1. The City includes sites that are not “suitable and available” because they do not have a “realistic and demonstrated potential” for redevelopment during the planning period to meet the need for housing.
Where nonvacant sites are listed on the sites inventory, there must be a “realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment” during the next eight years. Government Code § 65583(a)(3). Where nonvacant sites are used to address over 50% of the need for affordable housing for those with lower incomes, the City must show the realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment by making formal findings that the existing use does not impede residential development “based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued” during the planning period. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2) (final sentence). The City must analyze the evidence: existing leases, market demand for the existing uses, and anything else that would indicate whether existing uses will continue. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1).
Our comment letters analyze several individual sites on the City’s site inventory, including some of the larger sites like Bridgepointe Shopping Center, Hillsdale Mall, and the Borel Shopping Center, among others. In most of the sites we analyzed, publicly available information indicates that recently signed longer-term leases would prohibit near-term development. In other cases, substantial capital investments indicate a commitment to continue existing uses, rather than provide any evidence that such uses would discontinue during the planning period. During the Housing Element approval hearings, City staff argued that, because leases could be terminated early, bought out by landlords/property developers, or somehow “broken,” the City’s inclusion on its inventory of sites with long-term leases was appropriate. In fact, the law requires more of the City. The theoretical possibility that long-term leases may somehow be disregarded by both landlord and tenant is insufficient. The law requires the City to find that the existing use on a site is likely to be discontinued early enough in the planning period not to impede residential development. We believe the City failed to provide substantial evidence to support the requisite findings required by Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2).
Indeed, this was one of the central points the Planning Commission noted in refusing to recommend the draft Housing Element for approval by the City Council.
2. The City’s analysis to support its methodology for calculating the realistic capacity of each site is inadequate.
The City’s draft Housing Element fails to demonstrate that the site inventory numbers reflect the realistic development capacity for each site. For sites with the potential for mixed or non-residential use, the Housing Element calculates a discounted probab ility of residential
development, but fails to apply this discount to all of the sites that could develop as mixed use (and that may develop without any residential uses at all). Our letters analyze several specific sites where the City has overstated the realistic capacity by improperly failing to treat the sites as mixed-use. These methodological flaws significantly overstate the capacity on the inventory by 642-875 units.
Department of Housing and Community Development
February 24, 2023
For the limited number of sites on the inventory that are zoned residential without the potential for non-residential uses, the City’s analysis is also flawed. As discussed in the Housing Action Coalition’s prior comment letter, the draft “cherry-picks” data to argue that capacities should be calculated based on the maximum permitted under the City’s zoning laws. At pages H-30 through H-31, and in table 4, the City separates prior residential developments into two categories: “in-fill” and “outliers.” The so-called “outliers” represent over 20% of the units, and 46% of the residentially zoned land that was redeveloped: it was unreasonable to disregard them when computing the average. The average density for residential projects, combining both parts of table 4, is approximately 40 units/acre.
Notably, the draft applies the “outlier” density of 18.2 units/acre to only three sites, all adjacent to one another at 717-801 Woodside Road. The sites are in a residential neighborhood surrounded by other apartment buildings.
Meanwhile, the City does not apply the “outlier” density to sites that would appear to have far more in common with the prototype outlier sites on the list. Our analysis compares the characteristics of various sites on the inventory and their treatment as “infill” versus “outlier,” and concludes that these labels were not consistently applied, and that their mis-application exaggerates the capacity of residential sites.
The City also fails to take site specific constraints into account. At the Fish Market and 1900 S. Norfolk sites, for example, there are required setbacks from Borel Creek and Seal Slough. 1900 S. Norfolk is also next to a freeway interchange, and so has restrictions on height relating to the height of the freeway railing; the site also has a long tail that winds around a PG&E substation, none of which could be developed and which should therefore be ignored in calculating realistic capacity. The City also seems not to have considered the potential effect of San Mateo Zoning Code section 27.44.065 to this site (currently zoned E1): at least 35% of the parcel area must be open-space, preventing over 1/3 of the land from being developed for housing. Other sites also have odd shapes or watercourse adjacencies. The City’s treatment of this site underscores the lack of particularized analysis the City undertook in arriving at the capacity numbers on the inventory. Importantly, this lack of analysis exaggerates the realistic, demonstrated capacity of the City’s inventory.
3. The San Mateo Planning Commission Had It Right: This Element Does Not Comply With State Law.
We also suggest watching the comments of San Mateo’s Planning Commission hearing of January 12, 2023. The Planning Commissioners took their job seriously, and unanimously concluded that the Housing Element should not be adopted because it does not meet the requirements of state law. The full hearing is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLEOCJhv0w. But to highlight a few key points, from the Commissioners’ comments during the final hour:
Department of Housing and Community Development
February 24, 2023
Commissioner Adam Nugent commented (at time stamps 2:46-2:56 of the video): “I doubt that HCD will find this housing element . . . in substantial compliance with state law.” “I don’t believe that the realistic capacity of the sites has been factored in accordance with HCD guidance.” “A large number of sites that do not have a realistic likelihood of becoming housing within the next eight years.” “It just doesn’t seem like we currently have that substantial evidence for all of the sites that would accommodate lower income.” As to policies, it is “clear- cut that there are deficiencies.” With respect to AFFH, “The structural inertia toward greater segregation in the Bay Area is growing.” “We are failing, 100% as a nation, as a region, and as a city, when it comes to affirmatively furthering fair housing.” “[C]urrently our AFFH related actions, our means of evaluating their effectiveness, are too weak to make meaningful change in the direction of affirmatively furthering fair housing.” And later, “We feel that at this point the Housing Element is not yet ready, it’s not to the place we think it will be in substantial compliance with state law.”
Commissioner Seema Patel (at time stamps 3:17-3:20): “For the site inventory, we’re not providing substantial evidence of redevelopment as defined by HCD.” “We’re assuming 100% zoned density production for residential zoned parcels based on a calculation of as-built density that includes projects that have not yet started construction . . . We eliminated projects that didn’t include any housing from our calculation of as-built density in mixed-use and commercial zones, which significantly overestimates the realistic capacity of those sites.” “From the affirmatively furthering fair housing stanpoint, we are planning for no affordable housing in our highest areas of opportunity.” While the RHNA numbers require tripling housing production, San Mateo is trying to do so “without making any changes to zoning as part of this housing element. . . . Why do we think housing production will triple if we’re not changing . . .?”
And Vice-Chair John Ebneter (beginning at time stamp 3:21): “My concerns have been consistent from day 1:” “Site inventory is somewhat inadequate.” “Methodology for realistic capacity is questionable.” “Zero sites in high opportunity locations.” “Locating sites [for lower income housing] in flood zones,” and areas of liquefaction. “The more I think about it, I feel that there were early decisions made, and a plan and a track put in place, and we’ve locked ourselves in.” “We had a once in an 8 year opportunity to make a meaningful change and address our housing crisis. We could have, we should have, tried to be a leader in the Bay Area, setting an example for what it looks like to take the housing crisis seriously.” “[I]t is unconscionable to conceive of losing another decade to business as usual.” “We aimed for a D-minus and that is what we have. Why, why didn’t we capitalize on the [political] will and the opportunity?”
After these comments, the Planning Commission then unanimously voted to recommend that the City Council deny adoption of the Housing Element. The Planning Commission made an express finding to explain their reasons: “We find that the feasibility of future housing sites, fair housing policy, housing goals, policies and programs, and removing constraints to building housing have failed to meet the state’s statutory requirements.” (Time stamp 3:45-3:46).
Department of Housing and Community Development
February 24, 2023
* * *
The draft 2023-2031 Housing Element for San Mateo does not comply with state law.
The City Council does not have “substantial evidence” that the owners of Bridgepointe Shopping Center will buy out anchor tenants in order to make way for redevelopment, or that the owners of Hillsdale Mall will walk away from a $250MM of capital investments in the retail use to pivot to full residential development. While it may be reasonable to conceive of some amount of residential development on these sites, the City has not presented the requisite evidence to show when, or where on the site, or how such development may or may not be compatible with the existing uses that are not likely to discontinue. The City also declined to adjust its capacity methodology to account for what we demonstrated was, at best, the flawed application of likely development densities to sites on the inventory. The end result is a site inventory that significantly overstates the amount of housing, and the amount of affordable housing, the City can realistically expect to be developed during the next eight years.
A bad Housing Element in any one city hurts the entire Bay Area community and the entire state, by dodging the responsibility to plan for the city’s fair share of the state’s growth.
By including unrealistic sites on the inventory, or exaggerating the number of units that can be built on included sites, cities evade their obligation to make real plans about where real housing is likely to be built to meet the regional need. San Mateo’s decision to turn a blind eye to leases, market data, and physical and legal site constraints prevents the City from meeting its obligation to identify and make available enough sites throughout the City for housing, particularly for lower income residents. And you do not have to take our word for it: the issues raised in our comment letters were among the chief reasons the Planning Commission voted unanimously not to approve the flawed draft Housing Element, finding that it was not in compliance with state law. We believe the City Council’s adoption of the Housing Element over the recommendations of its Planning Commission should signal to HCD that this particular Housing Element needs close scrutiny.
Department of Housing and Community Development
February 24, 2023
As set forth in detail in the enclosed comment letters, and based on Government Code section 65583.2(g)(2), the City of San Mateo’s site inventory does not show a realistic, sufficient capacity on sites adequate to meet the need for lower income housing. The Department should conclude that the Housing Element adopted by San Mateo on January 26, 2023, does not substantially comply with state law.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas B. Mayhew
Charles J. Hi
gley
36615\15308048.1
CC: Housing Manager, City of San Mateo; [email protected] Corey Smith, Housing Action Coalition;
Ali Sapirman, Housing Action Coalition;
THOMAS B. MAYHEW
[email protected]
D 415.954.4948
CHARLES J. HIGLEY
[email protected]
D 415.954.4942
December 16, 2022
Via E-Mail
Planning Manager
City of San Mateo
Planning Division
330 W. 20
th Avenue
San Mateo, California 94403
E-Mail: [email protected], and
[email protected]
Re: Draft Housing Element f or City of San Mateo 2023-2031 Comments of Housing Action Coalition
Dear Planning Manager:
On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition,
1 we write to comment on the draft 2023-2031
Housing Element for the City of San Mateo. The draft Housing Element does not meet the City’s obligation to plan and provide for affordable housing. Absent substantial revisions, it may be found in violation of state law.
Below, we identify two signifi cant issues to be addressed as San Mateo continues to work on formulating an acceptable Housing Element. First, San Mateo has included a number of sites that do not have a realistic likelihood of becoming housing during the next eight years, as required to meet the need for new housing. The inventory includes a major shopping center and a regional mall and claims that these are housing sites that will redevelop in the next eight years, despite busy stores, new long-term leases, and even multimillion dollar improvements that conclusively demonstrate that the current retail uses will continue. Second, San Mateo’s methodology for identifying how much of the regional need will be met by the sites on the inventory appears both unprincipled and inconsistently applied. In order to properly evaluate whether the site inventory will meet the needs of San Mateo’s anticipated population growth, San Mateo needs to formulate a proper methodology and then apply it consistently, and explain
1 The Housing Action Coalition is a nonprofit that advocates for building more homes at all levels of affordability to alleviate the Bay Area and California’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis.
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how it evaluates site-specific information, other potential uses of the property, and market evidence on what is likely to actually be built.
A. The City Includes Sites That Are Not “Suitable And Available” Because They Do Not Have A “Realistic And Demonstrated Potential” For Redevelopment During The Planning Period To Meet The Need For Housing.
One of the most concrete aspects of any housing element is the inventory of land “suitable and available” for residential development to meet the city’s regional housing need by income level. Government Code § 65583(a)(3); HCD Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook at p. 1 (https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing- element/docs/sites_inventory_memo_final06102020.pdf). The list is a specific means of evaluating whether the City has adequately planned for development of housing for all income levels.
Where nonvacant sites are listed on the sites inventory, there must be a “realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment” during the next eight years. Government Code § 65583(a)(3). To address past abuses – including where cities list unrealistic sites in order to avoid required rezoning – the California Legislature created a high standard for listing sites that are currently being used for something other than housing. Where nonvacant sites are used to address over 50% of the need for affordable housing for those with lower incomes, the City must show the realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment by making formal findings that the existing use does not impede residential development “based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued” during the planning period. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2) (final sentence). The City must analyze the evidence: existing leases, market demand for the existing uses, and anything else that would indicate whether existing uses will continue.
Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1).
As explained below, the current draft prepared by San Mateo identifies a number of non- vacant sites that are not realistic, suitable and available for redevelopment. The City relies heavily on the speculative and unlikely assumption that existing uses will cease during the next eight years in favor of affordable housing.
1. The Bridgepointe Shopping Center
(APN 035-466-010, -070, -080, -090, -100, -110)
The City’s sites inventory lists several parcels that together make up the Bridgepointe Shopping Center, a popular regional mall described by owner CBRE as “one of the premier power centers in the Bay Area.” Together, the parcels comprising Bridgepointe account for 1,188 total housing units in the site inventory. Of these, 241 units would be for Very Low income residents, and 180 would be Low income residents.
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The bulk of the units the City identifies for the Bridgepointe property would be contained on parcel 035-466-100, which the City describes in Appendix C, Table A as a “large parking lot, larger than .5 acre, potential for structured parking.” As an initial matter, HCD’s guidance for conducting the sites analyses provides that “[a] parcel smaller than one half acre or over 10 acres is considered inadequate to accommodate housing affordable to lower income households, unless the housing element demonstrates development of housing affordable to lower income households on these sites is realistic or feasible.” At 12 acres, this parcel is presumed to be inadequate without more specific information demonstrating feasibility. Aside from a vague mention on page H-34 of “a variety of discussions” with the owner of the shopping center, we have not found any such information in the City’s draft Housing Element or in the public discourse that demonstrates the feasibility of re-developing the site for housing. Nor does the City show that there is a history of successful developments of this size by affordable housing developers. For this reason, parcel 035-466-100 should be excluded from the sites inventory.
A more general (and more significant) problem with the City’s identification of the Bridgepointe parcels, however, is that there is no reason to believe that any of them will be available for development within the planning period contemplated by the draft Housing Element. Bridgepointe is a bustling power center with numerous national retailers. The City has presented no information that would indicate the imminent demise of the shopping center. To the contrary, based on information available from CompStak (HAC Appendix Tab 1), a website that “gathers and quality checks lease and sales comps from the professionals making deals,” it appears that numerous leases run through and beyond the end of this decade.
Hobby Lobby, a national retailer of arts and crafts supplies, for instance, apparently has a lease at Bridgepointe that doesn’t expire until 2029. HAC Appendix Tab 2.
Similarly, national cosmetics retailer Ulta Beauty appears to hold a lease that was entered into in 2021, and doesn’t expire until 2032. HAC Appendix Tab 3. Both the recent commencement date of the lease, as well as its long-term nature suggest that neither Ulta Beauty nor Bridgepointe is going anywhere anytime soon.
The list goes on. Total Wine & More has a lease that runs until 2027. HAC Appendix Tab 4. California Fish Grill just entered into a lease that will run through 2031. HAC Appendix Tab 5. Armadillo Willy’s has a lease that will expire in 2030. HAC Appendix Tab 6. Absent some evidence that the information available on CompStak is inaccurate, there is simply nothing at all to suggest Bridgepointe will be available for redevelopment during the upcoming eight years.
One possible explanation for the C
ity’s inclusion of the Bridgepointe parcels, despite
clear evidence the existing retail uses on the site are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, is that the City’s analysis seems to rely heavily on the availability of the parking lots associated with the shopping center. Presumably the logic here is that, because they are surface parking lots that aren’t occupied by other existing structures, they could theoretically accommodate construction of housing, while the requisite parking to serve the retail uses could be
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accommodated in one or more newly constructed parking garages. While this is theoretically true and makes sense as a matter of spatial arrangement, nothing in the City’s draft demonstrates that redevelopment of this nature is likely or would be legally feasible under the retailers’ leases.
We are not aware of the details regarding tenants’ rights to occupy or control the parking areas associated with the Bridgepointe Shopping Center. We note, however, that tenants in similar “power centers” typically possess non-exclusive rights to parking in the parking lots associated with the shopping center of which they are a part. Indeed, access to and availability of immediately adjacent parking is often viewed as crucial to a retail outlet’s success. While we have no affection for this land use pattern, the City has not demonstrated that the legal rights of tenants over the Bridgepointe parking lots would permit their redevelopment and reconfiguration.
2. Hillsdale Mall
(APN 042-121-040, -060, -080; 039-490-050, -170; 039-353-010, -020, -030, - 040)
The site of the Hillsdale Shopping Center, including surrounding parking lots and buildings (listed as Consolidated Site X on the draft Housing Element), is projected to provide 912 lower income units towards the RHNA. The assumption is that 100% of the acreage will redevelop at 100% of the maximum density for the site: 50 dwelling units per acre.
Unfortunately, there is not substantial evidence that the existing use on all of these parcels will discontinue during the next eight years.
As the comment by Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County has previously noted, the Hillsdale Mall recently rebuilt a significant portion of the retail mall at Hillsdale. The single largest parcel at the site (APN 039-490-170, comprising 39.91 acres) was significantly redeveloped for retail and entertainment uses. Known as the “Hillsdale North Block,” it was a massive project involving the demolition, redesigning, and reconstructing of existing buildings, and constructing two new ones, on 12.5 acres of the site. 2 The construction loan for the project
was $240 million.3
Opened in November 2019, Hillsdale North Block has new stores, restaurants, a new multiscreen movie theater, and even a new upscale bowling alley. The remodeled structure ties into existing retail structures on the same parcel, including a two-story parking garage used to provide parking for the new retail and entertainment spaces, and a food court built over 31 st
Avenue, extending over to the Nordstrom’s building on the other side of 31st (in the older portion
2 Details on this project are available on the City Planning Department’s website at:
https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/DocumentCenter/View/47652/Hillsdale_Shopping_Center_Nort h_Block_Initial-Study--Mitigated-Negative-Declaration?bidId 3 HAC Appendix Tab 7. This January 2022 article also quotes the new co-owner of Hillsdale Mall as stating: “We are confident that Hillsdale Shopping Center will continue its meaningful presence in the city for years to come.” See also HAC Appendix Tab 8.
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of the mall, which includes Nordstrom’s and Macy’s as anchor tenants). The food court/pedestrian bridge, remodeled as part of the Hillsdale North Block improvements, shows that the retail uses to the south of 31st Street also continue to be part of the owner’s long-range plans.
The owner of Hillsdale Mall has publicly indicated an interest in some amount of housing, alongside its existing retail and entertainment uses. The problem for purposes of Housing Element analysis is that any residential plans have not yet been defined, and would at best comprise only a portion of the site. San Mateo has no evidence of what proportion of the site will involve continuation of existing uses, but cannot reasonably conclude that all existing uses will cease during the next eight years. The existing use of APN 039-490-170 precludes counting it towards 808 units of affordable housing; the recent and substantial improvements preclude any reasonable finding that the existing use will be discontinued.
Meanwhile, the main parcel separates the other parcels from one another, rendering unclear which, if any, might realistically be developed for residential housing in the next eight years. Thriving retail, restaurant, and banking uses (Trader Joe’s, Old Navy, a Wells Fargo bank branch, several restaurants, and associated parking) are located on the parcels south of Hillsdale Boulevard, an area known as “Hillsdale South,” with leases signed, and expensive tenant improvements done, as recently as 2021.
4 A proper analysis under Government Code section 65583.2(g)(1) would preclude the City from making the required finding that this site is suitable, available, and realistic for affordable housing under 65583.2(g)(2), because existing uses are not likely to discontinue during the next eight years. A site of this size is also presumed to be insufficient to meet the needs for affordable housing, absent evidence of successful affordable housing developments of this size
4 These businesses are on APNs 039-490-050, and 042-121-040, -060, and -080, an area labeled as “Hillsdale South.” They are on the south side of West Hillsdale Boulevard from the main mall site on APN 039-490-170. Building permits indicate that $1.7 million in renovations was done in the 2009-2010 time frame when Trader Joe’s and other businesses were moving in; more recently, $150,000 of work was done on the interior in 2021, when Sleep Number opened a store there. BD-2021-279007; BD-2009-233895; BD-2009-34436; SG-2021-279679. Publicly available information shows that Sleep Number has a lease running into 2028. HAC Appendix Tab 10. Other building permits show substantial renovations and construction work done for the current tenants. When DSW (a shoe store) moved in, over $600,000 of improvements were done. BD-2011-240083, BD-2011-240152. When AT&T moved in next door to DSW, at 31 West Hillsdale Boulevard, over $1.8 million of construction was done; a Macaroni & Grill restaurant on the site was demolished and the AT&T building was constructed at the same location. BD-2016-260718, BD-2016-260255, BD-2017-263360. The AT&T construction was completed relatively recently: permits were signed-off and closed in 2018. It is not “likely” that these existing uses will discontinue in the next eight years.
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or special reason to believe that one would be successful here. Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)(B). San Mateo shows neither.
3. The Atrium: 1900 South Norfolk Street
(APN 035-391-090)
The executive office building located at 1900 South Norfolk Street is currently used by a large number of office tenants. The draft Housing Element does not perform any analysis of the current use, including whether existing leases would create obstacles to residential development of the site during the next eight years. Publicly available information indicates that a number of leases continue to be signed or renewed for this three story office building, with at least one lease publicly reported to extend until 2030. HAC Appendix Tab 9. The City should perform the required analysis under Government Code section 65583.2(g)(1), and evaluate whether it has substantial evidence to make the finding that existing uses are “likely to discontinue” during the next eight years, as required by section 65583.2(g)(2). If not, it should not be claimed to meet the need for 99 lower income affordable housing units, even if the owner has expressed a long- term interest in redevelopment.
4. Borel Shopping Center (71-77 Bovet; 1750 El Camino Real) (Consolidated Site AH: A PN 039-011-450, -460, -470, -480, -500, -510)
This site is a busy shopping center anchored by a CVS Pharmacy, a 24 Hour Fitness, 5 a
branch of Patelco Credit Union, a UPS store, and a separate restaurant building for Jack’s Restaurant and Bar. There is publicly available information showing that the lease for Jack’s extends well into the planning period. HAC Appendix Tab 11 (indicating Jack’s lease extends from 2013-2029). The City should do the required section 65583.2(g)(1) analysis of the existing leases, and current market demand for the retail uses at the location. The City currently lacks substantial evidence that the site’s existing use is “likely to be discontinued” during the next eight years. It should not count towards 85 units of housing affordable to lower income households.
5. The Elks and The Shriners – 229 W. 20
th Street and 150 W. 20th Street
(APN 037-052-350 and APN 039-030-220)
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 1112 (“San Mateo Elks Lodge”), has been located at 229 W. 20
th Street since 1954. The San Mateo Elks Lodge has a membership of over 1,100 as of earlier this year. The Elks use their lodge to operate a popular swimming
5 In 2008, the 24 Hour Fitness subs tantially modified the building it occupies 2008 when it moved into a space formerly occupied by Albertson’s. It added locker rooms, a swimming pool, basketball courts, showers, and other tenant improvements at a cost exceeding $2.2 million. BD- 2007-230493; BD-2007-230029; BD-2008-230692.
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center for kids and families, hold crab feeds and other events in the meeting hall, and engage in fun activities and philanthropic works.
The only suggestion that the San Mateo Elks are not likely to continue their existing use of the Elks Lodge at 229 W. 20
th Street is the statement on the site inventory that “Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.” That kind of statement might sometimes go unnoticed and unquestioned by the City Council, HCD, or a court. But here, no one should take it as an adequate answer to the question of whether the San Mateo Elks will stop using their lodge in the next eight years. The reason is that the 2015 Housing Element, when listing the same site, said the same thing, word-for-word: “Existing private member club.
Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.” 6 Nothing has
happened in the last eight years to suggest that “preliminary conversations” are substantial evidence on which to predict a likely discontinuation of the existing use, even if the more recent note is based on more recent preliminary conversations. This site should not be counted towards accommodating the need for 77 units of housing affordable to lower income households.
Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2).
A second private club is located just down the street at 150 W. 20 th Street: the Shriners.
The Shriners are likewise a longtime institution in San Mateo, and are likewise committed to philanthropy and social activities. The Shriners’ building is used in part for a day care center.
The site inventory provides insufficient detail to evaluate whether they plan to move out in the next eight years, saying only “Owners have considered mixed use with residential.” Without more, this is insufficient to justify concluding that the Shriners actually plan to leave or redevelop in the short or mid-term, or to treat their property as accommodating the need for 32 units of lower income housing.
The same analysis applies to other sites. See, e.g., 1500 Fashion Island Blvd. (APN 035- 550-040) (“Developer interest in redevelopment.”); Consolidated Site B (APN 032-312-250, - 270, -150, -100, -070) (“General interest in redevelopment”); 480 North Bayshore Blvd. (APN 033-081-280) (nonvacant use as motel; re-used from 2015 Housing Element: “General interest to redevelop, motel conversion.”). Vague expressions of interest do not constitute substantial evidence that the existing use will likely cease during the next eight years. Section 65583.2(g)(1) and (g)(2) require more analysis, more evidence, and more likelihood.
6 In order to rely on conversati ons purporting to express intent, the public needs to know much more. Who had the conversation cited by the City, and with whom did they have it? Has the Lodge taken any affirmative steps toward redevelopment beyond this conversation? Without more, the vague reference to “preliminary conversations” between unidentified speakers on an unidentified date does not constitute “substantial evidence.”
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6. Mollie Stone’s – Olympic Shopping Center
(Consolidated Site AD:
APN 042-242-050, -060, -070, -160, -180;
042-243-020, 042-244-040, -050;
042-245-040, -050, -060, -070, -080, -090, -100, -110, -120, -130; 042-263-010, 042-264-010)
This site, consisting of twenty parcels, is claimed to accommodate 161 units of housing affordable to those with lower incomes. The only basis for including it appears to be the claim that there is “ownership interest in specific plan redevelopment,” which does not indicate that all of the parcels would be redeveloped as housing at the maximum density, or indicate who said what to whom, and when.
7 Meanwhile, and as discussed further in section B below, the draft Housing Element does not adequately analyze or demonstrate the realistic capacity of the site. Under section 65583.2(g)(1), for a nonvacant site like this, the city must “specify the additional development potential for each site within the planning period.” The required analysis is currently missing. A realistic assessment of the current uses and market conditions would preclude listing the entire site at maximum density. Mollie Stone’s is the only full service grocery store in the surrounding area. For households in the southwestern portion of town (for example, everyone near Laurel Elementary School and south to the Belmont border), closing Mollie Stone’s would more than double their travel times to the nearest grocery, and extend them well beyond the one-mile used to define a “food desert” – a condition no one expects to develop in this well-resourced city. 8 Currently San Mateo’s land use pattern follows the predictable pattern: few, if any, households are more than one mile from a grocery. There is no reason to believe that the market need for grocery stores will make the need for Mollie Stone’s, or another grocery store, superfluous in this part of town. Particularly as San Mateo’s population grows, the need for grocery stores will increase, not diminish.
7 Here too, the concern about spe cificity is not idle. There are five separate owners.
Carstens Realty owns most of the parcels, but CLC Investments, Sadigh Sassan, Shamco E LLC, and San Mateo Investment Co. each own one. The City does not discuss or address whether the five are willing or interested in a joint project, though it lists each of them as having expressed interest in a specific plan. Without evidence of what makes consolidation likely, the smaller sites are deemed insufficient to accommodate the need for lower income housing. See Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)(A).
8 If Mollie Stone’s closed, a nd no grocery store was rebuilt in its place, it would create the unlikely situation where an affluent, urban community became a “food desert.” The United States Department of Agriculture has defined a “food desert” as an area where at least 500 people, or 33 percent of the tract population, reside more than one mile from a full service supermarket. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_err140.pdf.
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This means that any redevelopment or specific plan of the Olympic Shopping Center will almost certainly include a substantial retail component, at least on the ground floor. Mixed use may be a responsible way to increase density, but it precludes listing the site at maximum density, particularly given the constraints of Measure Y. The City must conduct further analysis, including an analysis of existing leases, common ownership, and market conditions, before claiming that this site will meet the needs for construction of 161 units of housing affordable to lower income households. And, given the substantial demand for the existing use, the City may not be able to make the required finding under 65583.2(g)(2).
7. Site AN (4100 and 4142 El Camino Real)
(APN 042-242-170 and -080)
On the draft Housing Element site inventory, consolidated Site AN consists of a City- owned vacant site and a neighboring parcel. In a recent staff report for the November 7, 2022 meeting, the chart responding to HCD comments indicated that the City had two city-owned sites: the “Talbot’s” site (APN 034-179-050 and -060), and APN 042-242-170, which it referred to as the “Ravioli” site. The chart indicated that staff recommended adding to the narrative about the Talbot’s site, but recommended removing the Ravioli site from discussion.
The draft Housing Element had shown the two sites APN 042-242-170 and APN -042- 242-080 as having a potential for consolidation, but if the City does not plan to sell APN 042- 242-170, and instead plans to take it off of the site inventory, it should also remove APN 042- 242-080 as unsuitably small for affordable housing.
However, the staff report is confusing on this point. It refers to APN 042-242-170 as the “Ravioli” site, and lists a street address of 505 South B Street. This is not the location of APN 042-242-170. APN 042-242-170 is located at 4140 El Camino Real. If it is indeed City-owned, we encourage the City to make plans to develop it, preferably by issuing a Request for Proposals to transfer it to a non-profit housing developer who could build a 100% affordable project on the site. If the site can be consolidated with the neighboring parcels – which have one story commercial or professional uses, and a relatively large percentage of surface parking – the opportunity would be even more meaningful in terms of providing for the need for housing affordable to those with lower incomes.
B. The Analysis Supporting The Government Code Section 65583.2(c)(1) and (c)(2) Calculation Is Insufficient.
The draft Housing Element states that the site inventory “generally” calculates the realistic capacity of each site based on the maximum density, unless the site is smaller than 0.5 acres or has “characteristics similar to the outlier projects,” in which case a density of 18.2 units/acre is used. Draft Housing Element at H-30 to H-31. The HCD comment letter noted that the assumed densities are not sufficiently supported, and we understand that staff is working on a re-draft to take this comment into account. We offer the following comments about the existing draft to aid in this process.
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Under section 65583.2(c)(1) and (c)(2), a City that lacks a required minimum residential density for a site, like San Mateo, must “demonstrate how the number of units determined for that site will be accommodated.” Under (c)(2), “the number of units calculated pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be adjusted, as necessary, based on the land use controls . . ., the realistic development capacity for the site, typical densities of existing or approved residential developments at a similar affordability level in that jurisdiction, and on [availability of utilities].” Section 65583.2(g)(1) layers on additional requirements to analyze nonvacant sites: the city is required to “provide an explanation of the methodology used to determine the development potential,” and to consider a number of statutory factors.
