Featured in this issue:
- Colleagues’ Memo seeks renewed focus on affordable housing strategies.
- Remember the Stanford GUP? It’s coming back.
- Get Up To Speed on process changes for grade separation planning; neighborhood self-funding to maintain underground utilities; PTC reactions to housing proposal at 788 San Antonio; and HRB comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for Castilleja’s redesign.
Colleagues’ Memo seeks renewed focus on affordable housing strategies
The city’s ambitious Housing Work Plan was approved to great fanfare in 2018. It outlined a balanced array of strategies designed to address housing production, affordability, and preservation. But key opportunities for the city to expand BMR supply and preserve existing, naturally more affordable units remain untapped.
First year policy changes pursuant to the HWP created new potential for significant growth in market rate, multifamily housing units and enabled approval of the Wilton Court project, a 59-unit, 100 percent affordable housing development in the Ventura neighborhood. However, Palo Alto still needs well over 1,000 new affordable units by 2023 to meet state mandated housing targets and inaction on housing preservation left the city with little recourse when faced with the conversion of the 75-unit President Hotel Apartments to hotel use. Since January 2019, the public has seen little action to move the remainder of the work plan forward.
On September 23, City Council will consider a Colleagues’ Memo by Councilmembers DuBois and Kou asking council to prioritize outstanding HWP affordable housing items as well as additional strategies to “produce affordability within the extremely low (0-30 percent Area Median Income), very low (31-50 percent AMI), and low (51-80 percent AMI) income limits.”
The Colleagues’ Memo calls for urgent action to:
- Implement the “Palmer Fix,” a recent state law restoring the authority of local governments to require new multi-family rental housing to include a minimum percentage of Below Market Rate units (current city law only requires for-sale projects to include BMR housing). (HWP item 3.1)
- Increase development impact fees to $64 per square foot for commercial projects. Santa Clara County recently adopted the same fee for commercial development at Stanford, based on a nexus study showing that the public cost to meet housing demand created by commercial growth in the area far exceeds that amount.
In addition to seeking action “as soon as possible” on those items, the memo asks council to:
- Explore a “no net loss” policy when housing is redeveloped. (HWP item 3.3) The memo suggests considering an in-lieu fee or off-site replacement requirement if existing units are removed.
- Explore protections for existing, naturally more affordable housing types such as cottage clusters and duplexes in low-density zones (HWP item 2.9) in order to preserve both “missing middle housing” and transitions between low and higher density zones.
- Ensure that when mixed-use projects (mix of commercial, residential and/or retail use) are awarded density bonuses (typically extra floor area) the bonus is applied to the housing portion of the project to the extent legally permissible.
- Explore citywide regulations to prevent conversion of existing housing to commercial/hotel use.
Staff indicates that a study of the Palmer Fix and possible adjustment of the city’s current inclusionary rate is currently underway and will be presented to the Planning and Transportation Commission in October, with possible council action on a new ordinance early next year. For all the other items, however, staff expects significant additional work would be required.
Market-rate housing production on pace, but affordable units lag far behind regional requirements
Since adoption of Palo Alto’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan Update, we often hear about the city’s goal of producing an average of 300 new housing units a year for the period 2015-2030. To meet the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, or RHNA requirements, set by the Association of Bay Area Governments, we need a total of 1,988 new units during the period 2015-2023. With only five years left in the plan horizon, that translates to an average of 308 new units per year from here on out. But those overall targets don’t tell the whole story. Built into the 1,988 total are specific targets for multiple levels of affordability.
What we don’t hear much about is that a full 70 percent of that mandated 1,988 total must be new Below Market Rate units.
According to the 2018 Housing Work Plan, the city anticipates exceeding the RHNA mandated target for the above moderate income category (serving households earning more than 120 percent of Area Median Income). The city’s 2018 progress report to the state bears that out, showing that more than half of the required above moderate income units were permitted in the first four years of the nine year RHNA planning horizon. If the recent annual average of 76 market rate units per year continues through 2023, Palo Alto will exceed its required market rate target by 97 units.
The first year of the city’s ambitious two-year Housing Work Plan saw intensive policy action to spur new housing by loosening zoning standards to allow significantly greater density and floor area, make housing projects more profitable through parking and design flexibility, and streamline approvals by reining in the public review process. But those development incentives are likely to overwhelmingly benefit market rate rather than affordable projects.
Meanwhile, we are and have historically been WAY behind in meeting required targets for Below Market Rate housing. According to the Housing Work Plan, during the period from 1998 through 2017, only 24 percent of approved new units qualified as affordable. To meet RHNA targets for units accessible to people earning up to 80 percent of the Area Median Income, the city will need an additional 1,022 subsidized units between now and 2023. Add in the moderate income category (81-120 percent of AMI) and the total affordable units still needed jumps to 1,258 — 82 percent of the city’s entire remaining RHNA obligation.
