities for lower-income households, remains relevant.
In addition, Rolling Hills does not participate in the federal CBDG program as a member of the Los Angeles County Urban County designation. As such, it is not directly covered by the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choices prepared by the County Community Development Commission and Housing Authority. Some of the findings of the County Analysis are cited here, as they apply more broadly to the Palos Verdes Peninsula (Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes are both members). 642
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-2 Chart A-1: Summary of AB 686 Requirements
Source: HCD, April 2021
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-3 The remainder of this report provides the data that is generally referred to as the AFFH analysis.
This includes trends and patterns related to segregation, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disparities in access to opportunity (including persons with disabilities), and disproportionate housing needs. Unless otherwise indicated, all maps in this chapter were prepared using the AFFH data viewer from the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
Duty of All Public Agencies to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing Federal law already requires that federal agencies administer programs in a way that affirmatively furthers fair housing. This also extends to all local governments receiving funds from the federal government. AB 686 further extended the obligation to all public agencies in the State of California. This mandate applies to administration of all programs and activities relating to housing and community development. The statute requires an examination of policies, programs, rules, practices, and activities, and where necessary, changes to promote more inclusive communities.
Outreach
The City of Rolling Hills has worked to engage all economic segments of the community in the Housing Element Update process. This included conducting more than 11 housing-focused public meetings on Zoom in 2020 and 2021, delivering newsletters with information on the Housing Element to every household in the city, and providing housing-related surveys (both paper and electronic) to every housing unit in Rolling Hills. By reaching out to every household in the city, Rolling Hills has engaged its lower income residents in the process.
Meetings have been held in the evenings to facilitate participation. The public was invited to participate in each meeting as “panelists” rather than “attendees,” giving them equal footing to staff and Councilmembers/ Commissioners rather than the more limited opportunities offered by webinars. Drafts of the Housing Element were made available at City offices and on-line, with at least 30 days provided between the release of the Draft and action by the City Council.
Site Inventory
AB 686 requires that a jurisdiction identify sites throughout the community in a manner that is consistent with its duty to affirmatively further fair housing. The sites identified by the City must work to replace segregated living patterns with integrated living patterns. Rolling Hills has done this by focusing on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to meet its housing needs, rather than by zoning scattered sites throughout the city for multi-family housing. By definition, ADUs provide an effective way to achieve economic integration as they enable low and very low income households to live throughout the community rather than in segregated living patterns.
As noted throughout the Housing Element, the City currently has no multi-family housing units— thus, the designation of the Rancho Del Mar property as an affordable housing opportunity zone would not constitute a “concentration” of poverty. As the only site in the city that has sewer and storm drainage, flat buildable land, road and transit access, and relatively few natural hazards, it is the only suitable site in the city for multi-family housing (see Chapter 4). Placing multi-family 644
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-4 housing elsewhere in Rolling Hills---on hazardous sites prone to landslides and wildfires, without public street access or sewer facilities—would be inconsistent with the objectives of AB 686.
Fair Housing Enforcement
Fair housing enforcement is presently handled on a case-by-case basis. The State of California has an Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FEHO) that enforces the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights authorities that prohibit discrimination. In the event a fair housing complaint is received by the City, the involved party would be referred to FEHO for investigation.
There are no pending lawsuits, enforcement actions, judgements, settlements, or findings related to fair housing and civil rights in Rolling Hills. There are currently no local fair housing laws in the City, but Rolling Hills complies with all applicable state and federal laws. These include:
• The City is committed to complying with tThe federal Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended by the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq., which the City complies with by ensuring that housing is available to all persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, disability, familial status, or sex.
• The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which the City complies with through its building code, permit review procedures, and reasonable accommodation procedures • The California Fair Employment and Housing Act, which the City complies with through its protocols for hiring, decision-making, staff training, advertising, and legal counsel • Government Code Section 65008 and 11135, which guide the City’s procurement protocols, provide preferential treatment for affordable housing, provide equal access to housing assistance, and ensure that multi-family housing is treated fairly relative to single family housing
• Government Code Section 8899.50, which specifies AFFH requirements • Government Code Section 65913.2, which precludes excessive subdivision standards • Government Code Section 65302.8, which precludes certain types of municipal growth control laws (the City has none)
• Government Code Section 65583, which includes the requirement to have a housing element
• Housing Accountability Act, which is implemented through the City’s development review and zoning procedures
An action program in the 2021-2029 Housing Element recommends that the City contract with a third party non-profit to promote the enforcement of fair housing laws, respond to complaints, and resolve complaints through conciliation, mediation, referrals, and litigation where necessary.
Most cities in the region have agreements with third party non-profits that provide this service.
These entities also provide on-line workshops for city staff and landlords, and offer phone and on-line counseling.
HCD’s AFFH data viewer reports that there were zero (0) fair housing enforcement and outreach inquiries in Rolling Hills between 2013 and 2021. The City is unaware of any fair housing cases that may have occurred without being formally reported, and has not received complaints or inquiries from residents. The City is likewise unaware of any Section 8 housing choice vouchers 645
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-5 in use within Rolling Hills, or any instance of a prospective applicant being denied the opportunity to use a voucher within the city.
Due to the small size of the City’s staff, there is not a formal fair housing training program and there is limited expertise on fair housing issues. An action program in this Element directs the City to provide fair housing training to staff, and to improve web-based and print media resources to inform residents of their rights and obligations under the Fair Housing Act. Fair housing information will also be included in the City’s newsletter.
The City is committed to complying with the Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, as amended by the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq., by ensuring that housing is available to all persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, disability, familial status, or sex.
Integration and Segregation
Race and Ethnicity
Chapter 3 of the Housing Element provides an overview of the racial composition of Rolling Hills and the surrounding region. In addition, Table A-1 below shows race and ethnicity data for Rolling Hills and the region (in this case Los Angeles County) for 2010 and 2020.
Relative to Los Angeles County and the greater Los Angeles region, Rolling Hills has a higher percentage of White and Asian residents, and a lower percentage of Black and Hispanic residents. This is also true of the other cities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Rolling Hills has have seen an increase in Asian and multi-racial residents over the last 20 years, but the aggregate Black and Hispanic population is 8.37.3 percent compared to a countywide figure of
55.656.3 percent. The percentage of residents who are two or more races more than doubled in Rolling Hills between 2010 and 2020, which is a much faster rate of increase than the county as a whole. However, given the city’s small population, even a few households can cause percentages to shift noticeably. The most significant change is that the number of White, NonHispanic households in the city declined from 74.1 percent to 64.9 percent over the decade.
Countywide, this percentage dropped from 27.8 percent to 25.6 percent, a smaller rate of decrease .
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-6 Table A-1: Population Share by Race and Ethnicity, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Residents by Race
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Residents by Race
in Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
White Non-Hispanic 74.1% 64.9% 27.8% 25.6%
Hispanic/Latino 5.5% 7.0% 47.7% 48.0%
Black 1.5% 1.3% 8.3% 7.6%
Native American 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2%
Asian 16.2% 20.4% 13.5% 14.7%
Native Hawaiian/
Pacific Islander 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2%
Other 0.2% 0.7% 0.3% 0.6%
Two or More Races 2.4% 5.6% 2.0% 3.1%
Sources: US Decennial Census, 2010 and 2020.
Since the City is comprised of a single Census tract block group, this data is most useful on a regional basis. Census tracts located several miles to the east and north of Rolling Hills, in Lomita, and in the San Pedro and Wilmington neighborhoods of Los Angeles, are more diverse.
Some of the Census tracts on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have larger percentages of Asian residents, making them majority non-White.
Figure A-2 shows the “diversity index” for Census tract block groups in and around Rolling Hills.
The index is an indicator of racial and ethnic diversity within a given geographic area. It considers both race and ethnicity (Hispanic or Non-Hispanic). The higher an area’s number, the more diverse it is. The index ranges from zero (no diversity) to 100 (complete diversity). An area’s diversity is 100 when the population is evenly divided into different race/ethnic groups.
The Table indicates an index of 48.4 for Rolling Hills, indicating it is somewhat diverse. The rating is comparable to many other census tracts on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Some tracts in Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes are more diverse, while several tracts in Palos Verdes Estates are less diverse. The diversity index is considerably higher in the more urbanized tracts in San Pedro and the Harbor neighborhoods to the east. 647
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-7 Persons with Disabilities
Chapter 3 of the Housing Element provides information on the number of people with disabilities by disability type in Rolling Hills. Roughly 10.6 percent of the city’s population has one or more disabilities compared to 9.9 percent in Los Angeles County as a whole. The higher local percentage is likely a result of the older population in Rolling Hills, where the median age is 55 compared to the County average of 36.5. This is further supported by the data shown in Table A-2, which indicates that the percentage of residents with a hearing disability and an ambulatory disability is higher in Rolling Hills than in the county as a whole. Conversely, a smaller percentage of Rolling Hills residents have cognitive disabilities, vision disabilities, and self-care limitations.
Table A-2: Percentage of Residents with a Disability, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Residents
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Residents
in Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Total with a Disability N/A 10.6% 9.3% 9.9%
Hearing N/A 3.7% 2.3% 2.5%
Vision N/A 1.3% 1.8% 2.0%
Cognitive N/A 2.1% 3.6% 4.1%
Ambulatory N/A 6.9% 5.2% 5.8%
Self-Care N/A 2.3% 2.6% 3.0%
Independent Living N/A 5.0% 4.1% 5.6%
Sources: US Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Five Year Averages for 2010 and 2020. ACS 2010 indicates no data for Rolling Hills (“X”).
Figure A-3 shows census tract maps for Rolling Hills and the surrounding area indicating the percentage of residents who are disabled. As Figure A-3 indicates, Rolling Hills appears within the 10-20 percent interval on the map, which is comparable to the percentage in Rancho Palos Verdes, Lomita, and the San Pedro and Wilmington neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Most of the other Census tracts in the vicinity, including those comprising the majority of Rolling Hills Estates, Palos Verdes Estates, and Torrance, are in the less than 10 percent interval. However, the difference is marginal, with Rolling Hills being less than one percentage point above the 10 percent threshold. Given that the population of Rolling Hills is significantly older than the county as a whole, the rate of disability in the city is relatively low. Compared to the disabled population in the region at large, the city’s disabled residents have greater access to medical care and supportive services as a result of higher household incomes and the generational wealth accrued through home ownership and equity.
The special housing needs of persons with disabilities are addressed in Section 3.3.2 of the Housing Element.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-8 649
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-9 650
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-10 651
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-11 Familial Status
The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of familial status. This refers to the presence of children in a household, regardless of the relationship of the child to the adult members of the household. It also includes pregnant women and persons in the process of obtaining legal custody of a child. Housing that is exclusively reserved for seniors is exempt from these requirements.
Examples of familial status discrimination include refusing to rent to someone because they have a child or are a single parent, evicting a tenant if they have a child, or requiring families with children to live in a specific part of a multi-family building. Advertising that prohibits children also is prohibited.
Relative to Los Angeles County as a whole, Rolling Hills has about the same percentage of married couples with children but much lower percentages of single parent households. The 2015-2019 ACS indicated there are five single parent female households with children in Rolling Hills. Despite the small number, single parent households may have special needs due to having only one income, as well as greater needs for child care and other supportive services (see Housing Element Section 3.3.4). These obstacles can limit net income and prevent most single parents from being able to live in Rolling Hills.
Table A-3 shows familial status in Rolling Hills relative to Los Angeles County. The table compares the percentage of households in different categories, including families, married couples, other households, and non-families (including persons living alone).