HCD provided further guidance about the “capacity analysis” in its site inventory guidebook, at page 19-22. It explained that where a city uses sites that are zoned for nonresidential uses, the city must evaluate the capacity analysis by taking into account that some or all of the site may be developed – as city law allows – for such nonresidential uses, such as commercial or office uses. The City is required to take into account any city laws that constrain development, including setbacks, to calculate the “buildable” area, rather than the total size of the site. The City is also required to take into account typical densities, by looking at other projects that have been built or approved.
Unfortunately, the City’s initial draft does not adequately or accurately analyze the required information, and does not present a reasonable methodology based on the data. To the extent it does identify a methodology, it does not apply it consistently. As currently presented, the claimed capacities on the site inventory are unreasonable and arbitrary.
First, the City’s calculation does not take into account the statute or HCD guidance for adjusting site capacity where nonresidential uses are possible. Most of the sites on the inventory, and by far most of the acres, are not zoned exclusively for residential uses. Some are zoned commercial or office with a residential overlay; others are zoned commercial or office with a requirement that any residential use seek a special use permit; the vast majority permit nonresidential uses. Thus, even if the existing use is likely to cease in the next eight years, the current zoning would allow someone else to begin a new nonresidential use.
San Mateo itself has experience with new developments proposed for sites that are not zoned exclusively residential, which then develop for entirely nonresidential uses. In table 5, listing twenty development approvals during the 2017-2021 time frame, the City itself identifies that five of the twenty sites, and 26.7% of the acreage, were developed for nonresidential uses.
Meanwhile, of those sites that did include some residential development, the development was not always 100% residential. Eight of the fifteen projects in table 15 were less than 100% residential. Combined with the five entirely nonresidential projects, 13 of 20 projects listed were not 100% residential. U
nder the HCD guidance and statutory mandate to consider typical experience with development, the City should apply a significant adjustment downward from maximum density to account for the very real probability that some of the sites may develop for
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nonresidential uses. The City’s application of maximum density to non-residentially zoned sites improperly ignores its experience of recent years.
Second, the City uses incomplete or misleading data to claim development at maximum density. The City’s primary argument for claiming 100% of maximum density for 100% of the acreage is in table 4 of the draft Housing Element. Table 4 distorts the City’s typical experience.
Table 4 carves the data into two categories, referred to as “in-fill” and “outlier.” The categories appear arbitrary,
9, suggesting a principled distinction that the City does not rationally apply. Whether intentional or not, the distinction made between “in-fill” and “outlier” excludes from analysis three large, recent developments where a residential project did not develop at maximum density from consideration of the typical experience in San Mateo. Indeed, we were unable to identify a single site where the City applied the “outlier” density of 18.2 units per acre.
Instead of being used to analyze sites, the “outlier” category only serves to exclude from the three sites comprising 20% of all units produced since 2017 – and two of the largest three projects by acreage – from the average density built. Cherry-picking the data is not a proper methodology.
Meanwhile, the table also appears to omit recent information. While table 4 includes high density approvals like the unbuilt project at 666 Concar, it deliberately excludes from the average other lower density approvals like the projects at 21 Lodato, 2089 Pacific, or the mixed use projects at 405 E. 4
th and 406 E. 3d, which would show that not every residential or mixed use project, even ones that would fairly be called “in-fill,” develops at or above maximum density as claimed. Also missing entirely, though it will presumably be added to the next draft, is the City’s recent approval of the Draeger’s project at 222 E. 4th/400 So. B Street, where the City approved 17,658 square feet of grocery, 104,554 square feet of office space, and just under 9,000 square feet of residential on a 1.14 acre site, for a residential density in this mixed use site of less than 9 units per acre in the downtown area. Similarly, we note that the recent MU2/MU3 approval will not be built at maximum residential density, given the open space and office uses.
Even projects fairly categorized as “in-fill” do not always develop at maximum (35 or 50) units per acre, contrary to the site inventory calculation. The City should adjust the calculation downward based on the full data set.
Third, the method is either highly subjective, or arbitrarily applied. To reiterate, we were unable to identify any site that the City applied the “outlier” density calculation to, with the exception of the three outlier sites themselves. Instead, even sites that were materially
9 There is little reason, for example, to dis tinguish 1919 O’Farrell (more than a mile from transit, hemmed in against a freeway in a residential neighborhood) from 220 North Bayshore (more than a mile from transit, hemmed in against a freeway in a residential neighborhood), other than that one developed at higher density than the other, and so is preferred as support for the city’s argument.
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indistinguishable from the “outliers” were nevertheless listed as accommodating the RHNA need at 100% of the maximum zoning capacity. For example:
The “outlier” project at 1, 2, and 3 Waters Park Road is located less than 100 feet away – just on the other side of Borel Creek, as it empties into Seal Slough – from the Atrium Office Building at 1900 S. Norfolk (discussed above in section A.3). 1900 S. Norfolk is in the same flood zone and just as far from transit as Waters Park Road.10 Why was the 1, 2, and 3 Waters Park Road project an “outlier” that developed at a density of 17 units/acre, but 1900 S. Norfolk is listed as accommodating 50 units/acre? The answer isn’t in the zoning code, either: 1900 S. Norfolk is currently zoned as an office park (E1-0.5), and will need to run the gauntlet of seeking approval for a special use permit, just as the Waters Park Road project did. See San Mateo Zoning Code, § 27.44.030(g). 1900 South Norfolk is not fairly lumped in with “in-fill” sites like the Bay Meadows project, where block after block is filled with four and five story apartment buildings and high density on vacant land zoned using a specific plan. Until San Mateo proves through experience that developers will build high density projects on sites like 1900 S. Norfolk, San Mateo cannot assume that they will incur the expense to build 50 units per acre.
The sites on the continuation of Norfolk on the opposite side of Highway 92 – still along Seal Slough, and still far from transit – are subject to the same conditions as the lower density “outlier” Waters Park Road project. Without a more convincing analysis, the City should thus apply the 18.2 unit/acre average to the sites at Consolidated Site AC (1826 & 1850 South Norfolk; “Parkside Plaza”).
Yet even while listing a maximum density of 30 du/ac, the City projects 332 units to be built at Parkside Plaza: a full 50 units per acre on the 6.65 acre site. Are there sites like the “outlier” at 220 North Bayshore, developed in a residential neighborhood, on the eastern side of the 101 freeway? We would suggest that
10 These aren’t the only examples , just the clearest ones. Similarly, 1500 Fashion Island (APN 035-550-040) and the Bridgepointe Shopping Center are also down on the flood plain near Seal Slough, and far from transit stations, but not calculated based on the “outlier” density. We focus on the “flood zone” and “far from transit” rationales, because the third “outlier” distinction – whether the project is built for owner-occupied or rental housing – is inherently unknown about all of the sites in the inventory that have not yet applied for development, and so cannot serve as a rational factor to predict future density. Meanwhile, if the city has in mind other factors that explain the difference between “in-fill” and “outlier,” it hasn’t explained or “demonstrated” site capacities as the statute requires. See Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1) (“and shall provide an explanation of the methodology used to determine the development potential . . .”); § 65583.2(c)(1) (“shall demonstrate how the number of units pursuant to this subdivision will be accommodated.”).
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480 North Bayshore, a quarter-mile away, is subject to the same market conditions. Yet the City assumed 480 North Bayshore would develop at a density of 50 units/acre: 47 units. If the City wants to apply its “outlier” principle in an intellectually consistent manner, it should list 480 North Bayshore for just 16 units.
Meanwhile, other calculation rules are also either inconsistently or arbitrarily applied:
Consolidated Site A (two small medical offices, zoned for office but in a neighborhood of lower rent, older two-story apartment structures) appears to be treated as having a 25 unit/acre RHNA credit: 50 units per acre for high density, then cutting it in half because each of the sites separately was less than 0.5 acres.
The two medical offices might better be considered more like the outliers on Campus and Bayshore: far from transit, far from the places where new, high density apartment buildings are actually being built. But regardless, cutting the density in half because the pre-consolidated parcels weren’t 0.5 acres doesn’t seem to be a consistently applied rule, either. See, e.g., Consolidated Site AD (containing parcels smaller than 0.5 acres, but assuming development at 50 units/acre).
Fifth, the analysis doesn’t discuss how the city’s development rules reduce the acreage available for residential development. HCD’s guidance shows that where the city’s rules – for example, for setbacks or required first floor retail – constrain the site, the numbers should be adjusted downward. As others have commented, Measure Y in particular may represent a significant constraint. But other provisions of the zoning code could impact the ability to build to maximum density, or use the entire acreage as “net buildable” space. See, e.g., San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.29.118 (prohibiting residential uses on first floor in mixed use projects in downtown), 27.30.027 (prohibiting ground floor residential uses in the first 30 feet facing El Camino Real or 25th Avenue), 27.39.100 (required retail frontage in downtown),
27.42,010 (“Street Wall” regulations requiring upper floor setbacks in the downtown).
Sixth, the calculation fails to engage in site-specific adjustments, including regarding the current use or other constraints, as required by 65583.2(c)(2) and (g)(1). The Mollie Stone’s and Hillsdale North Block examples, discussed above, both illustrate this problem. The likelihood that the existing use will continue precludes listing these sites for lower income RHNA credit under section 65583.2(g)(2), but under (c)(2) and (g)(1), the City would still need to separately evaluate whether the existing uses provide a constraint on the ability to develop the entire site in order to correctly calculate the accommodation of moderate and above-moderate income households. The likelihood that the current owner of the Mollie Stone’s site will want to consider the grocery store use, based on market conditions and location, as part of their interest in a “specific plan,” means that the City should consider whether a 100% residential development is a fair calculation of site capacity. The City is required to address whether it foresees a significant retail presence there: a development more like the Draeger’s approval, where an existing grocery store was incorporated into the site plans and the site was developed at
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less than 20% of the maximum residential density. Similarly, given that the $200+ million construction of Hillsdale North Block precludes use of the 12.5 acres there, and the pedestrian bridge shows an intention to continue the use of the Nordstrom building at a minimum, the City needs to analyze which portions of the Hillsdale site might realistically be developed as residential housing during the next eight years, then reduce the calculation to take these site constraints into account.11
State law requires that the City develop and justify a cogent, realistic methodology to support its anticipated production calculations, and requires that it apply that methodology consistently and thoughtfully to the site inventory to yield realistic results. The current analysis and approach is insufficient, and the problems with it won’t be remedied merely by providing additional discussion. The “in-fill”/“outlier” methodology does not make sense: it appears subjective, overly-rudimentary, and arbitrary, and even if better explained may not legally “demonstrate how the number of units determined for [each] site . . . will be accommodated.” Unfortunately, the analysis so far appears to lack principles that can rationalize the densities used. Along with HCD, we look forward to improvements in the next draft.
C. Additional Comments On Zoning Status.
As noted above, a number of sites included in the City’s inventory are zoned commercial or office without a residential overlay. We request that San Mateo rezone these sites to add a residential overlay, so that developers are assured that residential uses will be permitted, rather than hope the desired inclusion of residential uses will be permitted on a site-by-site basis as part
11 The Fishmarket site at 1863 South Norfolk is another example of the City not taking the analysis to the required next level. After identifying a methodology to estimate yields (Government Code § 65583.2(c)(1), the City is then supposed to consider site conditions and make adjustments. Id. (c)(2). In the case of 1863 South Norfolk (the “Fish Market”; APN 035- 383-200), just across the street from Parkside Plaza and squeezed between South Norfolk and Seal Slough, the City would need to start with its “outlier” calculation. Indeed, in a development application last year, the site owner initially proposed 74 townhomes, along with public space concessions to try to seek a special use permit for the property. The request was for 21 units/acre on a 3.5 acre parcel, quite close to the 18.2 estimate for outliers.
More recently, the owner has come back with a new plan; this time for 321 units (over 91 units/acre) in sixty foot tall buildings. How much is fair to estimate? More analysis is required, including consideration of Measure Y, and whether neighbors and the City will want some open space along the shoreline. (There is also the potential site constraint of BCDC jurisdiction, which might affect the ability to obtain an approval so close to the shoreline).
Regardless, the City’s current estimate of 30 units per acre lacks reasoning or principle under either the “in-fill” or “outlier” rationales. The 45 units per acre applied to 1500 Fashion Island (273 units/6.08 acres) likewise seems disconnected from the city’s explanation of the math. Even if these numbers were chosen deliberately based on site-specific conditions, an explanation is required to meet the statutory requirement.
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of project-specific approvals. Uncertainty regarding the ultimate success of a rezoning effort discourages residential development in the City. The entire point of the housing inventory is to determine if there are sufficient sites that are either (1) vacant and zoned residential, (2) vacant and zoned for nonresidential use “that allows residential development,” (3) residentially zoned sites capable of being developed at a higher density, or (4) “sites zoned for nonresidential use that can be redeveloped for residential use, and for which the housing element contains a program to rezone the site, as necessary, to permit residential use.” Government Code § 65583.2(a)(1)-(4). The sites zoned for commercial or office use, without a residential overlay, do not fall within 65583.2(a)(3), because they are not zoned residential. They must therefore be included in a program to rezone to affirmatively permit residential use. Having the City retain discretion to refuse or condition residential development on these properties does not make them available as required by state housing law.12
The City should also consider the impact of Government Code section 65583.2(h).
Section 65583.2(h) provides that at least fifty percent of the need for very low and low income housing must be accommodated on sites designated for residential use where non-residential uses are not permitted. This would not appear to apply to San Mateo’s site inventory, because at least fifty percent of the need is proposed to be met using mixed use sites that allow commercial uses. (For example, the Bridgepointe and Hillsdale shopping centers, zoned for commercial uses, see, e.g., City of San Mateo Zoning Code chapter 27.34). Meanwhile, the alternative of accommodating 100% of the very low and low income need on sites designated for mixed uses, “if those sites allow 100 percent residential use,” would appear not to apply to certain of the City’s zoning designations. See, e.g., City of San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.38.110. The City should evaluate how to address the impact of this statutory provision as part of the final drafting of the Housing Element.
* * *
Based on the analysis above, San Mateo’s draft Housing Element does not comply with state law, because it proposes to meet more than 50% of the need for affordable housing with sites that are not vacant, and does so without substantial evidence that they are likely to be redeveloped. The City’s current analysis, which fails to analyze or account for leases, whether parcels proposed to be consolidated are under common ownership, recent remodeling/construction indicating that existing uses will continue, and other obstacles to development in the next eight years, is insufficient to meet its responsibility under state housing law. In particular, the City lacks substantial evidence showing that the Bridgepointe and Hillsdale shopping center sites have existing uses that are “likely to discontinue” during the next eight years, but as the other examples we cite above illustrate, the required analysis under 65583.2(g)(1) and (g)(2) must be done for each site separately in order to have a valid Housing
12 We note, for example, that the Waters Park Road project, zoned E-1, sought a rezoning because it was not zoned residential, as part of its attempt to seek permission to redevelop the site. Sites on the inventory should not have to go through this step.
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Element. The estimates of how many units will be accommodated in each category also need considerable work before the reasoning will stand up to HCD or court analysis under 65583.2(c)(1) and (2), and (g)(1).
Given the substantial need for suitable, available, and realistic housing sites zoned to meet San Mateo’s share of the regional need, we suggest that additional sites will need to be identified and potentially rezoned to ensure compliance with state housing law. A more substantial inventory will avoid the possibility that the Housing Element will be invalidated in the event that HCD or a court agrees with the arguments above.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas B. Mayhew
Charles J. Hi
gley
36615\15308048.1
THOMAS B. MAYHEW
[email protected]
D 415.954.4948
CHARLES J. HIGLEY
[email protected]
D 415.954.4942
January 7, 2023
Via E-Mail
Housing Manager
City of San Mateo
Planning Division
330 W. 20
th Avenue
San Mateo, California 94403
E-Mail: [email protected]
Re: Draft Housing Element f or City of San Mateo 2023-2031 Comments of Housing Action Coalition
Dear Housing Manager, Planning Commission, and City Council:
On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition,
1 we write to further comment on the draft
2023-2031 Housing Element for the City of San Mateo, including changes in the December 2022 draft. The draft Housing Element still does not meet the City’s obligation to plan and provide for affordable housing. Absent substantial revisions, it may be found in violation of state law.
Below, we identify two signifi cant issues to be addressed as San Mateo continues to work on formulating an acceptable Housing Element. First, San Mateo has included a number of sites that do not have a realistic likelihood of becoming housing during the next eight years, as required to meet the need for new housing. The inventory includes a major shopping center and a regional mall and claims that these are housing sites that will redevelop in the next eight years, despite busy stores, new long-term leases, and even multimillion dollar improvements that conclusively demonstrate that the current retail uses will continue. Second, San Mateo’s methodology for identifying how much of the regional need will be met by the sites on the inventory appears both unprincipled and inconsistently applied. In order to properly evaluate whether the site inventory will meet the needs of San Mateo’s anticipated population growth, San Mateo needs to formulate a proper methodology and then apply it consistently, and explain how it evaluates site-specific information, other potential uses of the property, and market evidence on what is likely to actually be built.
1 The Housing Action Coalition is a nonprofit that advocates for building more homes at all levels of affordability to alleviate the Bay Area and California’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis.
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A. The City Includes Sites That Are Not “Suitable And Available” Because They Do Not Have A “Realistic And Demonstrated Potential” For Redevelopment During The Planning Period To Meet The Need For Housing.
One of the most concrete aspects of any housing element is the inventory of land “suitable and available” for residential development to meet the city’s regional housing need by income level. Government Code § 65583(a)(3); HCD Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook at p. 1 (https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing- element/docs/sites_inventory_memo_final06102020.pdf). The list is a specific means of evaluating whether the City has adequately planned for development of housing for all income levels.
Where nonvacant sites are listed on the sites inventory, there must be a “realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment” during the next eight years. Government Code § 65583(a)(3). To address past abuses – including where cities list unrealistic sites in order to avoid required rezoning – the California Legislature created a high standard for listing sites that are currently being used for something other than housing. Where nonvacant sites are used to address over 50% of the need for affordable housing for those with lower incomes, the City must show the realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment by making formal findings that the existing use does not impede residential development “based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued” during the planning period. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2) (final sentence). The City must analyze the evidence: existing leases, market demand for the existing uses, and anything else that would indicate whether existing uses will continue.
Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1).
As explained below, the current draft prepared by San Mateo identifies a number of non- vacant sites that are not realistic, suitable and available for redevelopment. The City relies heavily on the speculative and unlikely assumption that existing uses will cease during the next eight years in favor of affordable housing.
1. The Bridgepointe Shopping Center
(APN 035-466-070, -080, -090, -100, -110)
The City’s draft fails to addre ss whether the existing uses will cease during the next eight years. Absent substantial evidence that existing uses will “likely” discontinue, San Mateo cannot count the Bridgepointe Shopping Center parking lot and stores as addressing the need for sites available, realistic, and suitable for 233 units of lower income housing.
As our prior letter explained, the parcels that make up the Br idgepointe Shopping Center have existing uses, with long-term leases and likely rights to the parking lot, that preclude residential development during the period covered by the next Housing Element. While the City has now dropped the ice rink parcel, which had been unoccupied but is now back in operation as
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an ice rink, the City fails to mention, much less evaluate, evidence concerning existing leases from major national tenants in place at this power center, with existing leases extending for almost the entire period covered by the Housing Element:
APN 035-466-070 includes current retail uses by Ross Dress for Less, Marshall’s and Total Wine & More. Total Wine & More has a lease through 2027. See Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022 and Appendix Tab 4.
Ross opened here in 2021. It is unlikely that Ross moved in with a short-term lease. The City does not appear to have analyzed leases to determine their effect on whether sites are available for housing, as required. APN 035-466-080 is occupied by Hobby Lobby, with a lease through 2029. See Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022 and Appendix Tab 1. APN 035-466-090 is occupied by a number of national retailers, including Verizon, Petco, Ulta Beauty, and Cost Plus World Market. Ulta Beauty is known to have a lease through 2032. See Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022 and Appendix Tab 2.
APN 035-466-110 is the loading dock access for all of the stores on parcels APN 035-466-070, -080, and -090, and too narrow to feasibly develop for housing. APN 035-466-100 is the parking lot, and is likely subject to the leases of each of the retailers. It is also likely subject to lease rights from the non-listed restaurant parcels on the periphery, and the ice rink.
2 While it is theoretically possible the
lease agreements for the shopping center are compatible with residential development on the parking areas that serve the shopping center, the burden is on the City to demonstrate that such development is likely during the planning period. The City has failed to analyze lease rights that may impede housing uses, as required by the statute.
Particularly given the existing uses, and the publicly known information about existing long-term leases with major national retailers that preclude building housing within the next eight years, the City cannot credibly claim that it is “likely” that these existing uses will
2 The parking lot is also larg er than 10 acres, and so is subject to the additional analysis of Government Code section 65583.2(c)(2)(B) (“A site larger than 10 acres shall not be deemed adequate to accommodate lower income housing need unless the locality can demonstrate that sites of equivalent size were successfully developed during the prior planning period for an equivalent number of lower income housing units as projected for the site or unless the locality provides other evidence to the department that the site can be developed as lower income housing.”). No site of this size was developed for 147 units of lower (very low, low) income housing; the closest comparable size, Station Park Green, was a market rate project with only 60 units of lower income housing in a project of 599 units.
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discontinue. While the City explains that it has had “a variety of discussions with the shopping center’s ownership representatives who expressed interest in mixed-use redevelopment,” (December 2022 draft at H-36), it fails to address when redevelopment might occur. The City asserts that the General Plan Update is exploring policies to “guide redevelopment of the shopping center,” and refers to a “draft land use plan designat[ing] Bridgepoint as Mixed-Use High, which could allow up to 200 units per acre.” Id. But given that City voters have twice approved a cap of 50 units per acre (Measure P, extended to 2030 by Measure Y), the City’s optimism provides no realistic assurance that affordable housing will be built here before Measure Y, and the 2023-2031 draft Housing Element, expire. Finally, the City’s broad reference at page H-C-14 to a “market trend” of developers that “bought out long term businesses to allow redevelopment into housing” refers only to “underutilized” properties; the Bridgepointe Center is not underutilized. The City’s argument does not meet the substantial evidence standard for the likelihood of development of this specific site, with its specific constraints and existing uses, during the relevant planning period.
Don’t get us wrong: Housing Ac tion Coalition also hopes that Bridgepointe will begin redevelopment within the planning period, and it hopes that the City is successful in rolling back the restrictions of Measure Y through its General Plan revision efforts so that Bridgepointe can be developed with high-density housing. But without a showing, based on substantial evidence, that it is likely that Bridgepointe will redevelop “within the planning period,” the City should add sites to the inventory that are available to meet the need for affordable housing.
2. Hillsdale Mall
(APN 042-121-040, -060, -080; 039-490-050, -170; 039-353-010, -020, -030, - 040)
As discussed in Housing Action Coalition’s prior comment lette r, the question about Hillsdale Mall is not about whether the owner is interested in some mixed use housing for the site. The issue is when and how much housing will be built, and on which parcels or portions of parcels. Here, the City lacks evidence to justify the projections on the site inventory, or to claim that the existing uses are likely to discontinue soon enough for housing to be built during the required timeframe.
Retail uses of Hillsdale Mall are almost certain to continue t hrough the next eight years.
With the owner just having spent $240+ million on the Hillsdale North project on 12.5 acres of APN 039-490-170, including a new food court on the portion spanning 31 st Avenue to connect to
the even larger portion of the mall that includes Macy’s and Nordstrom, the City Council cannot credibly make findings that all existing uses of that parcel will likely discontinue in the next eight years. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2). Similarly, the substantial improvements and
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new long-term leases at Hillsdale South show that redevelopment of that portion of APN 039- 490-170 is also unlikely to take place during the period covered by the draft Housing Element.3
The City makes much of the owne r’s expressed desire to build housing, including showing images of the owner’s proposals to modify the City’s general plan to allow housing of 100-200 units/acre on portions of the site. Current San Mateo law does not permit these plans to go forward. As with Bridgepointe, the reality is that the City’s voters have constrained housing production by adopting Measure P, then Measure Y, which prohibit such density until 2030.
Without knowing the outcome of a hypothetical ballot initiative in 2024 that might permit such density (see December 2022 Draft at H-B-56), the City cannot reliably predict that the owner will attempt to build before Measure Y, and the current Housing Element, expire.
3. The Atrium: 1900 South Norfolk Street
(APN 035-391-090)
As stated in Housing Action Coalition’s earlier comment letter: The executive office building located at 1900 South Norfolk Street is currently used by a large number of office tenants. The draft Housing Element does not perform any analysis of the current use, including whether existing leases would create obstacles to residential development of the site during the next eight years. Publicly available information indicates that a number of leases continue to be signed or renewed for this three-story office building, with at least one such lease publicly reported to extend until 2030. Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022, Appendix Tab 9. The City should perform the required analysis under Government Code section 65583.2(g)(1), and evaluate whether it has substantial evidence to make the finding that existing uses are “likely to discontinue” during the next eight years, as required by section 65583.2(g)(2).
If not, the City should not claim that this site meets the need for 99 lower income affordable housing units, even if the owner has expressed a long-term interest in redevelopment.
The site is currently zoned “executive office,” with no residential overlay to make residential housing a permitted use (except by discretionary application for a special use permit).
The City does not include a plan to rezone the site to make residential use a permitted use, as required by Government Code sections 65583.2(a)(4) and 65583(c). The owner of the property has indicated an interest in building housing if the site is rezoned; nothing suggests that the owner has an interest in going through an expensive two year gauntlet to apply for discretionary
3 Parcel 039-490-170 is also subjec t to the same problem as the Bridgepointe parking lot site: the City lacks any evidence that a site this large can be developed for 485 units of affordable housing. Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)(B). The City has never seen a development include that much affordable housing; none of its cited examples come anywhere close. Under the City’s inclusionary housing ordinance, even if all 28.91 acres of the parcel were developed and resulted in 1,199 units, only 15% of them would be required to be affordable for lower income households: 179 units, not 485. Meanwhile, the City’s citation to projects that were predominantly market-rate, with only limited numbers of lower income units, fails to meet the statutory requirement.
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permission to see if the City is willing to let residential housing be built here. The City needs substantial evidence that the existing use will discontinue, paired with a rezoning of the site, in order to take credit on the site inventory towards meeting the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).
4. Borel Shopping Center (71-77 Bovet; 1750 El Camino Real) (Consolidated Site AH: A PN 039-011-450, -460, -470, -480, -500, -510)
As stated in Housing Action Coalition’s earlier comment letter: This site is a busy shopping center anchored by a CVS Pharmacy, a 24 Hour Fitness, 4 a branch of Patelco Credit
Union, a UPS store, and a separate restaurant building for Jack’s Restaurant and Bar. There is publicly available information showing that the lease for Jack’s extends well into the planning period. Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022, Appendix Tab 11 (indicating Jack’s lease extends from 2013-2029). The City should perform the required section 65583.2(g)(1) analysis of the existing leases, and current market demand for the retail uses at the location. The City currently lacks substantial evidence that the site’s existing use is “likely to be discontinued” during the next eight years. It should not count towards 85 units of housing affordable to lower income households.
5. The Elks and The Shriners – 229 W. 20
th Street and 150 W. 20th Street
(APN 037-052-350 and APN 039-030-220)
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 1112 (“San Mateo Elks Lodge”), has been located at 229 W. 20
th Street since 1954. The San Mateo Elks Lodge has a membership of over 1,100 as of earlier this year. The Elks use their lodge to operate a popular swimming center for kids and families, hold crab feeds and other events in the meeting hall, and engage in fun activities and philanthropic works.
The only suggestion that the San Mateo Elks are not likely to continue their existing use of the Elks Lodge at 229 W. 20
th Street is the statement on the site inventory that “Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.” That kind of statement might sometimes go unnoticed and unquestioned by the City Council, HCD, or a court. But here, no one should take it as an adequate answer to the question of whether the San Mateo Elks will stop using their lodge in the next eight years. The reason is that the 2015 Housing Element, when listing the same site, said the same thing, word-for-word: “Existing private member club.
Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.” 5 Nothing has
4 In 2008, the 24 Hour Fitness subs tantially modified the building it occupies when it moved into a space formerly occupied by Albertson’s. It added locker rooms, a swimming pool, basketball courts, showers, and other tenant improvements at a cost exceeding $2.2 million. BD- 2007-230493; BD-2007-230029; BD-2008-230692.
5 In order to rely on conversati ons purporting to express intent, the public needs to know much more. Who had the conversation cited by the City, and with whom did they have it? Has
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happened in the last eight years to suggest that “preliminary conversations” are substantial evidence on which to predict a likely discontinuation of the existing use, even if the more recent note is based on more recent preliminary conversations, instead of the “preliminary conversations” that took place eight years ago. This site should not be counted towards accommodating the need for 77 units of housing affordable to lower income households.
Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2).
A second private club is located just down the street at 150 W. 20 th Street: the Shriners.
The Shriners are likewise a longtime institution in San Mateo, and are likewise committed to philanthropy and social activities. The Shriners’ building is used in part for a day care center.
The site inventory provides insufficient detail to evaluate whether they plan to move out in the next eight years, saying only “Owners have considered mixed use with residential.” Without more, this is insufficient to justify concluding that the Shriners actually plan to leave or redevelop in the short or mid-term, or to treat their property as accommodating the need for 32 units of lower income housing.
The same analysis applies to other sites. See, e.g., 1500 Fashion Island Blvd. (APN 035- 550-040) (“Developer interest in redevelopment.”); Consolidated Site B (APN 032-312-250, - 270, -150, -100, -070) (“General interest in redevelopment”). Vague expressions of interest do not constitute substantial evidence that the existing use will likely cease during the next eight years. Sections 65583.2(g)(1) and (g)(2) require more analysis, more evidence, and more likelihood.
6. Mollie Stone’s – Olympic Shopping Center
(Consolidated Site AD:
APN 042-242-050, -060, -070, -160, -180;
042-243-020, 042-244-040, -050;
042-245-040, -050, -060, -070, -080, -090, -100, -110, -120, -130; 042-263-010, 042-264-010)
This site, consisting of twenty parcels, is claimed to accommodate 161 units of housing affordable to those with lower incomes. The only basis for including it appears to be the claim that there is “ownership interest in specific plan redevelopment,” which does not indicate that all of the parcels would be redeveloped as housing at the maximum density, or indicate who said what to whom, and when.
6 the Lodge taken any affirmative steps toward redevelopment beyond this conversation? Without more, the vague reference to “preliminary conversations” between unidentified speakers on an unidentified date does not constitute “substantial evidence.” 6 Here too, the concern about spe cificity is not idle. There are five separate owners.
