From: Adrian Covert
To: Candelaria, Christian
Cc: Lauren Fuhry
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comments Resilient City Zoning
Date: Tuesday, August 6, 2024 9:55:13 AM
Attachments: 08.06_ResilientCity.pdf
Greetings Christian,
Please see the attached comment letter from Santa Rosa YIMBY.
Best,
Adrian Covert
Santa Rosa, CA
415-519-9141
Attachment 7
August 7, 2024 Christian Candelaria City of Santa Rosa Planning Division 100 Santa Rosa Avenue Santa Rosa, CA 95404 RE: Resilient City Zoning Comments Dear Christian, On behalf of Santa Rosa YIMBY, an all-volunteer association of over 300 Santa Rosa residents dedicated to building Santa Rosa into an affordable, vibrant, and low-carbon place for all, I am happy to share the below comments and observations with regards to the proposed changes to the city!s Resilient City Zoning. Following preventative measures, perhaps no other factor weighs more heavily on a city!s resilience to climate-related disasters than its ability to quickly re-house displaced residents. Urgency matters. As the city!s own experience attests, if residents (particularly renters) cannot quickly find housing following a disaster they will permanently relocate. This depopulation harms the economic, civic, and cultural life of the city. A full recovery is not guaranteed. A Resilient City plan should therefore prioritize ensuring residents displaced by disaster can quickly and easily find housing. Santa Rosa is today in a housing shortage that has decreased affordability while contributing to homelessness, displacement, and longer commutes. Any mass-displacement event occurring under this backdrop will have more severe consequences than in an abundant housing scenario. The city should therefore continue making it easier to build housing, especially in walkable areas near services, jobs, and transit. In the near-term, the city!s resilience to disasters will largely depend on its ability to quickly, creatively, and flexibly build temporary housing. On this score the draft plan too often goes in the other direction, needlessly constraining and limiting the ability of property owners to build temporary housing in response to a disaster. Whatever negative aesthetic, traffic, or other impacts temporary housing may bring, they are temporary and cannot out-weigh the city!s responsibility to avoid the permanent damage to the city caused by another mass displacement event. Specific details are provided below. " B, 2-3: Temporary Housing permits following a disaster should be discretionary on all properties, not just those affected by a Hazard. Under the current draft, permits for temporary units are to be approved ministerially only on property #affected by a Hazard but which no longer contains damage, debris, or other hazardous materials resulting from a Hazard…once the Chief Building Official has determined that the parcel has been cleaned to be ready for construction pursuant to applicable requirements from the Building Division, Engineering Division, Fire Department, other applicable City Departments, and other
government agencies.” That process could take years, by which time workers displaced by a natural disaster will have been forced to leave the city. Urgency matters. The city must prioritize retaining residents following a natural disaster by allowing any property, not just those affected by the disaster, then cleaned, then inspected by a half-dozen local agencies, receive ministerial approval for temporary housing for displaced residents. " B, 4, d: Extensions of Temporary Use Permits should be discretionary, not altogether prohibited. According to this draft, Temporary Housing can only be inhabited for a maximum of three years. However, housing is notoriously difficult to build in California, even under the best market conditions. It could easily take Santa Rosa!s home building sector over three years to replace housing at scale following a large natural disaster striking during a market downturn. The guidance should allow for the possibility of extending habitation in temporary housing. " C, 2: The number of permitable temporary housing units shouldn!t be restricted by allowable density under the General Plan but should allow greater density. Rebounding from a natural disaster requires urgency and flexibility. Forcing temporary housing to adhere to the same density restrictions as permanent housing severely arbitrarily limits the ability of the city and its residents to creatively and quickly rebound to a natural disaster, weakening the city!s resilience. " C, 6: Temporary housing units should absolutely be exempted from meeting minimum parking requirements. " 20-36.040: The City of Santa Rosa should abolish minimum parking requirements where they still remain. Parking minimums are an antiquated, discredited, and illiberal 20th century land use policy that cities across the United States are abandoning. Santa Rosa itself abolished parking minimums in its Downtown Station Area years ago, and state legislation further extended the areas in 2023. Additional policies passed by the City Council, including the city’s Climate Emergency Resolution with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, and the city’s draft updated General Plan focuses on reducing vehicle miles travelled, are inconsistent with minimum parking requirements. We recommend abolishing parking minimums throughout the document and to instead propose parking maximums, especially in the downtown station area. Thank you for considering our views. Sincerely, Adrian Covert Local Lead Santa Rosa YIMBY
From: Calum Weeks
To: Candelaria, Christian
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comment on DRM Item #9.2
Date: Wednesday, August 14, 2024 4:07:08 PM
Attachments: 2024_0814_Comment on Resilient City Zoning Amendments.pdf Hi Christian -
I'm attaching a comment letter pertaining to the Resilient City Ordinance update taking place tomorrow at DRB. Thanks in advance for getting this on the record.
