Senate president sounds off on San Mateo housing ruling

“We want local governments to act in partnership with the state to address our housing and homelessness crisis,” she said in the statement. “When municipalities seek to avoid these responsibilities, we all lose.”

Miram’s denial of a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation and California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund came more than a year after the council voted in February 2018 to deny the applicant’s appeal of the Planning Commission’s 2017 denial of the project planned for 4 W. Santa Inez Ave.

Though the City Council voiced support for the project’s potential to boost the city’s housing at its meeting Feb. 5, 2018, councilmembers denied the project based on height differences between properties and encouraged the applicant Tony Gundogdu to submit revised plans. In a petition filed weeks later, the California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund, or CaRLA, alleged the council’s decision was subjective and illegal under the state’s Housing Accountability Act, which requires projects be denied for objective, well-defined criteria.

City Attorney Shawn Mason has alleged the city’s decision regarding the project near El Camino Real and West Santa Inez Avenue is defensible because the proposed development objectively violated the city’s multi-family design guidelines aimed at smoothing height differences between properties with transitional features, such as setbacks. By finding the city’s multi-family design guidelines qualified as applicable, objective standards in effect when the housing proposal was determined to be complete, Miram concluded San Mateo did not violate the state’s Housing Accountability Act, or HAA.

Acknowledging the project site is unique in that multi-family zoning is adjacent to single-family zoning, Mayor Joe Goethals noted the council’s decision is not representative of the city’s support of housing throughout the city and specifically of affordable housing and residential projects in the city’s rail corridor.

Goethals emphasized the city’s track record in supporting housing, noting the city has not denied a housing project in decades. He added the council expressed support for the project — which is situated just west of El Camino Real between Engle Road and West Santa Inez Avenue — as long as the applicant made slight improvements so there wouldn’t be such a big jump from a one-story home adjacent to the property to the four-story building proposed for the site.

“There’s single-family residents who want to know that there will at least be a transition between neighborhoods and I think that that’s fair,” he said. “It’s a very unique situation and it should not reflect … San Mateo’s support for housing. We all support housing, especially in the rail corridor.”

State versus local

Dylan Casey, executive director of CaRLA, said the nonprofit is committed to challenging Miram’s ruling and will wait to make a decision on whether to file an appeal of the ruling until the judge makes a determination on the nonprofit’s motions for a new trial and to set aside the original judgment.

Miram sided with the city’s contention that CaRLA’s interpretation of the city’s multi-family design guidelines was a sweeping negation of local agency discretion, interfering with the city’s core decision-making abilities and violating the home rule doctrine of the California Constitution.

“This court finds that the city of San Mateo is a charter city whose charter fully incorporates the home rule doctrine and that the approval of the instant residential housing project is an appropriate exercise of municipal affairs,” Miram wrote in the denial. “Furthermore, this court finds that to the HAA is unenforceable to the extent the HAA conflicts with or purports to disregard otherwise enforceable portions of the city’s Municipal Code regarding review of housing development projects.”

Following Miram’s ruling, CaRLA voiced concerns about the use of regulations that are subjectively determined, which could afford cities a loophole for HAA compliance by allowing city officials to reinterpret subjective standards and deny projects.

Casey noted the council’s denial of the project and Miram’s ruling speaks to the central question of how the state is going to address its housing crisis. Though he acknowledged a lot of local decisions can be left to municipalities, Casey emphasized the importance of maintaining the state’s right to ensure enough housing is being built.

“I strongly believe that the state Legislature needs to step in in a lot of cases to streamline the process for approving housing and reforming zoning,” he said. “This particular development in San Mateo is not that large, but I think that the state’s housing crisis has in part resulted from … an accumulation of bad decisions on small- and medium-sized projects that have added up over the years.”

A pro-housing city

Mason said the city will review the documents CaRLA filed to support its most recent motions, and noted the city will have an opportunity to respond in the coming days. In his 17 years with the city, Mason couldn’t recall another instance in which the city denied a housing proposal and added San Mateo has been known as a leader among cities in San Mateo County for promoting housing.

Mason noted that even after the state eliminated redevelopment agencies and took away a funding source for communities to build affordable housing projects, the San Mateo City Council committed to setting aside a portion of its revenue for affordable housing. He added the city’s effort to build at least 164 affordable apartments at two redevelopment sites in downtown San Mateo is another example of the steps the city has taken to build a robust housing program in the city.

“This isn’t an example of a community that is hostile either to housing in general or to affordable housing,” he said. “In fact, we do a lot to support housing and affordable housing.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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