3- 22- 2Z
~ ~,~ P c ~A Rq c\
:o ~ ~ .
~ ii iii,~,~ ~
V ~I■, D
M~sstoN ~%
City Council
Meeting
Item 7 RTC 22-69
Patrick Henry Drive
Specific Plan
March 22, 2022
1 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Objectives ~ t.,.
General Plan Focus Area . .
accommodates future growth ~ .--~ e
of Santa Clara
Specific Plan establishes ~ - -
policies to support _
transformation of 62 acres of
i ndustrial use into new, urban, ~' ~ ~ - ~ 1
mixed -use neighborhood - ,. e -..:~ -~ :.~—_,
2 Zi-tm ~Z
~OS~' MEE`~IN~ MAT~Rrp~.. 1
Patrick Henry Specific Plan
July 1~, 2oi8 Consultant selection /contract approved including scope of objectives April 9, 2oi9 Reviewed proposed objectives for the Specific Plan and directed staff to proceed Dec io, 2oi9 Reviewed a detailed project description prior to the City's issuance of (NOP) for EIR Dec i~, 2oi9 Adopted a Resolution supporting the PHD area as one of six new ABAG/MTC PDAs.
April z8, zozo Accepted a proposed land use plan, land use designations, circulation plan, and parldand and open space plan for preparation for the plan EIR Dec i6, 202o Approved an expansion of the contract with MIG to expand the scope of analysis in the EIR to include a land plan without a Mission College roadway connection August 24, 2o2i Approved contract amendment to eacpand services on EIR, Traffic, & Se~~er Model Run April 2o, 2o2i Provided feedback at Study Session on more parldand; mobility options; affordability Dec i2, 2o2i Study Session review and input on Plan progress 3 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Land Use Plan —Proposed Development Capacity
Scenario A 12,000 ----- 310,000 SF
Scenario B 10,300 785,000 SF 310,000 SF
• Based on stakeholder input
• Pearlman/Rimy Site — 2 scenarios were evaluated in the project EIR 4 3
4 2
Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
5 Land Use Plan
"i ~~tudyArea
~ Foisting Parcel;.pry u 5:nla cl~,a}
Ezirtlny P:)rcel;s~~~ea f nr~~xl
~7F:Cr7 $pJGC
Very High C7ensity ResidQnti~l {51-~f dulac)
~ Urt~an ~Ilage X100.144 ~iufacJ
~ Urban Center (120-]50 du/acE
High pQnsity ilex (6L?-149 du/dC; 2,D FARE
Vllage REsidential (Cad-149 du/act
Potential Trail and Landscape L7edication
•Cuvepc~v7(o:at7on ofahrturc r4. Put~;Y paikm,WloNy roq~im~~yirn UhvrrCamr+~uniry Center ~ ms'dcntial Nc~sfaicmen[
_ — i i
~ _
r-- f
r ' -1 1
j
—~ -c~ ~ ~ - - ~ ~;
~'
~ - ~ I__~,_
`-------------~ --------~1._I
Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Parkland and Amenities
• Parkland is io.23 acres /
16.4 % of net site area
• Minimum open space is 22
of development area
• Trail connections
• Commercial "Main Street"
• Community room /art park
• Potential library /recreation
center
3 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Circulation and Mobility
7 [ _ ] Study Area
~ ~ Existing Parcel
(Gty of 5anw Clara
Existing Parcel(study nrra)
~ ParWOpen Space
~ ~ Existing Greenway
-_ ~ Proposed Greenway
! ~• Slow Street
Activity Nodes
Gateways
- Plaza
- Retail
_ Community /Civic
~ Flex (Office, Retail)
~ ~ Existing Roadway
E ~~ Proposed Roadway
Potential Roadway
~•••~ Alternatives
I
a
7 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Transportation Demand Management
• TDM program will require measures that reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled by 20% (10% from active measures)
• Will include the formation of a Transportation Management Association (TMA) that will help to organize and operate a shuttle between the PHD area and regional transit
— Other new development projects will be required to join, with the intent of making the TMA a more valuable regional service
— Trigger: Certificates of Occupancy for 3,30o PHD units issued, or 1,500 units if 5,00o units have been issued in C's of O North Santa Clara 8 s
[~
Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Planning Commission Recommendation
Approve per staff recommendation with the following changes:
1. Modify Affordable Housing Inclusionary Requirement
Existing: 15% of units to be affordable at 80% AMI
Proposed: 5% of units to be affordable at 50% AMI
5% of units to be affordable at 80% AMI
5% of units to be affordable at 120% AMI
2. Add clarifying language related to the Mission College connector
3. Add language encouraging use of a skilled &trained workforce 9 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan
Staff Recommendation
Approve per staff recommendation with the following changes:
1. Modify Affordable Housing Inclusionary Requirement
Existing: i5 % of units to be affordable at 80 % AMI
Proposed: 5% of units to be affordable at 50% AMI
5% of units to be affordable at 80% AMI
5% of units to be affordable at i2o% AMI
2. Add clarifying language related to the Mission College connector 1~
10 5
11 ~:
~ ~P C~ARq. ~P~ T ~9 .
