CITY OF SAN PABLO
Community Development / Planning Services
1000 Gateway Avenue ● San Pablo, CA 94806
Main: 510-215-3030 ● Fax: 510-215-3014
www.SanPabloCA.gov
M E M O R A N D U M
Date: February 14, 2023
To: Matt Rodriguez, City Manager
From: Libby Tyler, Community Development Director
RE: Housing Element Certification Process and Schedule
______________________________________________________________________
This memorandum provides an update on the San Pablo Housing Element update completion and certification schedule.
Background
The General Plan is a state- required long-range policy document that provides guidance to decision makers regarding the allocation of resources, and the future physical form and character of development for cities. San Pablo’s General Plan was last comprehensively updated in 2011 by the Oakland- based consulting firm of Dyett & Bhatia The Housing Element is an element of the General Plan that is required by the State of California to be updated periodically on an eight-year cycle in association with the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process .
The current Housing Element was last updated in 2015 with the assistance of the Berkeley-based firm of Baird + Driskell. The due date for completion of the next cycle Housing Element update for all Bay Area communities was January 31, 2023.
Following the successful procurement of a series of competitive state and regional grants to fund the necessary work during 2019 and 2020, and COVID -related delays in obtaining the funding, the City began its substantive work on an update to its General Plan and the next cycle Housing Element on March 15, 2021 with the City Council’s adoption of Res olution 2021-025 accepting grant funds and authorizing the City Mana ger to enter into an agreement with Dyett & Bhatia for necessary planning services. Concurrent work on the General Plan Update and Housing Element has proceed ed continuously and has resulted in numerous background documents, public outreach efforts and updates to the Planning Commission and City Council.
2 The City met the statutory deadline to provide a first D raft 2023-2031 Housing Element update to the California Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) by September 30, 2022. The first Draft Housing Element was made available on the City’s website on August 19, 2022 at :
https://www.sanpabloca.gov/2804/General-Plan-Housing-Element-Update and was available for the required 30 day public review period from August 19, 20 22 to September 19, 2022. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on the draft on August 30, 2022 and the City Council held a public hearing on September 19, 2022. The first submittal Draft Housing Element was submitted to HCD for review on September 30, 2022.
State law allows the HCD up to 90 days to review the City’s first draft submittal.
The HCD review letter was dated December 27, 2022 and received by the City on January 3, 2023. This letter notes that the City has complied with many of the statutory requirements for the Housing Element, but requests additional analysis and information n eeded to fully comply with State Housing Element Law . These requests are document ed in an 11 -page appendix with more than 60 separate items that the City must address in a resubmittal to HCD before HCD will certify the updated Housing Element.
City and consultant staff participated in a scheduled consultation with the assigned HCD reviewer on January 18, 2023. We discussed the comments with the reviewer to gain a more complete understanding of what HCD is looking for in the revisions.
The HCD reviewer agreed to allow the City and Consultant to meet with him periodically to conduct brief interim reviews of the City’s specific proposed responses prior the City submitting a full second draft for HCD review. The goal and the expectation are that with this approach, the City should be able to have its Second Draft submittal be delivered to HCD in a form that HCD determines is compliant and certifiable.
For any subsequent drafts, the City must post the revision on the City’s website and notify interested parties at least seven days prior to the City’s submittal of the draft to HCD. Once submitted, the HCD will have 60 days to review the second (or any subsequent) draft and provide additional comments and requests for revisions. Additional public hearings and public comments shall also be provided.
Once HCD has provided the City with a letter stating that the Housing Element substantially complies with state law, it may be considered for adoption by the City Council. Thereafter, staff would submit the adopted Housing Element to HCD for a final review and certification to occur within 90 days.
Approach
In order to expedite the revisions to the Draft Housing Element, City staff proposes a revised approach to the larger General Plan/Housing Element update project to help keep efforts focused on the Housing Element revisions and other statutorily required updates . This approach breaks the City’s General Plan updates and implementation into three phases as follows:
3 • Phase I – Housing Element, Environmental Justice Element, and minor necessary text amendment to Safety Element. For CEQA compliance, an Addendum to the previously prepared General Plan EIR is anticipated to be prepared for this phase. • Phase II - Land Use Elemen t, other updates to the General Plan, and Rumrill Corridor Plan. For CEQA compliance, a second environmental Addendum is anticipated to be prepared.
• Phase III - Amendments to zoning ordinance, zoning maps, and other implementation actions to occur to implement the General Plan update described above. This phase is anticipated to be completed largely by City of San Pablo staff, rather than the consultant team. [Note, the first draft Housing Element contains 56 implementation programs and additional programs will need to be added for the second draft].