Carstens Realty owns most of the parcels, but CLC Investments, Sadigh Sassan, Shamco E LLC, and San Mateo Investment Co. each own one. The City does not discuss or address whether the
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Meanwhile, and as discussed further in section B below, the draft Housing Element does not adequately analyze or demonstrate the realistic capacity of the site. Under section 65583.2(g)(1), for a nonvacant site like this, the city must “specify the additional development potential for each site within the planning period.” The required analysis is currently missing. A realistic assessment of the current uses and market conditions would preclude listing the entire site at maximum density. Mollie Stone’s is the only full-service grocery store in the surrounding area. For households in the southwestern portion of town (for example, everyone near Laurel Elementary School and south to the Belmont border), closing Mollie Stone’s would more than double their travel times to the nearest grocery, and extend them well beyond the one-mile used to define a “food desert” – a condition no one expects to develop in this well-resourced city. 7 Currently San Mateo’s land use pattern follows the predictable pattern: few, if any, households are more than one mile from a grocery. There is no reason to believe that the market need for grocery stores will make the need for Mollie Stone’s, or another grocery store, superfluous in this part of town. Particularly as San Mateo’s population grows, the need for grocery stores will increase, not diminish.
This means that any redevelopment or specific plan of the Olympic Shopping Center will almost certainly include a substantial retail component, at least on the ground floor. Mixed use may be a responsible way to increase density, but it precludes listing the site at maximum density, particularly given the constraints of Measure Y. The City must conduct further analysis, including an analysis of existing leases, common ownership, and market conditions, before claiming that this site will meet the needs for construction of 161 units of housing affordable to lower income households. And, given the substantial demand for the existing use, the City may not be able to make the required finding under section 65583.2(g)(2).
7. Site AN (4100 and 4142 El Camino Real)
(APN 042-242-170 and -080)
On the draft Housing Element site inventory, consolidated Site AN consists of a City- owned vacant site and a neighboring parcel. In a recent staff report for the November 7, 2022 meeting, the chart responding to HCD comments indicated that the City had two City-owned sites: the “Talbot’s” site (APN 034-179-050 and -060), and APN 042-242-170, which it referred
five are willing or interested in a joint project, though it lists each of them as having expressed interest in a specific plan. Without evidence of what makes consolidation likely, the smaller sites are deemed insufficient to accommodate the need for lower income housing. See Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)(A).
7 If Mollie Stone’s closed, a nd no grocery store was rebuilt in its place, it would create the unlikely situation where an affluent, urban community became a “food desert.” The United States Department of Agriculture has defined a “food desert” as an area where at least 500 people, or 33% of the tract population, reside more than one mile from a full-service supermarket. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_err140.pdf.
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to as the “Ravioli” site. The chart indicated that staff recommended adding to the narrative about the Talbot’s site, but recommended removing the Ravioli site from discussion.
The draft Housing Element had shown the two sites APN 042-242-170 and APN -042- 242-080 as having a potential for consolidation, but if the City does not plan to sell APN 042- 242-170, and instead plans to take it off of the site inventory, it should also remove APN 042- 242-080 as unsuitably small for affordable housing.
However, the staff report is confusing on this point. It refers to APN 042-242-170 as the “Ravioli” site, and lists a street address of 505 South B Street. This is not the location of APN 042-242-170. APN 042-242-170 is located at 4140 El Camino Real. If it is indeed City-owned, we encourage the City to make plans to develop it, preferably by issuing a Request for Proposals to transfer it to a non-profit housing developer who could build a 100% affordable project on the site. If the site can be consolidated with the neighboring parcels – which have one-story commercial or professional uses, and a relatively large percentage of surface parking – the opportunity would be even more meaningful in terms of providing for the need for housing affordable to those with lower incomes. Even still, the City would need to engage in the process of determining that it is likely the existing uses on the neighboring parcels are likely to be discontinued during the planning period such that consolidation of the sites is feasible and realistic.
B. The Analysis Supporting The Government Code Section 65583.2(c) Calculation Is Insufficient.
In order to determine that the City has a sufficient number of sites to meet the need without rezoning, a key calculation is the projected number of units at each level of affordability.
If the City overestimates how many units will be built on the sites it includes, it will incorrectly conclude that it does not need to identify any more. Unfortunately, the City’s current draft makes just this error.
The estimate of units on each site is governed by Government Code section 65583.2(c), which provides:
The city or county shall determine the number of housing units that can be accommodated on each site as follows:
(1) . . . If the city or county does not adopt a law or regulation requiring the development of a site at a minimum density, then it shall demonstrate how the number of units determined for that site pursuant to this subdivision will be accommodated.
(2) The number of units calculated pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be adjusted as necessary, based on the land use controls and site improvements requirement identified in paragraph (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 65583, the realistic
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development capacity for the site, typical densities of existing or approved residential developments at a similar affordability level in that jurisdiction, and on the current or planned availability and accessibility of sufficient water, sewer, and dry utilities.
The draft Housing Element fails to demonstrate that the site inventory numbers reflect the realistic development capacity for each site. For sites with the potential for mixed or non- residential use, the Housing Element calculates a discounted probability of residential development, but fails to apply it. For sites zoned entirely residential, the site inventory cherry- picks the data in an effort to claim that every site is likely to be developed at the maximum density permitted by San Mateo zoning laws.
1. Mixed Use/Non-Residential Zoning.
In the site inventory guidebook, HCD explains that where a city uses sites that are zoned for nonresidential uses, the city must evaluate the capacity analysis by taking into account that some or all of the site may be developed – as city law allows – for such nonresidential uses, such as commercial or office uses.
The City discusses this issue at pages H-31 to H-34 of the draft Housing Element, using the data in table 5. It states that 80% of sites developed during 2017-2022 were developed with at least some residential housing.
8 It states that to account for this, “For those sites that assume mixed-use with residential components in the site inventory, potential density is assumed more conservatively at 30 to 35 du/ac.” December 2022 draft at H-31.
Unfortunately, the City does not consistently apply the results of this analysis. Instead of applying the mixed-use density number uniformly, it picks and chooses which sites the City “assume[s]” will be mixed-use, and then ignores the prospect that others may also have mixed- use or no residential use at all. The following sites are zoned for non-residential uses per the site inventory with a reported maximum density of 50, but the City nonetheless lists them at densities higher than what it claims is the “conservative” 30-35 du/ac:
8 Note that here the City counts projects, inst ead of evaluating by acreage. Larger sites are more likely to be developed for commercial or office uses. Table 5 shows that while 20 of 25 sites contained at least some residential component, only 19.99 of the 80.88 acres (75%) did. A realistic calculation of the likelihood of residential development should apply the proportion developed by acreage before multiplying it times the allowable units per acre, rather than using the percentage of sites with entirely non-residential uses.
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Mixed Zoning Sites With Max Of 50, Not Properly Adjusted For Mixed Zoning:
Site Zoning9 Capacity per
Inventory
Capacity at 30-35 du/ac
because of mixed or
non-residential potential
(before accounting for
site-specific factors)
G: 77 N. San Mateo E2-0.5/R5
25 [39.682
du/ac]
19-22
N: 487 S. El Camino/
62 E. 4
th/E 5th and
San Mateo Dr.
CBD/R
157 94-110
1500 Fashion Island E1-0.62/R 273
[45 du/ac]
182-213
2118 El Camino:
Catrina Hotel
C3-1/R4
56 [76.71 du/ac,
despite a
City-wide
maximum of
50]
22-26
2955 El Camino TOD 114
[50 du/ac]
69-80
039-360-140 TOD 67
[50 du/ac]
40-47
AC: Parkside Plaza C1-0.5/R4
332
[50 du/ac]
200-233
220 W. 20th E1-1/R4
77 [50 du/ac]
46-54
150 W. 20th E1-1/R4
79 [40 du/ac]
59-69
2900 El Camino C3-1/R4 54
[50 du/ac]
32-38
2838 El Camino C3-1/R4 59
[50 du/ac]
35-41
4060 El Camino C3-1/R4 51
[50 du/ac]
31-36
9 E1 = Executive [Office] Park.
E2 = Executive Offices
C1 = Neighborhood Commercial
C3 = Regional/Community Commercial
TOD = Transit Oriented Development (mixed use)
/R = Residential Overlay (residential as permitted, rather than special, use)
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2028 El Camino C3-1/R4 19
[50 du/ac]
11-13
2030 S. Delaware TOD 52
[50 du/ac]
31-36
AL: Ah Sam C3-2 105
[46 du/ac]
69-80
AM: 1670 Amphlett
Blvd.
E2-1 289
[50 du/ac]
173-202
AM: 1700 Amphlett
Blvd.
E2-1 203
[50 du/ac]
122-142
AM: 1720 Amphlett
Blvd.
E2-1 230
[50 du/ac]
138-161
AN: 4100/4142 El
Camino
C1-1.5/R4 28
[39 du/ac]
22-25
Totals: 2,270 1,395-1,628
Overestimate: 642-875
units
The sites in the following chart are zoned for non-residential uses per the site inventory with a reported maximum of 30 or 35 units/acre, but the City does not discount them to take into account the possibility of non-residential development. Applying the City’s data showing that mixed zoning sites develop at less than 80% of the maximum zoning, these sites should be estimated at no more than 24-28 units/acre:
Mixed Zoning Sites With Max Of 30-35, Not Properly Adjusted For Mixed Zoning:
Site Zoning Capacity per
Inventory
Capacity at 80% of
maximum zoning
(before accounting
for site-specific
factors)
1885 S. Norfolk St.
(Fish Market)
C1-1
Neighborhood
Comm’l
105
[30 du/ac;
zonin
g max is 35]
98 AB: 210 S. San
Mateo
CBD “Central
Business Dist.”
35 [50.7 du/ac;
zonin
g max is 30]
17 AE: The Great
Entertainer
R3/C2-1
Regional
Comm’l/Medium
Densit
y
44 [29.72 du/ac;
zoning max is 35]
41 Housing Element
January 7, 2023
AF: 350 N. San
Mateo/220 E. Poplar
C2-1, C2-2
Regional
Comm’l
19 [30 du/ac;
zonin
g max is 35]
18 AH: 71-77 Bovet C1-2
Neighborhood
Comm’l
209
[35 du/ac;
zonin
g max is 35]
186
1900 S. Norfolk E1-0.5
Exec. Office
Park [no resid.
overla
y]
245
[30 du/ac; zoning
max stated as 35]
229
Totals: 657 589
Overestimate: 68 units
The City also takes an inconsistent approach to “pre-application” projects. Some are estimated based on similar experience throughout the City (e.g., Fishmarket, estimated at 35 du/ac despite the owner’s proposal of 260 units).
10 But for others, the City takes credit based on
the projected number of units out of a “pre-application” or pending application, even though the application itself has not yet been approved or, in most cases, even submitted. While some of these sites may ultimately develop for the proposed density, using the un-approved density from a pre-application is not a realistic assessment of their likely capacity. Until entitlements issue and the projects move forward, the realistic estimate of the site’s capacity should be based on the typical capacity based on the mixed-use sites that have been approved or built, i.e., 30-35 units/acre:
“Pre-Application”/Pending, Not Properly Adjusted for Mixed Zoning:
Site Zoning Capacity per
Inventory
Capacity at 80% of
maximum zoning
(before accounting for
site-specific factors)
Site AO: Block 20 CBD/S Central
Business District
Support
84 [72.4 du/ac]
35-41
Site Y: Hillsdale
Inn (477 E. Hillsdale
Blvd.)
C2-0.5
Regional/Comm.
Comm’l
230
[75.4 du/ac]
92-107
1495 El Camino E2-1/R4
Executive
Office/Hi
gh
35 20-24
10 At 260 units on 3.5 acres (75 du/ac), the owner’s proposal wo uld appear to exceed Measure Y, and so is indeed unrealistic, at least for purposes of calculating a site inventory capacity. This also assumes that all 3.5 acres is developable, despite Bay Conservation District jurisdiction over this shoreline parcel.
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Density
Residential
[51.47 du/ac]
11 R: 4th/Railroad
“Bespoke”12
CBD/R
Central Business
District
60 [52 du/ac]
35-41
Site AG: Nazareth
Vista
C1-3/R5
Neighborhood
Commercial with
Residential
Overla
y
48 [75 du/ac]
19-22
477 9th Ave. E2-2 [Executive
Office, No
Residential
Overla
y]
120
[75 du/ac]
48-56
Totals: 577 291
Potential
Overestimate:
249-291
By failing to follow through on the HCD required analysis – that properties zoned for non-residential uses will sometimes not become housing at all – the draft overestimates the capacity of its inventory. Based on the City’s own analysis, that sites where mixed or non- residential use is permitted should be estimated at 30-35 units/acre, the City overestimated the capacity by 710-943 units, over 10% of the RHNA totals. And if the “pre-application” sites are adjusted to reflect average capacities for mixed use zoning, instead of accepting pre-application numbers at face value, the overestimate is as high as 1,234 units, constituting 17.5% of the RHNA totals. Before adopting the Housing Element, the City should adjust the site inventory capacity calculations to comply with the state law requirement of realistic, demonstrated capacities, and then identify additional sites to make up for the shortfall.
2. Residential Zoning.
For the limited number of sites on the inventory that are zoned residential without the potential for non-residential uses, the City’s analysis is also flawed. As discussed in the Housing Action Coalition’s prior comment letter, the draft “cherry-picks” data to argue that capacities should be calculated based on the maximum permitted under the City’s zoning laws. At pages H-30 through H-31, and in table 4, the City separates prior residential developments into two categories: “in-fill” and “outliers.” The so-called “outliers” represent over 20% of the units, and 46% of the residentially zoned land: it is unreasonable to disregard them when computing the
11 Note that this pre-applicati on appears to have been submitted in 2017, suggesting that it might be a particularly poor basis for an estimate made in 2023. 12 Note: Only two of the six parc els described at page H-C-33 (narrative description of the “Bespoke” project) are listed on the site inventory.
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average. The average density for residential projects, combining both parts of table 4, is approximately 40 units/acre.
Notably, the draft applies the “outlier” density of 18.2 units/acre to only three sites, all adjacent to one another at 717-801 Woodside Road. The sites are in a residential neighborhood surrounded by other apartment buildings.
Meanwhile, the City does not apply the “outlier” density to sites that would appear to have far more in common with those on the list. The “outlier” project on Waters Park Drive was zoned “executive office”; it borders Borel Creek as it flows into Seal Slough. Less than 100 feet away, on the opposite side of Borel Creek as it flows into Seal Slough, is 1900 S. Norfolk Street, zoned “executive office.” Yet while the Waters Park Drive project developed at a density of just 17 units/acre, the City projects a capacity for 1900 S. Norfolk of 245 units on 8.18 acres: 30 units per acre. If indeed the Waters Park Drive project resulted in low density because of site- specific conditions (adjacency to the busy Highway 101-Highway 92 interchange; located in a flood zone; no residential zoning overlay), then consistency would demand similar treatment for 1900 S. Norfolk. For that matter, Parkside Plaza and Fishmarket are similarly adjacent to Seal Slough and right next to the interchange; they should also be projected at the “outlier” density.
3. Site-Specific Adjustments.
State housing law requires that site-specific conditions also be taken into account. In the narrative discussion of specific sites in draft Appendix C at pp. H-C-35 through H-C-49, the City identifies site-specific issues that should further reduce the realistic, demonstrated capacity. At the Fish Market and 1900 S. Norfolk sites, for example, there are required setbacks from Borel Creek and Seal Slough. 1900 S. Norfolk is also next to a freeway interchange, and so has restrictions on height relating to the height of the freeway railing; the site also has a long tail that winds around a PG&E substation, none of which could be developed and which should therefore be ignored in calculating realistic capacity. See December 2022 Draft Appendix C at p. H-C-39.
Meanwhile, the City seems not to have considered the potential effect of San Mateo Zoning Code section 27.44.065 to this site (currently zoned E1): at least 35% of the parcel area must be open-space, preventing over 1/3 of the land from being developed for housing. Other sites also have odd shapes or watercourse adjacencies. Still others are subject to other rules governing setbacks or required ground-floor uses. See, e.g., San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.29.118 (prohibiting residential uses on first floor in mixed use projects in downtown), § 27.30.027 (prohibiting ground floor residential uses in the first 30 feet facing El Camino Real or 25 th
Avenue), § 27.39.100 (required retail frontage in downtown), 27.42.010 (“Street Wall” regulations requiring upper floor setbacks in the downtown). Meanwhile, the City mentions, but never really analyzes, how Measure Y can prevent housing from being built at the densities projected, unless state density bonuses are used to override this constraint.
Similarly, given that the $240+ million construction of Hillsdale North Block precludes use of the 12.5 acres there, and that the pedestrian bridge shows an intention to continue use of significant portions of the main mall building, the City needs to analyze which portions of the
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Hillsdale site might realistically be developed as residential housing during the next eight years, then reduce the calculation to take these site constraints into account. The existing leases at Bridgepointe mean that the proper calculation for that site’s potential is to determine how large a parking structure would need to be built on the current surface lot to meet the requirements of the existing retail center, ice rink, and restaurants, and then determine the development potential of the fraction of the parking lot that would be available for housing. Applying a 30-35 unit average to these two sites seriously overstates the development capacity for all levels of affordability.
State law requires that the City develop and justify a cogent, realistic methodology to support its anticipated production calculations, and requires that it apply that methodology consistently and thoughtfully to the site inventory to yield realistic results. Unfortunately, the City’s draft fails to meet the required standard.
C. Additional Comments On Zoning Status.
As noted above, a number of sites included in the City’s inventory are zoned commercial or office without a residential overlay. We request that San Mateo rezone these sites to add a residential overlay, so that developers are assured that residential uses will be permitted, rather than hope the desired inclusion of residential uses will be permitted on a site-by-site basis as part of project-specific approvals. Uncertainty regarding the ultimate success of a rezoning effort discourages residential development in the City. December 2022 Draft at Appendix B, p. H-B-
26. The entire point of the housing inventory is to determine if there are sufficient sites that are either (1) vacant and zoned residential, (2) vacant and zoned for nonresidential use “that allows residential development,” (3) residentially zoned sites capable of being developed at a higher density, or (4) “sites zoned for nonresidential use that can be redeveloped for residential use, and for which the housing element contains a program to rezone the site, as necessary, to permit residential use.” Government Code § 65583.2(a)(1)-(4). The sites zoned for commercial or office use, without a residential overlay, do not fall within section 65583.2(a)(3), because they are not zoned residential. They should therefore be included in a program to rezone to affirmatively permit residential use. Having the City retain discretion to refuse or condition residential development on these properties does not make them available as required by state housing law.13 This issue would appear to apply to the following sites14:
13 We note, for example, that the Waters Park Road project, zoned E1, sought a rezoning because it was not zoned residential, as part of its attempt to seek permission to redevelop the site. Sites listed on the inventory should not have to go through this step. 14 Under San Mateo Zoning Code section 27.44.020, permitted uses in the E1 district include “Residential units, only on parcels designated with a residential overlay district classification . . .” Id. § 27.44.020(g). For parcels “without a residential overlay district classification,” residential units are permitted only “subject to approval of a special use permit.” Id. § 27.44.030(g). The same rules apply to E2. See id. §§ 27.48.020(b) and 27.48.030. The same rules apply to the C1 and C2 districts, absent a residential overlay. Id. § 27.30.010(a)
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Sites Where Residential Units Are Not A Permitted Use:
Site Zoning Claimed Capacity
A: 117-121 N. San Mateo E2 15
T: 1600-1620 El Camino Real, and 1535-
1541 Jasmine
E2-2 44
901 El Camino Real E2-1 17
1650 Borel Place E1-2 74
1900 S. Norfolk E1-0.5 245
477 9th Ave. E2-2 120
Portion of AI: 723 N. San Mateo Dr. E2-1.5 34
AM: 1670 Amphlett Blvd. E2-1 289
AM: 1700 Amphlett Blvd. E2-1 203
AM: 1720 Amphlett Blvd. E2-1 230
1863-1885 S. Norfolk (Fish Market) C1-1 105
Y: Hillsdale Inn, car wash C2-0.5 207
AF: 350 N. San Mateo/220 E. Poplar C2-1, C2-2 19
AH: 71-77 Bovet, 93 Bovet C1-2 243
2000 Winward Way (Residence Inn) C2-0.62 160
Portions of AI: 727 and 733 N. San Mateo C3-2 [counted above] AL: Ah Sam Florist C3-2 105
190 W. 25th Ave. C1-2 2
Total Capacity Not Zoned For Residential As A
Permitted (Not Special) Use:
2,112
In determining how to rezone to add a residential overlay, the City should also consider whether the overlay after rezoning will enable the sites to realistically achieve the density claimed on the site inventory. See San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.29.110 (imposing maximum floor area ratios).
The City should also consider the impact of Government Code section 65583.2(h).
Section 65583.2(h) provides that at least 50% of the need for very-low and low-income housing must be accommodated on sites designated for residential use where non-residential uses are not permitted. San Mateo’s site inventory does not appear to satisfy this rule, because at least 50% of the need is proposed to be met using sites that allow exclusively commercial uses. (For
(permitting “residential units only on parcels designated with a residential overlay” for C1 district); § 27.32.010(n) (same for C2); 27.30.020 (requiring special use permit for “residential units on parcels without a residential overlay district classification” in C1); § 27.32.020(g) (same for C2). It does not appear that residential uses are permitted in the C3 district at all; consistent with the intention “to create and maintain major commercial centers accommodating a broad range of office, retail, and service uses of community-wide or regional significance,” residential uses are not listed as a permitted use in § 27.34.010, though they arguably could be permitted as a special use because they are special uses permitted in C1 and C2. Id. § 27.34.020(a).
Housing Element
January 7, 2023
example, the Bridgepointe and Hillsdale shopping centers, zoned for commercial uses, see, e.g., City of San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.34). Meanwhile, the statutory alternative of accommodating 100% of the very low and low income need on sites designated for mixed uses, “if those sites allow 100 percent residential use,” would appear not to apply to certain City zoning designations. See, e.g., City of San Mateo Zoning Code § 27.38.110. The City should evaluate how to address the impact of this statutory provision as part of the final drafting of the Housing Element.
* * *
Based on the analysis above, San Mateo’s draft Housing Element does not comply with state law, because it proposes to meet more than 50% of the need for affordable housing with sites that are not vacant, and does so without substantial evidence that they are likely to be redeveloped. The City’s current analysis, which fails to analyze or account for leases, whether parcels proposed to be consolidated are under common ownership, recent remodeling or construction indicating that existing uses will continue, and other obstacles to development in the next eight years, is insufficient to meet its responsibility under state housing law. In particular, the City lacks substantial evidence showing that the Bridgepointe and Hillsdale shopping center sites have existing uses that are “likely to discontinue” during the next eight years, but as the other examples we cite above illustrate, the required analysis under Government Code section 65583.2(g)(1)-(2) must be done for each site separately in order to have a valid Housing Element.
Meanwhile, the City has also overestimated the capacity of the sites listed on the inventory. Correctly calculating the realistic capacity – even by using the high end of the City’s range of 30-35 units for mixed zoning sites with a maximum of 50, and 80% of the zoned capacity for sites zoned for 30 or 35 units/acre – reduces the City’s claimed buffer for all categories, and leads to a shortfall for the “very low” and “moderate” categories, even if all sites satisfied section 65583.2(g)(2). Further site-specific analysis leads to an even greater gap. The City should address these shortfalls by planning to rezone more sites. The City should also rezone the inventory sites in districts where residential is not a permitted use without a special use permit; the City itself recognizes that this is a substantial constraint on housing production, and the current zoning prevents the sites from falling into any of the categories of section 65583.2(a)(1)-(4) without rezoning under section 65583(c).
Housing Element
January 7, 2023
Given these flaws, San Mateo is not yet ready to adopt its Housing Element. Additional sites will need to be identified and potentially rezoned to ensure compliance with state housing law. A more substantial inventory will avoid the possibility that the Housing Element will be invalidated in the event that HCD or a court agrees with the legal issues identified above.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas B. Mayhew
Charles J. Hi
gley
36615\15225917.1
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 2:29 PM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia; Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: June 5 housing AND flood focus? Insufficient time for public discourse
-----Original Message-----
From: Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 1:58 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: Richard Hedges <[email protected]>; Lisa Diaz Nash <[email protected]>; Rob Newsom <[email protected]>; Adam Loraine <[email protected]>; Amourence Lee <[email protected]>; City Mgr <[email protected]> Subject: June 5 housing AND flood focus? Insufficient Ɵme for public discourse
City Council & Housing Officials,
Quick note to be on record that cramming two huge issues of public interest into one council meeƟng is preposterous, given there is insufficient Ɵme to offer public discourse and outreach.
Flooding impacted our enƟre city and many of us are sƟll navigaƟng repairs due to same and eager to have a robust conversaƟon on June 5 to ensure this NEVER happens again. We have many desiring to aƩend June 5 with specific quesƟons addressing same.
Also, our communiƟes are being devastated by fast implementaƟon of poorly thought out development plans leaving huge gaping holes of destrucƟon that are not just an eyesore but a miƟgaƟon issue that many of us would like addressed given planning has pushed through office buildings and market rate housing under the guise of 'affordable housing' w/only a smidge of same...We, as a public deserve to be heard with soluƟons, beƩer alternaƟves, inquiries and miƟgaƟon quesƟons regarding same.
Finally, holding meeƟngs for hours on end into late night sessions and reducing public discourse to 60 second soundbites from ciƟzenry who would like to have serious conversaƟons about conscienƟous follow through is damaging the reputaƟon of a council that has been posiƟoned as desiring to 'rebuild trust' within the community.
I urge you to separate out these two very important topics which the public has an extremely vested interest in seeing handled properly WITH public input.
Anything less is giving lipservice to the concept of an informaƟve "public hearing" with community discourse...Thank you for your consideraƟon.
AppreciaƟvely,
Amy Jussel Bedard
District 4
MGA#1 Board
2 1
Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2023 8:51 AM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia; Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: HOUSING in SAN MATEO
From: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 4:31 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: HOUSING in SAN MATEO
The city of San Mateo really does not have enough space or land to accomodate 7,000 or 8000 new homes . This is an unrealistic amount The City Council and powers to be need to tell SACTO and others that this kind of number is truly impossible. I do not want to see our precious tax revenues spent to purchase land to accommodate builders and other cronies ,,,,
To begin with no entity is going to remove the R/R tracks or HWY 101 or 92 or similar ,,,Some roads are really too narrow to force in more buildings We have a 55 foot height limit now in effect and many in your group just want to ignore it and allow buldings to go higher by getting waivers,,,The voters voted in this height limit for many reasons and those of you who seem to try and elude this 55 foot limit should understand that those of us who voted for this and similar past motions are not going away,,We will continue to fight any height structures over 55 feet. I have no objection to developers who build garages or keep it under 55 feet and go wide . We will fight these developers in many meetings and those of you who are in our path , will be defeated in any public elections should you dream about being on the city council or similar.
So that being said I implore all of you to listen to people like me who do not want monstrous.high edifices that seem to go to the stars. Huge intense densities and buildings that accumulate many people really put pressure on the existing infrastructures we have,,,
I truly want a special tax to go on developers who will do new structures that will pay for all sewage and electricity lines pipes and similar to be underground and also with sewage to go all the way to the sewage plant,,,the existing lines are oversubscribed so adding new pipes from new buildings will just call for new pipes to be installed every five years
NO ONE CARES Your planning commission has historically been DEAF to those of us who are concerned about too much growth here in San Mateo and you all seem to be swayed by tea and cookie ( DOG AND PONY ) exhibits but these professional pro growth entities.that are plaging our sensibilities....We need to suggest that they go to other locations like MERCED or FRESNO that would love development but many of us here in SM are sick and tired or the charades being presented by the planning commission...It has gone on for too long and the gravy train these developers provide to you all needs to STOP
I no longer like to attend your meeting and YES I have gone to many and spoken, I prefer now to again send you my thought and hope someone there will listen,,,OR DO YOU JUST DELETE and trash comments from people like me???DUNNO I know you will never answer my letter and have accepted your past actions very reluctantly.
I have lived at for 40 years ,,,I was born in Mills Hospital and not someone who just showed up. I am NOT a member of some political party or some political HACK...
Rick Karr
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2023 10:06 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: Your June 5th Meeting / Housing Element Facts
From: Patrice Olds <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2023 9:16 AM
To: Zachary Dahl <[email protected]>; Christina Horrisberger <[email protected]>; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]>
Cc: Martin McTaggart <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Your June 5th Meeting / Housing Element Facts
Patrice M. Olds, MMC
City Clerk
City of San Mateo
330 W. 20th Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94403-1388
[email protected]
www.cityofsanmateo.org
(650) 522-7042
From: Lisa Taner
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 2:20 PM
To: City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]> Subject: Your June 5th Meeting / Housing Element Facts
Dear City Councilmembers,
As your June 5th meeting approaches and there is further discussion on the Housing Element, I point to critical details for those who would say San Mateo needs to identify yet more places for housing units to satisfy the HCD. I shared these with Prasana, Drew and Zachary last week:
The organization 'Our Neighborhood Voices' recently presented to SMUHA. I learned some things about the HCD I found very disturbing, and feel that you should at the very least be aware as you continue to strive for the HCD to certify San Mateo's submission. San Mateo might consider joining forces with other cities on a class action lawsuit against the HCD. (This, at a cost of about $20k, seems very little in order to wrench control away from this rogue state department.)
WE'RE GETTING SET UP TO FAIL
The HCD essentially has no timeframe to approve a city’s submission. More precisely, they may indiscriminately 'bounce' a submitted element for an unlimited number of times - opening the door for the Builder's Remedy. Some of the HCD requirements are quite subjective. The speaker from Our Neighborhood Voices noted that a consultant who had successfully worked with some Southern California cities to obtain
2 HCD approval for their housing plans began bumping into walls because the HCD then began requiring new information which completely stalled approvals. This is not a one-off. A city may experience a different requirement each time its submission is kicked back, again and again. There is no deadline by which submissions have to be approved because there is no limit to the number of times the HCD can deny them. There is only the original deadline by which plans were supposed to be approved - placing cities in untenable situations as denials roll in.
It very much feels like cities are being set up to fail. The very long list of those waiting for approval is astounding – and gives special interests a megaphone to cry out that cities are not complying with the state. As you know, even San Mateo (whose staff has strongly defended their submission) has been placed on pause – allowing developer-friendly folks to suggest 'solutions' for this 'problem.' Not surprisingly, they include rezoning single-family neighborhoods, allowing up to 12 story buildings, and allowing for more rezoning by expanding definitions of 'transit' areas from a 1/2 mile to 3/4 of a mile, which throws doors open to more development.