Table A-3: Population by Familial Status, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Total
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Total in
Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Family Households 81.9% 78.7% 67.3% 66.4%
Married Couples (75.2%) (68.5%) (44.5%) (44.8%)
With children
under 18 at home 30.1% 17.8% 21.6% 18.8%
Without children
under 18 at home 45.1% 50.7% 22.9% 26.0%
Other Families (6.7%) (10.2%) (22.9%) (21.5%)
With children
under 18 at home 2.8% 3.1% 11.2% 8.8%
Without children
under 18 at home 2.9% 7.1% 11.7% 12.7%
Non-family Households 18.1% 21.3% 32.7% 33.6%
Sources: American Community Survey, Five Year Averages for 2010 and 2020. All percentages refer to the percentage of total households in Rolling Hills in the listed category. Because the categories are “nested”, the numbers add up to more than 100 percent.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-12 Relative to Los Angeles County as a whole, Rolling Hills has a much higher percentage of married couples. However, the percentage of married couples with children at home is about the same as the countywide average, and has declined substantially since 2010. More than half of the city’s households are married couples with no children living at home, compared to 26 percent countywide. Only 10 percent of the city’s households are “other” families (mostly single parent households), which is less than half the countywide average. Rolling Hills also has a far smaller percentage of non-family households than Los Angeles County, representing 21 percent of the city compared to 34 percent countywide. The city’s demographics are indicative of a relatively stable, older population with smaller households than the county as a whole.
Figure A-4 shows familial status in Rolling Hills and surrounding areas. As the map indicates, the entire Palos Verdes Peninsula is in the same category as Rolling Hills, which corresponds to 80 percent or more of all children living in married couple households. The rate is considerably lower in adjacent cities in Los Angeles County but is still at least 60 percent in most of the South Bay cities. Rates below 60 percent occur in some of the census tracts in the Harbor area of Los Angeles, including San Pedro. Rates below 60 percent are also found beyond the South Bay, in locations such as Compton, Inglewood, Carson, Northern and Central Long Beach, and South Central Los Angeles. These are generally lower resource areas, with higher rates of poverty and unemployment, and lower rates of home ownership.
Income Level
Activities funded by federal community development and housing programs are typically designed to benefit low- and moderate-income (LMI) persons. For example, activities qualify for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding if they benefit the residents of a primarily residential area where at least 51 percent of the residents are low- and moderate-income.
Accordingly, HCD has used Census income data to map these areas by Census block group.
This is shown in Figure A-45.
The Figure illustrates that there are no LMI areas in Rolling Hills or in any of the adjacent communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Fewer than 25 percent of Rolling Hills’ residents are LMI. While there are a few block groups in Rancho Palos Verdes that are 25-50 percent, none exceed 51 percent. There are multiple LMI block groups in San Pedro and the Harbor neighborhoods east of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. There are also LMI areas in Lomita and Torrance to the north.
Figure A-56 shows median income by Census block group. The Palos Verdes Peninsula is one of the most affluent parts of Los Angeles County, with Rolling Hills among the highest income census tracts in the County.
Figure A-7 shows median income for a larger geographic area, including most of the urbanized part of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. At the regional level, the Palos Verdes Peninsula stands out as an affluent area with incomes above $100,000. The Beach cities of Manhattan, Hermosa, and Redondo Beaches are also in this category, as are numerous census tracts on the west side of Los Angeles, the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, and Orange County. The lower income areas are generally located in central and south Los Angeles County, East Los Angeles, the southeast part of the San Fernando Valley, and the older suburbs in Orange 653
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-13 County. Many of these areas include high concentrations of persons of color who historically faced discrimination in the housing market.
Comparative income data between the city and region is shown in Table A-4. As the table indicates, Rolling Hills has a substantially higher income profile than the county, with well over half of its population earning over $200,000 a year, compared to 11 percent in the county as a whole. By contrast, only 15 percent of the city’s households earn less than $50,000 a year, compared to 36 percent countywide. However, it is notable that the percentage of households in Rolling Hills earning less than $25,000 a year grew from 4.5 percent of the population in 2010 to 6.4 percent in 2020. This is likely due to the growing number of households aging in place and living on fixed incomes. Countywide, the percentage of households in this category declined over the decade, from 24 percent to 18 percent.
Table A-4: Household Share by Income, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Residents by Income
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Residents by Income
in Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Less than $10,000 1.5% 1.5% 6.8% 5.5%
$10,000-$14,999 0.7% 2.7% 6.1% 4.6%
$15,000-$24,999 2.3% 2.2% 11.1% 7.8%
$25,000-$34,999 4.8% 4.7% 9.7% 7.6%
$35,000-$49,999 2.5% 4.5% 13.5% 10.7%
$50,000-$74,999 4.9% 3.3% 17.4% 15.8%
$75,000-$99,999 4.9% 3.5% 11.7% 12.3%
$100,000-$149,999 14.1% 12.0% 12.8% 16.3%
$150,000-$199,999 11.0% 12.0% 5.3% 8.2%
$200,000 or More 53.3% 53.6% 5.5% 11.1%
Median Income $219,688 $250,000+ $52,684 $71,358
Sources: American Community Survey, Five-Year Averages, 2010 and 2020 654
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-14 Racially and Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty (R/ECAP) and Affluence Racially/ethnically concentrated areas of poverty –or R/ECAPs—are census tracts identified by HUD with a majority non-White population (greater than 50 percent) and poverty rates that exceed 40 percent or are three times the average tract poverty rate for the metropolitan area, whichever is lower. Figure A-86 shows the location of R/ECAP areas in southern Los Angeles County, including the City of Los Angeles.
The largest concentration of R/ECAP areas in the County are in and around Downtown Los Angeles, the neighborhoods south of Downtown, and a few tracts in the Harbor area and Long Beach. There are no R/ECAP areas on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
HCD also has identified “racially concentrated areas of affluence” (RCAAs). These are areas that exhibit both high concentrations of White residents and high concentrations of wealth. With a population that is 70 percent White, Non-Hispanic and a median income of over $250,000, all of Rolling Hills is considered an RCAA. Large areas of Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, and Rancho Palos Verdes also meet the RCAA criteria. Other parts of Los Angeles County considered to be RCAAs include Malibu, Santa Monica, Bel Air/ Brentwood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, and adjacent parts of the West Side, as well as La Canada-Flintridge and several other outlying communities.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-15 Figure A-4:
Familial Status
NEW MAP
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-16 657
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-17 658
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-18 659
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-19 Historic Context
Like many communities in Southern California, Rolling Hills reflects cultural and social norms of the era in which the city was founded and initially developed. These norms predated the Fair Housing Act and civil rights movement and included practices that excluded certain racial and ethnic groups from purchasing property.
As Table A-5 indicates, Rolling Hills is almost exclusively comprised of single family homes.
Even between 2010 and 2020, the composition of the City’s housing stock did not change significantly. In Los Angeles County, fewer than half of the housing units are single family detached homes and more than one-third are in multi-family buildings. The county as a whole has seen the share of multi-family units go up over time. By contrast, the California Department of Finance reports that 99.9 percent of the dwelling units in Rolling Hills are single family homes. 660
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-20 Table A-5: Housing Units by Type, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Number/Percent of Total
in Rolling Hills
Number/Percent of Total
In Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Single Family Detached 715
99.9%
718
99.9%
1,717,448
49.9%
1,732,045
48.2%
Single Family Attached
0 0
228,560
6.6%
234,107
6.5%
2-4 units
0 0
282,178
8.2%
295,700
8.2%
5+ units 1
0.01%
1 0.01%
1,156,648
33.6%
1,270,425
35.4%
Mobile Homes
0 0
58,253
1.7%
58,297
1.6%
TOTAL 716 719 3,443,087 3,590,574
Source: California Dept of Finance Table E-5, 2010 and 2020.
Note: (*) The State’s data indicates that there is a building with five or more units in Rolling Hills. This is incorrect, as there are no multi-family units in Rolling Hills at this time.
The history of Rolling Hills is linked to broader early 20th Century efforts to develop the 16,000- acre Palos Verdes Peninsula as a master planned community. Prior to 1910, the entire area was farm and ranchland. Several development concepts were proposed in the 1910s and 20s, including a plan to divide the peninsula into large estates (Vanderlip, 1914) and the “Palos Verdes Project,” which eventually became the City of Palos Verdes Estates. Long before Rolling Hills was subdivided, the Peninsula had gained a reputation as the “Riviera of America” and was renowned as an exclusive and beautiful place to live.1
A.E. Hanson became manager of the Palos Verdes Corporation in 1931. He laid out the boundaries of a development named Rolling Hills, just beyond the boundaries of the Palos Verdes Project. The community was initially marketed to residents of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills as 10 to 50 acre “dude ranches.”
2 In 1936, it was reimagined as an equestrian community of one- to five-acre homesites. The initial development included 100 homesites on 600 acres.
All homes were required to be one-story ranches, painted white, a requirement that remains in place today. The Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) were a strong part of the community’s appeal, as they assured maintenance and uniformity throughout the years.
Rolling Hills was subdivided by a single large owner. In that respect, it is more akin to a large residential subdivision, rather than a traditional city or town with multiple land uses, developers, and housing types. Moreover, its first generation of housing consisted of modest one-story ranch-style homes, including homes smaller than 2,000 square feet. Multi-family housing was excluded from the community to retain its rural, equestrian character and to recognize what was 1 Morgan, Delane. The Palos Verdes Story, 1982
2 Rolling Hills General Plan Land Use Element, 1990
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-21 then a remote and rugged location with no services. As a community of small horse ranches with no sewer system, high fire danger, and private streets, construction of multi-family housing would not have made economic sense.
As the Palos Verdes Peninsula was built out at suburban densities in the 1950s and 60s, Rolling Hills retained its very low density zoning. Some of the adjacent cities on the Peninsula added multi-family housing, but the established lot pattern in Rolling Hills and its CC&Rs made this infeasible. In this respect, the CC&Rs had an exclusionary impact on the community. The City incorporated in 1957 to further protect its very low-density character. As this became a rarer commodity in southern Los Angeles County, real estate values increased substantially. Much of the original 1930s and 40s era housing stock was replaced with newer, larger housing with many more amenities. The city became a “location of choice” and became less affordable.
These changes were largely economic and driven by the dynamics of the private real estate market. They occurred after the passage of the Fair Housing Act and the era of redlining.
However, the conditions were compounded by historic inequities in access to capital among racial monitories and a legacy of discriminatory lending practices in the United States. Housing opportunities for lower income households have not historically existed in the city. The city’s identity and history is rooted in its low density, rural character and equestrian heritage.
Fair housing solutions that reflect the City’s history and character can and should be pursued.
These include creating housing opportunities on the recently rezoned Rancho Del Mar site, and encouraging greater production of accessory dwelling units in the community. They also include enforcement of fair housing laws and increased awareness of fair housing rights and practices, as well as the history of housing practices in California. 662
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-22 Access to Opportunity
California HCD and the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (TCAC) convened a task force to advance fair housing through research and policy recommendations. One of the products of this effort was a series of “opportunity maps” that identify resource levels across the state. The intent of these maps is to improve the eligibility of “high resource areas” for lowincome housing tax credit funding. Improving access to these funds makes it more viable to build affordable housing in these areas.
The opportunity maps depict composite data on environmental conditions (vulnerability to pollution, etc.), economic conditions (poverty, job proximity, home values), and educational conditions (graduation rates, math and reading proficiency, etc.). HCD has made these maps available through its AFFH data viewer. Conditions in Rolling Hills are depicted in Figures A-97 through A-120. On all of these maps, each census tract is assigned a value based on its level of resources. The higher the value, the more positive the outcome.
TCAC Environmental Outcomes
In this context, environmental conditions refers to environmental health and exposure to manmade hazards such as vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, and cancer-causing chemicals. It does not refer to natural environmental hazards such as wildfire and landslides.
Figure A-97 indicates that outcomes in Rolling Hills are positive, as the community does not have industrial land uses or major pollution sources. Rolling Hills has an environmental score of
0.97, which is close to the highest possible score of 1.0. All of the Census tracts on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have scores of 0.75 or greater. Rolling Hills Estates also receives a 0.97 rating, while Rancho Palos Verdes varies from 0.82 to 0.98. Just two miles east of the city limits, near the Phillips 66 refinery, the environmental score is 0.03. Refineries and heavy industrial uses along the 110 Freeway and in the Port of Los Angeles vicinity result in low environmental rankings in a number of Census tracts around San Pedro and Wilmington. Scores are also below 0.50 around the Zamperini Airfield in Torrance, and in parts of Downtown Long Beach.