Cheers,
--
Calum (Cal) Weeks | Policy Director
(he/him
)
Generation Housing
760-799-4771 | 427 Mendocino Ave, Suite 100 | Santa Rosa, CA 95401 Did you read our open letter to the elected leaders of Sonoma County? Your voice has never been more important - sign the petition today! August7, 2024
ChristianCandelariaCityof SantaRosaPlanningDivision100SantaRosaAvenueSantaRosa, CA95404 RE: Resilient CityZoningAmendments
DearChristian:
Onbehalf of GenerationHousing, I offerthefollowingcommentsonthedraftResilientCityZoningOrdinancethataimstostrengthenourresilienceandabilitytoswiftlyrebuildfollowingnatural disasters.
Ourcentral concernatthistimepertainstotheparkingstandardsoutlinedinsection20-36.040of thedraftdocument. Aspartof ourHousingActionPlan,wehavecalledonall jurisdictionstoeliminateparkingminimumscitywide.Recently, thecityof Spokaneabolishedparkingmandatesaspartof aprogressiveurbanreformpackage. If theycandoit, wecanandshouldaswell. Spokanedoesn’tstandaloneeither- othercitiesbeforethemhavetakenstepstoabandonthispolicy, suchas: Sacramento(CA), Bend(OR),Birmingham(AL), Lexington(KY), MinneapolisandSt. Paul (MN), Lansing(KS),andmanyothers.
Parkingminimumsareanantiquatedlandusepolicyandmustberemovedfromthisdocumentandall otherzoningandplanningdocumentsthatguidedevelopmentinthecommunity. If wewishtobeintentional aboutoureffortstoreducevehiclemilestraveled, thenwemusttakeboldandimmediatestepsandeliminateparkingminimums. Asanalternativetoparkingminimums, considerinstitutingparkingmaximums. Thelion’sshareofjurisdictionsthathaveeliminatedparkingminimumschosethisasanalternativemeanstomanagetheirparking.
Weimploreyoutotakeactiononourrecommendations. It’simperativeweputtorestthisdiscreditedpolicyinfavorof otherstrategiesthathavedemonstratedefficacyacrossthenation.
Thankyouinadvanceforyourworkonthisdocument, andwelookforwardtocontinuingthisconversation.
Inpartnership,
JenKlose
ExecutiveDirector, GenerationHousing
From: sonya tafejian
To: Jones, Jessica; Oswald, Jesse; Candelaria, Christian Cc: Dan FITZPATRICK ATHA; Kevin Polk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Moveable Tiny Homes as ADUs - Zoom Mtg with Dan Fitzpatrick Invitation Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 10:43:09 AM
Attachments: Dan Fitzpartick Bio.pdf
Dan Generic definition additions any state ordinance(2).pdf Hi Jessica, Christian and Jesse,
Dan Fitzpatrick, President of The Tiny Home Industry Association, and I, would like to invite you to a Zoom meeting to update you on California's progress in regards to Moveable Tiny Homes (MTHs) as ADUs.
Dan has over 48 years of executive level management and administrative leadership experience in both the public and private sectors and he's a passionate supporter for development of opportunities to help meet the need for affordable housing. (See bio attached below.)
In the past few years, under Dan's guidance, huge steps forward have been taken by the state of CA regarding MTHs including:
- CA HCD has signed off on Moveable Tiny Homes as ADUs. The first step towards allowing MTHs as ADUs is for a city or county to adopt a new definition of MTHs which clearly differentiates Moveable Tiny Houses from traditional RVs. (Please see F. 1-5 of the attached Definition)
- Movable Tiny Homes can now be counted as housing units for RHNA as long as certain conditions are met - i.e. checking at a regular interval that they are still in place. This is huge because MTHs are now by far the least expensive way to add countable affordable housing units at little or no cost to the city.
Dan has a power point presentation which covers these and all of the current important issues and he can answer any questions that you may have.
The following cities have already successfully amended their code to allow Movable Tiny Homes as ADU's:
Los Angeles
Riverside
Fresno
Ojai
San Luis Obisbo
San Diego
San Jose
Oakland
Fort Bragg
South Lake Tahoe
California City
We would like to meet with you prior to the City Council taking up the renewal of the current Temp Code on Nov 14th, if at all possible.