In final review, the HCD, on a very flimsy methodology (per the State Auditor), devises the thousands of housing units every city must build, then can sit on the plans each city submits so that they are punished with the Builder’s Remedy, etc. Do not allow San Mateo to fall victim to the antics of the HCD when we have already done our job.
Sincerely,
Lisa Taner
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 9:36 AM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia; Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: Housing Element - Draft GPU Density Question
From: Justin Kim
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 9:26 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element - Draft GPU Density Question
Hello,
We are a development company located in San Jose, CA. While reviewing the recent Housing Element site inventory, I came across a quesƟon regarding the density.
In the table provided below, there is a column indicaƟng the current Maximum Density Allowed, based on the GP designaƟon. However, there is also a column for DraŌ GPU Density, which I assume represents the proposed density for the upcoming General Plan update scheduled for early next year. I would appreciate if you could confirm this for me.
AddiƟonally, I noƟced that the DraŌ GPU Density column shows two different density ranges (e.g., 9 to 39; 40 to 99).
Could you kindly explain why there are two density opƟons?
Thank you in advance!
Justin Kim
Valley Oak Partners, LLC
www.valleyoakpartners.com
This email may contain information that is confidential or attorney-client privileged and may constitute inside information. The contents of this email are intended only for the recipient(s) listed above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are directed not to read, disclose, distribute or otherwise use this transmission. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the transmission. Delivery of this message is not intended to waive any applicable privileges.
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 9:20 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: Housing Element
From:
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 9:18 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element
Hi,
Thanks for making this updated version available.
On page H-cC-61 the discussion of Parkside Plaza is confusing in that you seem to include the Fish Market site in the map. Does the Parkside Plaza as discussed here include the Fish Market site?
This sentence: “For the purposes of the Housing Element Adequate Sites List, staff esƟmates a realisƟc capacity of 332 units of housing, the maximum allowed given the base zoning and proximity to other mulƟ-family developments, such as 1885 S Norfolk St (Fish Market),” seems to indicate the Fish Market is considered a separate site.
Also, will the numbers here: “Should the developer/property owner choose to uƟlize the state density bonus, the development could produce up to 498 residenƟal units. AdopƟon of the General Plan Update’s land use map will increase the base density of these sites to between 332-658 units,” refer to both the Fish Market and Parkside Plaza locaƟons for just the Parkside Plaza locaƟon?
Can you clarify these points in the report?
Thank you,
Dennis Keane
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 10:24 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: Housing Element
From:
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 9:23 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element
From:
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 9:18 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Housing Element
Hi,
Regarding the Parkside Plaza site indicated on page H-C-61, you indicate this site is proximal to Hayward Park StaƟon (“Proximity to Transit: Located 1.2 miles away from Hayward Park Caltrain StaƟon and 1.6 miles from South El Camino Real.”)
Can you clarify for me the parking availability at Hayward Park? Last I heard, parking for the public at that staƟon was drasƟcally reduced. Does this report assume people would walk/ride bikes/ drive/take public transportaƟon (that doesn’t exist) to travel that 1.2 miles?
Thank you,
Dennis Keane
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 9:51 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: Fwd: Electronic version of Table 2 (site inventory) for July 2023 version of Housing Element?
Sandra Belluomini
City of San Mateo
650-522-7239
From: Mayhew, Tom
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2023 5:42:36 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Electronic version of Table 2 (site inventory) for July 2023 version of Housing Element?
Hi, could you email me an electronic version of the site inventory (table 2 of the Housing Element, at H-C-22 through H- C-29)? Some of the math in the chart isn’t adding up, and I’d be better able to help identify the issues, and cross-check capacity estimate methodology, if I had an electronic copy. [for example, note that the total of LI + M + AM at the bottom of the chart is off: 2,970 + 1,181 + 5,704 does not equal 9,948].
Also, if you have the chart that was used to generate the percentages in table 4 on page H-C-68, I’d appreciate it (I separately filed a PRA about this, but you may have it accessible).
Thanks!
Tom Mayhew
Partner
Pronouns: His/Him
T h lp prot ct you pri ac , icr sof Of ice re en ed ut mac dow lo d o thi pi tur fr m e nte ne .
San Fran
cisco, CA 94104
www.fbm.com
This email has been scanned for email related threats and delivered safely by Mimecast.
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1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 12:13 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: Fwd: Housing Element Parking Policy Follow-up
Sandra Belluomini
City of San Mateo
650-522-7239
From: Torey Tibbetts
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 11:44:28 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: Grecia Mannah-Ayon
Subject: Re: Housing Element Parking Policy Follow-up
Hi there,
Just bumping this up and adding Grecia from our office who is taking over Housing Elements work, thanks!
Best,
Torey Tibbetts
On Sun, Jul 9, 2023 at 12:30 Torey Tibbetts wrote:
To Whom it May Concern,
TransForm is a regional non-profit focused on creating connected and healthy communities that can meet climate goals, reduce traffic, and include housing affordable to everyone.
We tracked and responded to San Mateo’s housing element, focused on smart parking reforms, and are glad to see Policy H1.7 included in the adoption draft. If implemented, these policies will help make San Mateo a safer, greener city and we are committed to assisting in that goal.
Given the city promises to implement these changes by 2025-2026, we are checking-in to see if the city has begun this process, or when you plan to start?
Best,
Torey Tibbetts
--
Torey Tibbetts, Housing Policy Intern
(They/Them/Theirs)
TransForm
2 Sign up for our emails at www.TransFormCA.org. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin, too. --
Torey Tibbetts, Housing Policy Intern
(They/Them/Theirs)
TransForm
Sign up for our emails at www.TransFormCA.org. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin, too.
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Wesley Greason
Sent: Wednesday, August 2, 2023 2:18 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: RE: Housing Element Questions
Hi Nicky,
So sorry for the typo, got my “San” city’s mixed up. Has the city of San Mateo added any new sites to their housing element/will there be any updates moving forward. I’m putting together a list of all the cities our builder desires to be in.
Thank you for your time & sorry for the typo!
Wesley Greason
Bella Vista Land Advisors
Real Estate Brokerage & Development
DRE #02109329
From: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 11:00 AM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]>; Wesley Greason Subject: RE: Housing Element Questions
Hi Wesley,
Unfortunately, the City of San Mateo only manages the housing inventory list for our own City. For info about the City of San Carlos I would reach out to their Planning Division.
Best
Nicky
From: Housing <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2023 4:03 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu <[email protected]>; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]> Subject: FW: Housing Element Questions
From: Wesley Greason
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2023 10:30 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element Questions
2 Greetings, San Mateo Housing.
My name is Wesley, I’m a broker here at Bella Vista. Has San Carlos added any new sites to its housing element inventory list in the last 90 days? We represent a builder who would like to build in the area.
Thank you for your time,
Wesley Greason
Bella Vista Land Advisors
Real Estate Brokerage & Development
DRE #02109329
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1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 4:37 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: SCLP comments on July 26, 2023 update, San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element Attachments: Aug 9 2023 SCLP letter to San Mateo.pdf
From: Dashiell Leeds
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 3:52 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>; City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]>; Planning Commission <[email protected]>
Cc: Gita Dev ; James Eggers ; Gladwyn D'Souza
; Mike Ferreira
Subject: SCLP comments on July 26, 2023 update, San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element
Dear Mayor Lee and Members of the San Mateo City Council, Planning Commission, and City Staff, The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter's Sustainable Land Use Committee (SLU) advocates on land use issues in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Thank you for providing the opportunity for SLU to provide input on the July 26, 2023 Updated Draft San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element (HE).
The overall updated draft Housing Element (HE) is an improvement, but more focused and stronger policies and programs are needed to have a reasonable expectation of meeting the RHNA number of 7,015 new housing units, particularly for affordable units.
Please see the attached letter for our full comments.
Sincerely,
Gita Dev
Co-Chair, Sustainable Land Use Committee
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
email sent from account of:
Dashiell Leeds
Conservation Coordinator
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~
SAN MATEO, SANTA CLARA & SAN BENITO COUNTIES
August 9, 2023
City of San Mateo
330 West 20th Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94403
email to: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element – comments on July 26, 2023 update Dear Mayor Lee and Members of the San Mateo City Council, Planning Commission, and City Staff, The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter's Sustainable Land Use Committee (SLU) advocates on land use issues in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Thank you for providing the opportunity for SLU to provide input on the July 26, 2023 Updated Draft San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element (HE).
The overall updated draft Housing Element (HE) is an improvement, but more focused and stronger policies and programs are needed to have a reasonable expectation of meeting the RHNA number of 7,015 new housing units, particularly for affordable units. Our key comments are listed below.
City staff need to communicate very closely with the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to assure a high likely hood that this HE version will be approved.
This is the third review of a proposed HE to HCD and time is running out to get the HE certified. Not having the HE certified in a timely manner has major negative consequences for San Mateo. This includes losing control of development (e.g., Builders Remedy), losing access to government funding, and undermining all the other important aspects of the proposed 2040 General Plan including the planned vote in November 2024 to consider changes to Measure Y .
City staff should be in very close communication with HCD staff to assure that this HE version is very likely to be certified.
The City must take strong new actions to assure that the RHNA goals are met Obtaining a HCD certified HE is just an interim step toward the real goal of having the RHNA goals met, particularly for affordable housing units. The HE Housing Plan (p. H-70 to H-97) needs to demonstrate a significant change to current policies and programs in order to realistically be able to reach the goal. The lack of affordable housing on the Peninsula is a significant contributor to environmental degradation as workers must commute long distances by car, emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) as well as other
sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~
pollutants. It also leads to sprawl, as more development is done in areas that were open space or agricultural land.
There are specific areas that will need to be retained or expanded to make sure the final HE contains the key actions needed to make significant progress on addressing the enormous lack of affordable housing in the Bay Area. Listed below are the most important goals, policies, and programs in the HE that need to be retained and strengthened in the final HE.
The “buffer” for meeting the goals for affordable units (low and very low) is only 9% as shown on page H-7. This is a lower number than in the earlier versions of the HE. This makes it less likely that enough affordable units will be built. The buffer number for affordable units should be higher.
The HE should prioritize policies and programs that reduce costs and streamline the processes for affordable units. The following policies and programs should be strengthened to accomplish this need:
H1.7 -Update Zoning Codes to Support Housing Production, H 1.8 - Adopt Objective Design Standards,
H 1.9 – Establish Minimum Densities for Mixed-Use Projects, and H 1.12 - Encourage Development of Missing Middle Housing within half mile of the transit corridor.
Funding that can be used to support affordable housing is a fundamental need and more must be done to obtain funding. This could include establishing or increasing Vacancy Tax, Commercial Linkage Fees, and Transfer Tax. It is particularly important that funding focus on repairing the legacy of discrimination in housing. The following policies and programs should be strengthened to accomplish this goal:
a. H 1.2 - Utilize Public Funding for New Affordable Housing, b. H 1.3 - Increase Affordable Housing Production,
c. H 1.17 - Permitting and Development Fee Schedule Review, d. H 3.3 – Evaluate Housing Revenue Sources,
e. H 5.1.1 - Adjust the City's Below Market Rate (inclusionary) program to provide larger density bonuses, and/or increased city support in exchange for affordable units in high resource areas. f. H 5.1.2 - Support the design of a regional forgivable loan program for homeowners to construct an ADU that is held affordable for extremely low-income households. However, the units should be dedicated for at least 30 years, with affirmative marketing to households with disproportionately high housing needs including persons with disabilities, single parents, and minority households, and
sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~
g. H 5.1.3 - Explore the potential to implement a loan program for ADU construction If a City- funded ADU loan program is determined to be infeasible. The City will support the design of a regional forgivable loan program for homeowners to construct an ADU that is held affordable for extremely low-income households for 15 years.
The updating of H1.20 “Adopt San Mateo General Plan 2040” is built into the HE.
H1.20 would lead to a ballot measure in November 2024 to update Measure Y . If approved by the voters, significantly higher density and heights would be possible in key areas, such as near transit.
This change, if approved, will make meeting the RHNA numbers more possible. It will also potentially make providing more open space to “green” the City more feasible (parks, open space, trees, wider and safer bike and pedestrian paths, restoring creeks and riparian areas, etc.). However, it is important that the City have a strong communication plan to inform the voters of the reasons for this vote and the consequences of approval or denial. The plan to meet RHNA needs to be clear in case the measure fails.
We ask that you consider this information as you finalize the Housing Element for submission to the State HCD. SLU is prepared to help the City in advancing the HE as it is finalized and when it goes into effect.
Respectfully submitted,
Gita Dev
Co-Chair Sustainable Land Use Committee, Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Ashley Snodgrass
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2023 8:56 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: Public Comment on Latest Draft Housing Element Attachments: 2023.8.9 City of San Mateo Housing Element Letter.pdf Hi Nicky,
Please see the comments below.
Ashley
From: Jeremy Levine
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 4:41 PM
To: City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]> Cc: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]>; Zachary Dahl <[email protected]>; Manira Sandhir <[email protected]>; Planning <[email protected]>; Planning Commission <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment on Latest Draft Housing Element
Good afternoon San Mateo City Council and staff,
Please see the attached letter for comments from the Housing Leadership Council regarding San Mateo's latest draft housing element. We greatly appreciate the progress the city has made with this draft and look forward to continuing to work on further improvements.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jeremy
--
Jeremy Levine (he • him)
Policy Manager
Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County
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August 9, 2023
Cityof SanMateo330W20thAve.SanMateo, CA94403
TothehonorableSanMateoCityCouncil,
TheHousingLeadershipCouncil of SanMateoCountyappreciatesthisopportunitytoengagetheCityof SanMateoonitshousingelement. Thisisour fourthformal letter tothecity. Inthemiddleof last year, wesent thecitytwolettersoutliningopportunitiestoimprovetheinitial draftof itshousingelement, onefocusedprimarilyonneedsandconstraints, theother focusedonaffirmativelyfurtheringfair housing, thesitesinventory, andthegoals, policies, andprograms.Wefollowedupwithamorepolicy-focusedletter last November.
At their core, housingelementsareabout policychange. All of theelaborateresearchthatmakesupahousingelement–of local housingneed, thegovernmental constraintstomeetingthat need, andthefair housingimplicationsof thecity’spolicychoices–aresupposedtoleadtopolicyoutcomesthat respondtowhat thecitylearns. Theanalysesalonecannot makeahousingelement complywithstatelaw, onlyappropriatepolicychangecan.
Thenewest draft of thehousingelement makesseveral necessarypolicychangesthat will helpthecityachievecompliancebyrespondingtospecificissuesraisedbythedepartment ofHousingandCommunityDevelopment (HCD). Of most significance, HLCrecognizesthecommitmentstodevelopment timelinesfor publiclyownedsitesinpolicyH1.2; toeliminatethepre-applicationandthird-partydesignreviewrequirementsfor newprojectsandapproveprojectsupto25unitsadministrativelyinpolicyH1.6 1 ; toreduceparkingrequirementsinpolicyH1.7
2 ; andtoincreasethebasedensitybyaminimumof 25du/acinall General PlanupdatestudyareasasdescribedinpolicyH1.20. 3 Theseareexcellent andsubstantial changes.
3 HCD’sMarch27, 2023ReviewLetter, p. 8: “Whiletheelement includesProgram1.21(Adopt SanMateoGeneral Plan2040), it must includespecificcommitmentstoincreasedensitiesandadjustmentstodevelopment standards. Inaddition, theelement shouldincludeaspecificprogramtoaddresstheconstraint of MeasureY.” 2 HCD’sMarch27, 2023ReviewLetter, pp. 5-6: “Inaddition, Program1.7must includespecificimplementationactionstoreduceparkingrequirementsfor studioandone-bedroomunitscity-wideaswellasfor unitsthat areat least 1,400squarefeet.” 1 HCD’sMarch27, 2023ReviewLetter, p. 6: “[Thepermittingprocess] shouldbeaddressedasaconstraint includingbut not limitedtofindingsone, twoandthreeandaddor modifyprogramsasappropriate. Lastly, thepreapplicationprocessaddsat least four monthsinadditiontothetypical approvaltimeslistedandtheelement shouldaddor modifyprogramsasappropriatetoaddresstheconstraint.“
ThesepoliciesformthefoundationbywhichSanMateocancreateagreat housingplanthatcomplieswithstatelaw. Nonetheless, thesepoliciesdonot yet fullyrespondtothefindingsinthecity’sanalyses, inpart becausethefindingsarenot yet accurate. Thecityshouldpursueacoupleof methodological changesthat will better alignthehousingelement withstatelawandindicatewherethecitystill canprogressonpolicy.1. Lower therealisticcapacityfor thecity’sopportunitysitesfrom90%to70%andprovidesupportingevidenceasrequestedbyHCD. 4 Asof thelatest draft, SanMateo’srealisticcapacityof 90%lackssupportingevidence. Historicdevelopment trendssuggest acapacitycloser to70%. 5 If thecityusedarealisticcapacitythat reflectedactual historicdevelopment trends, it wouldbeclear that current zoningisinadequatetodemonstrateenoughcapacitytosatisfytheRegional HousingNeedsAllocation, requiringthecitytorezonethroughthehousingelement.2. Expandthescopeof policiestoAffirmativelyFurther Fair Housing(AFFH). SanMateo’splansfor rezoningthroughtheGeneral Plancontinuetoexempt thehighest-opportunityareasof thecommunityfromnewhomes. Thecity’sAFFHanalysisprimarilyjustifiescurrent conditionsrather thanseekingtounderstandthebarrierstofair housingandremovethem. Insteadof continuingtoexpendenergyonexpensivestudiestojustifyexistingconditions, thecityshouldimplement meaningful newpolicies.
Thoughtheyseemesoteric, thesemethodological changeshavelargeimplicationsfor thepoliciesSanMateomust implement inorder tocomplywithhousingelement law. Thecitycurrentlymaintainsit cancomplywithRHNAwithout rezoning, whichwouldmeanthat thecityisnot requiredtorezoneduringthecurrent General Planupdate. Whilethisisapoliticallyexpedient result, it doesnot reflect reality. Thecitymust identifyadditional sitestomeet boththeoverall number of newhomesinRHNAandtoprovideenoughhomesthroughout thecommunitytomeet theAFFHexpectation. 6, 7
Thesearenot theonlytwomethodological issuesHLCcouldraiseregardingthehousingelement. Wehaveongoingconcernsabout major opportunitysitesthat wouldfurther reducethesiteinventory. 8 Yet weprefer tofocusonpolicychangerather thannitpickingtechnicalrequirements. Inorder tocomplywithstatelawandcreateagreat planfor newhomes, HLCproposesthefollowingamendmentsandadditions:
8 Seepp. 236-242Seeanalysispresentedonpp. 244-245of thepubliccomment packet for agendaitem2of theJanuary24, 2023citycouncil meeting. 7 HCD’sMarch27, 2023ReviewLetter, p. 9: “[AFFH] actionsmust havespecificcommitment, metrics,andmilestonesasappropriateandmust addresshousingmobilityenhancement, newhousingchoicesandaffordabilityinhighopportunityareas[emphasisadded], place-basedstrategiesfor communitypreservationandrevitalizationanddisplacement protection.” 6 Seepages4-9of HLC’sMay6, 2022comment letter tothecityfor ananalysisof fair housingissues,whichremainunaddressed. 5 Seepp. 244-245of thepubliccomment packet for agendaitem2of theJanuary24, 2023citycouncilmeeting. 4 HCD’sMarch27, 2023ReviewLetter, p. 4: “Theanalysisshouldbebasedonfactorssuchasdevelopment trendsincludingnonresidential, performancestandardsrequiringresidential usesor otherrelevant factorssuchasenhancedpoliciesandprograms. For example, theelement couldanalyzealldevelopment activityinthesenonresidential zones, howoftenresidential development occursandadjustresidential capacitycalculations, policies, andprogramsaccordingly.” - AmendpolicyH1.2’sactions(d) and(e) tospecifyaminimumquantityof affordablehomesthat will bedeliveredoneachsite. Furthermore, amendactionetocompletesiteanalysisfor 4142SEl CaminoReal within12monthsof housingelement adoption, issueanRFPfor thesitewithin24months, andselect adeveloper within36months. 9 - AmendpolicyH.1.4toaddanactiontoimplement arental registrytotrackrentalsandprovidedatatothecityregardingADUrental rates, prices, andevictions. Datafromarental registrywill helpthecityidentifywhether thecityisactuallydeliveringonitsaffordabilitygoals(whichshouldbeadjusteddownwards, inanycase). Thecitycouldfurther promoteADUsbyallowingtwoADUsonlargelotsandfeewaiversfordeed-restrictedADUsthat arerentedontheopenmarket.- AmendpolicyH1.7’saction(d) tomakeaconcretecommitment toimplement anaffordablehousingoverlayfor quasi publicsitesownedbyreligiousandpublicinstitutionstoallowdevelopment at least uptotheR-6dzoningstandards. 10 Becauseameaningful portionof thesesitesarelocatedwithinSanMateo’shighest-opportunityneighborhoods, creatingaquick, streamlinedprocessbywhichtheseareascanbuildhousingwill helpSanMateosatisfytheAFFHrequirementstoplanfor housinginhigher-opportunityneighborhoods.- Evaluatenewsitestoaddtothehousingelement andcommit tofurther rezoning.- AmendpolicyH1.20’saction(a) toclarifythat thestudyareaswithlargeopportunitysiteslikeBridgepoint andHillsdalewill berezonedbyaminimumof 100du/ac. Furthermore,amendaction(d) toclarifythat thecitywill rezonesingle-familyneighborhoodswithinonemileof transit toallowupto55du/acif theamendment tothecurrent MeasureYballot initiativedoesnot pass. ThesepoliciesensureSanMateowill adequatelyrezonetogeneratemorecapacityonitsopportunitysites.
SanMateo’scitystaff haveworkedhardtohelpSanMateocomplywithstatehousinglaw, but,without clear directionfromcouncil topursuemoremeaningful policychange, thecitymaycontinuetocyclethroughanexpensive, timeconsumingloopof housingelement reviewthatcanbeavoidedwithboldaction. SanMateohastriedtoanalyzeitswayintohousingelementcompliancetwicealready, spendinghundredsof hoursof staff timeandhundredsof thousandsof dollarsonconsultants, whenthecitycouldmuchmoreeasilyachievecompliancebycommittingtomoremeaningful policyrecommendations.
Fundamentally, citiescannot analyzetheir wayintonewhomes, nor cantheyanalyzetheir wayintocompliancewithstatelaw. Thehousingelement processchallengescitiestoprovideaseriesof analysesandthencommit tosubstantiallychangelocal policiestoenablenewhousingdevelopment. HLClooksforwardtocontinueworkingwithSanMateo’sleadersastheystrivetomeet thehousingneedsof theentirecommunity. 10 SanMateodraft housingelement, p. 81: Thepolicyascurrentlywrittensays“Evaluatethefeasibilityofanaffordablehousingquasi-publicoverlayor codeamendment tosupport theproductionof affordablehousingonquasi-publicsites, suchasreligiousor educational institutions.” 9 SanMateodraft housingelement, p. 78: Thepolicyascurrentlywrittencommitstocompletesiteanalysiswithin48monthsof housingelement adoptionandselect adevelopment partner within60months, virtuallyguaranteeingthedevelopment isnot completedwithintheplanningperiod.
Thankyoufor your consideration,
JeremyLevine
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 4:37 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: Housing Element (Housing Action Committee comments on July 2023 draft) Attachments: 2023-08-09 Housing Action Coalition Comments on San Mateo July 2023 Draft Housing Element.pdf; RE: San Mateo stores - housing redevelopment plans?
From: Mayhew, Tom x4948
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 3:42 PM
To: City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]>; Planning Commission <[email protected]>; Housing <[email protected]> Cc: Higley, CJ x4942 ; Corey Smith ; Ali Sapirman
Subject: Housing Element (Housing Action Committee comments on July 2023 draft)
Please see aƩached, a leƩer on behalf of the Housing AcƟon CoaliƟon, commenƟng on the July 26 draŌ Housing Element. (Also aƩached is an email exchange with CVS regarding two sites on the inventory).
Tom Mayhew
Partner
Pronouns: His/Him
www.fbm.com
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THOMAS B. MAYHEW
CHARLES J. HIGLEY
August 9, 2023
Via E-Mail
City Council
City Planning Commission
Housing Manager, Planning Division
City of San Mateo
330 W. 20th Avenue
San Mateo, California 94403
E-Mail: [email protected]
Re: Housing Element for City of San Mateo 2023-2031
Draft for Public Comment dated July 26, 2023
Comments of Housing Action Coalition
Dear City Council, Planning Commission, and Housing Manager:
On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition,1 we write to comment on the July 26, 2023 draft 2023-2031 Housing Element for the City of San Mateo.
The new draft, if adopted without significant improvement, would fail to meet the need for housing and violate state law. First, it overstates how much housing the site inventory under current zoning will provide, by ignoring the specific and pointed comments of HCD and the requirements of the statute. Second, it continues to include unrealistic sites where existing uses are likely to continue. Third, it repeats the overestimation of ADU units despite being twice told by HCD why it should not. The result is that the draft is incorrect when it claims San Mateo can meet its share of the regional housing need without any rezoning.
Instead of identifying a real path forward (i.e., meaningful rezoning), the draft simply rewords the Housing Element’s failed arguments for compliance, argues that the same sites will provide more units based on more opaque data, and adds only two sites to the inventory: one of them based on a recent pre-application (site AQ: the “Post & Beam” project at 600 E.3rd), and the other a five-story office building that is still actively being leased to dozens of office tenants
1 The Housing Action Coalition is a nonprofit that advocates for building more homes at all levels of affordability to alleviate the Bay Area and California’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis.
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at 1690/1700 El Camino Real. If the City wants to comply with state law, a more ambitious program of rezoning, motivated by a genuine desire to affirmatively further fair housing, is necessary to do so.2
A. The Capacity of the Site Inventory To Meet The RHNA Need Is Not Realistic, Because It Ignores The Applicable Law And The Relevant Data.
The RHNA capacity numbers on the site inventory are unrealistic, because the draft deliberately avoids doing what HCD directed and what the law requires. The estimate of units on each site is governed by Government Code section 65583.2(c), which provides:
The city or county shall determine the number of housing units that can be accommodated on each site as follows:
(1) . . . If the city or county does not adopt a law or regulation requiring the development of a site at a minimum density, then it shall demonstrate how the number of units determined for that site pursuant to this subdivision will be accommodated.
(2) The number of units calculated pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be adjusted as necessary, based on the land use controls and site improvements requirement identified in paragraph (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 65583, the realistic development capacity for the site, typical densities of existing or approved residential developments at a similar affordability level in that jurisdiction, and on the current or planned availability and accessibility of sufficient water, sewer, and dry utilities.
2 A brief note about process: We have heard that City staff are bringing the new draft of the Housing Element only to the City Council, without having a hearing with the Planning Commission to obtain their recommendation, even after the Planning Commission repeatedly requested the opportunity to do so. Given the Planning Commission’s familiarity with development standards, policies, and land use in the City, it is surprising that their knowledge, experience, and expertise would not be desired as part of the process. We also note that under the San Mateo Municipal Code provides, at section 27.060.040(b), governing the Planning Commission’s jurisdiction, that the Commission “shall review and make recommendations to the Council upon all . . . General Plan Amendments.” The Housing Element is part of the General Plan, and so amendments to it are General Plan Amendments. In January the Planning Commission advised the City Council that the draft was non-compliant, and had it exactly right; the Commission identified the very issues that HCD then found prevented certification. The City Council should want to hear what the Planning Commission recommends with respect to the current draft, rather than relegating the Commission’s members to separate public comments as private citizens.
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A concrete example will illustrate how the draft currently estimates capacity. The draft calculates a total capacity number as 90% for most sites, absent a filed pre-application or application. See H-C-68. Thus, for example, the Walgreens complex at 4060 South El Camino Real, zoned for either commercial use or residential use with a maximum density of 50, is projected to accommodate 46 units on 1.02 acres (~90% of maximum). Then, to estimate the realistic capacity for each income category, the draft simply multiplies the total units by the proportion of each RHNA category for the City as a whole. July 2023 version at H-37 (“Most sites in the inventory have unit affordability distributed in proportion to the RHNA allocation.”).
Because the lower income categories represent approximately 40% of the RHNA numbers assigned to San Mateo, the inventory claims that the realistic capacity of the Walgreens site to accommodate affordable housing for lower income households is 40% of 46 units: 19 units.
The problem is that these capacity numbers are inflated, as explained further below:
Even if Walgreens is torn down, the commercial zoning might mean that another retail building is constructed without any housing at all. The possibility of nonresidential redevelopment means that claiming 46 total units for the site is too high.
Claiming that, on average, 40% of the units will accommodate the need for lower income housing is an overestimate. Under a new 2018 state law (AB1397, codified at Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)), the City is required to consider the actual production of lower income housing in coming up with its realistic capacity estimates, and adjust its capacity numbers accordingly. A typical project does not include 40% affordable housing.
For sites that have filed applications or pre-applications (unlike Walgreens), the site inventory ignores its own realistic capacity methodology and simply uncritically accepts the number on the application, without any evaluation of how city zoning laws would reduce it. This too, leads to an overestimate.
An inflated capacity analysis leads to a major violation of state housing law: claiming that the RHNA numbers are satisfied when they are not, and failing to plan and take additional actions to meet the actual need. HCD specifically directed the City that one reason why its Housing Element did not substantially comply with the law is because the capacity numbers were not realistic. Using realistic capacity numbers for all levels of affordability will show that the City needs to add a lot more more than just two sites to come into compliance with state law.
1. The City Should Use Data From Existing And Approved Projects, As The Statute Requires, Rather Than Relying On “Applications.” The first step is to make sure the estimates are based on valid data. The law requires a realistic capacity estimate to be adjusted by considering “typical densities of existing or approved residential developments . . .” Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2). The January
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version tried to do that in Table 4 at page H-30 and H-31, listing 2017-2022 project densities.
But unfortunately, the January version improperly ignored three large projects to make the average look like it was over 100%, calling them “outliers” so that they wouldn’t affect the total, and omitting a few others. HCD’s March 27 letter told the City to revisit this issue: “The majority of sites still assume 100 percent maximum density as realistic capacity. The analysis must demonstrate that all projects in those zones developed at maximum density to support assumptions.”3
The new draft now ignores and even removes relevant data, and relies on an irrelevant chart instead. Table 4 in the July version, now at page H-32, has been edited to remove some of the information, including the maximum density. But worse, it removes the totals and averages, so that no one can easily figure out what is typical.
So that the Planning Commission and City Council can be fully informed, we have included (in an appendix to this letter, after the signature block) the data from the original table 4 in the January version, plus the data for the sites added in the new July draft, adding a column to show the maximum density for the acreage, and including the totals and the relevant average.