The City also is in the highest-ranking category using the Cal EnviroScreen maps and is highly ranked on the Public Health Alliance of Southern California “Healthy Places Index.” Environmental outcome values are also high in the other Peninsula cities. Exposure to environmental hazards is much higher along the freeways and in the Harbor area, where industrial uses and refineries are more prevalent.
TCAC Economic Outcomes
Figure A-108 shows economic outcomes in southern Los Angeles County. This is generally a measure of wealth and access to jobs. Rolling Hills and all of the Peninsula cities are in the highest category, reflecting high rates of home ownership, high home values, and high incomes.
The census tracts to the east have more diverse ratings, with low ratings in Northwest San Pedro and Wilmington.
The TCAC Opportunity Score for Rolling Hills is 0.86, which is in the highest of the four quartiles shown on the opportunity map. Neighboring census tracts in Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho 663
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-23 Palos Verdes have comparable scores, generally ranging from 0.75 to 0.95. Just to the east, in the Harbor neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the economic index is as low as 0.04 in some census tracts. Areas of strongly positive and much less positive economic outcomes exist in close proximity in this area, a legacy of historic land use and development patterns. To the north of Rolling Hills, the City of Torrance has economic opportunity scores that are comparable to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, despite a more moderate-income profile. Torrance is predominantly White and Asian, while the Harbor neighborhoods are primarily Latino, an indication that race and ethnicity have influenced economic opportunity in the area.
TCAC Educational Outcomes
Educational outcomes are shown in Figure A-119. Rolling Hills is in highest quartile, with positive educational outcomes. The City’s score is 0.96, on a scale of zero to 1.0. This reflects the community’s high wealth and access to education. Adjacent neighborhoods in Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes have identical scores, while scores in the beach cities to the north are even higher. Conversely, scores step down in several bands moving to the east, with the third quartile just east of Rolling Hills, then the second quartile, and then the lowest quartile in San Pedro roughly four miles east. Low outcomes also appear in Wilmington and the Less positive outcomes appear in the census tracts to the east, with the lowest outcomes in the San Pedro area and in the neighborhoods around the Port of Los Angeles.
Transportation
Public transportation to and from Rolling Hills is poor and there is no transit service at all within the city limits. The Palos Verdes Peninsula Transit Authority operates buses along Palos Verdes Road North, which serve the northern edge of the city and provide service to the Peninsula’s commercial centers as well as San Pedro. Connecting service is available along those routes to other transit systems (including the Metro Silver Line in San Pedro), providing connections to Los Angeles and other regional destinations. However, given the distance and travel time, these are not generally viable means of transport to workplaces. US Census data indicates that zero percent (0.0%) of the city’s residents use public transit to commute to work.
Composite Opportunity Map
Figure A-120 is a composite of the TCAC analysis, taking the three above variables into consideration. The Figure affirms what is shown in Figures A-97, -108, and -119. Rolling Hills is a high-resource, high opportunity area, with positive environmental health indicators, positive economic outcomes for its residents, and access to quality education. Because of the city’s small size, these opportunities are homogenously distributed across the community. The same conditions are found in the other Palos Verdes Peninsula neighborhoods, some of which have even higher composite scores than Rolling Hills.
Figure A-120 provides a more regional perspective than Figures A-97, -108, and -119. The pattern immediately evident on this map is that the coastal communities of Los Angeles County are almost all in the highest resource category. There is a swath of moderate and low resource neighborhoods extending from Downtown Los Angeles southward to the Port of Los Angeles.
Areas extending from Central LA southward are highlighted on the map as having high segregation and poverty rates, corresponding with the lowest level of opportunity. Moving 664
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-24 further east, the pattern becomes more diffuse, with a patchwork of high, moderate, and low resource areas extending toward the San Gabriel Valley and Orange County.
The high opportunity ranking given to Rolling Hills was part of SCAG’s rationale for assigning the city a large allocation in the 6th Cycle RHNA. The base number of units assigned to the city by SCAG was calibrated upward based on their “social equity adjustment,” resulting in Rolling Hills’ 45 units (compared to six units in 2013-2021). This reflects several mandated objectives of the RHNA methodology, including promoting socio-economic equity and balancing disproportionate household income distribution across the region.
As indicated earlier in this analysis, the Rancho Del Mar School site provides the best location to improve access to opportunity and affirmatively further fair housing within Rolling Hills. The site has the potential to improve economic outcomes for lower income households by providing affordable housing in a high-resource area.
665
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-25 666
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-26 667
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-27 668
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-28 669
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-29 Disproportionate Housing Needs
“Disproportionate housing needs” refer to conditions in which members of a protected class within a defined geographic area experience much higher housing needs than the population at large.3 Following HCD guidance, the analysis to identify disproportionate needs considers cost burden, overcrowding, and substandard housing conditions. Much of this data also is contained in the Housing Element Needs Assessment (Chapter 3), but the focus here is on extremely lowincome residents, tenure, and persons of color. As noted in earlier sections of this Appendix, the analysis for Rolling Hills is hampered by the small size of the community and the fact that it contains only one Census Block Group. The margin of error for American Community Survey (ACS) data for the city is high, and the number of residents in protected classes is small. Where available, maps are used to compare data for Rolling Hills with data for surrounding communities.
Tenure and Tenure by Race
Table A-6 shows tenure in Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County as a whole. Relative to the region, Rolling Hills has a much higher rate of homeownership. The rate exceeded 95 percent in 2020, compared to 46 percent regionally. As in the County, the percentage of renters increased slightly between 2010 and 2020, but the number remains very small.
Rates of home ownership often vary by race and ethnicity. Regionally and nationally, the rate of home ownership is substantially lower for Black/African-American households than it is for White households. This is not the case in Rolling Hills. The 2015-2019 ACS indicates that 100 percent of the Hispanic, Black, and multi-racial households in the city are homeowners. For White households, 95 percent are homeowners and 5 percent are renters. Among Asian households, 98 percent are homeowners and 2 percent are renters.
Table A-6: Housing Tenure in Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Households
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Households
in Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Owners 96.9% 95.1% 46.9% 46.0%
Renters 3.1% 4.9% 53.1% 54.0%
Sources: American Community Survey Five-year averages for 2010 and 2020 3 The protected classes are race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability. 670
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-30 Cost Burden
As noted in Chapter 3, a household is considered cost burdened if more than 30 percent of its income is spent on housing (including utilities). Figures A-131 and A-142 depict the incidence of cost burden for owners and renters in Rolling Hills and surrounding communities. Table 3.9 (in Chapter 3) indicates the percent of income spent on housing for homeowners with a mortgage, homeowners without a mortgage, and renters. Roughly 31 percent of the city’s households are considered cost-burdened, but most have above moderate incomes.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes data on the number of households that are cost-burdened in each community using federally-defined income categories. This is referred to as the CHAS (Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy) data. According to the CHAS 2014-2018 data, there are 100 low- and very low-income households in Rolling Hills (i.e., earning 80 percent or less of the areawide median income [AMI]). These households include 83 who were cost-burdened, including 65 who were defined as being “severely” cost-burdened (spending more than half their incomes on housing).
CHAS data indicates that 78 of the cost-burdened lower-income households were homeowners and the remainder were renters. The relatively high number of cost-burdened low-income homeowners is likely associated with retired seniors on fixed incomes, who must still pay property taxes, utilities, insurance, HOA dues and other housing costs—even after their mortgages are paid off. These expenses may be several thousand dollars a month. In fact, the CHAS data indicates that there are 25 extremely low-income households in Rolling Hills (earning less than 30% of AMI), all of whom are homeowners. The most recent available CHAS data indicates that there are no extremely low-income renters in the city.
CHAS data identifies 10 very low-income renter households in the city (30-50% of AMI), along with 30 very low-income owners. Seventy-five percent of these households pay more than 30% of their incomes on rent.
As illustrated in Figures A-113 and A-142, the incidence of cost burden is somewhat lower in Rolling Hills than it is in adjacent communities, including those on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Figure A-13, which is based on American Community Survey (ACS) data for 2015-2019, identifies Rolling Hills as being in the 20-40% overpayment interval for homeowners. In other words, between 20 and 40 percent of its owner-occupied households spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing. The city is surrounded on all sides by census tracts with rates in the 40-60% interval. This is not an indication that homes in Rolling Hills are more affordable, but rather a reflection of the length of residency and the large number of homeowners in Rolling Hills who have no mortgages. About 37 percent of the city’s homeowners have lived in their homes for over 30 years. Rates of homeowner overpayment are higher in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles, several miles east of Rolling Hills and in lower income census tracts throughout Central Los Angeles County. On the other hand, the rate in Rolling Hills is comparable to many cities in the county, including Torrance, Carson, Palos Verdes Estates, and the Beach cities to the north.
Figure A-14, which is also based on ACS data for 2015-2019, identifies Rolling Hills as also being in the 20-40% overpayment interval for renters. However, this is based on a sample of a very small demographic, since there are only 27 renter households in the entire city. As Figure 671
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-31 A-14 indicates, the rate of overpayment is significantly higher in the portion of Rancho Palos Verdes located immediately east of the city, and in the portion of Rolling Hills Estates located immediately west of the city. There are also nearby tracts with overpayment rates that are less than 20 percent. On a regional basis, the percentage of renter overpayment in Rolling Hills is low. Most tracts in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and the larger suburban cities have rates in the 40 to 60 percent range. Rolling Hills renters tend to be more affluent, and are typically renting single family homes rather than apartments.
Cost-burden data is also shown in Table A-7 below. As the table indicates, most extremely lowincome households in Rolling Hills were considered severely cost-burdened in both 2010 and 2020. Most lower income homeowners and many lower income renters (i.e., those earning 80 percent of areawide median or lower) were also cost-burdened. Rates of cost-burden were even higher in Rolling Hills than in the county as a whole. However, the data for Rolling Hills in Table A-7 is based on a very small number of households, leading to a high statistical margin of error (for instance there are only 10 lower income renter households in the city). At a countywide level, about 63 percent of all low-income homeowners and 75 percent of all lowincome renters are cost-burdened.
Table A-7: Percentage of Cost-Burdened Households, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County
Percent of Households
in Rolling Hills (*)
Percent of Households
in Los Angeles County
2008-2012 2014-2018 2008-2012 2014-2018
Cost-burdened households earning less than 80% AMI (low income) Owners
Paying > 30% 78.8% 86.7% 66.3% 63.1%
Paying > 50% 61.2% 66.7% 44.3% 40.2%
Renters
Paying >30% 100.0% 80.0% 73.3% 75.1%
Paying > 50% 0% 40.0% 43.0% 44.5%
Cost-burdened households earning less than 30% AMI (extremely low income) Owners
Paying > 30% 100.0% 76.0% 74.7% 75.4%
Paying > 50% 100.0% 60.0% 62.4% 63.0%
Renters
Paying > 30% 100.0% 0% 82.4% 81.7%
Paying > 50% 0% 0% 70.4% 70.2%
Sources: CHAS HUD User website, data for 2008-2012 and 2014-2018. Data for Rolling Hills indicates 4 lower income renter households in 2008-2012 and 10 lower income renter households in 2014-2018 672
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-32 Overcrowding
As noted in Chapter 3, a household is considered overcrowded it the housing unit it occupies has more than one person per room, excluding kitchens and bathrooms. As noted on page 3- 11, only one percent of the city’s households meet this definition. There are no households in the city that meet the definition of “severe” overcrowding, which is more than 1.5 persons per room. Moreover, the data indicates that none of the renter-occupied households in the city were overcrowded. There were six owner-occupied units with more than one person per room.