New Affordable Housing district unlikely to build sufficient supply
The principle affordability effort of the Housing Work Plan to date was the creation of an Affordable Housing overlay making special development incentives available to housing projects with 100 percent of units serving people earning up to 120 percent of AMI. Designed to accommodate a specific project, the overlay paved the way for the January 2019 approval of a 59-unit, 100 percent affordable project near Wilton Avenue in the Ventura neighborhood.
As important as that project is, it represents a mere drop in the bucket toward our 1,258 unit affordable housing deficit. Furthermore, given Palo Alto’s land costs, such projects are few and far between. If the city hopes to make meaningful progress toward affordable housing targets, it’ll need several more of these AND an expanded toolkit.
State and local development incentives create urgent opportunity
What is the Palmer Fix?
For many years Palo Alto required inclusion of BMR units in both for-sale and rental housing projects, but in 2009 a California Court of Appeals in the “Palmer” case struck down a Los Angeles inclusionary rule, thereafter forbidding local governments from imposing inclusionary requirements on rental housing. The inability to condition development entitlements on inclusion of a limited number of BMR units has contributed to a decline in BMR production in communities across the state.
Following a failed legislative attempt in 2013 to reverse the Palmer rule, a 2015 State Supreme Court decision regarding a San Jose inclusionary law paved the way for the 2017 enactment of AB 1505, a State law explicitly authorizing local inclusionary rules for rental housing projects. That law became known as the “Palmer Fix” and since 2017 affordable housing advocates across the state have encouraged local governments to implement it.
Time is of the essence to implement the Palmer Fix
This year’s passage of substantial new state and local development incentives designed to spur market rate, multifamily housing production could lead to thousands of new market rate housing units in Palo Alto in the coming years. But because the city’s current inclusionary requirements only apply to certain for-sale units, that market rate growth won’t produce as many Below Market Rate units as it could.
The Housing Work Plan called for an economic study in mid-2018 of the impacts of a Palmer Fix at various inclusionary rates, and for council action at the end of last year. Yet the study, which also explores possible adjustments to the city’s existing inclusionary rate of 15 percent, remains incomplete and staff doesn’t expect an ordinance to go to council until early next year. Every market rate rental project approved while city action on the Palmer Fix is delayed could represent a lost opportunity to expand BMR housing in the city.
Will recent action by Santa Clara County spur Palo Alto to raise commercial development impact fees?
Palo Alto, like most cities, imposes affordable housing impact fees on commercial development to offset some of the public cost of meeting the BMR demand created by a new commercial project. In 2017, Palo Alto’s commercial impact fees became a source of significant controversy. Supported by a nexus study showing that impact fees could be justified at up to $264 per square foot, the previous council had voted to raise the fees imposed on office and research and development projects from $20.37 to $60 per square foot. By the time the ordinance came up for a second reading, however, a new council majority had taken over. Under the new leadership, council reversed course, lowering the affordable housing fees to $35/sf.
In order to inform its decision on Stanford’s General Use Permit Application, Santa Clara County commissioned a nexus study in 2018 to understand the public cost of meeting affordable housing demand created by Stanford growth. The nexus study revealed that the public cost far exceeded the $36.22 per square foot impact fee the county then charged the university. County staff recommended raising the fee to $143.10/sf, but the Board of Supervisors opted for a more moderate increase to $68.50/sf. In addition the County Planning Commission conditioned its recommendation for approval of the Stanford GUP on a requirement that Stanford itself build at least 2,172 new housing units (not counting student beds) on campus.
Although the council’s political dynamics have not changed significantly since 2017, the county’s recent research and action may make the council more inclined to consider a higher fee.
Council discussion of the Colleagues’ Memo is scheduled to begin at 9:30 pm on Monday, September 23.
Remember the Stanford GUP? It’s coming back.
Stanford’s application for a General Use Permit for add 3.5 million square feet of new development will take center stage again this fall as the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors begins final deliberations. On June 27, 2019, the county Planning Commission rejected Stanford’s bid for a Development Agreement that would credit the university for housing that is existing or already in the pipeline. Instead they recommended conditioned approval of Stanford’s expansion based on Alternative A from the Environmental Impact Report, which would require Stanford to build a minimum of 2,172 new units of housing (not counting student beds) – far exceeding the 550 new units proposed in Stanford’s application. 70 percent of the units in each income category must be be constructed on campus.
Regarding conditions related to traffic mitigation, the commission supported the recommendation that car trips be counted during the entire peak period of the commute (rather than a single hour), but did not support staff’s proposal to count reverse commute trips and average daily traffic as part of Stanford’s no-net-new-trips obligation, opting instead for further study to develop an alternative regulatory standard.
