With thousands of new homes expected to be developed in Redwood City within the next decade, city planning and housing officials encouraged staff to pursue more aggressive policies that boost housing production while lauding what has already been proposed as part of the city’s state-mandated Housing Element process.
“I think this is the most substantive piece yet to indicate where we’re heading with the Housing Element and it’s just great to see so many ideas and potential policies that have sort of been in the hopper for a long time,” said Margaret Becker, chair of the Housing and Human Concerns Committee, during a joint meeting with the Planning Commission on Tuesday, Feb. 15.
Members of both governing bodies weighed in on proposed areas identified as potential housing sites and a draft housing plan that includes six goals centered on creating and preserving equitable housing and proposed policies on how to achieve each goal.
Together, the sites and goals are aimed at helping the city encourage the development of nearly 6,900 new housing units by 2030, about 50% greater than the number of homes the state is requiring the city to welcome through its Regional Housing Needs Assessment.
Stated goals include increasing capacity for housing, preserving and producing affordable housing, encouraging a wider variety of home types, increasing housing of all income levels in high resourced areas, supporting housing for people with disabilities, reducing construction costs and streamlining reviews.
Commissioners largely praised the goals while also suggesting staff identify stronger objectives for bolstering housing in high-resourced areas. As currently drafted, staff has suggested additional homes would be achieved in those areas through state-permitted lot splits now required by law through Senate Bill 9 and the production of accessory dwelling units.
Staff also suggested the city could increase middle housing opportunities like the development of duplexes and triplexes while studying the potential for upzoning single-family neighborhoods. But commissioners argued the city could make a stronger commitment to upzoning the neighborhoods, echoing sentiments shared by resident Mike Dunham who called the language “weak.”
“I suggest we actually make a commitment to higher densities in the high and highest resourced neighborhoods,” Dunham said. “A commitment is way better than a study.”
Staff has currently proposed for much of the growth to be achieved by rezoning commercial areas to mixed-use corridor districts, increasing zoning capacity in mixed-use-corridor, mixed-use traditional and mixed-use neighborhood zoning districts and upzoning along Veteran Avenue and Woodside Road.
But Kate Hiester, vice chair of the Housing and Human Concerns Committee, noted single-family zoning is the predominant land use in the city and Becker suggested staff consider upzoning along Alameda de las Pulgas.
With substantial job growth and development anticipated in the city, Planning Commission Vice Chair Rick Hunter suggested the document include references to the city’s jobs housing balance, noting that without it the city could still fall short of meeting future needs even after hitting its stated goal.
“If we meet these ambitious numbers, that I expect we will meet, but the number of jobs that are developed in the community is 10 times that in the next eight years, we’ll be worse off than we are right now, even though we’ve met these wonderful goals for housing,” Hunter said.
Similarly concerned with not meeting actual demand, Planning Commissioner Elmer Martinez Saballos said he was concerned that extremely low income targets were being grouped with very low income targets and argued the people who fall into either category have different experiences and are in need of different resources.
“I think we need to be more intentional about meeting the needs of these populations and being transparent and holding ourselves accountable to how great the need is,” Martinez Saballos said.
Additional concerns came from Planning Commissioner Filip Crnogorac who highlighted the importance of giving residents in multifamily developments access to outdoor green space and encouraged staff to consider tighter time frames for achieving some of the stated goals.
Next, staff will implement the recommendations into the draft Housing Element before releasing it to the public for a 30-day comment period this month. The draft document will then be presented to the council along with the public comments in March and a formal draft will be submitted to the state’s Housing and Community Development agency in April.
Visit welcomehomerwc.org for more information on the city’s Housing Element process including updates to the complementary Safety Element and Environmental Justice Element.
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