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To:
City of St Helena Planning Commission
From:
Victor Carniglia, Planning Consultant
Date:
April 7, 2015 Planning Commission Meeting
Subject:
Agenda Item 5: Study Session to review and provide comments and
direction concerning the State required periodic Update to the City’s
Housing Element, consisting of an update to the City’s “Housing
Needs Assessment”, and an Update to the “Goals and Policies”
Document containing the “Eight Year Action Plan”
PROJECT BACKGROUND:
State Law requires that the City periodically update its Housing Element, typically every
five years. The City’s current Housing Element was last updated in 2009, and covered
the time frame 2009-2014. The time frame for this update is longer at eight years, and
runs from 2015-2023. The Housing Element itself consists of two separate but related
documents, namely 1) the “Housing Needs Assessment” and 2) the “Goals and Policies
Document”. Copies of these two documents were previously distributed to the Planning
Commission for the February 17, 2015 Commission meeting. Commissioners needing
additional hard copies of these documents should contact City staff.
The primary function of the “Housing Needs Assessment” is to provide the City with
relevant information on the City’s existing and projected need for housing, and to
identify potential sites within the City that would be appropriate for housing development
in order to meet the projected housing demand. In short, the “Housing Needs
Assessment” is primarily an information document. The “Goals and Policies
Document”, on the other hand, contains the specific goals, objectives, and implementing
actions the City has chosen to meet the City’s current and projected need for housing.
That need, as just noted, is quantified in the “Housing Needs Assessment”
On February 17, 2015 the Planning Commission provided comments on the draft
Housing Element to the City Council. Attached is a list (Attachment 1) of those
comments/direction to City Council from the Commission. The following is the overall
Housing Element update schedule:
Housing Element Update Schedule:
Study Session with Planning Commission
February 17, 2015
Study Session with City Council
February 24, 2015
Submittal to HCD for 60-day review
February 27, 2015
2nd Study Session with Planning Commission
April 7, 2015
HCD response letter due
April 27, 2015
Planning Commission Hearing on Housing Element Adoption
May 5, 2015
City Council Hearing on Housing Element Adoption
May 26, 2015
State Deadline for Cities to adopt Housing Element
May 31, 2015
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The two documents that form the Housing Element, the “Housing Needs Assessment”
and the “Goals and Policies” document, have already been identified and their intended
purpose described in the preceding section of this staff report. It is important for the
Commission to note that both documents are structured in “track changes” format. The
various changes made using “track changes” are compared against the text of the
current 2009-2014 Housing Element. Therefore, the red underlined text represents the
new wording proposed, while the red strikeout text represents the wording from the
current 2009-2014 Housing Element that is proposed to be replaced or deleted.
The following is a brief “guide” to facilitate the Commission’s review of the two attached
documents:
Housing Needs Assessment: This is by far the longer of the two documents,
consisting of almost 150 pages (the Goal/Policy document in comparison is 27 pages
long). As already noted, the Needs Assessment is primarily an information document
with a wide variety of facts and figures about the City’s population, existing housing
stock, approved housing projects etc. The primary focus of the Commission’s review of
this document should be on the accuracy of the information. Most of the changes to this
document reflect housing projects that have been built since the 2009 Housing Element
was prepared, or new more updated information, such as data from the 2010 Census.
One of the most important pieces of information in this document are what are referred
to as the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). These are the numbers of
housing units the State specifies need to be built in a given community. In St Helena
this RHNA number has gone down dramatically from 121 housing units in the 20092014 Housing Element, to a total of 31 housing units in the proposed Housing Element.
The inventory and analysis of housing sites is also an important component of the
Needs Assessment. These issues are addressed in pages 126 to 140 of the Needs
Assessment.
Goals and Policies Document: The various changes proposed in this document by
and large reflect 1) new information from when the 2009-2014 Housing Element was
prepared, 2) changes made to the City’s Zoning Ordinance related to housing since
2009, 3) and some changes/updates to Goals and Policies. The proposed
modifications to the Goals and Policies reflect the direction provided by community
members that attended the City’s Housing Workshop held in late April 2014. While the
focus of the Commission’s review of the Housing Needs Assessment is primarily on the
accuracy of information, the Commission’s review of the Goals and Policy document
needs to be much broader, and focus on such things as what should the City’s goals be
in relation to housing beyond meeting the required HCD RHNA numbers, and what
specific steps and implementation measures should the City undertake to achieve its
housing goals.
RECOMMENDATION;
Staff recommends that the Planning Commission hold this 2nd Study Session on the
Housing Element Update, and provide comments and suggestions to staff for further
consideration when the Planning Commission considers the Housing Element for
adoption on May 5, 2015.
Attachments:
A. Planning Commission comments on Housing Element to City Council
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To:
City Council
From:
Victor Carniglia, Planning Consultant
Date:
February 19, 2015
Subject:
Summary of Planning Commission Comments on the Draft Housing
Element Update from the Commission’s February 17, 2015 Study
Session
The following is a summary of the comments/recommendations made by Planning
Commissioners at the February 17, 2014 Study Session on the Housing Element
Update. The Commissions comments focused on the “Housing Element Goals and
Policies” document. In addition, there was discussion and direction concerning
whether two specific projects warranted inclusion as Housing Opportunity Sites, which
are addressed in the “Housing Element Needs Assessment”.
Housing Element Goals and Policies Document:
1. A general comment was made that the Commission considers the Draft Housing
Element as currently written contains the basics needed for a Housing Element, but
that additional work must be done before action can be taken on the Housing
Element. Chair Parker suggested that the Planning Commission hold another
Housing Element Study Session in late March during the State review period..
2. Policy FE1.3, page 8: Consider revising the word “ensure” and replacing it with a
word that more accurately describes the City’s role in developing affordable housing.
3. Program HE1.F, Page 9: Revise second sentence to read “Funding shall may be
done on a fair share proportions of the cost.”
4. Program HE1.I, page 10: Commissioner Monnette is concerned with rendering
affordable housing as “substandard” as a result of relaxing site development
standards. Recommends change fourth sentence as follows: “Such incentives may
include, but are not limited to, relaxing site development standards and extending
priority for water and sewer connections to such housing projects.”
5. Policy HE2.3, page 12” Revise as follows; “Be more aggressive in promoting
Promote mixed-use developments.”
6. General comment on second units, page 12: Enact a second unit program to tie
incentives, such as the existing FAR bonus for second units, to deed restrictions
requiring a specific level of affordability. The current Housing Element does not
distinguish between second units from income restricted second units.
7. Program HE2.H, page 13: Consider providing incentives, such as priority approval,
for commercial property owners that build on-site employee housing.
8. Program HE4.A, page 17: Change reference to “linkage fee” to “housing impact fee”
in conformance with SHMC Sec. 17.146.040.
9. Quantified Objective Summary Table, page 23: Add a sentence that says, “The City
will strive to exceed the following State required targets for affordable housing
development in St. Helena.”
Housing Needs Assessment Document:
1. The issue was raised whether the Adams Street property and the Hunter property
should be considered for inclusion in the map of “Key Opportunity Sites” (Figure 1,
pg 143)..