Figure A-135 shows this information spatially, illustrating that units on the Palos Verdes Peninsula are generally not overcrowded. All of the tracts in all four Peninsula cities have overcrowding rates below 8.2 percent, which is the statewide average. Units in the more urbanized areas to the east, with higher percentages of renters and smaller housing units, are more likely to be overcrowded. Tracts in the Wilmington and San Pedro areas have rates exceeding 20 percent in some cases. Further north, tracts in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, Southgate, Lynwood, Compton, and other more diverse and lower income communities have higher rates of overcrowding.
Table A-8 shows household overcrowding in Rolling Hills and the region.
Table A-8: Overcrowded Households, Rolling Hills and Los Angeles County Percent of Households
in Rolling Hills
Percent of Residents
in Los Angeles County
2010 2020 2010 2020
Owner Households
Less than 1.0
persons per room
99.5% 99.4% 93.9% 94.3%
1.01-1.50 persons
per room
0.5% 0.6% 4.6% 4.1%
1.51-2.00 persons
per room
0 0 1.1% 1.1%
2.01 or more
persons per room
0 0 0.3% 0.5%
Renter Households
Less than 1.0
persons per room
100.0% 100.0% 82.4% 84.0%
1.01-1.50 persons
per room
0 0 9.8% 8.5%
1.51-2.00 persons
per room
0 0 5.2% 5.3%
2.01 or more
persons per room
0 0 2.6% 2.2%
Sources: American Community Survey Five-Year averages for 2010 and 2020 673
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-33 Table A-8 confirms that rates of overcrowding are much lower in Rolling Hills than in Los Angeles County, with no overcrowded rental units and only 0.5 percent of the owner-occupied units meeting the Census definition of overcrowding. Moreover, the data indicates almost no change between 2010 and 2020. By contrast, the countywide data shows that about 6 percent of owner-occupied units and 16 percent of rental units are considered overcrowded. In most cases, the percentages did not change significantly between 2010 and 2020.
Housing Problems
The HUD CHAS data indicates how many households in each community experience one of four specific housing problems—these problems are (a) lack of a complete kitchen; (b) lack of complete plumbing facilities; (c) overcrowding; and (d) severe cost burden (paying more than 50 percent of income on housing). According to CHAS data for 2014-2018, there are about 110 owner-occupied households in Rolling Hills and four renter households in Rolling Hills with one or more of these problems. Since all housing units in the city have kitchens and baths, and only six are overcrowded, the primary problem experienced is a severe housing cost burden. The CHAS data indicates there are 105 owner-occuped households with a severe housing cost burden. Most of these are lower-income senior households Figure A-146 shows this data on a regional level. The rate of housing problems is higher in Rolling Hills than it is in the other Palos Verdes Peninsula cities, due to the high percentage of senior homeowners living on fixed incomes and paying substantial portions of their incomes on housing. However, the city’s rate is comparable to other affluent areas on the west side of Los Angeles and is lower than in the neighborhoods and communities immediately south and immediately east of Los Angeles.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-34 675
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-35 676
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-36 677
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-37 678
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-38 Displacement Risk
Figure A-175 illustrates “sensitive communities” in the southern half of Los Angeles County.
These are communities with relatively high risks of displacement due to rising rents and a lack of tenant protection. None of the Palos Verdes Peninsula cities are shown as vulnerable. On the other hand, most of the tracts in the City of Los Angeles, including the San Pedro and Wilmington communities, are shown as vulnerable. The entire South-Central area of Los Angeles is vulnerable, as are nearby communities such as Compton, Inglewood, and Hawthorne.
As depicted on Figure A-175, vulnerable communities are communities in which at least 20 percent of the population is low income and two or more of the following conditions are present:
• Renters are over 40% of all households
• People of color are 50% or more of the population
• Share of severely cost-burdened very low income renters is above county median • Rents have been increasing at faster rate than county median • Larger than average gap between local rents and rents in surrounding tracts These conditions are not present in Rolling Hills.
Figure A-175: Sensitive Communities
Census tracts in
purple are
designated as
“vulnerable” due
to displacement
risk
ROLLING HILLS
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-39 Due to the very high percentage of home ownership, Rolling Hills does not face displacement risk. Displacement may occur due to other reasons, such as an aging household unable to maintain their property or afford the modifications needed to age in place.
Homelessness
Homelessness in Rolling Hills is addressed in Section 3.4.8 of the Housing Element (Chapter 3).
As indicated there, the annual point-in-time count for Los Angeles residents identified no unhoused residents in the city in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, or 2020. Figure A-18 shows the spatial extent of homelessness at a regional level based on data provided by the County of Los Angeles. The table shows that there were three unhoused residents per square mile in all four of the Palos Verdes Peninsula cities. The density is highest in Downtown Los Angeles, Venice, and various neighborhoods on LA’s West Side and South Central areas. Some of these areas have more than 500 unhoused residents per square mile. The relatively low densities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula reflect the absence of shelter facilities, supportive services, nonresidential land, and public lands where outdoor camping might occur.
Other Populations with Special Needs
Chapter 3 of the Housing Element identifies special needs populations in Rolling Hills. The principal special needs group is older adults, with one-third of the city’s population over 65. As noted in Section 3.3.1, 56 percent of the households in Rolling Hills include at least one person who is 65 or older. Most of the persons with disabilities and all of the extremely low income households in the city are seniors. Rolling Hills has a very small number of single parents and large households, and it does not have unhoused residents or farmworkers. 680
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-40
NEW MAP
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-41 Other Relevant Factors
The State’s guidance for AFFH requires that other relevant factors contributing to fair housing issues be evaluated as part of this analysis. As explained in the next section, the principal contributing factor is that Rolling Hills was developed as an equestrian community in which multi-family residential uses were not permitted. The city’s single family character was reinforced by minimum lot size requirements (one acre) and a (now repealed) prohibition on Accessory Dwelling Units which made it difficult for low and moderate income persons to afford housing in the community. These requirements effectively limited the rental housing supply to very expensive single family homes and resulted in a tenure pattern in which more than 97 percent of the households in the city are homeowners.
Governmental spending on affordable housing and the implementation of housing programs is severely limited by the small size of the city (fewer than 700 homes), the lack of any taxgenerating land uses other than housing, the high cost of land and construction, and severe environmental hazards in the community. Historically, there have no instances of transportation or infrastructure improvements causing the displacement of lower income households. As documented in Chapter 5 of the Housing Element, there are no public streets in the city and almost no properties served by sanitary sewers. This has been an impediment to the development of multi-family housing.
The high cost of housing in Rolling Hills has historically precluded low- and moderate-income households from living in the city, unless they were home care providers, domestic employees, persons renting a room, family members, or seniors without a mortgage. Additionally, lending practices historically favored White borrowers, making the city less diverse than the county and region. This has changed in the past few decades and Rolling Hills has become more racially diverse. However, the city has not become economically diverse.
Based on Census (ACS 2015-2019) data, there are not significant differences in the rates of home ownership among different race and ethnic groups in Rolling Hills. As shown in Table A-9, the data indicates that all Black and Latino households in the city are homeowners, and that all renter households in the city are White or Asian. However, the findings are based on sample data and the sample sizes are very small. The greater takeaway is that housing in the city continues to be affordable only to very high income households.
Table A-9: Rolling Hills Home Ownership Rates by Race/Ethnicity Race/Ethnicity Owners Renters Total % Owners
White, Non-Hispanic 360 8 368 98%
Asian, Non-Hispanic 101 16 117 86%
Black, Non-Hispanic 9 0 9 100%
Hispanic/Latino 28 0 28 100%
Two or more races 35 3 38 92%
Source: American Community Survey, 2015-2019 (2022)
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-42 Local Data and Knowledge
HCD’s guidance for the AFFH analysis indicates that cities should use local data and knowledge to analyze fair housing issues, including information obtained through community participation or consultation. The regional demographic data help show spatial patterns but do not expressly explain why problems exist. An additional screen of local insights is necessary to complement federal and state data sources.
While there is no specific local data on fair housing specific to Rolling Hills, the circumstances behind the spatial patterns shown throughout this analysis are mostly self-evident. The city was master planned more than 80 years ago as a low-density equestrian community with large parcels marketed to prospective homeowners. Rental housing was not included in these plans and CC&Rs were drafted and enforced to maintain single family character. The lack of sewers, risk of wildfire and landslides, and absence of public streets created further disincentives for multi-family housing, while also increasing construction costs. More recently, the high cost of land has made affordable housing construction economically infeasible, which will continue to be an impediment in the future.
Rolling Hills is also an entirely residential community. There are no private businesses in the city limits, except for a handful of home-based occupations. Employment is associated with the PVPTA maintenance yard, the Rancho Del Mar school building, the Fire Station, and the City Hall/ Rolling Hills Community Association buildings, which collectively employ just over 100 people. Housing demand is not generated by businesses within the city. There are no underused commercial sites to be repurposed for housing, since there have never been commercial land uses in the city.
Rolling Hills does generate demand for services that create jobs, including low-income jobs.
Local homeowners provide employment for caregivers and home health care workers, au pairs and home child care providers, landscapers and domestic workers, personal assistants, and those in the construction trades. Housing for this workforce has been largely unavailable in the city, although some of these employees may live on-site and are considered part of the primary household.
Local data and knowledge supports a fair housing strategy that is heavily focused on housing this population in ADUs, potentially at reduced rents. The service industry population is generally more racially and ethnically diverse than the city at large. Providing additional ADU and JADU opportunities would help contribute to the State’s integration and equity goals while improving access to housing in a high-resource area. It can also reduce commuting and associated congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-43 Distribution of Proposed Housing Sites
This section of the AFFH analysis evaluates the City’s site inventory to ensure that the distribution of sites does not exacerbate patterns of segregation, access to opportunity, and disproportionate housing needs. The site inventory must be consistent with each community’s duty to affirmatively further fair housing.
Rolling Hills presents a unique situation in this regard, as the entire city consists of just one census block group. Data for this one tract indicates that the entire city is in the highest resource category. The land use pattern is homogenous and consistent in all parts of the city, and there are no observable disparities in housing condition, demographics, or income at the neighborhood level.
Additionally, the city’s lower income RHNA is 29 units. While the State mandate calls for distributing opportunities on multiple sites in each city, the economics of affordable housing development make this impractical in Rolling Hills. The City is more likely to see affordable units developed on a single site capable of supporting a critical mass of at least 16 units than on multiple sites capable of accommodating a few units each.4 The City will distribute affordable opportunities through a strategy that relies on its housing opportunity site and about a dozen accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on scattered sites.
The development of affordable housing on the Rancho Del Mar site furthers the goals of AB 686 by providing a viable opportunity for affordable housing in a very high resource area. This opportunity did not exist prior to 2020 when the site was rezoned. Moreover, the City has adopted provisions to allow the development “by right” creating a path to expedited approval.
As documented in Chapter 4, this is the only viable site in Rolling Hills for higher density housing given the lack of sewer and a public road system. It is also one of the few sites that is accessible to transit and evacuation routes.
Meeting the remaining lower income need for affordable units through ADUs is a practical, effective way to meet the intent of AB 686 while dispersing opportunities across a large geographic area. By definition, ADUs distribute affordable housing opportunities across the community rather than concentrating them in a single location. They are also responsive to very real opportunities in Rolling Hills, resulting from large house sizes, numerous accessory buildings, a large number of one- and two-person households, and an aging population. The City’s new ADU program has a demonstrated track record of success, with nine units permitted in 2021. Continued efforts to support ADUs will allow Rolling Hills to achieve AFFH goals in a way that is realistic, practical, responsive to local conditions, and produces real results. 4 While the base density for the Rancho Del Mar site is 16 units, the City requires that the site be developed with 100% affordable housing. Thus, it will be eligible for an 80% State density bonus which would enable 29 units in total. 684
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-44 Identification and Prioritization of Contributing Factors “Contributing factors” are the underlying forces that create, contribute to, perpetuate, or increase the severity of fair housing issues. In its AFFH Guidance Memo (2021), HCD has identified eight contributing factor topic areas, including general outreach, fair housing enforcement and outreach capacity, segregation and integration, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disparity in access to opportunity, disparity in access for persons with disabilities, disproportionate housing needs and displacement risks, and the site inventory.