•'~ ~~~•.
~ iiiiij ~~ o z
r ~ ,~-~ ..
yFM~ssioN c~
-~ ' .
City Council
Meeting
Item 7 RTC 22-69
Patrick Henry Drive
Specific Plan
March 22, 2022
D
tea. ~~aa
M elissa Lee
From: Dennis Martin <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2022 525 PM
To: Mayor and Council
Subject: Council Agenda 3.22.22 Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan Attachments: BIA_MayorGillmor_Council_PHDSP_3.2222.pdf
Dear Mayor Gillmor and Council Members;
Please accept and consider the attached letter of comment from BIA Bay Area regarding the Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan.
Thank you,
Dennis Martin
BIA Government Affairs
~ • BAY AREA
POST MEETING MATERIAL
~ ~ BAY AREA
M V i l U I N G I N U V 5 I H Y A! S O C I A 1 ~ U 4
1000 Burnett Avenue
Concord CA 94520
M arch 21, 2022
M ayor Lisa Gillmor
Santa City Councilmembers
City of Santa Clara
1500 Warburton Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95050
TRANSMITTED BY EMAIL
Re: Council Agenda 3.22.22, Item #7, Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan Dear Mayor Gillmor and Councilmembers,
The Building Industry Association of the Bay Area (BIA) writes to urge the City Council to adopt the Staff Recommendation of the Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan (PHDSP) Resolution and reject the Planning Commission recommended resolution. The Planning Commission recommendation to include a seventh principle to the PHDSP that would "encourage" the use of local hiring and wage standards violates law, is unenforceable, and would significantly contribute to higher costs of housing development.
Prevailing wages laws have traditionally required that workers building government-funded construction projects be paid specified prevailing wage rates, but privately financed market rate housing, with very few exceptions, has not been subject to prevailing wage requirements. In the few places where these stipulations have been enacted, the negative effects on the production of housing have been made abundantly clear. A burgeoning body of evidence finds a significant relationship between prevailing wage requirements and higher costs of housing production.
Union Requests Prevailing Wage and Local Hire
At the January 26,2022 Planning Commission PHDSP hearing, building trades union representatives and members persistently promoted the notion that the PHDSP should be amended to "encourage" prevailing wage standards and local hire principles during the Plan's build out. A letter from Dylan Boldt, President of IBEW Local 332, SMART Local 104, UA Plumbers Union Local 393, and Sprinkler Fitters Local 483, included specific language on wages and hiring that he demanded be amended in the Plan's Goals and Principles. Appallingly, the Planning Commission adopted the union's language word-for-word in its recommendation to the City Council.
City Attorney Recommends Denial of Union Request
In lengthy comments during the 1.26.22 PC hearing, City of Santa Clara Attorney Xander Abbe strongly advised denial of the union request to include the so-called seventh principle of prevailing wage and local hire.
January 26, 2022 City of Santa Clara Planning Commission hearing transcript:
Abbe: We heard quite a few comments from people advocating the insertion of language to encourage private developers to use a skilled and trained workforce. On this I hate to be the wet blanket, but I need to put the brakes on this little bit.
1... advise you that the National Labor Relations Act preempts the city from requiring the use of the skilled and trained workforce or unionized labor or prevailing wages. The city acts as a regulator, we do not have the legal authority to require this. We cannot make it into our specific plan.
The union doesn't go quite as far as that They are asking for language to encourage the use of a skilled and trained workforce. eut the lawyer in me gets very nervous with the word encourage, because again, we do not have any legal authority to require this, so how exactly do we encourage it if we cannot require it? Plus, as you heard me say earlier to Commissioner Jurek, much of this will be subject, will be limited to objective standards. We have this somewhat ambiguous requirement to encourage the use of the trained and skilled workforce. 1 don't think that would be consistent with the laws that require us to only use objective standards.
Would we be able to deny a project that doesn't respond to that encouragement? And putting it into our specific plan is a real interpretation problem. The city doesn't apply enough pressure to encourage, has the city violated the policy? And will a future City Council read encouraged as to require something that we know at the outset is outside our authority? My recommendation is not to adopt the proposed lanpuage about encouraginp the use of skilled and trained workforce.
