San Carlos extends SB 9 urgency ordinance

Starting this year, Senate Bill 9 required jurisdictions to permit up to four units, including two primary units, an accessory dwelling unit and a junior accessory dwelling unit, to be built on an unsubdivided lot. Additionally, the law permits a single split of lots zoned single-family residential without ministerial review and for at least two units to be built per split lot.

In response to the legislation, San Carlos councilmembers passed an urgency ordinance this January to slow down SB 9 projects until objective design standards could be developed with a key provision being a prohibition of ADUs and JADUs on SB 9 lot splits.

Councilmembers then extended the urgency ordinance for 10 months and 15 days on Feb. 14 after staff said the additional time was needed to prepare an adequate policy. Now, nearly at that deadline, staff again asked councilmembers for another 12-month extension that would enable staff to craft SB 9 design standards in conjunction with an overall objective design standard process currently being conducted.

Staff anticipates the broader objective design standards process will be complete by next fall, Sajuti Haque, a senior management analyst, said. By aligning the SB 9 process with the broader process, Haque argued the public would be less confused than if the city were to adopt SB 9 design standards now, just to update them again when the objective design standards were adopted in the future.

Staff also sought the extension after noticing few residents showed interest in developing an SB 9 project, Haque said. Between 18 to 20 inquiries about SB 9 units have been made to city staff with one resident receiving a permit but no official SB 9 lot splits have been requested to date, Haque said.

Of the city’s 8,100 single-family zoned parcels, about 6,400 would qualify for an SB 9 subdivision, according to a study by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. But the center also found that SB 9 projects are contingent on residents having the personal capacity and access to the right resources to advance a project, Haque noted.

“SB 9 didn’t really pick up because the onus is on the homeowner who often lacks the expertise or financial resources to tackle such a project,” Haque said. “This goes to show it will serve the city well to take a little bit more time to develop a permanent SB 9 ordinance and learn from the best practices of other cities since the trend is indicating there won’t be a big influx of applications.”

Councilmembers voted 4-1 to extend the urgency ordinance another year with Councilmember Laura Parmer-Lohan dissenting after arguing that the urgency ordinance appears to be unnecessary given that communities across the Bay Area have received little community interest in pursuing an SB 9 project.

“Having an urgency ordinance on a situation that doesn’t feel particularly urgent, I’m struggling with,” Parmer-Lohan said. “I appreciate the want to have an elegant solution with design standards so that there must be one set and we’d only have to follow one but I’m having difficulty wrapping my head around something I thought we were going to get at this point.”

Alternatively, Mayor Sara McDowell argued the urgency ordinance was likely not a deterrent to residents seeking an SB 9 project given that requests are still low in cities without a similar provision in place.

Agreeing with McDowell, Councilmember Ron Collins said he would like to see the city take its time with the process. Collectively, councilmembers also agreed they’d like to further discuss an 800-square-foot cap on SB 9 units some residents have said is too restrictive.

“I think it’s important that we get this right. I think staff is headed in the right direction and I’ve seen situations where we’ve rushed things,” Collins said.

In other business, councilmembers shared support for holding a study session on biohazard levels and agreed they’d like to codify in city policy a limit on the level of biohazards permitted in the city following community pressure to do so.

Officials noted only 15 biohazard level 3 sites are located in California with no biohazard level 4 sites currently in the state. But with an influx of life science projects coming to the city, community members implored the council to take action.

Councilmembers directed city staff to draft a policy that would be implemented into a broader update to the city’s general plan that’s already occurring due to updates to the city’s housing and safety elements.