Under each of these topic areas, the Guidance memo lists individual issues which can potentially be addressed by a Housing Element action. According to HCD, examples of contributing factors are community opposition to affordable housing, housing discrimination, land use and zoning laws, lack of regional cooperation, lack of affordable housing, and lack of public or private investment in areas of opportunity or affordable housing choices.
AB 686 requires that the City strategically prioritize the contributing factors and develop programs that mitigate these these factors through its goals, policies, and actions. The Housing Element must include programs that mitigate discrimination and improve fair housing choices and access to opportunities in high resource areas. HCD generally groups these actions into the following four categories:
• Housing Mobility Strategies, which consist of removing barriers to housing in areas of opportunity
• New Housing Choices and Affordability, which include strategies to promote more housing supply and choices in areas of high opportunity and outside areas of concentrated poverty
• Place-based strategies to Encourage Community Conservation and Revitalization, which include approaches to conserve and improve assets in areas with concentrated poverty and lower opportunities
• Protecting Residents from Displacement, which includes strategies to preserve housing choices and affordability for residents within low and moderate opportunity areas.
Given that Rolling Hills is a high-resource, high-opportunity area, all of the City’s AFFH strategies fall in the first two of these categories.
Following is an assessment of factors that could contribute to fair housing issues in Rolling Hills, along with strategies that mitigate these factors.
Priority 1: Address Disparities in Access to Opportunity Contributing Factors:
• Land Use and Zoning Laws
• Lack of Public Investment in Services and Amenities
The City’s highest AFFH priority is to address disparities in access to opportunity. These disparities have been created primarily by land use and zoning laws, coupled with economic conditions and environmental hazards that precluded multi-family housing in Rolling Hills. 685
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-45 The City historically has had no rental housing and no housing opportunities for lower and moderate income households. It has begun to remove land use and zoning barriers by allowing and encouraging accessory dwelling units, promoting home sharing, rezoning land for multifamily and special needs housing, and supporting public investments in infrastructure that will facilitate future housing development. The 2021-2029 Housing Element identifies additional steps the City will take to mitigate this contributing factor.
Specific Programs (described in Chapter 6) aimed at mitigating land use and zoning as a contributing factor include:
• Program 2 supporting the development of affordable multi-family housing on the Rancho Del Mar Housing Opportunity Site
• Program 4 adding definitions of transitional and supportive housing to the Municipal Code, to clarify that these uses are subject to the same standards that apply to the other residential uses in each zoning district
• Program 5 adopting a density bonus ordinance
• Program 6 creating incentives for ADUs
• Program 7 promoting community education on ADUs
• Program 12 supporting outreach to affordable housing service providers and developers
• Program 13 supporting a shared housing program
Specific Programs (described in Chapter 6) aimed at mitigating lack of public investment in services and amenities as a contributing factor include:
• Program 14 calling for sewer feasibility studies and phase one construction of a sanitary sewer system that would serve City Hall and the community tennis courts and potential future expansions
• Program 15 calling for potential participation in the CDBG Urban County program, which could provide a public funding source for infrastructure and housing improvements
This contributing factor is also mitigated by the designation of the Rancho Del Mar site for multifamily housing, since this is the only site in the city that has sanitary sewers and access to a public street. As noted throughout the Housing Element, most of Rolling Hills does not sewer or public street access.
All of the above programs fall into the “New Housing Choices and Affordability” category, as they promote more housing supply and choices in areas of high opportunity.
Priority 2: Increase Fair Housing Outreach, Education and Enforcement Capacity Contributing Factors:
• Lack of local private fair housing outreach and enforcement The second AFFH priority area is to improve fair housing outreach, education, and enforcement capacity. While public agencies do not directly control the actions of private property owners 686
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-46 related to fair housing, they can influence outcomes. Rolling Hills has limited staff (6 FTEs) and a severely constrained budget, no tax-generating commercial land uses, and with limited revenue to fund new programs. The capacity to do pro-active outreach and enforcement of fair housing complaints is constrained. As a result, owners seeking to rent property may be unaware of fair housing laws and discriminatory practices. Likewise, tenants (or prospective tenants) may be unaware of their rights and may face discrimination without awareness of the opportunity for recourse. At present, there is not a formal private fair housing outreach and enforcement program and resources for such a program are limited.
Specific Programs (described in Chapter 6) aimed at increasing fair housing outreach, education, and enforcement include:
• Program 20 recommends that the City increase its capacity for fair housing outreach, education, and enforcement. This would include education to those choosing to rent their homes or ADUs regarding state and federal laws on discrimination and the acceptance of housing vouchers.
• Program 21 calls for increased information on fair housing on the City’s website, including a dedicated landing page with fair housing information and links to fair housing resources.
• Program 22 calls for fair housing training for City staff.
All of the applicable strategies to address this priority fall are in the “Housing Mobility” category, in that they are aimed at removing barriers in a high opportunity area.
Priority 3: Disparities in Access for Persons with Disabilities Contributing Factors:
• Lack of assistance for housing accessibility modifications • Lack of affordable in-home or community-based supportive services As noted earlier in this Appendix and in Chapter 3 of the Housing Element, more than one-third of Rolling Hills residents are over 65 and most of the City’s households include at least one person over 65. This demographic has the highest rate of disability in the city, primarily associated with mobility limitations. Sight and hearing impairments and cognitive impairments also may affect older adults. As a rural community with very large lots and no public transportation, persons with these limitations and impairments may face housing challenges as well as other challenges such as the ability to evacuate in an emergency.
Specific Programs (described in Chapter 6) aimed at reducing disparities in access for persons with disabilities include:
• Programs 6 and 7 supporting ADU development, including units for live-in caregivers and health care providers
• Program 8 to assist senior and disabled households, including home retrofits for aging in place. This also includes housing resources for persons with developmental disabilities.
• Program 12 supporting home sharing, especially for senior and disabled households 687
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-47 All of the above programs fall into the “New Housing Choices and Affordability” category, as they promote better choices in high opportunity areas.
Summary
Table A-10 summarizes AFFH priorities, contributing factors, fair housing issues, and applicable housing programs.
Table A-10: Fair Housing Priorities, Issues, Contributing Factors and Strategies Priority Fair Housing
Issue
Contributing
Factors
Program
Category
Relevant Program (see Chapter 6)
1 Disparities to
Access in
Opportunity
• Land Use and
Zoning Laws
New
Housing
Choices and
Affordability
• Program 2: Affordable multi-family housing
development on Rancho Del Mar site
• Program 4: Definitions of transitional and
supportive housing in the Municipal Code,
• Program 5: Density bonus ordinance
• Program 6: ADU incentives
• Program 7: ADU education and outreach
• Program 12: outreach to housing service
providers
• Program 13 supporting a shared housing
program
• Lack of Public
Investment in
Services and
Amenities
• Program 14: sewer feasibility studies
• Program 15: CDB Urban County Program
2 Fair Housing
Outreach,
Education,
and
Enforcement
• Lack of local
private fair
housing
outreach and
enforcement
Housing
Mobility
• Program 20: Increase capacity for fair
housing outreach, education, enforcement
• Program 21: Increased fair housing
information on City’s website
• Program 22: Fair Housing training for staff
3 Disparities in
Access for
Persons with
Disabilities
• Lack of
assistance for
housing
accessibility
modifications
• Lack of
affordable inhome or
communitybased
supportive
services
New
Housing
Choices and
Affordability
• Program 6: ADU incentives
• Program 7: ADUs outreach for live-in
caregivers and health care providers
• Program 8: Assistance to senior and
disabled households
• Program 12: Home sharing
Environmental Constraints
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-48 The entire city is designated a Very High Wildfire Hazard Severity area. In the past, wildfires have destroyed homes in Rolling Hills and endangered life and property. Wildfires are likely to become a greater threat in the future due to global climate change and continue to limit the viability of land in Rolling Hills for higher-density construction. Much of the city is landslide prone. Landslides have destroyed Rolling Hills homes in the past and will remain an impediment to multi-family development in the future. The City has responded to this contributing factor by identifying the opportunity for multi-family housing on one of the only unconstrained sites in the city.
Economics
Economic factors will continue to present a challenge to the achievement of fair housing goals in Rolling Hills. Land and construction costs are prohibitively expensive, making it difficult to build affordable housing. To the extent that members of protected classes often have lower incomes, they will continue to be disproportionately affected by high housing costs. The City has little direct control over economic pressure, as these are driven by the regional economy and real estate market. Nonetheless, by creating the housing overlay zone on the Rancho Del Mar site, it has created an opportunity for affordable project in a location that is less impacted by these factors.
Land Use and Zoning Laws
Land use policies and zoning laws in Rolling Hills allow only very low densities on most sites, recognizing the city’s identity and heritage as an equestrian community, and the infrastructure and environmental constraints cited above. The City has worked creatively to allow for ADUs and multi-family housing within the context of these constraints. Nonetheless, limited opportunities for higher density housing may cause many of the conditions identified in this analysis to continue. Various Housing Element programs are included to address this issue.
This includes adding provisions for transitional and supportive housing to the zoning regulations, as well as density bonus regulations. It also includes proactive support for ADUs, including units serving lower income residents and workers.
Lack of Participation in Countywide Programs
Rolling Hills does not participate in the Countywide Urban County CDBG Program. This may limit access to some of the fair housing resources available to other cities.
Community Opposition
The 2020 Rolling Hills Housing Survey, which was focused on ADUs, indicated mixed views on affordable housing, concerns about community character, and tremendous concern about the city’s ability to absorb additional housing and evacuate additional residents. The survey was anonymous and allowed for open-ended comments. While some were supportive, there were also negative views expressed about affordable housing, renters, ADUs, and the State’s housing mandates. This will continue to be an issue in the future and requires an ongoing community dialogue about housing issues and the benefits of having greater housing choices. 689
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-49 Summary of Fair Housing Issues and Additional Fair Housing Concerns According to the California Code of Regulations, a land use practice has a discriminatory effect where it actually or predictably results in a disparate impact on a group of individuals, or creates, increases, reinforces, or perpetuates segregated housing patterns, based on membership in a protected class. Such practices may still be lawful--however, the State has determined that they should be mitigated to the extent that they increase, reinforce, or perpetuate segregated housing patterns. In this context, the State has found that single family zoning itself has had unintended (and in some cases, intended) discriminatory effects. In response, the legislature has taken steps requiring local governments to accommodate additional housing units on single family zoned sites.
Rolling Hills has adopted regulations permitting accessory dwelling units and is currently considering legislation reflecting recently adopted SB 9. Both of these measures provide potential opportunities for rental housing, smaller units, and more affordable units that did not previously exist in the city. New ADU production and affordability programs affirmatively further fair housing and promote new housing opportunities throughout the community.
Strategies to enhance mobility (i.e., transit access to Rolling Hills), preserve existing affordable housing, and protect residents from displacement are less applicable in Rolling Hills. However, the City’s policies and programs do aim to address disparities and create new affordable housing opportunities in high-resource areas. The City has required that any multi-family construction be affordable to low and very low income households, ensuring opportunities for economic diversification rather than further concentration of affluence. Allowing market-rate multi-family housing would only exacerbate existing concentrations of affluence and run counter to the purpose and intent of AB 686.
Rolling Hills also has made fair housing outreach and education a priority, not only for Rolling Hills residents but for those who may seek to move to Rolling Hills in the future. Current efforts will be expanded in the future by making more information available and strengthening communication with fair housing service providers.
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Appendix A: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Analysis A-50 691
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APPENDIX B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-1
APPENDIX B
Analysis of Palos Verdes Unified School District (PVUSD) Site (APN 7569-022-900)
The intent of this Appendix is to provide supplemental analysis supporting the designation of the Palos Verdes Unified School District (PVUSD) site as an opportunity site for “by right” affordable housing in the City of Rolling Hills. This analysis was requested by the State Department of Housing and Community Development to demonstrate the site’s capacity to provide 16 multifamily units at a density of 20 units per acre. Land use regulations supporting such development are required to meet the City’s 6
th Cycle affordable housing allocation. Based on
existing land uses, access, infrastructure, topography and hazards, land ownership, and site utilization, the City has determined that this represents the most viable site in Rolling Hills for such development.
