San Bruno behind on housing requirements 

The city currently falls under SB 35 regulation, which restricts the ability of local governments to reject development proposals with certain minimum affordable housing guarantees if it fails to meet Regional Housing Needs Allocation requirements. Also, if a city falls short in meeting its Regional Housing Needs Allocation, which allows the state to assign growth goals in eight-year cycles, SB 35 offers the developers a density bonus which allows them to build additional units, massing, height and reduced open space.

San Bruno failed to meet RHNA allocation for prior years, Smith said. 

The San Bruno City Council approved its housing needs progress report — which showed the city has approved 166 housing unit permits and has 2,999 remaining to meet its RHNA requirements for the 2023-2031 Housing Element — at a March 12 meeting. 

San Bruno’s Housing Element has yet to be approved, although planners are optimistic that they will be able to receive City Council approval of their 2023-2031 Housing Element by June pending state review, said Community Development Director Peter Gilli. 

A “healthy number” of units are still in the pipeline, he said. Smith noted upcoming housing planned for the Tanforan redesign as well as sites at 111 San Bruno Ave. and 171 El Camino Real, which are coming up for re-entitlement, at the Planning Commission meeting. 

“One year, one city might look far behind … you can’t really assess this by one year,” Gilli said. “Three, four years go by, a city has very low production, that might be cause for concern.” 

Currently, San Bruno has approved permits for 37 very-low-income units, 114 low-income units, 10 moderate units and five above-moderate units. Of those units, 132 are from the SB 35 six-story affordable housing project on El Camino Real and the remainder are mostly approved ADUs, Smith said. 

That leaves 667 very-low-income units, 291 low-income units, 563 moderate units and 1,478 above-moderate units per RHNA allocation. 

Matt Jones, a former planner for the city, expressed concern around the city’s housing progress at the City Council meeting where the housing element progress was approved on consent, meaning it was not discussed by the City Council.

The city has done a poor job of creating locally-produced housing, he said, building just 28% of required housing — only 332 out of 1,115 units — less than cities like Burlingame, Millbrae and San Carlos, smaller cities in both size and population. 

“San Bruno had the lowest percentage of its requirements that the state mandates per city out of any community in San Mateo county,” he said. “The numbers are just really, really bad for the community and I think we need to do a deep dive and understand why the cities are not building housing, what can be done to encourage housing.” 

holly@smdailyjournal.com

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