Anticipated Schedule
Due to the extent of the revisions to the Draft Housing Element requested by HCD, the City’s desire to bring the document into full compliance so that it can effectively guide housing development over the eight -year planning horizon, and the mandatory public and HCD review process, it is anticipated that the revisions and adoption schedule for Phase I will require an additional six to seven months of dedicated work. An anticipated schedule follows:
Phase I:
Jan 15 – April 5: Staff and D&B to prepare revisions to Housing Element, conduct necessary outreach for Environmental Justice Element
April 5: Release revised Draft Housing Element for 7-day public review/comment period April 14: Resubmit revised draft Housing Element to HCD for review (up to 60-day review)
May 5 – Consultant submits administrative draft Public Health/Environmental Justice Element to City for review
May 17 – Consultant submits administrative draft CEQA Addendum to City for review June 16 (or before): HCD completes review of Housing Element June 27 (or special meeting) – Planning Commission Hearing on revised Housing Element/Environmental Justice Element
July 17 (or special meeting) – City Council Hearing and adoption of Housing/Environmental Justice Element
July – August TBD: City Council Housing Policy Workshop
Phase II:
May – December 2023
Phase III:
July 2023 – June 2024
4 Implications
Although the City met the initial submittal deadline of September 30, 2022, due to the extent of the HCD revisions on the first draft and the required subsequent HCD and public review timelines, the City was not able to meet the statutory deadline of January 31, 2023 to have a certified Housing Element adopted by the City Council.
The City is not alone. Of the 109 Bay Area jurisdictions in the current review cycle, just four have adopted housi ng elements that have been identified as compliant with state law by HCD (Alameda, Emeryville, San Leandro, and San Francisco).
There are about 27 other Bay Area jurisdictions that submitted their first draft and are working on revisions. Others are wait ing for review by HCD for first or subsequent drafts, or have not yet submitted their first draft.
Not being in compliance with the January 31, 202 3 deadline for adopting an updated Housing Element has created some implications for the City.
First, a jurisdiction that did not meet the January 31 deadline has a shorter timeline (one year rather than three years) to complete any required rezoning to accommodate the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). However, this is not an issue for San Pablo since no additional zoning map changes are needed to provide the required housing capacity anticipated by the RHNA allocation.
Second, not having an adopted compliant Housing Element by the statutory deadline can result in a loss of grant funding and grant funding opportunities until the City adopts a compliant Housing Element . For example, the City’s access to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), Caltrans Sustainable Communities grants (e.g., SB 1), Strategic Growth Council and HCD’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities programs, and HCD’s Permanent Local Housing Allocation may be impacted. The City’s internal grants team is investigating whether this impacts any existing grants or upcoming grant opportunities. No immediate concerns have been flagged, but the sooner the City can become in compliance, the better it will be for our future grant efforts.
Third, other financial penalties and potentially judicial interference can occur if a city’s Housing Element remains out of compliance. The law authorizes courts to impose significant fines if a city fails to return a compliant Housing Element.
However, San Pablo’s continued proactive, good faith efforts and cooperative approach with HCD are intended to eliminate these risks as it appears unlikely that the Attorney General will target cities actively working with HCD to come into compliance.
Fourth, the a city that has not adopted a compliant Housing Element by the statutory deadline could be subject to the “Builder’s Remedy” and a resulting loss of local land use authority. Under this scenario, the city may be prohibited from denying certain Housing Accountability Act projects (i.e., those with 20% affordable low-income units or 100% moderate-income units) if it does not have a compliant Housing Element and developers can assert what has become known as the “Builders Remedy” to bypass local planning approval. 5 Although such claims are being made in other local communities, this approach is unlikely to occur in San Pablo. San P ablo has made extraordinary efforts to support and to approve affordable housing projects proposed in the City. The City does not have a protracted planning review process and City staff work s hard to bring projects forward that advance the City’s housing goals, using such measures as creative density bonus provisions and making use of the City’s remaining successor agency properties and funding sources.
Housing Production Progress
Recent examples of the City’s progress in advancing housing production, and affordable housing in particular, include 68 units of permanent supportive housing units at 2555 El Portal (under construction), 100 units of affordable housing at Alvarado Gardens on the old City Hall site (50 units in plan check), 19 very low, low, and moderate-income units in a 91-unit mixed use project at 13717 San Pablo Avenue (“Block C”, in plan check), and 6 very low income units of a 64-unit multi- family project at 2364 Road 20 (recently entitled). Other projects include issuance of a Conditional Use Permit to allow conversion of a senior assisted living facility to a step- down mental health facility to facilitate transition of residents back to permanent housing (in operation with over 130 residents), and approval of 20 single-family townhouse lots, including one affordable unit and 8 accessory dwelling units at 2812 Chattleton Lane (“Block E”). Upcoming projects include 45 affordable units at 1820 Rumrill Boulevard and a proposed supportive housing project on Church Lane. In addition, the City has approved and/or legalized dozens of accessory dwelling units since adoption of an updated ADU ordinance in early 2020.
The Annual Progress Report for RHNA will be presented to City Council on March 20, 2023 and will provide further details on the City’s housing production efforts.