The 31-acre property is also known as the Rancho Del Mar site, as it is home to Rancho Del Mar High School, a small continuation school with an enrollment of 32 students in 2021. The Beach Cities Learning Center (17 students) also occupies a portion of the school building. Excluding the adjacent playing fields and lawn, the school campus occupies just six percent of the 31-acre site. The only other active use on the property is a Palos Verdes Peninsula Transit Authority maintenance facility. A majority of the site is vacant.
Location and Surroundings
The PVUSD site is located at 38 Crest Road. Figure B-1 provides an aerial photo of the site to provide context, orientation, and an overview of adjacent uses. Figure B-2 is an assessor parcel map. Its exact area is 31.14 acres, including a 3.56-acre street internal to the site that provides access to Crest Road, at a point outside the controlled access entryway to the Rolling Hills (but within the city limits). The net acreage of the site without the street is 27.58 acres.
The site is oblong in shape, with a panhandle area at its western edge that extends to the Crest Road access point. Excluding this panhandle area, the site extends roughly 2,600 feet from east to west and averages more than 600 feet from north to south. Within this area are numerous flat, graded surface areas with no structure coverage and minimal programmed activities.
The City of Rancho Palos Verdes lies immediately south and west of the site. The area to the south is developed with single family homes at densities of 2-3 units per acre. This area is roughly 80 to 100 feet higher in elevation than the site itself, as there is a graded downslope between the residential neighborhood and the school property (the downslope is on the school property). Residential uses also abut the west side of the site, with densities around 3-4 units per acre.
There are no road or driveway connections between the PVUSD site and the Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhoods to the south and west. A 15’ riding and hiking trail easement exists along the southern and western edges of the site but it is undeveloped. The difference in topography reduces the potential for visual impacts associated with future development. 692
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APPENDIX B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-2 The entire northern perimeter of the site is defined by the Crest Road right-of-way. There are large lot homes on the northern side of Crest Road, set back more than 100 feet from the School District property line and more than 200 feet from the improved area of the PVUSD site.
The area to the north is well buffered not only by large setbacks and Crest Road, but also by an internal street on the PVUSD property. Effectively, there are two streets between homes in Rolling Hills and the developable area—Crest Road, and the parallel internal street within the PVUSD site.
On its eastern edge, the site is abutted by large lot residences. The home closest to the site is heavily screened from the PVUSD site by vegetation, as well as a private tennis court between the residence and the property line. The residence itself is more than 200 feet from the PVUSD ballfield and more than 550 feet from the school.
The site context creates effective buffering from adjacent uses, mitigating land use compatibility concerns such as privacy, noise, and visual impacts. At the same time, the site is easily accessible from Crest Road and is outside of the gated area of the city. A fire station is located 1,000 feet to the east, and major shopping facilities and services are located just over a mile away in the City of Rancho Palos Verdes. Crest Road is one of Rolling Hills’ major thoroughfares and one of the few “through-streets” that bisects Rolling Hills and connects the city to adjacent cities and regional highways.
History of the Site and Current Uses
The site was initially home to Cresta Elementary School, which was constructed in 1960. A School District warehouse and maintenance facility was part of the original campus. The school closed in the early 1980s and was repurposed as Rancho Del Mar Continuation High School, which opened in 1986. At the time, there were discussions between the City and the School District to rezone the property and sell the site for residential development. However, Rancho Del Mar has remained on the site for the last 35 years. Given the value of the land and the lowintensity and limited extent of the existing use, residential development remains viable, even if the school does not relocate.
The Rancho Del Mar Campus consists of three one-story buildings totaling 20,000 square feet of floor area. Figure B-3 shows the campus layout, as well as six photos of the school and adjacent areas. The campus consists of an L-shaped building (divided by a breezeway) with eight classrooms, a rectangular building with a classroom, multi-purpose room restroom, and custodial area, and a small building facing the parking lot with the main office. Classrooms at the school are open to the exterior and there are no interior hallways. The PVUSD shares its classroom and administrative facilities with the Beach Cities Learning Center. The Learning Center has 17 students aged 11-18 with emotional, behavioral, and learning challenges. 693
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-3 694
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-4 695
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-5 696
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-6 Rancho del Mar itself serves students ages 16-18 who were unsuccessful in a traditional high school setting. Students are referred to the school for a myriad of reasons, including poor attendance, personal crisis, behavioral issues, or other factors creating a high risk of drop-out.
Enrollment at Rancho del Mar has been steadily declining and was just 32 students in the 2020- 21 school year. Enrollment was 79 students in 2014-15, 72 students in 2015-16, 69 students in 2016-17, 58 students in 2017-18, 47 students in 2018-19, and 46 students in 2019-20. There are also six teachers on site and three other personnel.
Thus, the combined enrollment (Beach Cities and Rancho Del Mar) is fewer than 50 students on a 31-acre site. By contrast, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School and Palos Verdes High School enroll roughly 2,300 and 1,700 students respectively, on sites of similar size. Sale of the school property could generate significant revenue for the School District. Sale of a portion of the property also is possible, as the site is configured in such a way that easily facilitates its subdivision.
A comprehensive structural evaluation of the school was completed in 2016 as part of the PVUSD Facilities Master Plan. Beach Cities Learning Center likewise prepared a facility condition status report in 2019 as part of its annual reporting requirements. Both evaluations found the building(s) to be in good condition. The buildings were last renovated in 2008. The 2016 evaluation called for resurfacing the parking area, upgrading the HVAC system, and upgrading the electrical system. Total capital needs were estimated at $1.9 million. All utilities were found to be in good condition, and drainage issues were minimal.
The school campus is adjoined by an approximately 100-space parking lot on its north and east sides. To the west of the buildings, there is a large flat lawn area. To the east, there is an athletic field area that includes a basketball court and ballfield. The 2016 facility evaluation determined that the Floor Area Ratio of the school campus was just 0.03, as it defined the campus area as being 15.2 acres (including athletic fields, lawns, and other open areas on the perimeter of the site). The square footage of floor space per student is well below District averages.
Beyond the 15.2-acre area associated with the school, the PVUSD has leased approximately 4.5 acres of the site (roughly 15 percent of the 31 acres) to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Transit Authority. The PVPTA facilities include maintenance buildings and administrative offices and are self-contained in the west central part of the site. The Housing Element analysis presumes this part of the site will not be available for development and that the transit district will remain a long-term tenant. However, the PVPTA site could potentially be sold and redeveloped in the future, leased to a new third party, or repurposed by the School District.
Potential Development Areas
Figure B-4 shows potential development areas on the Rancho Del Mar site. These are summarized below:
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-7 • Area 1 is located between the transit facility and the school campus. It is an unimproved, almost completely flat rectangular area of 1.6 acres. Its dimensions are approximately 250 x 300, with 250 feet of frontage along the internal access street. The site is well situated for multi-family development and has no visible physical constraints. • Area 2 is located immediately adjacent to the school and is 1.0 acre. The dimensions are approximately 200 x 200, with a “stem” area providing access to the interior street.
The area is currently an unimproved lawn with a few mature trees. It is almost completely flat and has no physical development constraints. The site could easily support up to 16 to 20 multi-family units at a density of 20 units per net acre. • Area 3 is the school itself, which occupies roughly 1.75 acres including parking, landscaped areas, courtyards, and classroom buildings. This option would be most viable if the school relocates and the site is sold, as co-location of a school and multifamily housing or emergency shelter would be unlikely. However, certain special needs housing types (such as housing for teachers) would be viable in this setting. • Area 4 includes the area east of the school. It includes approximately three acres of level ground, with 0.5 acres of parking, a two-acre ballfield serving the school, and other paved areas used for basketball and recreation. There are several areas within the three acres where 16-20 units could be built without impacting use of the site for parking and school recreation.
• Area 5 includes approximately four acres and is located west of the PVPTA facility. It is regarded by the City as the best location on the 31-acre site for multi-family housing, as it would have the least impact on the school campus and transit facility. It is also the largest of the five areas and the most buffered from adjacent development. There are a number of extant foundations on the site from prior uses, and internal roadways that are not in use. The area has gently sloping terrain and has not been improved for school use, parking, or recreation, as the other portions of the site have.
Figures B-5 through B-7 provide a bird’s eye view of each of the five areas.
Physical Constraints to Site Development
Approximately nine acres of the 31-acre site consists of a graded slope along the south side of Altamira Canyon. This area is shown in Figure B-8. The slope exceeds 30 percent, making it poorly suited for development. The sloped areas also have the potential for landslides and other seismic stability issues, which limit their suitability for further grading and construction. The sloped area is not considered suitable for multi-family development or special needs housing. It occupies roughly 29 percent of the site, all of which has been excluded from consideration in the definition of Areas 1-5 above.
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-8 699
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-9 700
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-10 701
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-11 702
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-12 703
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-13 The central portion of the site has historically been used for general maintenance activities, first by PVUSD and more recently by PVPTA. A search of the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) GeoTracker data base identified two leaking underground storage tanks (LUST sites) at this location. The sites were determined to contain gasoline and hydrocarbons resulting from leaking underground storage tanks. Both sites have been cleaned per SWRCB standards and are now designated by the SWCRB as "complete” and “case closed.”
As noted elsewhere in the Housing Element, the City of Rolling Hills—including the PVUSD site—has been designated as a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone by the State of California.
Rolling Hills is implementing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan to mitigate this hazard and is implementing vegetation management measures and programs to make structures more resilient. In the event of a housing proposal on this site, the need for an emergency-only access connection between the existing access road and Crest Road would be assessed.
An analysis of infrastructure and utilities on the site conducted as part of the Housing Element found no constraints associated with redeveloping this site with residential uses or special needs housing. The site is used less intensively now than when it was actively used as an elementary school and school maintenance facility. Water, drainage, and wastewater facilities are adequate to support the number of units contemplated by the Housing Element.
Importantly, this is one of the only sites in the City of Rolling Hills that has access to a public sewer system. As such, it is much more conducive to multi-family housing that sites elsewhere in the city that are served by private septic systems.
Regulatory Constraints to Site Development
Prior to December 2020, the PVUSD opportunity site was subject to a range of planning and regulatory constraints that limited the feasibility of multi-family housing. The site has historically had a General Plan designation of Very Low Density Residential and a zoning designation of RAS-2 (Residential Suburban 2-acre minimum lot size), which effectively limited uses to existing community facilities or new large-lot residential development. While Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) could conceivably be incorporated in new homes, the site would not have met State requirements for the Housing Element.
In February 2021, the City of Rolling Hills amended its General Plan and zoning regulations to allow multi-family housing and other special needs housing types “by right” on the PVUSD property, subject to specific development standards. As noted elsewhere in the Housing Element, the amendments included:
• Amending the Land Use Element of the General Plan to create the Rancho Del Mar Housing Opportunity Overlay. The Land Use Element now explicitly states that multifamily housing and emergency shelter are permitted by right in this area, subject to objective development standards. The number of units on the site is based on a transfer of the allowable General Plan density to a clustered area where 16 to 20 units could be added.
• Amending the Rolling Hills Municipal Code (Zoning Regulations) to create the Rancho Del Mar Housing Opportunity Overlay, and to map this Overlay on the entire PVUSD site. 704
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Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-14 The Overlay establishes a minimum density of 20 units per acre and a maximum density of 24 units per acre. Affordable housing is permitted “by right” subject to objective development standards defined in the Ordinance. The Ordinance identifies the area west of the PVPTA site as the location for future housing. • Amending the Zoning Regulations to allow emergency shelter on the property by right, subject to specific development standards specified in the Code. • Amending the Zoning Regulations to allow single room occupancy (SRO) units on the site, with a conditional use permit.