The chart shows that the 3,028 units were approved/developed on land that had a maximum zoned capacity of 3,263 units: 92.8% of the maximum.4 Interestingly, based on this data, the current draft’s reasonable capacity numbers – 90% for most sites, and 75% for those in residential zones – is in the range of reasonable as a starting point, if further adjusted as set forth in A.2 below. (This will need to be adjusted downward – this is the percentage of maximum for those projects that developed with residential units, but ignores that not every project has residential units.) There is no reason to omit the totals as the new draft now does.
The July draft capacity estimate doesn’t rely on this data set of existing/approved projects, however: it looks at applications instead of approvals. See H-C-68 (chart based on “Applications from 2019 – present”). Applications are irrelevant. State law expressly requires consideration of “existing and approved” projects, rather than applications. The reason the statute requires consideration of “existing or approved” developments is simple: those developments have gone through the close study of whether they comply with all zoning requirements (setbacks, height limits, etc.) and the economics of building a project. “Existing and approved” projects have been battle-tested through the gauntlet of Planning Division, Planning Commission, and City Council review, unlike application or pre-application numbers that reflect only an initial proposal. The City knows well that many projects initially propose a
3 As Table 4 shows, 9 of 25 projects approved during 2017-2022 that included a residential component did not develop at or over the maximum density. 4 One site on the July version of Table 4 has been omitted from ours, because of an atypical situation: Kiku Crossing. Kiku Crossing achieved higher density only by invoking a unique state statute (AB1763) that overrode both the Measure Y height limit and eliminated the density limit entirely. Because this state law meant the project was not subject to a maximum density, it is not typical and cannot be used to calculate a percentage of maximum density for typical projects.
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higher number than what is eventually approved after the review process takes place. Table 4 should be edited to include the average capacity by acreage of approved projects, which helps show what is realistic to expect from future ones.
2. The City Must Adjust Downward To Account For The Possibility Of Non-Residential Redevelopment.
While there is a significant demand for housing that may result in redevelopment of many of the sites on the inventory, housing is not the only possible outcome for the sites. Most of the sites on the inventory have mixed zoning: they could be used for housing, but they could also be used for an entirely non-residential use like commercial or office space. HCD directly instructed the City to evaluate the probability of this occuring when it explained why the City’s January Housing Element did not comply with state law:
In addition, the calculation of residential capacity must also account for the likelihood of residential development in zoning where 100 percent nonresidential uses are allowed. . . . For example, the element could analyze all development activity in these nonresidential zones, how often residential development occurs and adjust residential capacity calculations, policies, and programs accordingly.
HCD March 27, 2023 letter, Appendix at p. 2. HCD also said the same thing, word-for-word, in its September 2022 comment. HCD September 28, 2022 letter, Appendix at p. 3. Yet the current draft still does not comply.
Despite HCD’s direction to evaluate this issue, the new July draft deletes the chart – former Table 5 in the January version – that addresses it. Hiding the data will not help. As we explained back in January, the City’s own data shows that residential capacity numbers should be reduced by approximately 25%, based on an 75% likelihood that a mixed-zoning site will be redeveloped with some residential units, and a 25% likelihood that it will be redeveloped with no residential units. Table 5, at page H-32 to H-34 of the adopted Housing Element showed that 78% of projects by number, and 75% of the acreage, contained some residential units, but that 25% of the re-developed acreage contained no residential units at all.5
5 Larger sites are more likely to be developed for commercial or office uses. The January adopted Housing Element Table 5 shows that while 20 of 25 sites contained at least some residential component, only 19.99 of the 80.88 acres (75%) did. A realistic calculation of the likelihood of residential development should apply the proportion developed by acreage before multiplying it times the allowable units per acre, not the site count.
We note that the deletion was only partial; the July version of the Housing Element still states that “[H]istorically 78% of the commercially zoned sites included housing,” and then claims – incorrectly – that realistic capacity numbers are reduced for mixed-use sites. (Housing Element at page H-31). There is even a new, stray reference to the old, now-omitted Table 5. (See H-34, referring to “the history described in Tables 4 and 5”). Table 5 should be restored to
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The capacity numbers of sites on the inventory, for those sites with mixed zoning, should therefore be, at most, 92.8% times 75%: 69.6%. (Or if the draft’s 90% number is used, then
67.5%). The draft currently applies a capacity number of 90% to sites where nonresidential uses are authorized by the zoning, with no consideration of the probability of nonresidential development, and so the capacity numbers will need to be reduced for most of the sites on the inventory.
We note that the City could rezone so that housing is a required use in these zones (i.e., a minimum residential density), so that a 100% nonresidential project is not possible. This would guarantee that these sites would include housing if they are redeveloped, and enable the City to ignore the probability of nonresidential development. The only other alternative is to do as HCD has now directed twice: Unless the City rezones to eliminate the possibility of a 100% nonresidential project in these zones, it must discount its capacity numbers to incorporate the probability that underutilized sites become office or retail spaces, rather than being used for housing. It is time to incorporate the discount into the analysis, and recognize that the site inventory lacks sufficient sites to provide for the necessary RHNA housing at all income levels.
3. The City Should Consistently Apply The Realistic Capacity Methodology, Including To Sites With Unapproved Applications or Pre-Applications.
As just explained, the draft states that the realistic capacity of the majority of sites is 90% of the zoned maximum. But for sites where an application or pre-application has been made, the draft now always uses a much higher capacity number – sometimes well in excess of the City’s own zoning laws – even though the project has not yet been approved. In most cases, these applications or pre-applications include a density bonus request, and so the inventory projects development at up to 150% of the zoned capacity. While in the January version the capacity number was at least sometimes adjusted to a reasonable projection of the realistic capacity, the draft now uncritically embraces any number that has been suggested by an applicant or pre- applicant.
If the City were to accept that its January Housing Element was invalid, and that the Builder’s Remedy now applies – so that it cannot use its zoning laws to prevent these projects from being built as proposed, absent a health and safety concern – then the City could approve all of the applications now, and count these numbers towards the RHNA. But until and unless the applications are approved, there is insufficient basis to claim these numbers as realistic: the fact that an owner has proposed a number in a “pre-application” or even a formal application does not mean that the number is valid or likely to be accepted by the City. The history of actual approved projects, not the face value of a pre-application, is what should supply the realistic capacity of not-yet-approved sites on the inventory.
the draft, and the effect of its analysis should be included in estimating capacities as HCD directed.
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Moreover, the approach of including state law density bonus numbers ignores that the City’s Housing Element is supposed to evaluate the realistic capacity based on the City’s zoning restrictions, and not merely assume that the City’s zoning laws are adequate to accommodate the need because state law can override them. The City should apply the same realistic capacity methodology to all sites that have not yet received a formal approval. An unanalyzed application or pre-application is not sufficient evidence to claim a higher number.
4. The Estimate Of Lower Income RHNA Capacity Is Overstated.
Probably the most significant problem with the site inventory is in its estimate of the realistic capacity of the sites to provide housing opportunities for households in the lower (very- low and low) income categories. Here, the Housing Element ignores the new 2018 (AB1397) statutory requirement that realistic capacity numbers consider typical densities of existing/approved projects “at a similar affordability level in [the] jurisdiction,” Government Code section 65583.2(c)(2), and instead projects that, on average, 40% of the units will be affordable to those in the lower income category.6 The only reasoning given for the 40% prediction of lower income units is that lower income units reflect 40% of the RHNA requirement for the City. This logic is circular: the City predicts that it will satisfy its goal by assuming that the goal will be satisfied. No one in San Mateo could possibly think that it is a realistic estimate to say that 40% of the units, on average, will be affordable to those in the lower income category.
We have included a second chart in the appendix, this time adding a column to the Table 4 data to show the typical densities “at a similar affordability level” by showing the percentage of total units that are affordable to households in the lower income RHNA category.
The result shows that, based on an average of recent existing and approved projects, the median project includes only 8-9% affordable units (not even 15%, because of the interaction between the inclusionary ordinance and state density bonus law).7 The average, taking the atypical Kiku Crossing into account, is around 18%, though we note here that our chart is incomplete and that the City will have the necessary data to complete it. Even the incomplete data makes clear that
6 We do not fault the City for attributing the units across all properties, because it can be difficult to predict which parcel will develop in which way. The issue is what percentage should be applied across all properties.
The significant exception to the use of the 40% number is for the Hillsdale Mall site. For that site, the site inventory projects only 15% lower income units, explaining that this was reasonable based on the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance. As we explain, an estimate like the one used for Hillsdale is far more reasonable than the one used for other sites. 7 Here, the median is more relevant than the mean in evaluating typical densities at this level of affordability, because the mean is heavily skewed by the high number of affordable units in the atypical Kiku Crossing project, which combined both a significant land donation by the City with a special state law that removed density limits and significantly raised the height limit.
The City does not have a significant city-owned land inventory to repeat this success.
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the site inventory’s estimate, using 40% as a formula for the “realistic capacity” of the site inventory to meet the RHNA need for lower income housing, is not a realistic projection or estimate based on typical existing/approved projects.
Applying a realistic estimate of lower income production to the site inventory has a major impact. If a realistic percentage for the lower income category is applied, based on the data, then the current site inventory has a RHNA shortfall of more than 1,000 units in this category. In order to satisfy the RHNA for this category at current levels of affordable housing production, if the City does not develop new programs and policies, and succeed in the Measure Y effort to allow greater density, the City would need to rezone hundreds of acres at 50 dwelling units per acre to result in the required level of lower income housing, or come up with a more aggressive program of building affordable housing itself.
B. The City Includes Sites That Are Not “Suitable And Available” Because They Do Not Have A “Realistic And Demonstrated Potential” For Redevelopment During The Planning Period To Meet The Need For Housing.
One of the most concrete aspects of any housing element is the inventory of land “suitable and available” for residential development to meet the city’s regional housing need by income level. Government Code § 65583(a)(3); HCD Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook at p. 1 (https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing- element/docs/sites_inventory_memo_final06102020.pdf). The list is a specific means of evaluating whether the City has adequately planned for development of housing for all income levels.
Where nonvacant sites are listed on the sites inventory, there must be a “realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment” during the next eight years. Government Code § 65583(a)(3). To address past abuses – including where cities list unrealistic sites in order to avoid required rezoning – the California Legislature created a high standard for listing sites that are currently being used for something other than housing. Where nonvacant sites are used to address over 50% of the need for affordable housing for those with lower incomes, the City must show the realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment by making formal findings that the existing use does not impede residential development “based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued” during the planning period. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2) (final sentence). The City must analyze the evidence: existing leases, market demand for the existing uses, and anything else that would indicate whether existing uses will continue.
Government Code § 65583.2(g)(1).
HCD has twice told the City to correct this issue. In the September 28, 2022 letter, HCD wrote:
The element must include an analysis demonstrating the potential for redevelopment of nonvacant sites. To address this requirement, the element
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describes in general the existing use of each nonvacant site, for example, ‘commercial’ or ‘parking lot.’ This alone is not adequate to demonstrate the potential for redevelopment in the planning period. The description of existing uses should be sufficiently detailed to facilitate an analysis demonstrating the potential for additional development in the planning period. . . . [T]he housing element must demonstrate existing uses are not an impediment to additional residential development and will likely discontinue in the planning period (Gov.
Code § 65583.2, subd. (g)(2).)
Despite this specific guidance from HCD, the site inventory still lists existing uses as “commercial” or “parking lot” without any additional discussion of most of the parcels, the existing uses are not described in detail to facilitate an analysis, existing leases are ignored, and the housing element does not demonstrate that existing uses are likely to discontinue in the planning period. In its March 27, 2023 letter, HCD reiterated:
[T]he element should describe the likelihood that existing uses will discontinue during the planning period, whether there are current leases, or other factors of whether the uses will impede residential development.
Unfortunately, the draft doesn’t respond to these instructions. The following examples show that the City has listed unrealistic sites without evidence that the existing uses are likely to discontinue.
1. The Bridgepointe Shopping Center Parking Lot
(APN 035-466-100) 8.5 acres, 383 units (155 lower income)
The City’s new draft has dropped the unrealistic Bridgepointe shopping center buildings, but tries to claim, contrary to the evidence, that much of the parking lot is nevertheless likely to become housing before January 2031.
Most of the shopping center buildings are occupied under long-term leases by major retailers (Ulta Beauty, Total Wine & More, Ross, Marshall’s, Hobby Lobby, Starbucks, Petco, Cost Plus). The center is highly successful, and a new Benihana restaurant is currently being built on one edge of the parking lot. Other restaurants dot the perimeter, including BJ’s, Lazy Dog (opened May 2022), and California Fish Grill (also opened 2022). An ice rink that was closed at the time of an earlier draft of the Housing Element has now re-opened. These are all long-term uses that are not likely to discontinue.
The parking lot is used by all of the tenants. The City nonetheless claims that the parking lot will meet the need for 383 units of housing, including 155 lower income units. In order to do so, the City needs substantial evidence that the existing use of the parking lot will discontinue.
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There is no such evidence. The City has no evidence that the owner plans to build high density residential on even a portion of the parking lot during the term of the existing leases.8 Nor does the City have any evidence that the leases with the major retailers and restaurants – which almost certainly provide for rights to have customers park in front of their businesses – would allow the owner to do so. Given the evidence we have already provided the City that the long-term leases run throughout the planning period, and the continued evidence of retail use of the center (including the new Benihana construction), the City lacks substantial evidence that the regional need for housing, particularly for the lower income category, is met by this parking lot.
As we have previously commented, our client would strongly support dense residential construction on the parking lot, and we hope the site evolves in this manner. The City, however, has not met its burden of showing, based on substantial evidence, that the parking lot is available for development or realistic as the site of 155 lower income units, in spite of the economic and legal constraints on its use.
2. The Atrium: 1900 South Norfolk Street
(APN 035-391-090) 8.18 acres, 368 units (149 lower income)
As stated in Housing Action Coalition’s earlier comment letters: The executive office building known as “The Atrium,” located at 1900 South Norfolk Street, is currently used by a large number of office tenants. The draft Housing Element does not perform any analysis of the current use, including whether existing leases would create obstacles to residential development of the site during the next eight years. Publicly available information shows that the owner continues to sign long-term leases with new tenants, even in 2023. https://property.compstak.com/1900-South-Norfolk-Street-San-Mateo/p/3970 (indicating a lease was signed with new tenant Golden Gate Regional Center in 2023 that expires in 2035). In prior letters we also submitted publicly available information indicates that a number of other leases continue to be signed or renewed for this three-story office building, with at least one other lease publicly reported to extend until 2030. Housing Action Coalition Comment Letter Dec. 16, 2022, Appendix Tab 9. Despite this information, the City does not analyze whether the existing leases present an obstacle to residential development during the 6th cycle as required by Government Code section 65583.2(g)(2), emphasizing only “owner/developer interest” in redevelopment.
Based on the results of a recent Public Records Act response, the evidence of owner/developer interest is insufficient to conclude that the existing use of the property as an office building is “likely to discontinue” during the 6th cycle, or that the property should be projected to provide the 368 units, and 149 low income affordable units, claimed on the inventory. A 2020 email shows that a developer was exploring the idea of building townhomes on a small portion of the parking lot only: 3 acres, for 55-60 townhome units, “while still
8 The earlier draft of the Housing Element had suggested that there was owner interest in redevelopment. In response to our Public Records Act request, no evidence of this was produced. On the new site inventory, the box for “Owner/Developer Interest” is left blank; the chart argues that the site is realistic solely because it is a parking lot with no structures on it.
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preserving the office building and all of its associated tenants.” A lower-intensity development proposal like this is consistent with the similar townhome development at 1, 2, and 3 Waters Park a few hundred feet away, but does not justify claiming that the entire 1900 S. Norfolk site would be redeveloped, particularly at the intensity claimed in the site inventory. A second communication, directly from the owner Seagate Properties in April 2022, sought a General Plan designation that would make residential development possible, but did not provide any timeline or state that the existing use would be eliminated during 2023-2031: “we . . . believe there will be opportunities now or during the 20-year period of the General Plan for the property to be redevelop[ed] with housing on the portions of the existing surface parking lot. A Medium Mixed-Use designation will allow both office and housing to occupy the site.” Both of the communications provide no evidence that the existing office use of the site will discontinue at all, much less that it is likely to discontinue soon enough that housing can meet the 6th Cycle RHNA need. Both these communications confirm that the existing use will continue, rather than providing evidence that it will not; the expressions of owner interest do not justify claiming that all 8.18 acres will develop. Moreover, the continued signing of new long-term leases, including after the April 2022 letter, show by the owner’s current actions that housing is not expected to happen before 2031.
If the City pivots and claims that a portion of the parking lot can be redeveloped consistent with the owner’s actual statements, rather than the entire 8.18 acres, it would need to make a site-specific adjustment to the capacity. The office building, and the need for parking for its tenants, reduce the available space. So does the large utility substation that isolates a strip of the acreage from the rest of the parcel, rendering that portion unbuildable. There are other site- specific constraints, including the Measure Y height limit, the height limits adjacent to the Highway 92/101 interchange (bordering this site on two sides), and the required setback from Borel Creek/Seal Slough, all of which may lower the realistic capacity. The draft fails to analyze these site-specific constraints in projecting 368 units.
3. Hillsdale Mall
(APN 042-121-040, -060, -080; 039-490-050, -170; 039-353-010, -020, -030, - 040) 28.91 acres, 1200 units (180 lower income)
As discussed in Housing Action Coalition’s prior comment letters, the question about Hillsdale Mall is not about whether the owner is interested in some mixed use housing for the site. The issue is when and how much housing will be built, and on which parcels or portions of parcels. Here, the City lacks evidence to justify the projections on the site inventory, or to claim that the existing uses are likely to discontinue soon enough for housing to be built during the required timeframe. The letter that the City cites at page H-35 fn.8 shows a proposal for densities higher than San Mateo zoning law allows (absent amendment of Measure Y). The new draft does not address these issues further, though it has – as explained in section A.4 above – reduced the number of affordable units to a more reasonable number.
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4. Parkside Plaza Shopping Center: 1825 and 1850 S. Norfolk (APN 035-381-020 and -030) 6.65 acres, 299 units (121 lower income)
The owner of Parkside Plaza shopping center has, according to the site inventory, expressed no interest in redevelopment. And, there are existing uses that would presumably prevent the owner from doing so anytime soon. The shopping center is full of retail tenants:
Smart & Final, Pet Club, a Round Table Pizza, a large optometrist, dry cleaners, restaurants, a beauty supply, a martial arts school, “Fluff and Puff Dog Wash,” and others. If not for the tenants, and not for the lack of ownership interest, it might seem like a reasonable site for housing: other developments are happening or planned in this neighborhood. But with the large number of existing tenants, including national chains, the site is unlikely to redevelop before 2031. Under Government Code section 65583.2(g)(1) and (g)(2), it is not properly listed as accommodating the need for sites for lower income housing.
We note here that a similar retail shopping center site – the Concar Passage project – has recently put their project on hold due to current economic conditions.9 Five years after first applying for approval, and three years after obtaining it, the project proponent there has – just before expiration of its rights – asked for another extension of two years to sign a ten-year development agreement and exercise options to consolidate ownership of the parcels. While the Concar Passage project might still provide housing during the 6th cycle planning period, there is no housing being built right now even with a motivated developer with a plan who has been pursuing it for five years so far. Contrast that with Parkside Plaza: no owner or developer interest and no plan. It is simply unrealistic to expect that Parkside Plaza will be redeveloped as residential in time to meet the need for housing, including lower income housing, during 2023- 2031.
5. Borel Shopping Center (71-77 Bovet; 1750 El Camino Real) (Consolidated Site AH: APN 039-011-450, -460, -470, -480, -500, -510)
6.65 acres, 213 units (86 lower income)
The City has repeatedly been told by public comments why the Borel Shopping Center site is not realistic: tenants have long-term leases that preclude development even if the owner is interested. As explained by the comment letter by Campaign for Fair Housing Elements in April 2022, the major tenants (CVS and 24 Hour Fitness) have long-term leases that will not expire until long after January 2031, and have indicated they do not want to leave. See draft Housing Element, Appendix G at page 13.10 Our recent communication with CVS’s Northern California director of real estate confirms that CVS has no present intention or belief that it will move out before 2031. (Attached email from CVS, dated August 7, 2023). As demonstrated by our earlier
9 See staff report for item 26 of the July 17, 2023 City Council meeting for additional details. https://sanmateo.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=6875 10 Long-term leases are unsurprising, particularly after buildings are extensively remodeled.
As the City knows from the building department, 24 Hour Fitness did major renovations under its long term lease: $2.2 million in improvements in 2008.
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comment letter, Jack’s Restaurant and Bar likewise has a long-term lease that lasts for most of the period (the lease runs from 2013-2029). The City lacks substantial evidence that the site’s existing uses are “likely to be discontinued” during the next eight years. It should not count towards 86 units of housing affordable to lower income households.
6. Borel Estate Building, 1690 (1700) S. El Camino Real (APN 039-012-010)
Acreage not shown on inventory, 155 units (63 lower income)
1700 S. El Camino Real, the entire block between Borel and Bovet, is a five story office building with two banks (California Bank and Trust and Beacon Business Bank) on the first floor, and 32 offices on floors 2-4. The tenants are primarily in the financial services industry and other professionals.
If the City has evidence that the owner is likely to discontinue office leasing during the 2023-2031 period, it does not describe it. Despite this being one of the larger sites on the inventory, there is not a page in the Housing Element Appendix C that answers the critical question: is there substantial evidence that this site is likely to redevelop as housing before January 2031? Absent such evidence, it should not be listed. If what the City means instead is that the parking lot is a likely housing site, with the five story office building remaining, it should designate a smaller segment and analyze how much of the parking lot use is likely to discontinue during the planning period.
7. Office Building at 1650 Borel
(1650 Borel)
2.51 acres, 113 units (46 lower income)
This office building is filled with professionals: law firms, accountancy practices, psychiatrists, mortgage brokers, opticians, and engineers. New leases continue to be signed; in 2022, one of their longtime occupants – a CPA firm (Galligan, Thompson & Flocas) – signed a new 10 year lease that will run to 2031. https://property.compstak.com/1650-Borel-Place-San- Mateo/p/4097 The site inventory shows that no owner or developer interest has been expressed in redevelopment. The law requires the city to presume that this site’s existing use will continue, even if the city thinks this two-story building could or even should redevelop. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2). Existing uses preclude listing this site as meeting the need for lower income housing.
8. The Elks and The Shriners – 229 W. 20th Street and 150 W. 20th Street (Consolidated Site H) 5.4 acres, 140 units (57 lower income) (APN 039-030-220) 1.98 acres, 89 units (36 lower income)
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 1112 (“San Mateo Elks Lodge”), has been located at 229 W. 20th Street since 1954. The San Mateo Elks Lodge has a membership of over 1,100 as of earlier this year. The Elks use their lodge to operate a popular swimming
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center for kids and families, hold crab feeds and other events in the meeting hall, and engage in fun activities and philanthropic works.
The only suggestion that the San Mateo Elks are not likely to continue their existing use of the Elks Lodge at 229 W. 20th Street is the statement on the site inventory that “Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.” That kind of statement might sometimes go unnoticed and unquestioned by the City Council, HCD, or a court. But here, no one should take it as an adequate answer to the question of whether the San Mateo Elks will stop using their lodge in the next eight years. The reason is that the 2015 Housing Element, when listing the same site, said the same thing, word-for-word: “Existing private member club.
Preliminary conversations with the owner to convert to residential have occurred.”11 Nothing has happened in the last eight years to suggest that “preliminary conversations” are substantial evidence on which to predict a likely discontinuation of the existing use, even if the more recent note is based on more recent preliminary conversations, instead of the “preliminary conversations” that took place eight years ago. No records were produced in response to our Public Records Act request showing that any conversation about likely redevelopment has taken place recently or at all. Nor does an offhand email from a curious real estate broker, asking about the Housing Element designation, show a likelihood that the Elks plan to move. This site should not be counted towards accommodating the need for 77 units of housing affordable to lower income households. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2).
Meanwhile the Housing Element also pairs the Shriners’ property with two neighboring parcels: 205 W 20th and 2010 Pioneer Court. The City has no evidence that the owners are coordinating or will do so.
A second private club is located just down the street at 150 W. 20th Street: the Shriners.
The Shriners are likewise a longtime institution in San Mateo, and are likewise committed to philanthropy and social activities. The Shriners’ building is used in part for a day care center.
The site inventory provides insufficient detail to evaluate whether they plan to move out in the next eight years, saying only “Owners have considered mixed use with residential.” Without more, this is insufficient to justify concluding that the Shriners actually plan to leave or redevelop in the short or mid-term, or to treat their property as accommodating the need for 32 units of lower income housing.
The same analysis applies to other sites. See, e.g., 1500 Fashion Island Blvd. (APN 035- 550-040) (“Developer interest in redevelopment.”); Consolidated Site B (APN 032-312-250, - 270, -150, -100, -070) (“General interest in redevelopment”). Vague expressions of interest do not constitute substantial evidence that the existing use will likely cease during the next eight
11 In order to rely on conversations purporting to express intent, the public needs to know much more. Who had the conversation cited by the City, and with whom did they have it? Has the Lodge taken any affirmative steps toward redevelopment beyond this conversation? Without more, the vague reference to “preliminary conversations” between unidentified speakers on an unidentified date does not constitute “substantial evidence.”
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years. Sections 65583.2(g)(1) and (g)(2) require more analysis, more evidence, and more likelihood.
9. Mollie Stone’s – Olympic Shopping Center
(Consolidated Site AD:
APN 042-242-050, -060, -070, -160, -180;
042-243-020, 042-244-040, -050;
042-245-040, -050, -060, -070, -080, -090, -100, -110, -120, -130; 042-263-010, 042-264-010)
8.82 acres, 296 units (120 lower income)
This site, consisting of twenty parcels including the only grocery store in the neighborhood (Mollie Stone’s), a CVS, a bowling alley, a church, and a number of small retail businesses, is claimed to accommodate 120 units of housing affordable to those with lower incomes. Many of the sites are separated by city streets. The only basis for including this group of sites appears to be the claim that there is “ownership interest in specific plan redevelopment,” which does not indicate that all of the parcels would be redeveloped as housing at the maximum density, or indicate who said what to whom, and when.12 There are three separate owners, and no indication that they are working together or have the agreement of the tenants to temporarily close during redevelopment. As with Borel Square, we note our recent communication with CVS’s Northern California real estate director (attached), showing that one of the major tenants has no current intention or belief that it will move out so that its store can be redeveloped as housing before 2031. We also note that, while the interest in redevelopment was in a specific plan process – probably necessary given that the city streets break up the site – the City has nothing in its Housing Element indicating it plans to engage in a specific plan process for this area. The City appears to lack substantial evidence that this site will likely redevelop during 2023-2031.
10. Downtown Retail Block on East Fourth: Site N
(Consolidated Site N: 034-144-220, 034-144-230, 034-144-240)
3.14 acres, 141 units (58 lower income)
The city claims that three parcels under separate ownership will consolidate and be redeveloped in the heart of downtown: Consolidated Site N is a combination of (1) the long downtown block on East Fourth with Dean’s Produce, Equinox, First Bank, Jamba Juice, Noah’s Bagels, Starbucks Coffee, Chase Bank, a bicycle shop, and other restaurants and stores; (2) an
12 Here too, the concern about specificity is not idle. There are five separate owners.
Carstens Realty owns most of the parcels, but CLC Investments, Sadigh Sassan, Shamco E LLC, and San Mateo Investment Co. each own one. The City does not discuss or address whether the five are willing or interested in a joint project, though it lists each of them as having expressed interest in a specific plan. Without evidence of what makes consolidation likely, the smaller sites are deemed insufficient to accommodate the need for lower income housing. See Government Code § 65583.2(c)(2)(A).
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old bank building now occupied by a Mattress Firm store, and (3) the parking lot on East Fifth across from Central Park, behind the shops on East Fourth.
The parking lot is under separate ownership from the other parcels, and had proposed a project in 2013 called “Essex at Central Park.” https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/2708/Essex-at- Central-Park But the owners have not moved it forward for the last five years (the last meeting about it was a Planning Commission meeting in August 2018), and the Housing Element site inventory indicates both that there is no “Pipeline Project” here (i.e., that the prior project was abandoned) and further, that the City has no indication of owner interest. Whatever enthusiasm for redevelopment the owner once had ten years ago seems to have gone away.
It should be easy enough to determine if the owners of these parcels, who are known to City staff, are likely to develop their properties during this Housing Element cycle. But the City apparently has no indication that either of them are interested in building. Given the apparent disinterest in residential development by the separate owners, combined with a robust and thriving set of existing uses and a lack of indication of coordination between the owners, the City cannot overcome the presumption that the existing uses will continue, and are an impediment to affordable housing. Government Code § 65583.2(g)(2).
11. Pioneer Court
(Consolidated Site I: 2040-2070 and 2041-2075 Pioneer Court)
1.6 acres, 63 units (25 lower income)
Consolidated Site I contains six distinct parcels on either side of Pioneer Court. The multi-unit office park at 2041 Pioneer Court has at least 6 tenants, including two general dentistry practices, a spa, an acupuncture center, a chiropractor, and a consulting firm. Across the street at 2050 Pioneer Court is the offices of a manufacturing company, and next to that at 2070 and 2075 Pioneer Court are a law firm and a financial services firm, respectively. None of these proposed lots have evidence of owner/developer interest in converting to residential use during the planning period. These existing office uses are presumed to be an obstacle to residential development.
12. Villa Plaza (Walgreens and others)
(4060-4070 S. El Camino Real)
1.02 acres, 46 units (19 lower income)
It’s unlikely that a major national retailer like Walgreens doesn’t have a long-term lease.
But the City does not appear to have made any effort to determine whether it does, or whether it would preclude development at this site. Also on the site are smaller businesses. One of them does have a publicly reported lease, signed in 2021, that extends to 2031, precluding development even if the owner were interested. https://property.compstak.com/4060-South-El- Camino-Real-San-Mateo/p/4092. Absent further analysis, this site lacks evidence that it is likely to redevelop, particularly in light of the known lease that extends for the entire planning period.
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13. Site B: Downtown Parking
(Consolidated Site B: 5 N. San Mateo Dr., 123 Baldwin Ave., 117 Baldwin Ave., 26 N. San Mateo Dr., 27 N. San Mateo Dr.)
0.98 acres, 44 units (18 lower income)
Consolidated Site B is made up of 5 distinct lots that are currently used as parking lots.
