Foster City worried about state housing requirements

The City Council, in its letter, wants to work with the Association of Bay Area Governments, or ABAG, to reduce its number allocation or find a compromise to meet its targets. ABAG enforces the Housing Element and Regional Housing Needs Allocation, or RHNA, a state housing mandate determining how many housing units each city must build in an eight-year-cycle. ABAG is currently determining and receiving feedback on its housing allocations for the 2023 to 2031 cycle.

The council’s letter expressed concern about the infeasibility of meeting all housing allocation requirements. The city is worried about the lack of non-vacant residential land and the non-vacant commercial and industrial land. Foster City also asked ABAG to reconsider how it evaluates vacant land and consider that Foster City is a planned city with little room left to grow. The council also questioned why ABAG did not consider the city’s limited access to public transportation and its concerns about providing adequate infrastructure for the new housing units.

Foster City Councilman Jon Froomin said the council wants to find a fair and equitable way to solve its allocation concerns with ABAG. He believes the approach of one-size-fits-all to planning housing in the Bay Area is impossible. Foster City is not a vertical community that can build expansive housing, and the unique planned aspect of the city makes it hard to find partners to address the issue, Froomin said.

“We are at the point where we are really built out. There really isn’t any vacant land that’s available, especially city-controlled land, to do much regarding this issue,” Froomin said.

Foster City Councilwoman Richa Awasthi said she is worried about what it will take to implement and build the new housing required. She wants to find out if meeting the state’s housing numbers is even feasible for the city.

“If you look at the letter and you look at the numbers, they are extremely concerning,” Awasthi said.

Foster City Vice Mayor Sanjay Gehani said he wants to see further analysis from staff about options and possible outreach to other cities on the issue to get opinions.

“We have our unique challenges. My interest is in sharing those challenges with ABAG and with the state and also engage with the cities around us to see if they are having similar challenges,” Gehani said.

Leah Zippert, an ABAG senior public information officer, said ABAG plans to respond to Foster City’s letter detailing its concerns with the new RHNA housing allocation numbers. Zippert said the allocation numbers are higher this cycle in the region because legislators want to address the housing crisis in the Bay Area and across the state. California gives ABAG the allocation numbers, and ABAG is required to divide it throughout the region.

“It’s trying to solve a problem,” she said.

Zippert said ABAG would respond to the Foster City letter in writing and discuss the comments and further action at an ABAG Executive Board meeting in January. Representatives from ABAG will also likely have further discussions with cities in the region. ABAG will also be hosting two webinars and open office hours over the next few weeks. These webinars and open office hours are specifically designed to provide cities and counties with the opportunity to raise questions and concerns, Zippert said through email. The housing allocation numbers for Foster City are not yet fixed, and Foster City can still have discussions or appeals of allocation numbers, Zippert said.

Foster City has yet to conduct any formal outreach to surrounding cities to discuss the RHNA housing allocation numbers, and city officials in San Mateo and Belmont did not have any plans to start outreach at this time.

The San Mateo City Council in 2019 voted against becoming part of a subregion that would have allowed cities to shift RHNA housing allocations from one city to another in the region.

San Mateo is mostly focused on meeting its RHNA allocation housing numbers rather than starting talks with other cities, San Mateo Deputy Mayor Eric Rodriguez said by email.

San Mateo Councilwoman Diane Papan said through email cities cannot receive RHNA credit for housing units built in another city or trade RHNA allocations. However, she was open to collaboration on other issues of housing.

Belmont Vice Mayor Charles Stone said he is focused at this time on Belmont’s RHNA numbers rather than working with other cities on issues surrounding their numbers.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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