Other Constraints to Site Development
Development of multi-family housing, emergency shelter, or SRO uses on the PVUSD site could occur either:
• by the School District itself (on its own or through a public-private partnership) • through a long-term lease; or
• through sale of all or part of the property
The City has met with the School District and reviewed Board Policies and Codes. Current policies accommodate all of these options—and that there are no prohibitions or limitations on multi-family and special needs housing. Moreover, the School District has expressed interest in developing housing for teachers in the past; such units would meet income criteria for low or very low income units. There are ample opportunities for such housing on the property that would not impact operations at either Rancho Del Mar School or PVPTA. Rancho Del Mar is a logical location for these activities, given the size of the site and its significant underutilization.
The District is less likely to pursue development of an emergency shelter or SRO on its own, as these are not as clearly mission-aligned. However, it could sell or lease property to a third party who could develop these uses. SROs and emergency shelters would be unlikely to co-locate in the school building or on the 1.75-acre school footprint area, given the possibility for use conflicts. However, the 31-acre PVUSD property is large enough to accommodate multiple uses. There are developable areas on the site that are 1,500 feet away from the school. The District has already set a precedent by leasing a large portion of this site to a transit agency; it could do the same for a social service agency or another agency providing a public benefit service to the community.
Like most School Districts in California, the sale or lease of PVUSD property is subject to action by the School Board. Section 3280 of the Board’s Policies allows the Superintendent or designee to study the existing and projected use of facilities to ensure the efficient utilization of space. A Board Committee is typically created prior to the sale of land (although teacher housing is specifically exempted by Board policy from any Committee requirements). A Board vote is required to approve the sale or lease terms. There are also requirements for how the proceeds of a sale or lease may be used.
Once property is sold, the School District Board has no land use or decision-making authority over a site. Thus, the District could sell all or part of the PVUSD site to a non-profit housing 705
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-15 developer, for-profit housing developer, social service provider, or other third party who could develop housing “by right” without further oversight by the Board or City Council. Subdivision of the property would be required, creating a new legal parcel on which housing could be developed.
Given its large size, the most likely scenario is only that a portion of the site would be sold, rather than the entire site. In effect, the Housing Element is creating a unique opportunity for the District to sell a vacant or underutilized subarea on its 31-acre site to a third party, who can then produce teacher housing, senior housing, affordable family housing, or another type of housing that meet local needs.
There are a number of examples of successful small affordable housing projects in the Los Angeles region that meet the density and height criteria established for this site. For example, Habitat for Humanity is currently developing a 10-unit affordable two-story townhome project in Long Beach on a 0.5-acre site. Similar two-story projects by Habitat have been developed in Lynwood, Burbank, Bellflower, and Downey.
In the event that the Rancho Del Mar School itself is closed in the future, the building could be sold and repurposed for other uses. Once sold, the floor space could be reconfigured for alternative uses, including special needs housing. The project would be subject to the objective standards prescribed by the zoning regulations (covered elsewhere in this Housing Element), but approval of the development would be ministerial.
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix B: Supplemental Analysis of the PVUSD Site Page B-16 /intentionally blank/
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-1 APPENDIX C:
Accessory Dwelling Unit Survey Analysis
In Fall 2020, the City of Rolling Hills surveyed its residents to determine the viability of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) as a future affordable housing strategy. The survey was formatted as an 11 x 17 folded sheet printed double-sided (four 8.5 x 11 pages) and was mailed via the US Postal Service to approximately 700 addresses in the city. Return postage was provided so the survey could be easily returned. Residents had roughly one month to complete and return the survey. An option was provided to reply electronically via SurveyMonkey.
Approximately 190 surveys were returned, for a response rate of 27 percent.1 Another seven surveys were received by SurveyMonkey, bringing the total response rate to 28 percent. The survey represents the views and experiences of more than one in four Rolling Hills households.
This is a high response rate and is indicative of the community’s strong interest in the subject.
Demographic information about the respondents was collected as part of the survey.
Respondents tended to be older than Rolling Hills residents as a whole and were mostly longtime residents. About two-thirds of the respondents were 65 or older and 25 percent were 50-
64. By contrast, about 42 percent of the City’s adult residents are over 65 and 36 percent are 50-64. About 42 percent of the respondents had lived in Rolling Hills for more than 30 years and only 20 percent had lived in the city for less than 10 years. By contrast, about 27 percent of all residents have lived in Rolling Hills for more than 30 years and 31 percent have lived in the city for less than 10 years.
The distribution of respondents by household size was close to the citywide average.
Approximately 65 percent lived in one and two person households, which is similar to the citywide average. Only seven percent lived in households with five or more residents, which is just below the citywide average. Of the 194 respondents who indicated their housing tenure, 192 were owners and two were renters. This is equivalent to one percent of the respondents, whereas renters represent about five percent of Rolling Hills households.
Figure C-1 compares demographics for the survey respondents and residents in the city as a whole.
Responses to the survey was completely anonymous. Respondents were given the option of phoning the City if they had questions or wanted more information about ADUs. 1 This estimated return rate was based on 700 households. In August 2021, Census data indicated there were 637 households in the City, so the actual return rate was 31 percent. 708
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-2 Figure C-1: Demographics of Survey Respondents Relative to All Rolling Hills Residents 0 10
20 30
40 50
Less than 10 yrs 10-20 yrs 20-30 yrs 30+ yrs
Length of Residency in Rolling Hills
Survey Respondents All Rolling Hills Residents
0 10
20 30
40 50
60 1 Person 2 Persons 3 Persons 4 Persons 5 Persons 6+ Persons Household Size
Survey Respondents All Rolling Hills Residents
0 10
20 30
40 50
60 70
20-35 35-49 50-64 65+
Percent by Age Group
Survey Respondents All Rolling Hills Residents
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-3 Suitability of the Property for an ADU
Question 1 asked respondents to indicate if their property contained an ADU or other habitable spaces which could potentially be used as an ADU. Respondents were asked to check “all choices that apply,” so the results are not additive.
Thirteen of the respondents indicated they had a legally permitted ADU on their properties with a separate kitchen, bath, and entrance. Some of these units may have been legally created in 2018-2020 after the City adopted its ADU Ordinance, but some likely already existed and are legally classified as guest quarters.
Thirty-four respondents, or roughly 25 percent of the total, indicated they had a secondary building on their properties with an indoor kitchen, bathroom, heat and plumbing. This included guest houses/ casitas, pool houses, habitable barns, and similar features that could be considered potential ADUs even if they are not used for habitation by another household. Ten respondents indicated they had a second kitchen in their homes. Eighteen said they had another space in their home that could “easily be converted” to a separate dwelling or junior ADU. While some respondents may have counted the same space twice, roughly half indicated they had spaces on their properties with the potential to be used as an ADU or JADU. This is further supported by the responses to Question 2 below.
Current Use of ADUs and Spaces Suitable as ADUs
Question 2 asked how the spaces described in Question 1 were being used. Only three of the respondents indicated they were renting ADUs to a paying tenant. Seven indicated that the space was used by a caregiver or domestic employee, while eleven had a family member or long-term occupant living on the property. Collectively, this represents 21 units, or just over 10 percent of the respondent households. The remainder of the respondents with potential ADU space indicated they used these spaces for house guests or their own families, or that the space was unoccupied or used as storage.
The survey findings indicate that ADUs (or “unintended” ADUs such as guest houses) already represent a component of the Rolling Hills housing supply. The survey suggests that there is potential to expand the number of permitted ADUs in the future, even without any new construction. About 15 percent of the respondents (30 in total) indicated they had potential ADU space on their properties that was vacant or used for storage.
Respondents were asked the square footage of the spaces they were describing. Figure C-2 shows the distribution. More than 100 responses were received, with a median size of about 600 square feet.
Respondents who had rented ADUs on their properties were given the option of reporting the rent that was being charged. Two of the three households who indicated they had a paying tenant replied. The monthly rents charged for these units were $950 in one case and $1,500 in another. Based on HCD income limits for Los Angeles County, the $950 unit would be considered affordable to a very low-income household of one or more persons. The $1,500 unit would be considered affordable to a low-income household of one or more persons. These 710
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-4 units are presumed to have been created or legalized between 2018 and 2020, following adoption of the ADU ordinance.
Figure C-2: Square Footage of Spaces Reported by Respondents as Potential ADUs on their Properties, Including Guest Houses
Income Characteristics of Households in Occupied Units
Those who indicated their ADU (or “unintended” ADU/ guest house/ secondary space) was occupied by someone who was not part of their household were asked to describe the number of residents and total income of the occupants. The numeric HCD 2020 income limits (dollar amounts) and number of persons in the household were used so that the occupants could be easily identified using HCD’s income categories.
There were 12 responses to this question, or about six percent of all surveys returned. This presumably includes the small number of units that are rented as ADUs, plus those occupied by caretakers, domestic employees, and other long-term occupants. The distribution by HCD’s income categories is shown below:
Household Size and Income of Households Occupying Formal or Unintended ADUs Income 1 person 2 person 3 person 4 person 5 person 6+ person TOTAL Extremely
Low 1 1 2
Very Low 2 2
Low 1 1
Moderate/
Above Mod 1 4 1 1 7
TOTAL 5 4 1 1 0 1 12
0 5
10 15
20 25
30 >300 301-450 451-650 651-800 801-1000 1000+
Number of Units
Square Footage
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-5 The data indicates that roughly half of the survey respondents’ ADUs (including those which may be unpermitted and used “informally” on a long-term basis) provided housing for low, very low, and extremely low income households.
Interest in Developing an ADU
Question 4 asked respondents if they might be interested in developing an ADU if they didn’t currently have one. There were 164 responses to this question, with 24 percent indicating “Yes” and 15 percent indicating “Maybe.” Another 40 percent indicated “No” and 14 percent indicated “Probably Not.” The responses are profiled in Figure C-3 below.
Figure C-3: Level of Interest in ADU development (N=164) The chart above suggests that more than half of the City’s residents are not interested in developing an ADU on their properties, and another quarter are undecided or not interested at this time. To flesh out possible barriers, Question 4 included a follow up asking why respondents were not interested. The responses suggest it is primarily a lifestyle choice rather than the result of regulatory or cost barriers. About one-third (51) listed the loss of privacy as a factor, and another one-third (48) indicated they didn’t want to deal with tenants. The number of respondents listing the “permitting process” as a factor was relatively small (27 out of 164) and the percentage listing “cost” as a factor (24 out of 164) was even smaller. About 10 percent of the respondents cited lack of space as their reason.
Location of Possible ADUs
Those who expressed some interest in adding an ADU were asked where they might locate the ADU on their properties. The responses can potentially help inform local programs that facilitate ADUs in particular locations. There were 85 responses, representing more than 40 percent of No (65)
40%
Probably Not
(23)
14%
Not Sure (11)
7%
Maybe, but not
now (25)
15%
Yes (40)
24%
Question: If you don’t have a
legal ADU on your property,
would you consider developing
one? (164 replies)
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-6 the total survey respondents. Conversion of an existing accessory building (such as a guest house or barn) was the most commonly selected choice (38 responses), followed by a new detached structure (21 responses) and conversion of existing space in the house (6 responses).
Only one respondent indicated they would build an addition to their home. Nineteen of the respondents were not sure where they might locate an ADU. Again, a majority (about 115) were not interested in adding an ADU.
The responses suggest stronger demand for traditional ADUs than Junior ADUs, given the large number of respondents indicating they would built or convert an accessory structure, rather than use space within their own homes.
Likely Use of Future ADUs
Respondents were asked how they would use an ADU on their property if they developed one in the future. The responses to this question are important, as the objective of the program is to create rental housing opportunities or opportunities for on-site care givers. Using the ADU as a home office or space for occasional house guests would not accomplish State-mandated housing program goals. Figure C-4 shows the responses to the question.