These parking lots are surrouded by medical office buildings that need parking for the comings and goings of doctors and patients; one of the lots is even owned by Sutter Health. These parking lots service family medicine office, an episcopal day school, two cosmetics stores, a dermatologist, a pediatrician, and an oral surgeon, to name a few. While the site might make sense for housing, the City cannot say, without affirmative owner interest, that the existing use is likely to cease. Sometimes surface parking lots turn into housing and sometimes not; when listing a property as meeting the need for lower income units, the City is required to show evidence and show that housing is the likely outcome before January 2031.
14. Lack of A Meaningful Buffer
HCD guidance is to have a buffer of at least 15% in each income category. That helps ensure that there are adequate sites not just to avoid constant rezonings due to the No Net Loss statute, but also helps account for the known-unknown: that even sites that seem poised to become housing may not do so, or may not do so in a timely way. Several approved projects have recently asked for years-long extensions to assess economic conditions and decide whether to move forward, including Concar Passage (two-year extension, after one year extension), Block 21 (three-year extension), Hillsdale Terraces (five and a half years of extensions so far).
Others are trying to sell their property without proceeding with the proposed development. (4 W. Santa Inez, on the market since mid-2022).
Despite this, the City’s new draft has very little buffer, particularly in the lower and moderate income categories. Particularly given that the City did not meet its goals in these categories during prior cycles, the City’s plan should ensure that more than enough opportunity sites exist, to increase the likelihood that the RHNA goal is actually met.
C. The Draft Ignores HCD’s Repeated Rejection Of The ADU Number, And Fails To Address The Legal Standard.
“The department [HCD] may . . . allow a city or county to identify sites for accessory dwelling units based on the number of accessory dwelling units developed in the prior housing element planning period . . . .” Government Code § 65583.1(a); see also § 65852.2(m).
However, HCD has repeatedly told San Mateo that it needs to take 2018 numbers into account.
In its September 28, 2022 letter, it wrote: “The trend does not consider the number of permits in 2018.” When the City included the same chart of 2019-2022 numbers, and presented a four-year average, HCD expressed annoyance that the City still didn’t comply: “The element did not address the finding regarding the City’s ADU projections, please see HCD’s prior review.” Despite this clear direction, the draft continues to omit 2018 numbers and projects the same
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number of ADUs (440, or 55 per year) that were in the non-compliant version adopted in January. See July version at H-39.
The draft should be edited to project a lower number, based on the number of units developed during the five-year 2018-2022 time period directed by HCD. Notably, many people decide not to build a permitted unit after they learn how expensive it is. If people aren’t going to actually build the units, then the City should consider additional rezoning so that apartment buildings can legally be built to accommodate the unmet need for housing.
Based on data produced by the City, only 170 ADU permits were “finaled” (i.e., construction completed) during 2018-2022:
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Avg
Applications -- 56 94 94 115 90
Permits issued 8 44 47 66 84 49.8
Permits
finaled13
6 21 35 55 53 34
Averaged over 5 years, the number of ADUs developed during 2018-2022 was only 34 units per year.14 Projected over the eight year period, this would be 272 units, not 440, with proportional reductions across each of the income catgories.
HCD has also twice indicated that if ADU production was insufficient, the City should have a program in place to rezone elsewhere in the City, to ensure that the RHNA need is met.
The draft does not implement this comment; it amends policy 1.4 (at page H-76) to “monitor” ADU production, but does not include a program to rezone if the numbers fall short. We propose that Policy H1.4 should add, under (f), that “If ADU production is lower than the projection in any two consecutive years, then, within six months, the City will address the shortfall in ADU production by rezoning additional realistic sites for multifamily development (30 du/ac or more) sufficient to accommodate the shortfall.”
D. Minor Corrections.
We also noticed some minor errors and discrepancies in the site inventory that we call to staff’s attention for correction:
13 This is based on a document produced in response to a Public Records Act request.
Included in these totals are at least 14 existing units that had been constructed at some prior date, but which were finalizing a permit to make the unit legal in response to a code enforcement action.
14 The real number of ADUs added to the housing stock is less than the number of “finaled” permits. Some people use ADUs as home offices, as AirBNB short-term rentals, or for out-of- town visitors, not to provide full-time housing.
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1. The totals on the site inventory are incorrect. The total of all of the numbers in the column titled “Total” is 9,848, not 9,948. The correct total appears to be used in the text at H-C-14, however.
2. The total of the three categories does not add up to either of these numbers: 2,970 + 1,181 + 5,704 = 9,855 (not 9,848, and not 9,948). This problem is due to rounding errors in the spreadsheet. The following addresses have a discrepancy (either positive or negative, by 1-3 units, between the sum of the three categories (LI + M + AM) and the total: 121 N. San Mateo, 2833 S. El Camino, 3101 S. El Camino, 885 S. El Camino, 100 E 4th, Bridgepointe parking lot, 2955 S. El Camino, 3520 S. El Camino, 210 S. San Mateo, 2900 S. El Camino, 2838 S. El Camino, 1106 S. El Camino, 93 Bovet, 3880 S. El Camino, 1801 S. Grant, 1017 E. 3d, 4142 S.
El Camino, 1690 El Camino. The subcategories should be adjusted so that they do not exceed the estimated total capacity of the site.
3. There are math errors in applying the capacity formula, even if 90% times zoned maximum is valid. For example, 151 W. 20th is 0.36 acres but is listed for 18 units. 50 du/ac times 0.36 acres times 90% = 16.2 units = 16, not 18. The problem may be related to rounding up, rather than rounding down, for the RHNA categories, or could be because some sites were inadvertently left at 100% in the spreadsheet. For some, the total even exceeds 100% of the zoned maximum even though the property is not a pipeline project and has not invoked density bonus. The following non-“Pipeline Project” sites have a unit total on the spreadsheet that exceeds the acreage times 90% of the zoned maximum: 121 N. San Mateo, 205 W. 20th, 151 W. 20th (by 2 units), 2833 S. El Camino, 2825 S. El Camino, 3101 S. El Camino, 487 S. El Camino, 168 E 4th (both parcels), Bridgepointe Parking, 1500 Fashion Island (by 22 units), 2118 S. El Camino (by 23 units), 3011 S. El Camino, 2900 S. El Camino, 4060 S. El Camino, 1106 S. El Camino, 901 S. El Camino, 3600 S. El Camino, 350 N. San Mateo, 1 Baywood (3 units), 406 1st (2 units), 93 Bovet (4 units), 1650 Borel (34 units), 1900 S. Norfolk (111 units15), 1801 S. Grant, 2030 S. Delaware (5 units), 480 S. Ellsworth (17 units), 1620 S. Delaware (2 units), and 1690 El Camino Real (15 units). Seventeen of these appear to be from rounding errors (that 90% of the maximum is slightly lower than the number shown as the total capacity), but the ones with larger numbers in parentheses have other less easily identified problems that require correction/adjustment.
4. The approach of assigning 40% of the total capacity (i.e., the RHNA proportion) to the lower income category was exceeded by more than a rounding error for the following non- Pipeline sites: Bridgepointe Parking (155 is not 40% of 383), 1850 S. Norfolk, 2838 S. El Camino, Consolidated Site AC (Mollie Stone’s), 3880 S. El Camino, 1900 S. Norfolk, and especially 480 S. Ellsworth (25 is not 40% of 39).
5. For certain sites, redevelopment would displace existing housing. For example, at Site AJ, the building at 245 S. Humboldt is an apartment building that appears to have at least
15 If 1900 S. Norfolk is zoned for 50 du/ac instead of 35 du/ac as shown on the spreadsheet, this will correct the discrepancy.
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four units. Because RHNA is about increasing the capacity to accommodate housing, the capacity estimate for the site should be adjusted downward to take into account the housing that would be displaced by redevelopment, so that only the net increase is included on the inventory.
This issue must be analyzed for all sites, but we noticed Block 21/Consolidated Site S (where it appears 7 residential units were demolished for the project but the inventory does not show the net result),16 Site AP (2 single family homes that would be demolished), Site J (117 W. 20th), Site AJ (245 S. Humboldt), Site T (appears to include two duplexes on Jasmine, 4 units). The affordability of the displaced units should be analyzed so that they are subtracted from the correct category on the inventory.
* * *
Given these flaws, San Mateo is not yet ready to adopt a valid Housing Element.
Additional sites will need to be identified and potentially rezoned to ensure compliance with state housing law and to ensure that San Mateo’s share of the regional need for housing is met.
A more substantial inventory will also avoid the possibility that the Housing Element will be invalidated in the event that HCD or a court agrees with the legal issues identified above, and show that San Mateo is committed to doing its part to address the ongoing housing affordability crisis.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas B. Mayhew
Charles J. Higley
36615\16308305.2
16 https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/DocumentCenter/View/88381/Appendix-C- Historical-Evaluation
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2017-2022 Residential Project Densities
(based on combination of January and July versions)
Address Acres Units Max
Zoned
Density17
Max Capacity
(max zoned
times
acreage)
1650 Delaware 1.1 73 50 55
BM Montara, 2775 S. Delaware 1 68 50 50
Central Park South, 31 9th Ave 1.1 60 50 55
Station Park Green, 1790 S. Delaware St. 12 599 50 600
200/210 S. Fremont St. 0.4 15 50 20
BM Morgan, 2901 E. Kyne St. 1.6 82 50 80
BM Res 6, 3069 E. Kyne St. 1.1 54 50 55
Passage, 666 Concar Dr. 14.5 961 50 725
1919 O’Farrell St. 0.7 49 50 35
4 W. Santa Inez Ave. 0.25 10 40 10
1 Hayward Ave. 0.29 18 44 12.76
401 Concar Dr. 2.81 191 50 140.5
1, 2, 3 Waters Park Dr. 11.1 190 35 388.5
Promenade, 220 N. Bayshore Blvd. 2.1 42 50 105
Peninsula Heights, 2988 Campus Dr. 15.5 290 35 542.5
2089 Pacific Blvd. Multi-Family 2.37 16 35 82.95
406 E. 3d 0.88 25 35 30.8
303 Baldwin 0.93 64 50 46.5
5 Delaware St. at Landing 1.51 67 50 75.5
222 E. 4th 1.13 10 50 39.55
500 E. 3d (Block 21) 1.51 111 50 75.5
435 E. 3d 0.25 18 50 12.5
405 E. 4th 0.51 15 50 25.5
Totals 74.64 3028 3263
92.8% of max
17 Because the maximum density was not shown on the July version, we have tried our best to indicate what we think is the maximum for the additional sites added to the chart. We have italicized the ones where information does not appear on the site inventory. The City will have better information to complete the chart.
Housing Element
August 9, 2023
2017-2022 Residential Project Densities For Lower Income (based on combination of January and July versions)
Address Acres Units Lower
Income
Units
Percentage
1650 Delaware 1.1 73 6 8%
BM Montara, 2775 S. Delaware 1 68 68 100%
Central Park South, 31 9th Ave 1.1 60 5 8%
Station Park Green, 1790 S. Delaware St. 12 599 12 15%
200/210 S. Fremont St. 0.4 15 0 0%
BM Morgan, 2901 E. Kyne St. 1.6 82 ?? ??
BM Res 6, 3069 E. Kyne St. 1.1 54 5 9%
Passage, 666 Concar Dr. 14.5 961 73 8%
1919 O’Farrell St. 0.7 49 4 8%
4 W. Santa Inez Ave. 0.25 10 0 0%
1 Hayward Ave. 0.29 18 18 11%
401 Concar Dr. 2.81 191 16 8%
1, 2, 3 Waters Park Dr. 11.1 190 19 10%
Promenade, 220 N. Bayshore Blvd. 2.1 42 0 0%
Peninsula Heights, 2988 Campus Dr. 15.5 290 29 10%
2089 Pacific Blvd. Multi-Family 2.37 16 ?? ??
406 E. 3d 0.88 25 3 12%
303 Baldwin 0.93 64 6 9%
5 Delaware St. at Landing 1.51 67 7 10%
480 E. 4th (Kiku Crossing) 2.41 225 223 99%
222 E. 4th 1.13 10 10 100%
500 E. 3d (Block 21) 1.51 111 12 11%
435 E. 3d 0.25 18 1 6%
405 E. 4th 0.51 15 ?? ??
Totals 77.05 3253 579 18% mean (= 579/3253)
9% median
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: LaBonge, Stephen
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 9:59 AM
To: Mayhew, Tom x4948
Subject: RE: San Mateo stores - housing redevelopment plans? External Sender
Tom – While we never know how retail will evolve, I do not see anything happening in the Ɵmeframe you outlined. I hope this helps.
Stephen LaBonge | Director of Real Estate, CVS Pharmacy / Longs Drugs c | Bay Area CA (Pacific Standard Time)
From: Mayhew, Tom x4948
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2023 10:55 AM
To: LaBonge, Stephen
Subject: [EXTERNAL] San Mateo stores - housing redevelopment plans?
**** External Email - Use Caution ****
Stephen –
Hi, I’m working pro bono on a project involving long range housing plans in San Mateo, for a non-profit (Housing AcƟon CoaliƟon). The City has listed the two CVS locaƟons in San Mateo – 77 Bovet (Borel Square) and 4242 S. El Camino Real (Olympic Shopping Center) – as “likely” to become housing between now and January 2031. I have my doubts, so am reaching out to see if you can help shed light. Has CVS had conversaƟons with the property owners at either locaƟon about redevelopment? Is CVS planning on moving/closing these locaƟons, or is it likely to conƟnue these locaƟons between now and January 2031?
My phone numbers below if that’s easier.
Thanks,
Tom
Tom Mayhew
Partner
Pronouns: His/Him
To help protect you r priv acy, Microsoft Office prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.
www.fbm.com
2 This email has been scanned for email related threats and delivered safely by Mimecast.
For more information please visit http://www.mimecast.com 1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 4:37 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: [correction] City of San Mateo Housing Element- Comment letter from NAACP San Mateo Branch Housing Committee
Attachments: City of San Mateo Housing Element- NAACP San Mateo Branch Housing Committee comments (2023-08-09)).pdf
From: Ellis A. Schoichet AIA On Behalf Of Ellis A. Schoichet AIA Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 4:27 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: 'NAACP San Mateo County' ; 'Rev. Lorrie Owens'
Subject: [correction] City of San Mateo Housing Element- Comment letter from NAACP San Mateo Branch Housing Committee
CorrecƟng the date of the Housing Element Update:
Please see the aƩached comments addressing the 7/26/2023 Housing Element update. Thanks in advance for your consideraƟon! Please let me know if you have any quesƟons or require addiƟonal informaƟon.
Best regards, Ellis
Ellis A Schoichet AIA, Co-Chair
NAACP San Mateo Branch #1068 | Housing Committee
NAACP San Mateo Branch 1068 | Housing Committee
August 9, 2023
Housing Manager, City of San Mateo, Planning Division
330 West 20th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94403
Subject: San Mateo 2023-2031 Housing Element
Dear City of San Mateo Housing Manager,
The NAACP San Mateo Branch #1068 Housing Committee (NAACP-SM/HC) advocates on issues related to equity and fairness in housing within San Mateo County. We appreciate the opportunity to provide these comments on the 2023-2031 City of San Mateo Housing Element (the Housing Element), prepared in consultation with City of San Mateo Planning Commissioner Adam Nugent.
The Housing Element is a good start but there are areas where the Housing Element should be refined and improved. The following comments are intended as constructive input that can be used to strengthen the final document and better address the most recent HCD comment letter, of March 27, 2023 (HCD comments).
Fundamentally, the Housing Element will Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) when it accomplishes these four goals:
1. Address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity.
2. Replace segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns.
3. Transform racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity.
4. Foster and maintain compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.
San Mateo is tasked to create housing mobility strategies, new housing choices and affordability in areas of opportunity, place-based strategies that encourage community conservation and revitalization, and to protect existing residents from displacement. It is our hope that we can help the City accomplish these goals.
Housing Needs, Resources, and Constraints
The City still has work to do to in addressing housing needs, resources and constraints as these relate to the City’s responsibility to affirmatively further fair housing.
“Disproportionate Housing Needs including Displacement: The element should analyze information on housing condition patterns within the City. This could include an analysis on concentrations of substandard housing geographically within the City.”
Page H-D-66 of the City’s Housing Element covers information on housing condition patterns within the City and states:
“In the City, 20 to 40% of all households that suffer from severe overcrowding, severe cost burden, or an incomplete kitchen or plumbing. Any of the four severe housing problems place households at risk of displacement and adverse physical and mental health. Regionally, the City of San Mateo is surrounded by municipalities with less than 20% of households with substandard housing issues. It is plausible that the high Hispanic population relative to other surrounding census tracts is behind the concentration. This population is more likely to rent and live in multigenerational homes. Both can be factors that indicate substandard and overcrowding conditions. While some tracts in the City of San Mateo likely offers refuge for low-income renters who cannot afford other areas of the County, it is important to note that substandard housing conditions place residents at risk of displacement from the City, as discussed in the following section.”
The City of San Mateo goes on to include new, additional information in Appendix D showing that there are significantly more code enforcement violations in census tracts with higher rates of poverty and higher populations of non-white residents. Census tract 94401, which has the highest percentage of non-white residents, had 50% of all violations in the City.
This new addendum appears to be in response to HCD’s request for an “analysis on concentrations of substandard housing geographically within the City.” While this addendum adds additional information on the geographic location of datapoints correlated to substandard housing conditions, it fails to adequately analyze the contributing factors to these substandard conditions, as it is tasked to do under the State’s AFFH requirements.
Unfortunately, the limited treatment of substandard housing conditions provided in San Mateo’s Housing Element, page H-D-66, is extremely problematic. The Housing Element is tasked to identify fair housing contributing factors - factors that create, contribute to, perpetuate, or increase the severity of one or more fair housing issues.
Rather than relating the substandard housing conditions within the City to geographic and structural factors that could be fixed through the development of program actions addressing those conditions, the Housing Element’s analysis of “why” significant and disproportionate concentrations of substandard housing conditions exist within the City amounts to this sentence: “It is plausible that the high Hispanic population relative to other surrounding census tracts is behind the concentration [of severe overcrowding, severe cost burden, and substandard housing conditions].”
This is an unacceptable analysis. How can the City develop programs to ameliorate substandard housing conditions, cost burden, and severe overcrowding in the identified geographic areas if the only contributing factor listed for this concentration of negative conditions is the existence of a “high Hispanic population” within the subject census tracts? What does such an analysis imply the City should do? Instead, the analysis should focus on an array of known contributing factors:
1. P ersistent, long-term lack of maintenance of properties.
2. Un- permitted structures that may not meet building codes.
3. Deteriorating or obsolete structures that would require costly repair or demolition to remedy - likely precluding continued use as naturally affordable housing if and when neighborhood conditions improve.
4. Zoning that makes the replacement of older, multi-unit buildings with new structures of a similar number of housing units either illegal or financially unviable.
5. Environmental quality issues such as lack of trees, public open space, excess paving, and large volumes of traffic on neighborhood streets.
These issues, among others, evidence a general lack of infrastructure needed to house the numbers of people who want or need to live in these neighborhoods- often revealed by the significantly higher number of vehicles stored in the street, on private driveways, and on front lawns as compared to other areas of the City. The way the current document is written implies that the blame or causality lies with the type of people who live in the area, and leaves it at that. Focusing on the actual contributing factors will help the City find effective program options for improving neighborhood conditions and quality of life.
Sites Inventory
The City's and region’s long-term and continuing shortfall in housing production, especially below market rate affordable housing, has had significant harmful effects on the entire population of the region. It has had disproportionate, negative impacts on people of color, people with disabilities, and low-income households - protected classes with disparate housing needs. When a city like San Mateo fails to provide adequate sites with a clear path to development, and subsequently experiences a shortfall in housing development, these negative impacts are perpetuated. The City’s program of identifying, designating, and incentivizing new housing development and its success or failure at achieving adequate housing is a fundamental Fair Housing issue. The following comments on the City’s Sites Inventory are provided through an AFFH lens.
Failure to identify adequate, fairly-placed sites in conjunction with programs to significantly incentivize and increase the production of housing, especially below market rate affordable housing, is a failure to affirmatively further fair housing.
“Sites Inventory: …The element states that there are no units in the sites inventory located in Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence (RCAA), but it should analyze whether conditions are exacerbated and promote strong housing mobility within the City’s programs to affirmatively further fair housing.” Low and very-low income units should be dispersed in all areas of the City. While it makes sense that the lion’s share be concentrated in areas that are rich in transit opportunities and other service amenities, sites for new types of units should also be identified within the highest-resource areas of the City in accordance with AFFH principles. The City should consider zoning changes and other incentives that would facilitate new multi-unit housing, with nodes of service amenities and transportation to serve them, outside of the transit-rich downtown core of the City.
An analysis of whether conditions are exacerbated by the City’s limited identification of sites within Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence (RCAA) was not found. The public is owed an analysis of whether the near total exclusion of the City’s RCAA from accommodating housing inventory sites will hinder the City’s ability to “replace segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns.” Placing practically all housing inventory sites within the City’s intermediate-resource areas will make it difficult to significantly improve existing segregated living patterns. At the very least, a full and true analysis of the impacts of the City’s inventory site placements on its ability to “replace segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns” should be provided.
Similarly, the City is tasked to transform racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity.
“In addi tion, the element stated no sites are identified in areas with high overcrowding and cost burden. The element should include an analysis of whether this affects the existing patterns and whether sites exacerbate conditions and identify further program actions that will be taken to promote equitable quality of life throughout the community (e.g., anti- displacement and place- based community revitalization strategies).”
The State’s comment appears to ask the City to analyze the impact of the Housing Element’s directing development opportunities for new housing away from areas of high overcrowding and cost burden. The Housing Element acknowledges that the, “[c]oncentration of naturally occurring affordable ownership and rental housing opportunities in the northeast areas of the City further concentrates poverty, cost burden, and overcrowding in areas with low economic and environmental outcomes,” as a factor contributing to the City’s fair housing issues. “Hispanic residents and single female parent households are concentrated in census tracts with higher poverty, low economic and environmental opportunity, high-cost burden, overcrowding, and flood
hazards compared to the rest of the City of San Mateo.” (quotes are from Pages H-66 to H-67).
The lack of planned Inventory sites in areas of high overcrowding and cost burden could be acceptable if the Housing Element also included strong program actions promoting equitable quality of life improvements in those underserved areas. Ideally, such improvements would parallel or exceed the quality of life improvements naturally accompanying new development in other areas. Unfortunately, the Housing Element commits to no measurable housing-related actions of this sort.
Providing a “Reasonable Buffer”
Page H-30 of the Housing Element states:
“Staff conducted a site-by-site review of all potential development sites, citywide.
As is demonstrated below, there are enough sites with sufficient acreage that can meet the RHNA, plus a reasonable buffer, within the existing zoning densities and the growth limits of the voter-approved initiative known as Measure Y.” Pages H-44 to H-45: We advocate for a buffer in the RHNA numbers that focuses on the needs and feasibility of Very-Low, Low, and Moderate income housing. The City does not control the sites identified for future housing development and it is prudent to assume that despite the City’s best efforts a significant number will remain undeveloped, underdeveloped, or develop with other uses. The City should increase the buffer percentage for Very-Low, Low, and Moderate income units accordingly. These are the housing types that have historically been the hardest to create.
The City’s Housing Element currently provides a buffer of only 9% for Very-Low and Low income units, and 1% for Moderate Income units. The buffers for these units should be at least 50%. The marked imbalance between the buffers for sites providing Above- Moderate income housing units versus Moderate, Low, and Very Low income units highlights the inability or unwillingness of the City to provide capacity for these sorely needed categories of housing, especially given the State of California’s more stringent requirements for Very-Low or Low-income housing sites.
The Sites Inventory Affordability Breakdown notes the potential increased buffer provided by the City’s General Plan Update, but the City cannot commit to these numbers as part of this Housing Element. The significant increases in site capacity proposed in the General Plan Update must receive voter approval via a future ballot measure, an outcome that can hardly be counted on. An alternative means of achieving a buffer of 50% or greater for Very-Low, Low, and Moderate income housing should be outlined within this Housing Element. Without such a plan in hand, if the ballot measure fails, the City could be halfway through this Housing Element Cycle before it has a legitimate plan and rezoning program to meet its RHNA commitment. Likewise, the General Plan Update should be formulated to allow a buffer of 50% for Very-Low, Low, and Moderate income units not only for the current Housing Element cycle, but for the successive, extrapolated RHNA cycles occurring within the life of the General Plan Update (through 2040).
Suitability of Nonvacant Sites:
Pages 2 and 3 of the HCD comments state:
“Suitability of Nonvacant Sites: While the element was revised to add some additional information for the nonvacant sites, it should connect the existing uses and feasibility of development to the project examples described. In addition, the element should describe the likelihood that existing uses will discontinue during the planning period, whether there are current leases, or other factors of whether the uses will impede residential development. The element should also analyze the feasibility of developing gas stations and car wash sites during the planning period. The element states that each parcel was ranked for likelihood of development, but it should describe the criteria used for ranking and how they were applied to feasibility of development.
In addition, as noted in the housing element, the housing element relies upon nonvacant sites to accommodate more than 50 percent of the RHNA for lower- income households. For your information, the housing element must demonstrate existing uses are not an impediment to additional residential development and will likely discontinue in the planning period. (Gov. Code, § 65583.2, subd. (g)(2).) Absent findings (e.g., adoption resolution) based on substantial evidence, the existing uses will be presumed to impede additional residential development and will not be utilized toward demonstrating adequate sites to accommodate the regional housing need allocation.” [emphasis ours]
Pages H-30 to H-31, and H-C-15 to H-C-29: Essentially all of San Mateo’s inventory sites are on non-vacant properties. The Housing Element provides qualitative information on the characteristics and current uses of sites included in the site inventory. However, because many sites throughout the City and region share the qualitative characteristics described for the Housing Element’s selected sites and have not been recently redeveloped into housing, the City’s use of these qualitative descriptions of its inventory sites is not sufficient for demonstrating the likelihood that an existing use is not “an impediment to additional residential development and will likely discontinue in the planning period” for a given site.
The HCD comments note “(t)he Element states that each parcel was ranked for likelihood of development, but it should describe the criteria used for ranking and how they were applied to feasibility of development.” Right now, there is no way for the public to adequately evaluate whether the City’s claims that a site is likely to be redeveloped are warranted based on the qualitative descriptions added to this new version of the Housing Element. That is a problem.
For instance, some sites are included because they contain parking lots, as indicated in Appendix C. The City does not provide information on the utilization of the parking lots, nor whether the existing uses on the site would be functionally willing or capable of eliminating their parking. It does not factor in the costs associated with replacing some or all of this surface parking with parking garages. This is a significant potential
roadblock in the redevelopment of a site, given that San Mateo’s land uses are overwhelmingly suburban and car-dependent.
The following are examples of acceptable substantial evidence that an existing use will likely be discontinued in the current planning period (from the HCD Site Inventory Guidebook, May 2020):
• The lease for the existing use[s] expires early within the planning period, • The building is dilapidated, and the structure is likely to be removed, or a demolition permit has been issued for the existing uses, • There is a development agreement that exists to develop the site within the planning period,
• The entity operating the existing use has agreed to move to another location early enough within the planning period to allow residential development within the planning period.
• The property owner provides a letter stating its intention to develop the property with residences during the planning period.
With respect to the final point, the City should append copies of the actual letters from property Owners in support of assertions that the Owners of currently developed properties plan to re-develop their properties with residential uses during the planning period. Absent specific evidence that fulfils the intent of the above criteria, the City should use an objective, calculated probability of redevelopment based on the redevelopment of all similar properties locally or regionally over an appropriate period of time in order to weight and estimate the likelihood of redevelopment of any given site.
Site capacity should then be calculated based on this weighted trend.
For instance, the City could use easily accessible data on redevelopment rates of all properties within the City, or it could refine this data by considering qualitatively similar sites, such as those that contain parking lots, where existing buildings and their uses remain. It could factor in the number of such parking lots that have been redeveloped within the City while the existing leased or occupied structures have remained, and use the more specific data if the data shows an increased likelihood of redevelopment.
Surface parking lots proximate to significant transit nodes could be weighted higher given recent trends. This methodology will undoubtedly lead to the City considering additional sites for Very-Low, Low, and Moderate income units - a positive and more defensible outcome that is absolutely necessary in our view.
“As noted in Finding A3, the element does not include a complete site analysis, therefore, the adequacy of sites and zoning were not established. Based on the results of a complete sites inventory and analysis, the City may need to add or
revise programs to address a shortfall of sites or zoning available to encourage a variety of housing types.”
Additional sites should be selected. Or programs and incentives articulated that would spur re-development of currently selected sites. Re-zoning, as needed to achieve an accurate and achievable site capacity that meets the City’s RHNA allocation plus an adequate buffer, should be committed to within this Housing Element. For a non-vacant site, the information provided should be clearly consistent with the intent of the HCD criteria outlined above. Otherwise, it does not adequately demonstrate that an existing use has a true chance of being replaced with housing within the planning period.
Contributing Factors and Fair Housing Plan
Pages H-66 to H-69: We appreciate the Housing Element’s new prioritization of contributing factors and agree that of the contributing factors listed, those that are ranked “high” are the most impactful factors that the City has the power to remedy.
These include 1) the concentration of Hispanic residents and populations living with a disability in the northeastern portion of the City, 2) the relative lack of affordable housing opportunities in higher resourced areas of the City, 3) the undersupply of accessible housing units, and 4) the persistence of housing discrimination for residents with disabilities and for Hispanic households.
However, the City’s listing of contributing factors misses many pertinent factors that are provided as examples in the “California Department of Housing and Community Development: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” document. Many of the example contributing factors are more easily influenced by city-level programs than the contributing factors listed in the City’s Housing Element. The Housing Element should focus its attention on contributing factors that can be influenced by city-level policies, and factors that cannot be influenced by city-level policies should be included only as background information. For example, the City has little influence on “higher rates of mortgage denial rates among Hispanic households” and would not be well positioned to produce policies that have a significant impact in that arena.
Some contributing factors excerpted from the “California Department of Housing and Community Development: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” document, pages 68- 70 where the City could have a significant impact include:
• Community opposition
• Displacement of residents due to economic pressures
• Deteriorated and abandoned properties
• Lack of community revitalization strategies
• Lack of private investments in specific neighborhoods
• Lack of public investments in specific neighborhoods, including services or amenities
• Lack of tenant protections
• Land Use and Zoning Laws
• Inaccessible sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, or other infrastructure • Lack of affordable in-home or community-based supportive services • Lack of affordable, accessible housing in range of unit sizes Acknowledging and addressing some of these factors could go a long way toward building programs that have a beneficial impact in San Mateo.
Implementation Plan - Goals, Policies, and Actions
The Housing Element needs to show the “Beneficial Impact” of its Goals, Policies, and Actions as they relate to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. Greater focus should be placed on actual outcomes and material progress.