The City Attorney's last paragraph is a I<ey point. The City is prohibited from imposing subjective standards on housing development per the Housing Accountability Act. How is this "principle" to be enforced? We only have to lool<to a recent housing project in a neighboring city to learn the Unions' strategy: demand that the Council apply a condition of approval that would require prevailing wage and local hire on housing projects.
On February 8, 2022 the Mountain View City Council conducted a hearing for 555 W.
Middlefield Rd, a housing project. The Project has been under review for nearly 6 years. But at the Planning Commission and Council hearings on the Project, union representatives demanded that the City condition the Project approval by requiring certain promises to labor, including prevailing wage and local hire.
Prevailing Wage/Local Hire Provisions Increase Cost of Construction by 37% or More Ina 2017 study for the California Homebuilding Foundation, Blue SI<y Consulting Group found that setting expectations for prevailing wage has a powerful impact on the cost of housing:
While the differences vary by occupation and county, our analysis indicates that the prevailing wage rates for residential construction workers are generally much higher than the corresponding market wage rates. Overall, we estimate that requiring prevailing wage rates for privately financed residential construction would result in an increase in total hourly rates that range from a low of 39% for electricians up to a high of 116% for construction laborers. Overall, we estimate that hourly labor costs for residential construction statewide would be on average 89% higher if builders were required to pay prevailing wage rates for all residential construction projects.
Labor currently accounts for approximately 41°0 of the construction costs for a typical single family home in California. Assuming no changes in the use of labor, the estimated 89°o increase in hourly labor costs would result in a 37% increase in total construction costs.
M easure JJJ Impacts the Cost of Residential Development in Los Angeles by as much as 45% In 2016, voters in the City of Los Angeles passed Measure JJJ, a ballot initiative that included a mandate to pay prevailing wage. Beacon Economics in awell-regarded study of the measure estimated a 45.8% increase in a project's total cost from increasing labor costs of Measure JJJ. A 2019 evaluation of the impacts of Measure 1JJ by LA Plus and the University of California Beri<eley found a precipitous decline in the number of homes proposed in applications after prevailing wage and affordable housing requirements in the measure were enacted:
After Measure JJJ passed, there was a decline in new housing units applied for, measured on aper-quarter basis. Our data from Q1 2014 to part way through Q3 2018 shows an
11.3 percent decline. Data collected by the Department of City Planning with a shorter timeframe of Q1 2015 to Q3 2018 and a somewhat different count methodology shows a larger,
35.6 percent per-quarter decline. Even if we use our more conservative count, this decline is troubling because too few homes have been proposed, permitted and built both before and after Measure JJJ.
Overwhelming evidence points to the imposition of wage and local hire standards drastically increases the cost of housing development and forcing more projects into infeasibility.
Objective Design and Development Standards Required in State Law The adoption ofthe so-called PHDSP seventh principle is in conflict with State law as clearly explained by City Attorney Abbe. As of January 1, 2020, Housing Accountability Act provisions enacted in SB 330 prohibit affected cities or counties from imposing or enforcing subjective design standards on housing developments where housing is an allowable use. Objective standards are limited to design standards that involve no personal or subjective judgment by a public official.
Constraint to Nousing
Another drawback of adopting the "seventh principle" has to do with the Housing Element. The City has been tasked with planning and zoning for 11,739 residential units, many of which likely will be sited in the PHDSP. Should the Council adopt the "seventh principle" to the PHDSP, it
may constitute a constraint to housing and potentially affect the certification of the City's Housing Element. Constraints are factors that impact the feasibility, costs, and timelines of housing projects, which in turn affect the City's ability to meet the housing needs of all its residents and to affirmatively further fair housing goals. Encouraging prevailing wage and local hire are plainly actions that would impact feasibility, costs, timing and other factors of housing production.
In closing, BIA urges the Council to heed the admonitions of its own City Attorney and ignore the fallacious recommendations of union representatives and the Planning Commission. Do not adopt prevailing wage and local hire provisions in the Patrick Henry Drive Specific Plan, or in any other planning documents for that matter. A seventh principle to the PHDSP that would "encourage" the use of local hiring and prevailing wage standards violates law, is unenforceable, and would significantly contribute to the higher cost of housing development.
Despite the COVID 19 pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown, Silicon Valley still faces a housing crisis and the construction of new housing is in the vital interests of the City. BIA is looking forward to finding solutions to the housing shortage that are fair and reasonable for both the City and the home building industry. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments.
Very truly yours,
1~e~w:~ Mme•
Dennis Martin
BIA Government Affairs