Figure C-4: Likely Use of Future ADUs (N=192)
The responses indicate that roughly one-third would use the ADU for another household, including 16 who suggested they would rent it to a tenant and 48 who suggested they would use it for a domestic employee or caregiver. The latter statistic is particularly important, as it suggests a potential resource for health care workers, elder care professionals, construction and landscape workers, and others who may work in Rolling Hills but lack the financial resources to live here. Nearly a third of the respondents indicated they would use the ADU for a family For rent to a tenant
(16)
8%
For a family
member
(60)
31%
For
myself
(18)
9%
For an employee or
caregiver (48)
24%
For occasional
visitors (50)
25%
Other (5)
3%
Question: If you had a legal
ADU on your property, how
would you most likely use it?
(192 replies)
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-7 member. The family member could be an extension of their own household or a relative or relatives living independently as a separate household. It is worth noting that only a quarter of the respondents indicated they would use the ADU for occasional visitors—historically, this has been the intended use of guest houses in the city.
Use of ADUs as Affordable Housing
Respondents were asked if they would consider limiting the rent on an ADU so that the unit was affordable to a lower income household. The question specifically asked if the respondent would consider a deed restriction that maintained the rent at a reduced rate (such as $1,200/ month for a two-person household) to help the City meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements. Of the 194 surveys returned, 25 indicated they would consider this and another 20 indicated they might consider this (“maybe”). This represents nearly one-quarter of the total respondents. Another one-quarter indicated they would need more information before deciding.
About 35 percent indicated they would not consider a lower income affordability restriction and 15 percent did not respond.
Figure C-5 shows the responses to this question. The data suggests that an “affordable” ADU program could generate sufficient participation for the City to meet its entire lower-income housing allocation through ADUs.
Figure C-5: Viability of ADUs to Meet Very Low Income Housing Assignment (N=194) For the 98 respondents who answered “Yes”, “Maybe,” or “Need More Information”, the survey asked a follow-up question, which is the maximum length of time the respondent would consider acceptable for an affordability deed restriction. Two respondents did not reply, but the other 96 provided the answers below:
• 20 would consider a 5-year term
• 2 would consider a 10-year term
Yes (25)
13%
Maybe
(20)
10%
Need More Info
(53)
27%
No (68)
35%
Didn't reply (28)
15%
Question: If you
had a legal ADU
on your property,
would you
consider a deed
restriction that
maintained the
rent at a reduced
rate to help the
City meet its
State-mandated
affordable
housing
requirements?
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-8 • 3 would consider a 20-year term
• 17 would consider a deed restriction that ended when they sold the house • 59 were not sure or answered “other”
The responses suggest that long-term deed restrictions (10 or 20 years) and affordability contracts that “run with the land” would have limited participation. Residents are more open to short-term arrangements such as five-year affordability terms, and flexible arrangements that would not encumber the resale of their homes. This is an important consideration in the event a program is established.
Incentives
The final question in the survey asked respondents to select from a menu of possible incentives that might make a rent-restriction on an ADU more acceptable to them. Respondents were invited to select as many of the choices as they wanted. The most frequently selected options are shown in descending order in Figure C-6 below:
Figure C-6: Ranking of Potential Affordable ADU Incentives The most frequently selected option was “nothing.” However, 55 respondents indicated that fee waivers or reductions would be an incentive, and 50 said expedited permitting would be an incentive. Many respondents were also supportive of the idea of rent-restricted ADUs serving local essential service workers such as fire-fighters and teachers. The least popular incentive was assistance in finding a tenant.
0 10
20 30
40 50
60 Question: What
incentives might
make a rent
restriction more
attractive to you?
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-9 Other Comments
The survey provided an opportunity for residents to make general open-ended comments on ADUs and housing issues in Rolling Hills, as well as the factors the City should consider as new ADU policies and regulations are developed. Feedback was provided by 52 of the respondents.
This is summarized below.
Most of the open-ended comments expressed negative views about ADUs and their potential impacts on the character of Rolling Hills, as well as concerns with State housing mandates and the erosion of local land use control. Numerous concerns were raised about safety, security, and privacy. There were also concerns expressed about noise, parking, traffic, evacuation capacity, and impacts on the community’s rural, equestrian feel. Some respondents expressed concerns that they would not be able to choose their own tenants if they created an ADU or would be penalized if they created an ADU but did not rent it. Questions were also raised about property tax impacts, septic system impacts, and whether tenants would pay association dues and have access to RHCA facilities.
There were also supportive comments, particularly from persons interested in creating ADUs for aging parents, or for themselves to age in place while renting out their primary home. Several respondents indicated an interest in renting space to a care giver. One respondent suggested prioritizing rentals to employees of the RHCA. Some respondents expressed their support for the idea of using the school property to meet affordable housing needs rather than relying on ADUs.
Survey
A copy of the survey mailed to residents follows this page. 716
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Survey Findings Page C-10 717
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: ADU Survey Report Page C-11
City of Rolling Hills Accessory Dwelling Unit Survey
October 2020
Dear Resident:
Please take a few minutes to complete this survey about Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in Rolling Hills. Your
responses will help us understand community goals and
concerns and will be used to develop new policies for
consideration by the Rolling Hills Planning Commission and City Council.
State law requires that all cities and counties allow ADUs, provided they meet certain standards. Some of the
potential benefits of ADUs include rental income for
homeowners, on-site living space for caregivers or
household employees, and accommodation of extended
family (adult children, parents, etc.). ADUs can also help residents “age in place,” particularly as homeowners need more care or assistance.
The City’s objective in carrying out this survey is to
determine the level of interest in ADUs among Rolling Hills residents and evaluate their potential to meet local housing needs. Like all cities in California, Rolling Hills is required by State law to provide for its “fair share” of the region’s housing needs, including low- and very low-income
households. ADUs provide a way to do that without
significantly changing the character or appearance of the community. Some communities even provide special
incentives for homeowners who rent ADUs at reduced rates to very low-income households, including household
employees and local essential service employees.
The deadline for returning your survey is November 20,
2020. Please use the enclosed postage-paid envelope to
return the survey to City Hall by this date. If you would prefer to complete the survey on-line, please visit
www.surveymonkey.com//rollinghillsADUsurvey.
Please do not include your name or address on the survey as the intent is for all responses to be anonymous. If you have questions about the survey or about ADUs in Rolling Hills, please call Meredith Elguira at (310) 377-1521.
What are ADUs and JADUs?
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are
sometimes referred to as “in-law
apartments” or “second units.” They are
small independent dwelling units that exist
on single family properties, either in a
detached structure or as part of the
primary structure with a separate
entrance. ADUs include a bedroom or
sleeping area, a bathroom, and cooking
facilities.
Rolling Hills has adopted specific zoning
standards for ADUs as required by state
law. The maximum allowable size is 850
square feet for a studio or one-bedroom
and 1,000 square feet for a two bedroom.
Other standards also apply.
Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADUs)
are a type of ADU created by converting
existing living space inside a single-family
home (usually a bedroom) to a separate
living space. They have a maximum size
of 500 square feet. JADUs may have their
own kitchenette or bathroom, or they may
share the facilities in the primary
residence.
State law allows a property to have both
an ADU and a JADU if certain
requirements are met.
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: ADU Survey Report Page C-12
Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey!
Accessory Dwelling Unit Survey
1. Does your property include any of the following features? (circle all that apply) A. A legally permitted Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) with kitchen, bath, and separate entrance? B. A guest house, pool house, casita, barn or other outbuilding that has heat and plumbing? _____ Check here if the space has a kitchen or other cooking facilities C. A space inside your house with a separate entrance from outside and independent living quarters, including a bedroom/ sleeping area and bathroom?
_____ Check here if the space also has its own kitchen or cooking facilities D. Another space within your house that could easily be converted into an accessory dwelling unit?
2. If you circled one of the choices above, how is the space currently used? (If you circled more than one choice, please provide a response for each applicable space on your property. Use the blank line to the right of each choice below to describe the space you’re referring to).
A. It is occupied by a tenant paying rent ____________________________________ B. It is occupied by a family member or long-term visitor who is not part of my household ___________ C. It is occupied by a caretaker or household employee(s) ____________________________________ D. It is used occasionally by guests or visitors ____________________________________ E. My own household uses the space ____________________________________ F. The space is currently not occupied by anyone, or is used for storage ___________________________ G. Not applicable
2A. About how large is the space of each applicable feature from Question 1 (in square feet)? (please skip question if not applicable)
__________________ ___________________ _________________ 2B. If rent is collected for the space, what is the monthly amount? (if multiple spaces are rented, please indicate the rent for each area). (Please skip question if not applicable) __________________ ___________________ _________________ 719
A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: ADU Survey Report Page C-13
3. If you have space on your property occupied by a household other than your own, please circle the category in the table below that most closely matches their annual income based on the number of persons in their household, if you know that amount. Recent data from the US Census indicates that 16 percent of Rolling Hills households have annual incomes below $50,000. ADUs (or potential ADUs) may provide a resource for these households. If Question 3 does not apply to your property, please skip to Question 4.
Number of Persons in the Household (for other occupants only, not your own household) 1 2 3 4 5 6
Annual Income
$23,700 or less $27,050 or less $30,450 or less $33,800 or less $36,550 or less $39,250 or less $23,700-
$39,450
$27,050-
$45,050
$30,450-
$50,700
$33,800-
$56,300
$36,550-
$60,850
$39,250-
$65,350
$39,450-
$63,100
$45,050-
$72,100
$50,700-
$81,100
$56,300-
$90,100
$60,850-
$97,350
$65,350-
$104,550
$63,100 or
more
$72,100 or
more
$81,100 or
more
$90,100 or
more
$97,350 or more $104,550 or
more
4. If you don’t currently have a legal ADU on your property, would you consider developing one? (circle one answer)
No Probably Not Not Sure/ Neutral Maybe, but not at
this time Yes
4A. If you answered A, B, or C, what are the reasons? (Circle All that Apply) No Interest Cost Loss of Privacy Permitting
Process
Don’t Want to
Deal with
Tenants
No Space
Other (please explain below)_____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
5. If you decided to build an ADU on your property, where would it be located? (circle one) New
detached
structure
on my
property
Conversion of an
existing accessory
building on my
property (e.g., guest
house, barn, etc.)
An addition
to my house
Conversion of space
already within the
footprint of my house
Not sure
I would not add
an ADU on my
property
6. If you had a legally approved ADU on your property, how would you most likely use it? (circle one) For rent to
a tenant
For a family member
For myself For a household
employee of caregiver
For occasional
visitors
Other
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A D O P T I O N D R A F T
Appendix C: ADU Survey Report Page C-14
7. If you had a legally approved ADU on your property, would you consider a deed restriction that maintained the rent at a reduced rate (for example $1,200/month, which is considered the threshold for an “affordable” housing unit for a two person very low income household) to help the City meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements? (circle one) A. Yes
B. Maybe
C. I would need more information first
D. No
7A. If your answer to Question 7 was A-C, what would be the maximum length of time you would consider for the rent restriction? (circle one)
A. Five years
B. 10 years
C. 20 years
D. Until I sell the house
E. Not Sure
F. Other _______________________
7B: What incentives might make a rent restriction more attractive to you? (circle all that apply) A. No parking requirement
B. Reduced (or no) permit fees
C. Expedited permit processing
D. Assistance in finding a tenant
E. Rent supplement for the tenant
F. Local tenant (e.g., school teacher,
fire fighter, child care worker)
G. Senior tenant
H. Low-interest financing to create the ADU
I. Permission to build a unit larger
than 1,000 square feet
J. Nothing
K. Other _______________________
8. To ensure that we are hearing from a cross-section of the community, please tell us a little about you:
How Long Have You
Lived in Rolling Hills?
Less than 10 years
10-19 years
20-29 years
More than 30 years
Circle one choice in each box
Are you a Homeowner
or a Renter?
Homeowner
Renter
Age
Under 35
35-49
50-64
65+
How Many People Are
in Your Household?
1 4
2 5
3 6 or more
9. Please share any concerns you may have about ADUs in Rolling Hills, or factors you’d like us to consider as new ADU policies and regulations are developed:
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