The State guidance document, “California Department of Housing and Community Development: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” page 52, describes the term “Beneficial Impact” as such:
“Programs in the element must have specific commitment to deliverables, measurable metrics or objectives, definitive deadlines, dates, or benchmarks for implementation. Deliverables should occur early in the planning period to ensure actual housing outcomes. For example, programs to “explore” or “consider” on an “ongoing” basis are inadequate to demonstrate a beneficial impact in the planning period. Conversely, a program with clear and specific commitment and numerical objectives such as “rezone 50 acres to high density by June 2022” is adequate to demonstrate a beneficial impact. This specific and clear commitment combined with numerical objectives and timelines is called “beneficial impact.” Similarly, programs to affirmatively furthering fair housing must have specific and clear commitment, milestones, and metrics or numerical and anticipated outcomes.”
“As noted in Finding A1, the element requires a complete affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) analysis. Depending upon the results of that analysis, the City may need to revise or add programs. The element must be revised to add goals and actions based on the outcomes of a complete analysis.” In light of the need for a complete AFFH analysis and the likely need to add or revise programs to reflect this analysis, our review of the Housing Element’s Goals, Policies, and Actions focuses on whether currently listed policies and actions answer the following four questions listed in the “California Department of Housing and Community Development: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” page 63:
• Did the element identify goals and actions based on the identified and prioritized contributing factors?
• Do goals and actions address mobility enhancement, new housing choices and affordability in high opportunity areas, place-based strategies for preservation and revitalization, displacement protection, and other program areas? • Are actions significant, meaningful and sufficient to overcome identified patterns of segregation and affirmatively further fair housing?
• Did the element include metrics and milestones for evaluating progress on programs/actions and fair housing results, including concrete timelines? Likewise, Page 7 of the HCD comments emphasizes the need to answer the above questions:
"Goals and actions must specifically respond to the analysis and to the identified and prioritized contributing factors to fair housing issues and must be significant and meaningful enough to overcome identified patterns and trends. Actions must have specific commitment, metrics, and milestones as appropriate and must address housing mobility enhancement, new housing choices and affordability in high opportunity areas, place-based strategies for community preservation and revitalization and displacement protection.
In addition, the element should reference the table in Appendix D in the programs section and the programs identified in Appendix D (Attachment 1) should include geographic targets for each identified action to affirmatively further fair housing.
All programs that affirmatively further fair housing should include metrics, milestones and geographic targets. The analysis demonstrates a need for housing mobility in the RCAA and higher opportunity areas, but the sites analysis states no units were identified in these areas. Programs should be revised to include significant and meaningful action to overcome the identified patterns and trends.”
Throughout the Implementation Plan (pages H-75 to H-96), actions that include language like “present options,” “evaluate,” or “study” should be revised to provide specific commitments to meaningful policy changes that can be evaluated using metrics and milestones. This will typically mean the action provides a quantifiable description that can be objectively measured so that the public can both determine whether such an action as actually been meaningfully implemented by the City, and allow the public to evaluate objectively measurable outcomes. A listing of staff actions is not the desired focus of this section. Rather, the Goals, Policies, and Actions section should be focused on City policy that will be implemented during the Housing Element cycle and the anticipated effects of the policy’s implementation. Not staff’s process in developing possible policy options to present to the City Council in the future - without firm commitments to actually implement said actions. For most new and potentially meaningful programs the Housing Element does not outline actual policy-related actions and leaves open the possibility that future City Councils will opt out of them- effectively offering zero commitment to their implementation.
New Housing Choices and Affordability in High Opportunity Areas: Policies We believe the current sites inventory within the Housing Element fails to adequately provide new housing choices and affordability in the high and highest opportunity areas in a manner that will overcome identified, existing patterns of segregation in any significant way. The Housing Element could provide for this requirement through policies in the Implementation section, separate from the sites inventory, if currently listed polices are modified to satisfy the questions outlined above, and relevant new policies are added. Many of the policy proposals will have limited or no effect on mobility strategies, housing development, preservation, or AFFH. For the sake of brevity, we focus on policies likely to have the greatest impact:
Policy H1.7: A quasi-public affordable housing overlay or code amendment to support the production of affordable housing on quasi-public sites such as religious or educational institutions could add significant new housing choices and affordability in high opportunity areas. However, the Housing Element does not commit to this action, stating that the City will “evaluate the feasibility” of the overlay or code amendment.
Neither does it provide meaningful metrics or geographic commitments for such an overlay.
Policy H1.12: This policy has perhaps the greatest potential to provide new housing choices and more affordable options in high opportunity areas if implemented in an appropriate manner, and expanded to fully include R1 districts in the mix. Evaluating and researching missing middle infill housing opportunities is only the first step toward meaningful action. This policy should be fully implemented beyond the study stage.
Unfortunately, that is all that the policy currently commits to. In its current state, this policy does not meet the test for affirmatively furthering fair housing.
Policy H1.20: If passed, the General Plan Update should lead to a significant increase in the volume of available buildable capacity for residential construction within the City.
Since the land-use changes proposed in the General Plan Update are limited to a small portion of San Mateo’s overall land area, a complete AFFH analysis may find that this
General Plan Update will not lead to significant progress in replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns. In addition, the General Plan Update depends on the passage of a ballot measure to achieve much of its proposed new capacity. The Housing Element should pursue alternatives for achieving the City’s RHNA allocation, acknowledging that the ballot measure may fail. The alternatives should also consider the constraints resulting from the reliance on non-vacant sites in the inventory more realistically.
Policies H5.2.1 - H5.2.3: These policies encourage the development of more accessible units in inclusionary housing. They are good policies that could provide some benefit over the life of the Housing Element if aggressively implemented. In striving to accommodate hard to serve residents the City must commit to funding supportive services in conjunction with housing for extremely low-income and special needs residents.
Place-Based Strategies for Community Preservation and Revitalization: Policies Many of the contributing factors listed in the Housing Element refer to the concentration of people with disproportionate housing needs in the northeastern portion of the City.
The document cites households with higher poverty and cost burden, poor opportunity outcomes, overcrowding, and low economic and environmental outcomes. The Housing Element’s policies should commit to addressing and repairing these challenges in its community preservation and revitalization plans. The City’s policies could use improvement and a re-commitment to addressing geographic housing-related issues more comprehensively.
Policy H2.1: While this policy provides a significant benefit to a handful of homes, it is existing, and is not a significant way to achieve meaningful community preservation and revitalization at a scale that can meet the needs of the community. It should be continued, but should only be treated as a small-scale supplement to achieving progress in this area.
Policy H2.4: This policy can provide benefits to equity priority neighborhoods. However, it is an existing, status quo policy, and will have limited overall impact over the course of the planning period.
Policy H2.6: Provide commitments to implement a replacement unit program, not just to conduct a study.
Policy H5.3.1: This policy has the greatest potential to create positive change for the northeastern neighborhoods of the City from a community preservation and revitalization lens. As it stands, the policy goals and objectives of H5.3.1 are too open- ended to allow for meaningful evaluation. No concrete policy commitments that address the contributing factors affecting these neighborhoods are provided. Actions should be tied to addressing and ameliorating issues identified in the contributing factor analysis and should be provided with metrics for measurement and evaluation. Without such metrics and connections to the analysis, an area plan might succumb to maintaining the status quo. Or worse, it could produce unanticipated, unwanted, or even harmful
outcomes for the populations and geographic area the City is attempting to help. The Element’s prioritization of land use around Highway 101 could be troubling for environmental reasons, too. Circulation changes around Highway 101 may be beneficial, but housing-related policies should direct new housing away from this significant source of particulate air pollution and toward areas richer in transit opportunities and other service amenities.
Displacement Protection: Policies
Policy H3.3: This policy is limited by the Housing Element’s commitment to only “conduct a feasibility study.”
Policy H3.4: We applaud the City’s commitment in this Housing Element to extending AB1482 to tenants with a tenure of less than one year. However, the rest of the implementation action items of this policy should commit to meaningful actions with concrete results.
Policies H3.5 - H3.7: These policies are limited by the Housing Element’s commitment to only “explore,” “examine,” “study,” and “research” policy actions.
Policy H5.4.5: This policy will be fundamental to the City’s ability to both protect vulnerable residents from displacement and allow for meaningful place-based strategies for community preservation and revitalization. As stated, this policy must be developed in conjunction with Policy 5.3.1.
Housing Mobility Enhancement: Policies
Policy H5.1.1: This could be a beneficial program. Because this policy requires a feasibility analysis that has not yet been conducted it is difficult to assess whether it would provide a significant increase in the number of inclusionary units produced over the course of this Housing Element cycle. It is likely null if the General Plan Update ballot measure fails to pass, given the City’s recent nexus study indicating that an increase in the inclusionary percentage at the height and density limits of the City’s current general plan would render housing projects financially infeasible.
Policy H5.1.2: This policy will significantly benefit and impact the lives of 30 households.
It will be extremely limited in impact at the scale of the City over the course of this Housing Element cycle.
Policy H5.1.3: A policy to financially support the construction of ADU’s could be beneficial, although, again, limited in scope. It needs firm commitments to be considered an acceptable AFFH action.
Related Environmental Justice Activities (Page H-97)
We applaud the City’s development of the “Related Environmental Justice Activities,” listed on page H-97, as part of the City’s General Plan Update and want to encourage the full implementation of these programs. These programs should be integrated with the City’s housing-related policies to maximize the benefit in lower-resource neighborhoods.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we ask that you consider the above points as you refine the Housing Element and work with the State of California to achieve certification. The NAACP San Mateo Branch Housing Committee is prepared to clarify our input to the extent it would be helpful in the process. We hope to be a trusted resource in the years ahead as the initiatives and policies in the City of San Mateo’s Housing Element are implemented.
Comments prepared by:
NAACP San Mateo Branch #1068 Housing Committee in consultation with City of San Mateo Planning Commissioner Adam Nugent.
August 9, 2023
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2023 8:48 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Cc: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 6:56 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name Nina
Last Name Singh
Email Address
Comment on 2023-2031
Draft Housing Element
City continues to approve multiple housing projects without addressing infrastructure inadequacies specifically parking and traffic congestion.
Case in point apartments and office buildings constructed on Concar drive next to Hayward Park Caltrain station. There has been no change/expansion to the roads or parking in the area from pre-construction of these projects. However road traffic / usage increased multiple fold as a result of these new
constructions. All the City did was replace the roads and refresh parking signage! To top it City is now planning another project in the same oversaturatued Concar drive area
It would behoove the City to put some attention to upgrading and expanding roads and parking instead of ad-nauseam
approvin
g new housing. Without the infrastructure
2 improvement, people are being packed into areas resulting in quality of life degrading further
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1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2023 8:48 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: Housing element
From: Bennett Charles
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2023 7:36 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing element
Hello - I am writing to provide public comment for the city's housing element. I am very supportive of the city's planning efforts in identifying sites for housing development.
My concern is that the city is under-allocating units to these prime development sites. Hillsdale Mall, Bridgepoint, and others such as the 41st street commercial area, and sites along El Camino can all handle many more units than is currently discussed. I don't see why Hillsdale Mall is limited to, say, 1200 units; I think 2000 would be fine if the massing was well designed and is on El Camino.
The reason is that I do not want timid allocations to these prime sites to affect future housing elements, requiring impingement on detached single family home neighborhoods beyond what those neighborhoods want. In a different world, I'd be happy to simply relocate if the physical environment of my neighborhood changed in a way I do not like. But that's not the real world.
While I am strongly supportive of a significant number of new housing units, like many single family homeowners, I do not want to have any new structures, whether they are houses, apartments, or ADU's taller than about 30 feet in my neighborhood west of Alameda, especially if they are on lot lines.
If the city wants to experiment with upzoning an existing area with single family homes, I would urge that you obtain consensus from property owners in that area.
I am very happy with AB 2011 and the potential it offers to make good use of retail sites, and I think this is the best path forward.
I also would encourage the city to find ways to reduce costs to homeowners who want to modernize their houses, but that's a separate conversation.
Thank you,
Bennett Charles
--
Bennett Charles
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 9:17 AM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia; Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: San Mateo - Housing Element + Zoning/GP Update
From: Justin Kim
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 9:14 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: San Mateo - Housing Element + Zoning/GP Update
Hi,
We’re a development company based in San Jose. I saw that the city is working with HCD on the 6th cycle Housing Element.
Could you possibly provide some insight into the expected timeline for achieving compliance with HCD for the Housing Element?
Moreover, once the Housing Element aligns with HCD requirements, what's your estimation for the duration needed to update the zoning and GP to be in accordance with the updated Housing Element? Will Zoning/GP be updated at the same time as the Housing Element gets approved by HCD?
Is there a possibility of any delays occurring post-adoption of the Housing Element? If so, could you provide an estimate of the potential delay duration?
Thank you,
Justin Kim
Valley Oak Partners, LLC
www.valleyoakpartners.com
This email may contain information that is confidential or attorney-client privileged and may constitute inside information. The contents of this email are intended only for the recipient(s) listed above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are directed not to read, disclose, distribute or otherwise use this transmission. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the transmission. Delivery of this message is not intended to waive any applicable privileges.
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 9:11 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Julia Klein; Prasanna Rasiah; Mazarin Vakharia; dianarelrod; Veronica Tam; Linda Ly; Nicholas Hamilton
Subject: FW: Comment on Latest Draft Housing Element,
Attachments: 2023.10.23 City of San Mateo Housing Element Letter V.pdf FYI
From: Jeremy Levine
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2023 12:49 PM
To: Adam Loraine <[email protected]>; Amourence Lee <[email protected]>; Richard Hedges <[email protected]>; Lisa Diaz Nash <[email protected]>; Rob Newsom <[email protected]>; City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]>; Planning Commission <[email protected]>
Cc: Zachary Dahl <[email protected]>; Manira Sandhir <[email protected]>; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]>; Alex Khojikian <[email protected]> Subject: Comment on Latest Draft Housing Element,
Good afternoon San Mateo planning commission and city council,
Please see the attached letter for the Housing Leadership Council's latest comment on the San Mateo housing element.
Thank you to staff and the city's consultants for their hard work on the latest draft. We look forward to the next public hearings related to this issue.
Regards,
Jeremy
--
Jeremy Levine (he • him)
Policy Manager
Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County
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gram • Become A Member!
October 23, 2023
City of San Mateo
330 W 20th Ave.
San Mateo, CA 94403
T o the honorable San Mateo City Council,
The Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County appreciates this opportunity to engage the City of San Mateo on its housing element. This is our fifth formal letter to the city. In the middle of last year, we sent the city two letters outlining opportunities to improve the initial draft of its housing element, one focused primarily on needs and constraints, the other focused on affirmatively furthering fair housing, the sites inventory, and the goals, policies, and programs.
We followed up with a more policy-focused letter last November and a fourth letter in August, 2023.
With the guidance of city staff, San Mateo’s city council has made numerous improvements to the housing element. Still, with this letter, we share evidence that San Mateo must continue strengthening its policy proposals in order to comply with housing element law. T o summarize, we have proposed the following additional policy improvements to San Mateo’s housing element:
- Entitle housing on city-owned properties on a faster timeline. - Track ADU rentals through a rental registry or other mechanism to establish affordability. - Allow housing ministerially on sites owned by faith-based institutions (state law SB 4 has partially facilitated this change; the city should provide even more flexibility on height and densityon faith-owned land).
- Commit to a minimum of 100 du/ac and 10 stories on major opportunity sites like Bridgepoint and Hillsdale.
- Implement a “backstop policy” that commits to rezone to allow housing in all areas within a quarter mile of a transit stop and major transit corridors if a ballot measure to overrule Measure Y fails to pass in 2024.
We proposed these policies because they will help the city maximize opportunities for new affordable housing development. We also believe they are the bare minimum that the city of San Mateo must pursue in order to comply with state law. A handful of ongoing technical issues compel San Mateo to implement stronger policies than currently proposed.
Issue #1: San Mateo has not actually demonstrated capacity to meet RHNA because several major non-vacant opportunity sites lack substantial evidence of redevelopment.
Two major sites in particular, Concar Passage and the Bridgepoint shopping mall, lack substantial evidence of redevelopment. These are just the two largest sites for which we have identified potential issues; more are referenced in Appendix A below. - Concar Passage, which accounts for 961 units in the inventory, faces steep barriers to development, both governmental and nongovernmental. A prior development agreement was not executed because the developer does not currently have the property rights, as noted on pg 127 of the Planning Commission meeting packet. 1 In the Planning Commission meeting the developer explained the options to obtain the property rights are predicated on the existing retail leases expiring and some of the leases were renewed during COVID. The developer also said that the property owners were planning to renew other leases as well. Commissioner Patel asked when all of these renewed leases would expire and the developer said that was confidential. On page 127 of the meeting packet, the developer acknowledges the project is no longer financially feasible. 2 In the Planning Commission meeting Commissioner Ebneter directly asked if the project was financially feasible under the current economic conditions, zoning, Measure Y , etc. and the developer responded, "T oday? No. We would build it if it was."
- Bridgepoint, which accounts for 838 units in the inventory, has become fully leased up as described in a letter sent to the city by Farella, Braun & Martel LLP on August 7, 2023. Two years ago, the mall had a number of vacancies; today, it has none. The property owner has indicated no plans to redevelop, and the city is providing no incentives beyond rezoning.
Rather than removing these sites from the inventory, which would require identification of new sites and further analysis, we believe the city should adjust their realistic capacity significantly downward–say, to 5%. That way, the city can continue to promote housing on these sites while being realistic about their probability of redevelopment in the next ten years. Additionally, the city should ask the land owner and the developer if there are any policies or programs the city could adopt that would make these sites more likely to develop in the future, and consider adding those policies to future housing elements.
The draft housing element further overcounts likely ADU production and assumes ADUs will be affordable at higher rates than are supported by historic data. The city should use HCD “safe harbor” formulas, which would lead the city to calculate 49.8 ADUs per year, 398 over the 8 year cycle. The city should further assume an affordability breakdown of 5% VLI / 30% LI / 50% M / 15% AM and commit to establishing a monitoring program (with a timeline of key milestones) for tracking rental rates of constructed ADUs.
2 "...the current economic conditions are such that the entitled project is not currently financially feasible, especially due to inflationary construction and financing costs." 1 "At the time the entitlements were obtained in 2020, the above described transactions were not expected to close for approximately 2 years because of on-going, binding leases between the land owners and the retail tenants (e.g. Ross). At that time, the City Council authorized the City Manager to execute the DA upon notice from the Applicant that the land transactions had closed and the DA could be recorded against the Property. The authorization to execute the DA expires on September 30, 2023." Issue #2: San Mateo’s plans to rezone raise AFFH concerns that the city has yet to address
28 Pipeline Projects, Redevelopment Opportunity Sites, and other Sites are located within 500 feet of Highway 101 or Highway 92 east of El Camino Real, both of which average in excess of 100,000 vehicles per day. These 28 sites account for 4,806 units of housing, 48% of the Site Inventory capacity. Of these units, 1,252 are assigned Low Income, 42% of the Low Income capacity. Only 30% of the Site Inventory capacity is assigned Low Income, so a disproportionate number of these units are located within 500’ of heavily trafficked highways.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB)’s Air Quality and Land Use Handbook considers the risks of poor air quality on sensitive receptors such as homes, daycares, etc., and recommends against siting these uses within 500ft of a roadway that averages in excess of 100,000 vehicles/day. Per the EPA 2014 National Air T oxics Assessment and CDC Places data, people who live within a mile of a busy freeway have a 43% higher cancer risk over the course of their life. CalEnviroScreen 4.0 shows that census tracts adjacent to Highways 101 and 92 have high levels of particulate matter. The intersection of Highways 101 & 92 in particular has more than half a ton of particulate emissions per year. This level of particulate matter is 95% higher than other census tracts in CA and 6x the particulate emissions in San Mateo Park, the R1 neighborhood located the farthest from Highways 101 and 92.
Concerned about the impact to future residents (and the disproportionate impact to low-income residents) both the General Plan Subcommittee and Planning Commission repeatedly suggested “swapping” specific land uses to move residential uses away from Highways 101 and
92. This is in line with BAAQMD’s recommendation (pg 37, Planning Healthy Places), “...when updating or making revisions to a zoning code in an area characterized by elevated levels of air pollution (such as immediately adjacent to a freeway), local government may choose to designate the land use as commercial, office, or parking instead of residential…” The City did not incorporate the General Plan Subcommittee and Planning Commission’s suggestions.
At this point, HLC wants the City of San Mateo to focus on implementing adequate policy responses to these issues; we do not want the city to engage in more time-consuming and expensive analysis. However, the housing element should be honest: San Mateo does not have capacity to meet its housing goals without rezoning. The city council must ensure that the city has adequate plans in place to rezone, whether through a ballot measure to overturn Measure Y in its existing multi-family areas or a “backstop” commitment to rezone other parts of the city up to the Measure Y limit.
San Mateo’s city staff have worked hard to help San Mateo comply with state housing law, but, without clear direction from council to pursue more meaningful policy change, the city may continue to cycle through an expensive, time consuming loop of housing element review that can be avoided with bold action. Fundamentally, cities cannot analyze their way into new homes, nor can they analyze their way into compliance with state law. The housing element process challenges cities to provide a series of analyses and then commit to substantially change local policies to enable new housing development. HLC looks forward to continue working with San Mateo’s leaders as they strive to meet the housing needs of the entire community.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jeremy Levine
Appendix A: Other Sites with Unaddressed Constraints to Development from the Inventory
Pipeline Projects and Redevelopment Opportunity Sites
● Pipeline Project #1, Fremont T errace: Status should note that construction has been halted for over a year and has not yet resumed.
● Pipeline Project #3, Block 20: Site constraints should note that two properties on the site qualify as historical resources for the purposes of CEQA. ● Pipeline Project #7, 1919 O’Farrell St.: Status should note that the property was listed for sale in November 2021, a month after entitlement.
● Pipeline Project #11, 4 W Santa Inez: Status should note that the property was listed for sale after entitlement.
● Redevelopment Opportunity Site #14, Hillsdale Mall: Development opportunity should incorporate a discussion of the barriers to development outlined in the letter submitted by Farella, Braun & Martel LLP on August 7, 2023. The maximum allowable base density is 1,630 units and the property owner is proposing a max of 1,200 units. It’s unclear why an increased base density in the new General Plan would induce the owner to increase the number of units when the owner is not currently proposing to maximize residential. APN 042-121-060 also appeared on the Site Inventories for Cycle 4 and Cycle 5 and as such constraints to development warrant additional analysis and should include a discussion of how the constraints will be mitigated.
● Redevelopment Opportunity Site #15, Borel Square Shopping Center: Site constraints should note that the excluded parcel in the middle of the site contains an environmental covenant in place by the County of San Mateo precluding development for sensitive receptors including residential uses.
● Redevelopment Opportunity Site #19, Downtown Cluster: Status should note that a project was entitled on this site in 2017 and ultimately expired. APN 034-144-240 also appeared on the Site Inventories for Cycle 4 and Cycle 5 and as such constraints to development warrant additional analysis and should include a discussion of how the constraints will be mitigated.
● Redevelopment Opportunity Site #22, Olympic Shopping Center: APN 042-245-120 also appeared on the Site Inventories for Cycle 4 and Cycle 5 and as such constraints to development warrant additional analysis and should include a discussion of how the constraints will be mitigated.
● Redevelopment Opportunity Site #27, Car Wash: APN 035-200-070 also appeared on the Site Inventories for Cycle 4 and Cycle 5 and as such constraints to development warrant additional analysis and should include a discussion of how the constraints will be mitigated.
Non-Vacant Sites
● Forty-one of the sites listed on the Sites Inventory were also included on the sites inventories for Cycle 4 and Cycle 5, thirty-six of which accommodate low income housing. These sites are not identified in T able 2: Sites Inventory (pg H-C-22-29) even though pg 12 of HCD’s Site Inventory Guidebook instructs that if a site accommodates any low or very low income RHNA, and it was used in a prior cycle (for non-vacant) or two prior cycles (for vacant) then it must be identified in the sites inventory. The city does not identify any constraints to development of these sites over the past fifteen years, nor note any new incentives to development, beyond the rezoning required by AB 1397.
These sites APNs are listed below:
○ 032-292-070
○ 032-292-080
○ 032-312-250
○ 032-331-010
○ 032-331-020
○ 032-331-150
○ 033-171-060
○ 033-171-180
○ 035-200-070
○ 035-215-060
○ 035-221-010
○ 035-221-020
○ 035-242-090
○ 035-242-140
○ 035-242-160
○ 035-242-170
○ 035-242-190
○ 035-242-200
○ 035-242-210
○ 035-242-220
○ 039-052-350
○ 039-060-010
○ 039-060-060
○ 039-060-070
○ 039-060-090
○ 039-351-070
○ 039-351-110
○ 039-351-120
○ 039-351-130
○ 039-360-160
○ 039-360-070
○ 034-183-060
○ 040-030-190
○ 042-121-060
○ 034-144-240
○ 042-241-180
○ 042-245-120
○ 032-122-240
○ 032-122-250
○ 032-075-010
○ 032-075-100
● In the Non-Vacant Site Redevelopment Analysis (pg H-C-15) the City identifies four missing middle projects received in Cycle 5 and notes “[t]his trend is expected to continue, with the recent approval of a 10-unit project at 4 Santa Inez (net increase of 8 units). This demonstrates that the City’s existing zoning allows for a range of housing types and sizes.” The City omits that 4 Santa Inez was only approved after a lawsuit determined that the City had illegally denied the project in violation of the Housing Accountability Act.
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 12:27 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: Fwd: Community Feedback: San Mateo Housing Element 2023-2031
Sandra Belluomini
City of San Mateo
650-522-7239
From: Mike Hagmaier
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 12:04:10 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Community Feedback: San Mateo Housing Element 2023-2031
To Whom it May Concern,
I have a lot of concerns regarding the housing element plan for 2023-2031. There are so many things wrong with it, I really don't know where to begin, so let's start here:
The state of our current infrastructure and lack of maintenance of it (storm drains, roads), is abysmal. We pay taxes for these things every year based on the misnomer that the money will go to fix them, but it doesn't seem to help. That's not our fault, it's the city's. The primary starting place should be improving our current infrastructure for existing homes so that they perform as they should. No harm in preparing for new homes during the renovation, just don't pack in the new homes first as that's just adding more cost by doing things backwards.
I'm sure you've seen the lack of driving etiquette on our streets, by our schools, through parking lots, through red lights. Where are the police? What happened to patrol cars monitoring our roads? We need more law enforcement to manage the chaos out there now with our current population. There better be some serious consideration for law enforcement, firefighters, EMTs, and other civil servants that make our communities safe. Fund them first, fund housing second.
The plan to build housing in phases over years is simply allowing an onslaught of noise, pollution, and angst. I'm sure you've experienced a neighbor doing a large remodel or complete new home construction before. It's horrific for anyone's wellbeing, especially for those who work from home. I can't imagine the state of mind people will be in if all they hear while at home is the noise of building. We just had a house built next door to us that took nine months, and we were pretty close to our wit's end before it wrapped up. And that is just one single home. I can't imagine it on a larger scale.
Far less people are commuting to work, but are commuting more to take care of daily chores and errands. Hoping that we'll be a populace that uses mass transit is a moot point. Nobody takes the train to drop their kids off or get groceries, very few people use the bus to shop or go to the doctor, and even fewer people use bicycles to get around the peninsula.
Office vacancies are at an all time high, so allowing more office space is simply a lark. Convert those unused spaces into housing (if you must). Reasonable growth should be the rule, and using reason to enable it should be a requirement.
2 Measure Y was voted on and won. It seems that ignoring the voice of the people is the new political strategy. The state of California really should be sued by the cities and counties that don't want to enact housing requirements. Quality of life matters, and there is quality of life outside of San Mateo for those who can't find a residence here. It's a harsh truth. I'd like to live in Atherton, but I sure can't afford it, so I'll stay here in San Mateo.
And, lastly; the housing element is, as was well-stated by Keith Weber in the San Mateo Daily Journal last week, simply "Out of Whack". I too say "send it back", and be sensible for the wellbeing of the community that matters. Us. Not the developers, not the Mayor, and not the out-of-touch Governor of California.
Regards,
Mike Hagmaier
San Mateo, CA
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 10:47 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: San Mateo Reality
From: William Williams
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 10:28 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: San Mateo Reality
As long as the Planning Commission and the San Mateo City Council continue to approve office development, housing will not get built.
Getting rid of Measure Y will just enable highrise office development, especially at the Hillsdale Mall.
How many more residents and businesses will be displaced to vacate blocks for office development? Be honest.
X Bill Williams, San MateoOutlook
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 3:54 PM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: City of San Mateo Housing Element
Attachments: 23-1115 City of San Mateo Housing Element_MidPen Letter.pdf
From: Mollie Naber
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 3:38 PM
To: Zachary Dahl <[email protected]>
Cc: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: City of San Mateo Housing Element
Dear Mr. Dahl,
Please see MidPen’s aƩached leƩer regarding the City of San Mateo Housing Element.
Sincerely,
Mollie Naber
Mollie Naber (she/her) | Associate Director of Development MidPen Housing
November 15, 2023
Zachary Dahl, Interim Director of Community Development Community Development Department, City of San Mateo
339 West 20th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94403
Email: [email protected]
RE: City of San Mateo Housing Element
Dear Mr. Dahl,
MidPen Housing (“MidPen”) is one of the nation’s leading nonprofit developers, owners and managers of high- quality affordable housing and onsite resident services. Since MidPen was founded in 1970, we have developed over 125 communities and 8,500 homes for low-income families, seniors, including homeless families and individuals and those with supportive housing needs throughout the greater Bay Area. Committed local partners are essential to fulfil our mission, and the City of San Mateo is among the best.
Our four communities in San Mateo, including our most recent development, Kiku Crossing, represent the City’s commitment to build affordable housing. In 2018 the City selected MidPen from a pool of affordable and market rate developers to execute their vision for workforce housing at 480 East 4th Avenue. The City worked closely with MidPen in the following ways to maximize public benefit at this 225-unit affordable development, which will open in early 2024:
- Prioritized City land for development of 100% affordable housing. - Encouraged use of State density bonus legislation to build additional height and density beyond what was allowed under local code, resulting in 61 more units with no added parking. - Dedicated City staff to accelerate entitlement, permitting, and inspection processing, which shortened the project timeline thereby reducing escalation contingencies and interest rate risk. - Waived approximately $2,000,000 in City permit and plan check fees and deferred impact fee payment to permanent loan conversion, thereby saving an additional approximately $350,000. - Supported revisions from the initial City RFP that significantly reduced cost and time, specifically supporting off-site resident parking and shared public parking to reduce costs of required podium parking and allowing concurrent construction of two structures to reduce time and save more than $2,000,000.