Thank for taking an interest in this important housing issue.
Sincerely,
Dan Fitzpatrick
Sonya Tafejian
Daniel R. Fitzpatrick ([email protected]) Mr. Fitzpatrick is the President of the Tiny Home Industry Association and Director of Government Relations for the American Tiny House Association. He is a passionate supporter for development of opportunities for tiny homes and moveable tiny homes to meet the growing need for affordable and sustainable housing. Mr. Fitzpatrick has over 48 years of broad executive level management and administrative leadership experience in both public and private sector. Because of his government and developer experience, he has been successful in working with state and local governments to amend their planning and zoning laws to permit moveable tiny houses and tiny home communities. He has made numerous presentations to Planning Commissions, City Councils, Boards of Supervisors and state legislative committees throughout the United States. Recently, Dan put on a well-attended two day seminar in Colorado Springs covering all elements required for the planning and development of tiny home communities. Dan is the President of Pacific Pathways, LLC, with offices in the Fresno and San Francisco. The company and its partners, invests in a range of real estate projects throughout the West. The company also provides strategic services to public and private clients nationally. The projects range from land development and entitlement processing, through funding of commercial, apartment and single-family home projects. In his capacity as a developer, Mr. Fitzpatrick has completed numerous land development projects ranging from master planned communities to small lot infill developments. By way of example, Dan has completed the design and entitlements for a master planned community of 15,000 called Rio Mesa – which is located on the north side of Fresno along the San Joaquin River and a 400-acre planned lake community in the central valley of California. He has also completed city infill projects in on +/-10-acre properties for standard homes on small zero lot line lots -- sold and developed by national and regional homebuilders. Dan has served in the public sector as the: • Director of the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Fresno, where he was responsible for developing over a half-billion dollars of public-private partnership projects ranging from apartments, shopping centers, office buildings and medical center. • Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the County of Fresno • Assistant City Manager and Assistant County Administrator in Las Vegas (Clark County), Nevada overseeing the departments involved in Nevada’s phenomenal growth. Mr. Fitzpatrick holds a Masters in Government from Lehigh University and has lectured on government and planning issues at various colleges and universities.
Generic language to define a movable tiny home to clearly differentiate it from a conventional RV. “Movable tiny home,” is a transportable unit less than 400 square feet, exclusive of lofts, which is built on a single chassis and is designed to provide the separate, independent living quarters of one household for year-round residence with permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation when connected to utilities necessary for operation of installed fixtures and appliances. In addition, the movable tiny home must meet the following five conditions: 1. Is licensed and registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles and meets ANSI 119.5 requirements or the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1192 standards as inspected and certified by an accredited qualified third-party inspector for ANSI/NFPA compliance. 2. Is towable by a bumper hitch, frame-towing hitch, or fifth-wheel connection, and is not designed to move under its own power; 3. Is no larger than allowed by state statutes for movement on public highways; 4. Has at least 120 square feet of first floor interior living space; 5. Movable Tiny Houses must comply with all of the following provisions: A. When sited on a lot, the undercarriage (wheels, axles, tongue and hitch) shall be hidden from view. The wheels and leveling or support jacks must sit on a paving surface such as concrete or decomposed granite sufficient to hold the weight of unit on wheels and jacks. B. Foundation. If the wheels are removed so the unit may sit on a foundation, the foundation requirements for a Movable Tiny House shall follow requirements for foundation systems for manufactured housing, or follow an alternative design certified by a licensed engineer or municipal building inspection department. C. Mechanical equipment shall be incorporated into the structure and not located on the roof. D. Movable Tiny Houses shall be connected to water, sewer and electric utilities as required and permitted by the municipality; E. Movable Tiny Houses are shall follow the ANSI A119.5 or NFPA 1192 standards relating to health, fire and life-safety. F. Movable Tiny Houses shall have the following design elements: (1) A movable tiny home is designed and built so the exterior has the appearance of a conventional single-family dwelling unit, using conventional building materials, and is thus architecturally distinct from traditional mobile homes and recreational vehicles; (2) Windows and doors shall be residential grade and windows shall be at least double pane glass and labelled for building use, and shall include exterior trim; (3) includes insulation with values of at least R13 for the walls and R19 for floor and ceiling; (4) Electrical system that meets NFPA 70 NEC, section 551 or 552 as applicable; (5) Wall framing that studs are 16”-24” on center, with a minimum of 2X4 wood or metal studs or equivalent SIP panels;