A third major component of recommended conditions of approval for the GUP is long term protection of the Stanford foothills. On August 28, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District sought to shore up that recommendation of the county staff and Planning Commission. The district unanimously passed a resolution asking the county to limit development outside of the university’s current Academic Growth Boundary for 99 years unless a supermajority (4 out of 5 supervisors) approve breaching the AGB. Read the District resolution.
Meanwhile, new research by a group of media organizations revealed that Stanford has been buying up single family homes in the area, now owning at least 37 in Palo Alto and 700 countywide. The media groups expect to publish and air their report in mid to late October.
The County has scheduled study sessions and final public hearings on the following dates:
- Tuesday, September 24: Study Session #1 at 1:30 pm
Board of Supervisors’ Chambers, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose - Tuesday, October 8, 2019: Study Session #2 at 1:30 pm
Board of Supervisors’ Chambers, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose - Tuesday, October 22, 2019: Public Hearing #1 at 6:00 pm
City of Palo Alto Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto - Tuesday, November 5, 2019: Public Hearing #2 at 1:30 pm
Board of Supervisors’ Chambers, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose
To get back up to speed on how we got here, check out our past coverage of the Stanford GUP, below, and explore the county’s website dedicated to the project.
- Amid drama, county staff takes firm positions on housing needs and open space protections related to Stanford’s expansion June 18, 2019 – Palo Alto Matters
- Stanford just drove a wedge between the county and PAUSD. May 5, 2019 – Palo Alto Matters
- City and School District criticize impacts analysis and sufficiency of mitigations for Stanford’s growth plans July 25, 2018 – Palo Alto Matters
- Should Stanford meet housing demand it creates? July 8, 2018 – Palo Alto Matters
Get Up To Speed
Council grants XCAP new authority to weigh in on grade separations
On September 16, City Council gave the current 14-member Expanded Community Advisory Panel, or XCAP, a more formal role, including the ability to name a chairperson and take votes, and regular reports directly to council, as the XCAP continues its work to evaluate technical issues and grade separation alternatives. Although supportive of the recommendation to appoint a new Rail Blue Ribbon Committee to consider the political viability of the alternatives and potential funding strategies, council opted to delay action on an RBRC until December. Meanwhile, the city plans to tap approximately $1 million a year in street maintenance funds from the Valley Transportation Authority to support planning for grade separations.
Neighborhoods seeking to keep utilities transformers underground will have to self-fund
On September 16, City Council voted 6-1 (Kou dissenting) to adopt the recommendation of staff and the Utilities Commission to allow neighborhoods with underground utilities the option to keep transformers underground (more costly and contrary to current utility standards), as long as the neighborhood pays the cost differential between standard, above-grade upgrades to the aged equipment and the installation and maintenance of modernized underground installations.
PTC offers moderate support for 788 San Antonio Road housing proposal
The Planning and Transportation Commission was generally open to the idea of a proposed new housing project at 788 San Antonio Road, but expressed concern about traffic and parking impacts in that transit-poor area. Commissioners were not uniformly enthusiastic about extending the city’s new Housing Incentive Program and other changes to development standards to the area of San Antonio Road between Middlefield and Charleston Roads.
HRB adds to concerns about the impact analysis for Castilleja’s development plans
Members of the Historic Resources Board added their voices to concerns of Planning and Transportation Commissioners regarding the adequacy of the Draft Environmental Impact Report for Castilleja’s proposed redevelopment. While PTC comments sought more information about traffic, bike routes, and design alternatives, the HRB generally agreed that the DEIR should further evaluate the historic significance of the Lockey House, targeted for demolition, as well as the neighborhood around the school.
Notable Upcoming Action
October 7, 2019 – (Tentative)
Council is tentatively scheduled to hold a study session on the Transportation Management Association for Stanford Research Park, approve the 2019 workplace to address council’s “Transportation and Traffic” priority, and approve recommended city positions for the 2019 League of California Cities resolutions.
September 24, 2019
Opening Foothills Park: The Parks and Recreation Commission will discuss a pilot program for extending Foothills Park access to non-residents. Meeting begins at 7:00 pm (City Hall). Click here for Ad Hoc Committee report.
September 23, 2019
Recycled Water: City Council will hold a study session on recycled water expansion and regional treated wastewater opportunities. Beginning at 6:00 pm (City Hall). Click here for staff report.
Caltrain Business Plan: Council will direct staff regarding comments on Caltrain’s Draft Long Range Service Vision. (Continued from September 16). Beginning at 8:05 pm (City Hall). Click here for staff report.
Affordable Housing: City Council will consider a Colleagues’ Memo by Councilmembers DuBois and Kou urging council to prioritize certain affordable housing strategies, including the Palmer Fix. Beginning at 9:30 pm (City Hall). Click here for the Colleagues’ Memo.