The City’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) sets a goal of 7,015 units of production by 2031.
Approximately 40% of these units have a target of being affordable to residents making 80% of AMI and below.
To meet these goals, the City needs to utilize all tools at its disposal. Drawing from deep experience working with jurisdictions across the Bay Area on Housing Element Policy, MidPen published a guide on best practices. The City used many of these best practices at Kiku Crossing, such as fee waivers and deferrals, reduced parking requirements, and prioritizing public land for affordable housing.
Thank you for your commitment to affordable housing production. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at (650) 339-6181 or [email protected].
Sincerely,
Mollie Naber, Associate Director, MidPen Housing
Cc: City of San Mateo Housing Department, [email protected]
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 8:44 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: HAC Comments to San Mateo Housing Element (11-15-2023) Attachments: Ltr to City of San Mateo re HAC Comments to Housing Element (11-15-2023).pdf
From: Higley, CJ x4942
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 5:42 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: Mayhew, Tom x4948 Ali Sapirman
; Contreras, Daniel x4984
Subject: HAC Comments to San Mateo Housing Element (11-15-2023)
On behalf of our client, the Housing Action Coalition, attached please find comments to the updated draft of the Housing Element for the City of San Mateo.
CJ Higley
he/him
www.fbm.com
This email has been scanned for email related threats and delivered safely by Mimecast.
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THOMAS B. MAYHEW
CHARLES J. HIGLEY
November 16, 2023
Via E-Mail
City Council
City Planning Commission
Housing Manager, Planning Division
City of San Mateo
330 W. 20th Avenue
San Mateo, California 94403
E-Mail: [email protected]
Re: Housing Element for City of San Mateo 2023–2031
Draft for Public Comment dated November 8, 2023
Comments of Housing Action Coalition
Dear Planning Commission:
On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition,1 we write to comment on the November 8, 2023 draft 2023–2031 Housing Element for the City of San Mateo. In our earlier letter on August 9, 2023, we identified several issues that show that the new draft does not comply with state law, and is likely to be rejected by HCD, including overestimating realistic capacity, including sites without evidence that the existing uses are “likely to discontinue” during the planning period, and overestimating ADU production by ignoring the 2018 numbers.
Unfortunately, none of these issues were corrected in the November 2023 draft; we reiterate that they should be for a valid Housing Element.
This letter addresses one sub-issue where the draft did make some edits. When a city includes sites zoned for non-residential use (as most of the lower income sites on the San Mateo inventory are), the realistic capacity estimates should be reduced to account for the probability of a non-residential development. While the City has previously acknowledged this requirement, and twice been directed to incorporate the analysis by HCD, the current draft still does not do so.
1 The Housing Action Coalition is a nonprofit that advocates for building more homes at all levels of affordability to alleviate the Bay Area and California’s housing shortage, displacement, and affordability crisis. The Housing Action Coalition has commented on previous drafts of the 2023–2031 Housing Element for the City of San Mateo.
Housing Element
November 16, 2023
As explained in our August 9, 2023 letter, the City’s own adopted Housing Element showed that 25% of the acreage developed from 2017-2022, and 22% of the projects, were office or commercial projects. Thus, even if a typical residential project develops at 90% of the zoned maximum, the capacity estimate should be reduced by 25% to account for the probability of a site being developed for a non-residential use (if it is redeveloped at all). The current draft includes no adjustment to account for non-residential development.
Unlike the adopted Housing Element, the new draft simply omits the data, depriving the City Council and the public of the information used to calculate realistic capacities. The draft includes serious errors about the statistics:
The draft incorrectly claims at page H-32 that “90% of projects in the last six years located in commercial or mixed-use zones have included a residential component.” This is inaccurate. As table 5 from the adopted Housing Element in January 2023 shows, the actual statistic based on the City’s own prior data for 2017-2022 showed 78% of projects, and 75% of the acreage. Including the 2023 numbers shows that the real number is even lower.
The draft Appendix C, at page H-C-18, then tries to dodge these statistics by changing the time period. Instead of using 2017-2022 as the time period, it shortens the time period to 2019-October 2023, and claims that only 2 of 24 projects were non-residential.
Deliberately shortening the time period to omit major commercial and office projects (e.g., the August-November 2018 approvals of 2940 S. Norfolk, 1 Franklin Parkway, and 115 Monte Diablo) does not mean that there is no continued demand for non-residential uses in San Mateo; it means only that the City is trying to ignore this evidence of the demand.
Having changed the time period to include 2023, the draft fails to consider that non- residential projects continue to be applied for and built. In addition to 180 E. 3d (a retail office project approved in 2019), and 400 E. 5th (a five-level parking structure constructed at the same time as Kiku Crossing, both for the residents but also for 526 public spaces), the 222 E. 4th Street project (over 90% of the square footage for non- residential uses), and 303 Baldwin (over 60% of the square footage for non-residential uses) – four projects which show a continued demand for non-residential development in the City – there is other recent 2023 development application activity for non-residential uses that reinforces the point:
2164 Palm Avenue: a 2 story private tennis court building, approved June 13, 2023.
3125 Clearview Way: changing a parking lot into a food truck court, with seating and landscaping, approved February 8, 2022
Hillsdale Mall: convert 37,611 square feet of retail uses to office use, approved May 23, 2023.
Housing Element
November 16, 2023
1050 S. Amphlett: pre-application approved for 3 story self-storage building 922 S. Claremont: pre-application submitted for demolition of one-story building to build two story self-storage building.
2 West 3d/El Camino: A three-story office building proposed on a former gas station site.
In estimating whether the existing site inventory is adequate to meet the need for housing, the City cannot ignore that its zoning laws permit other non-residential uses, and there continues to be a demand for office and commercial uses of properties throughout the City. The City should perform the required analysis and reduce its estimates to account for the probability of non-residential development. It cannot realistically claim that the yield for mixed zoning sites will be 90% of the zoned maximum.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas B. Mayhew
Charles J. Higley
36615\16483918.2
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 8:44 AM
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Eloiza Murillo-Garcia
Subject: FW: San Mateo Revised Housing Element Letter
Attachments: San Mateo Revised Housing Element Letter 11.15.23.doc.pdf
From: Choua X. Vue On Behalf Of David D. Bohannon II
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 4:56 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia <[email protected]>; Mazarin Vakharia <[email protected]>; Planning Commission <[email protected]>; John Ebneter <[email protected]>; Seema Patel <[email protected]>; Adam Nugent <[email protected]>; Martin Wiggins <[email protected]>; Margaret Williams <[email protected]>; City Council (San Mateo) <[email protected]>; Rob Newsom <[email protected]>; Richard Hedges <[email protected]>; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Adam Loraine <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Amourence Lee <[email protected]>
Subject: San Mateo Revised Housing Element Letter
Good evening Zach,
Please see aƩached leƩer. Thank you!
David Bohannon
www.ddbo.com
This email and any attachments may contain material that is proprietary, confidential and/or privileged, and it is for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, retransmission, distribution, reproduction or other action taken in reliance upon this message by others is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately reply to the sender that you have received this communication in error and delete all copies. This communication constitutes an electronic communication within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510, et seq., and its disclosure is strictly limited to the recipient intended by the sender of this message.
November 15, 2023
[Sent via email: [email protected]]
Zach Dahl
Community Development
City of San Mateo
330 West 20th Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94403
Re: San Mateo Revised Housing Element Comments
Dear Zach and City staff:
On behalf of HSC Property Owner LLC, the owners of the Hillsdale Shopping Center and surrounding properties (Hillsdale Mall Site), we appreciate the opportunity to submit comments on the revised Housing Element, recently released on November 9, 2023.
As you may know, our team is actively monitoring the multiple long-range planning efforts occurring concurrently in the City to understand the City’s needs and goals so that the long-range planning and development efforts for the Hillsdale Shopping Center can evolve in alignment with the City’s long-term vision.
We previously commented on the inventory assumptions for the Hillsdale Mall Site on December 15, 2022 and appreciate the City’s willingness to modify the total unit count and affordable housing assumptions. However, we continue to have additional comments, as described below.
Moderate Income Assumptions
We object to the inclusion of 180 Moderate income units at the Hillsdale Mall Site. In the “Identification of Affordable Sites” section of the Housing Element, the discussion of the Hillsdale Mall identifies that a realistic capacity of 1,200 units has been estimated for this site, “with 15% of the units identified as affordable in accordance with the City’s Inclusionary Housing policy.” (HE, p. H.36) We previously reviewed 15% inclusionary housing language and were comfortable with the assumption.
We note that the inclusionary housing program requires 15% of rental units to be affordable to low income families.1 Further, while moderate income units are required for ownership projects (i.e. for sale units), there is no obligation to provide moderate income rental units. It follows that, according to the description in the Housing Element, the inventory assumption for the
1 City of San Mateo, Below Market Rate Housing Program, available at:
https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/3896/Developer-Resources
Hillsdale Mall Site should be 15% low income units (or 180 low income units out of 1,200 units).
The assumptions in the inventory, however, assume 180 low income units as well as 180 moderate income units, along with 840 above moderate units, for a total of 1,200 units. Our current development plans have considered the inclusion of low income and possibly very low income units, but we currently have no plans to include moderate income rental units and thus the assumption of 180 moderate income units for the site is not realistic, as required by state law for a housing element inventory.
We also note that the inclusion of moderate income units for the largest development site in the City appears to be a departure from the City’s methodology elsewhere. The discussion of “Distribution of Sites by Affordability” describes the City’s methodology (p. H-38):
For emphasis, we note that the above language provides that “[f]or large sites over 10 acres, the City applies only the inclusionary housing requirement (15%) for the lower income category.” In contrast, the Housing Element says that moderate income assumptions were applied to smaller units that are naturally affordable. It is, therefore, inconsistent to apply a 15% low income unit assumption plus a 15% moderate income unit assumption to the Hillsdale Mall Site, which is identified in the inventory as 32.68 acres. Again, we are planning for a robust affordable housing program to include low income and possibly very low income units, but the overall mix of affordable housing is to be determined and we are not currently planning for moderate income rental units. This is due, in part, to the lack of financing available for moderate income units.
Suggestion to Add Moderate Income ADUs
For the purpose of collaboration, we suggest that the 180 units allocated to the Hillsdale site are moved to other sites that are more likely to include naturally occuring moderate income housing.
One specific suggestion is to increase the assumption for moderate income accessory dwelling units (ADUs). We note that the Housing Element explains that the City has used conservative methodology with respect to ADU production (p. H-40):
Of the 440 units, the City expects 132 very low income units, 132 low income units, 132 moderate income units and 44 above moderate income units. (Housing Element Inventory, p. H- C-14)
HCD itself describes this as a “conservative” approach. (Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook2, p. 31) HCD further notes that “[s]ince 2017, the Legislature has passed a series of new laws that significantly increase the potential for development of new ADUs and JADUs by removing development barriers, allowing ADUs through ministerial permits, and requiring jurisdictions to include programs in their housing element that incentivize their development. As a result using trend analysis when estimating the potential for development may not accurately reflect the increased potential for these units.” Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook, p. 31) In addition, HCD suggests using trends from “regional production of ADUs.” Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook, p. 31)
Accordingly, given these conservative assumptions, we strongly suggest that more moderate income units are assumed as ADUs, rather than as part of the Hillsdale Mall site.
Inventory Assumption Corrections
We also request additional corrections to the following inventory assumptions:
• The Bohannon owned Ana Furniture site (Address: 3011 S El Camino Real; APN 039- 360-140) existing use is listed as parking, but the actual use is an existing, operating commercial building. The affordable assumption of 24 (40%) low income units plus 10 (16%) moderate income units as part of a total development capacity of 60 units, exceeds the inclusionary obligation of 15% low income.
• The Bohannon owned sites (Addresses: 3101 El Camino Real and 3111 El Camino Real; APNs: 039-360,140 and 039-360-070) also include an affordable assumption of 26 (41%) low income plus 11 (17%) moderate income units as a part of a total development capacity of 64 units that exceeds the inclusionary obligation of 15% low income. • The Michael's site (Address: 2955 S El Camino Real; APN 039-360-120) is listed as parking, but the acutal use is an existing, operating commercial building. The affordable assumption of 41 (39%) low income units plus 18 (30%) moderate income units as part of a total development capacity of 103 units, exceeds the inclusionary obligation of 15% low income.
2 HCD, Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook, available here: https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community- development/housing-element/docs/sites_inventory_memo_final06102020.pdf
• The Petsmart site (Address: 3520 S El Camino Real; APN 042-121-040) affordable assumption of 32 (39%) low income units plus 14 (17%) moderate income units as part of a total development capacity of 81 units, exceeds the inclusionary obligation of 15% low income.
A screenshot of these assumptions is provided below:
We formally request that these assumptions are corrected, particularly for those sites that are non-vacant, consistent with the methodology in Housing Element Inventory (Appendix C), Section 4.3 explaining that non-vacant sites must meet at least three citeria in order to be included in the inventory. Given that these sites are not vacant, that removes one of the criteria for inclusion in the inventory.
Conclusion
We recognize that the Housing Element Update is an extraordinarily difficult task. We thank you for your time and your consideration and your efforts on the revised Housing Element to date. At this stage, we strongly request that the moderate income units are reallocated from the Hillsdale Mall assumptions to another location where such units are more likely to be developed, such as ADUs, and that other inventory assumptions are corrected to reflect realistic redevelopment capacity.
Sincerely,
David Bohannon
Cc: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia ([email protected]) Mazarin Vakharia ([email protected])
Planning Commission ([email protected]) John Ebneter ([email protected])
Seema Patel ([email protected])
Adam Nugent ([email protected])
Martin Wiggins ([email protected])
Margaret Williams ([email protected])
City Council ([email protected])
Amourence Lee ([email protected])
Lisa Diaz Nash ([email protected])
Adam Loraine ([email protected])
Rob Newsom, Jr. ([email protected])
Rich Hedges ([email protected])
Kohar Kojayan ([email protected] )
Chelsea Maclean ([email protected])
Paul McDougall ([email protected])
1 Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
From: Housing
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 3:25 PM
To: Eloiza Murillo-Garcia; Nicholas "Nicky" Vu
Subject: FW: SCLP Comments on San Mateo Updated Housing Element Attachments: SCLP Letter to San Mateo Nov 16 2023.pdf
From: Dashiell Leeds
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2023 2:05 PM
To: [email protected]; Planning Commission <[email protected]>; Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: James Eggers ; Mike Ferreira ; Gladwyn D'Souza
; Gita Dev
Subject: SCLP Comments on San Mateo Updated Housing Element
Dear Mayor Lee and Members of the San Mateo City Council, Planning Commission, and City Staff,
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter's Sustainable Land Use Committee (SLU) advocates on land use issues in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Thank you for providing the opportunity for SLU to provide input on the November 9, 2023 Updated Housing Element. Please read the attached letter for our full comments.
Respectfully Submitted,
Gita Dev
Co-Chair, Sustainable Land Use Committee
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
email sent from account of:
Dashiell Leeds
Conservation Coordinator
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~
SAN MATEO, SANTA CLARA & SAN BENITO COUNTIES
November 16, 2023
City of San Mateo
330W 20th Ave
San Mateo, CA 94403
Subject: Comments on San Mateo Updated Housing Element
Dear Mayor Lee and Members of the San Mateo City Council, Planning Commission, and City Staff,
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter's Sustainable Land Use Committee (SLU) advocates on land use issues in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. Thank you for providing the opportunity for SLU to provide input on the November 9, 2023 Updated Housing Element (HE).
The updated HE has some important improvements (Fair housing on p. H-68 to H -75, clarification on p. H-93 of Action d on Policy H1-20). But some final adjustments will further strengthen this important HE with regards to encouraging more affordable housing and allowing for more greening of the city.
The HE assumes that the Land Use Designation High II is not going to be used 1. We have maintained that High II should be included in the HE, though only in limited areas and only near transit. Its higher density and height are good tools to increase affordable housing, as a required community benefit, and to do it in an environmentally positive way by requiring green open space on the site.
The need to add more housing, particularly affordable housing, is important to addressing environmental issues. As essential workers (e.g. teachers, nurses, service workers, etc.) on the Peninsula cannot afford to live here, they must commute from long distances to housing they can afford.
A key to addressing this problem is increasing housing density, particularly near transit, while requiring inclusionary affordable housing as a community benefit.
Allowing higher density is one way the HE can provide a financial incentive for more inclusionary affordable housing (e.g. as high as 20-33% of a project, if financially feasible), as noted in prior studies for San Mateo 2.
1 See pages H-31 and H-41. They state a maximum density of 130 du/ac (which is the High I maximum).
The High II maximum is 200 du/ac.
2 https://sanmateo.primegov.com/Portal/viewer?id=715&type=0
sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~
More green open space: The ability to allow higher buildings in the High II Land Use Designations, when combined with restricting lot coverage, is also an important tool for freeing up land area for greening the city.
The greening of the city has major environmental benefits as well as improving the quality of life for residents. Being allowed to go to higher building heights, when coupled with restricting lot coverage, is a way to create more open space, parks, bike paths, pedestrian walkways and green streets.
A good example of this was demonstrated in the recent scenarios put forward as part of the “Re-imagine Hillsdale” presentation of March 8,20233. The scenario that stayed with the current 5-story limit produced a design with very little open space and with the area facing the neighborhood on Edison Street being high and dense. However, the scenario that allowed heights up to 10 to 12 stories for buildings near the railroad and along El Camino Real (ECR) produced a design with a large amount of open space, parks, and a more compatible neighborhood design, with lower heights, along Edison Street. The higher height allowed, adjacent to the railroad and ECR, made it possible to lower heights near the existing neighborhood on Edison Street and to provide much more parks and open space for the entire community to enjoy.
We ask that you consider this information as you finalize the HE.
Respectfully submitted,
Gita Dev
Co-Chair, Sustainable Land Use Committee
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
3 https://vimeo.com/806539434/5bbfc4a1a9
From: Planning
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Linda Ly
Subject: FW: Housing Element questions
Date: Friday, January 19, 2024 4:32:04 PM
Attachments: image001.png
image003.png
image004.png
image005.png
image006.png
image007.png
image008.png
image002.png
Hello Nicky and Linda,
Please see and respond to email below.
Thank you
From:
Somer Smith <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2024 2:15 PM
To: Planning <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Housing Element questions
Hi,
This should be forwarded to someone on the Housing Element team. I believe Nicky Vu or Linda Ly should be able to respond.
Thanks,
Somer
Somer Smith, AICP (She/Her)
Associate Planner |
Community Development Department
330 W. 20th Ave., San Mateo, CA 94403
650-522-7214 | [email protected]
From:
Planning <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2024 2:01 PM
To: Somer Smith <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Housing Element questions
Hi Somer,
Please see and respond to email below.
From:
Borel Place
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2024 12:23 PM
To:
Planning <[email protected]>; General Plan <[email protected]> Subject: Housing Element questions
Hi,
I previously spoke with Mrs. Klein about some General Plan questions and her voicemail suggests she is no longer working for the city so I am looking for someone I can talk to.
I represent Borel Place Associates which owns and manages 1611 Borel Place, 1777 and 1650 Borel Place.
We
also own the land under 411 Borel Ave but we won't manage that building for several years due ot a land lease on that.
In reviewing the General Plan Housing Element Appendix C- Housing resources and sites inventory list, I discovered there appears to be a new set of requirements which will change what we may or may not do with our property.
Interestingly, we have 4 parcels and only 1 of those 4 will change, and that parcel is in the middle of the 4.
Is there someone I can set up a meeting to get a better understanding of what and how these changes will be imposed on the ownership of the parcel? Below is a screenshot of the page showing 1650 Borel Place being a site on the inventory list which is scheduled to change to have a minimum density requirement.
Thank you,
Alex Spence
( c
Borel Place Associates
Inline image
From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Zachary Dahl
Subject: FW: Housing Element Update
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2024 9:39:37 AM
From:
Ted McKinnon
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2024 4:43 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element Update
Hello,
My understanding is that the Housing Element for 2023-31 has been provisionally approved by HCD.
Is this
correct, and
if so, when will the confirming letter from HCD be available on the city website?
Please advise.
Thanks,
Ted McKinnon
Re: City of San Mateo Sixth Cycle Housing Element (2023- 2031)
Zachary Dahl, Interim Director of Community Development City of San Mateo
330 West 20th Ave
San Mateo, CA 94403
Mar 20, 2024
Dear Zachary Dahl,
Public Advocates and the Public Interest Law Project write to inquire into your current compliance with Housing Element Law for the sixth cycle. Based on information from the state Department of Housing and Community Development, it appears that the City of San Mateo has not yet adopted a legally compliant Housing Element update more than a year past the legally required deadline for doing so.
The housing element is an essential tool to ensure that communities are addressing the housing needs of all people, especially our most vulnerable neighbors. In order to plan for the production and preservation of affordable housing, communities must take deliberate steps to ensure there is adequate zoning, removing of regulatory barriers and targeting of resources. State law requires compliance with Housing Element requirements.
Public Advocates is a civil rights and economic justice law and advocacy organization.
Similarly, the Public Interest Law Project is a nonprofit California legal support center for public interest law programs advancing justice for low income communities and communities of color.
Our organizations have decades of experience litigating to enforce Housing Element Law to increase access to affordable and fair housing. We are committed in 2024 to ensuring jurisdictions come into compliance with Housing Element law. We request that you share a list of steps you intend to take to complete an adequate draft ready for adoption or update the existing plan so that it is in compliance with the law.
I. The City of San Mateo has failed to timely adopt a legally compliant Sixth Cycle Housing Element
Housing Element Law requires local governments in the Bay Area to adopt a legally compliant housing element to the City’s General Plan for the 2023-2031 Planning Period (Sixth Cycle) no later than January 31, 2023. (Gov. Code § § 65302, 65580 et seq.) As of Mar 20, 2024 the HCD Housing Element Compliance Dashboard indicates that the City of San Mateo has failed to adopt a legally compliant Housing Element.
There are many consequences of this failure to adopt a timely and compliant housing element update, including an obligation to complete any rezoning required to make sites available to satisfy their Regional Housing Needs Allocation by January 31, 2024. (Gov. Code § 65588(e)(4)(C)(i)).)
Failure to adopt a legally compliant Housing Element by the statutory deadline may also result in private or public enforcement in the Courts, and/or can result in so-called “builder’s remedy” projects under the Housing Accountability Act. (Gov. Code § 65589.5.) Further consequences of delaying the adoption of a housing element, may include court oversight.
II. The City of San Mateo’s failure to timely adopt a housing element harms individuals and groups considered to be protected classes and/or with special needs State Housing Element Law requires every jurisdiction to adopt a plan that will Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH). (Gov. Code sec. 8899.50; sec 65583(c)(10)). More than a rote administrative task, this requirement is designed to ensure that members of communities who have been historically prevented from accessing affordable, secure, healthy homes are given the opportunity to live in homes in the locations they want, surrounded by the communities they want. In order to accomplish this, each jurisdiction must analyze the factors and issues specific to that jurisdiction that have led to discrimination and inequitable housing access based on protected class. (See HCD’s AFFH Guidance Memo, pg. 9-10.) 55 In the context of Housing Element Law, local governments must adopt policies and programs designed to mitigate and undo the harms caused by housing discrimination and segregation based on race, disability, and other protected classes. These policies and programs must be designed to have an actual beneficial impact on the actual community members, and must include plans to expand housing opportunities for community members in protected classes and community members who have special housing needs. (Id. at pg 12-13.) Protected classes include race, immigration status, and disability status. Community members with special housing needs include, but are not limited to, the senior population, households with a single parent, community members who are currently or formerly unhoused, large families, and agricultural workers.
The nature and extent of the housing affordability crisis in California demands that each jurisdiction plan carefully to ensure that local housing policies are sufficient and appropriate for
55 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
low income communities, disinvested communities, communities that have been historically discriminated against, and communities with special needs. This includes production of affordable housing, preservation of housing already occupied by these communities, protection of renters, and addressing the needs of those who are unsheltered. Without careful planning, housing projects throughout the Bay Area tend towards developments that are unaffordable and inaccessible to these communities. (See HCD Housing Element Implementation APR Dashboard.)
56 The law requires jurisdictions to update Housing Elements every eight years for this reason–i.e., to ensure that every jurisdiction is putting careful thought into housing development, and guaranteeing that these communities will be welcomed, safe, comfortable, and stable in their homes. Without a properly updated, legally compliant housing element, the members of your community are at risk of displacement and discrimination. It is imperative that you adopt a legally compliant Housing Element as soon as possible.
III. Conclusion
We are confident that the City of San Mateo understands the importance of adopting a legally compliant housing element as quickly as possible to meet the needs of all people for a safe and stable home and to come into compliance with the law. Given that the January 31, 2023 deadline passed more than a year ago, however, we are concerned about the City of San Mateo’s progress.
We request that you share a list of steps you intend to take to complete an adequate draft ready for adoption. To assist with your response, we provide this Google Form. Your response may include information about steps you have taken in recent history towards Housing Element compliance–e.g. meetings with HCD regarding proposed updates, holding a planning commission study session, making edits in collaboration with community partners–or an outline of steps you plan to take and/or public meetings you plan to hold in the future. If you have any follow up questions or would prefer to respond over email, please direct them to:
[email protected] and [email protected].
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Skylar Spear, esq.
Legal Fellow, Public Advocates
56 Annual Progress Reports - Data Dashboard and Downloads | California Department of Housing and Community Development (See Housing Needs → Progress → 5th Cycle, showing that nearly 150% of the RHNA was met for housing affordable to those with above moderate incomes in the fifth cycle, as compared with 21%, 31%, and 56% for housing affordable to those with very low, low, and moderate incomes, respectively).
Tahirah Dean, esq.
Staff Attorney, Public Advocates
Craig Castellanet, esq.
Staff Attorney, Public Interest Law Project
From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Housing Element
Date: Friday, April 12, 2024 2:20:36 PM
!!
From:
Jerry Boyke
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2024 1:42 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element
What is preventing you from speaking or writing in a clear and direct fashion?
Is there a hiring
requirement in San Mateo that prohibits anyone with an IQ above 75 from being employed?
There is no university, to my knowledge, that offers a degree curriculum titled 'Housing Element'.
None of the retailers in this area sell 'housing elements'.
Why can't you speak clearly
and meaningfully?
The same applies to the State.
You all work for the same folks.
From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Housing Element
Date: Friday, April 12, 2024 8:10:38 AM
Attachments: image001.png
From:
[email protected]
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2024 7:08 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Housing Element
Hi,
Thanks for posting the current housing element. Could you point me to the explanation of the column headings from page H-C 22 and several following pages?
Thank you,
Dennis Keane
From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Date: Friday, April 12, 2024 1:22:09 PM
From:
[email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2024 12:58 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name Dennis
Last Name Keane
Email Address
Comment on 2023-2031
Draft Housing Element
I would be more enthusiastic about this vision of our city if we could get the development projects to include more than 10-12% "affordable" units. It makes all whining over the last couple of years about affordable housing seem pretty phony and not really much of a priority - not enough of a priority to mess with the profits involved, that is.
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From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Housing Element
Date: Friday, April 12, 2024 1:22:16 PM
From:
Tom Taber
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2024 11:18 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Taber
Subject: Housing Element
I am a long time home owner in San Mateo. I read the housing element and I have a few thoughts:
1) The cost of housing is a function of supply and demand. The best way to make housing more affordable is to greatly increase the supply. Requiring that developers build "affordable" (subsidized) housing decreases the incentives for developers to build. Housing construction won't happen unless it is profitable for developers to do so.
2) There are too many studio and one bedroom units being built. Those are ok for young singles, but families need 2 and 3 bedroom housing units. 3) We should encourage the construction of townhouses and condominiums that people can buy and build equity. People who own their residences have a greater investment in the city.
4) It is ridiculous to limit housing to only 55 feet close to downtown and near the three Caltrain stations. A measure should be put on the ballot to raise the height limit to at least 85 feet in those areas.
Thanks,
Tom Taber
From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: Fwd: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Date: Monday, April 15, 2024 8:09:31 AM
Sandra Belluomini
City of San Mateo
650-522-7239
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2024 5:28:07 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name Stephen
Last Name Howard Sarin
Email Address
Comment on 2023-
2031 Draft Housing
Element
Thank you all for the hard work of creating the Housing Element and getting it approved. It makes me proud of the
professionalism of our planning functions that San Mateo is able to become substantially compliant in a timely fashion. And I’m hopeful that a solid city plan plus market forces will produce many more new homes than required. Expanding San Mateo is good for everyone, and lowering the cost of housing through plentiful supply will be good for my children and future neighbors.
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From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Date: Monday, April 15, 2024 10:26:52 AM
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2024 9:52 AM
To:
Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name Suzanne
Last Name Flecker
Email Address
Comment on 2023-2031
Draft Housing Element
Issues are:
-Sights inventory was not adequately altered. Too much of the existing and previously failed listed sights will fail to produce the housing that San Mateo needs.
-Regarding affirmatively furthering fair housing, the city did not adequately examine the underlying causes of segregation and poverty. No meaningful methods of overcoming these past, present and serious issues have been addressed, created and included in the document.
-The city now suffers with some in the Baywood neighborhood seeking to be designated a Historical district.
-Since I believe this plan will fail to produce the necessary housing required to address the previously mentioned issues, I must also mention an overarching concern which is our climate.
If this plan is not successful, and if many other jurisdictions likewise fail to produce successful plans, we will only continue to exacerbate the Climate Crisis, speeding us to further climate disaster. Without our climate we are nothing. Please undertake a complete examination of the Housing Element with an eye towards making it functional. We cannot continue to kick the can
down the road any longer. Thank you for your most sincere attention to this very pressing matter.
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From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Date: Monday, April 15, 2024 10:27:03 AM
From:
[email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2024 9:43 AM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name Dennis
Last Name Keane
Email Address
Comment on 2023-2031
Draft Housing Element
re the Fish Market development site
What commitments/efforts will be made to keep Parkside Plaza buisnesses? Particularly the Smart and Final. Will development mean we lose these local services? Will we retain a local market?
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From: Housing
To: Nicholas "Nicky" Vu; Manira Sandhir
Subject: FW: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form Date: Monday, April 15, 2024 2:22:00 PM
From:
[email protected] <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2024 12:46 PM
To: Housing <[email protected]>
Subject: Online Form Submittal: Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element Comment Form
Draft Housing Element Feedback Form
Please share your comments regarding the Draft Housing Element.
Comment period for the draft document is April 6 through May 6, 2022.
First Name iraida
Last Name dayen
Email Address
Comment on 2023-2031
Draft Housing Element
City should have rent control, especially for seniors and invalids.
I`m 86 y/o
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