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Jun 20 2022

 STATEMENT BY RALPH CATALANO TO THE PIEDMONT CITY COUNCIL ON JUNE 20, 2022.

Tonight’s agenda lists this hearing as new business — but that’s not quite accurate.  This hearing (scheduled, disappointingly, at 5:30 p.m. on our federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the US) is a continuation of a meeting of roughly a century ago. At that meeting, the Council gave into the worst instincts of constituents and directed staff to use city resources to drive an African American family from Piedmont and thereby making clear that minorities were not welcomed in the community.

The long arc of history has since bent toward justice, and State law requires you to identify sites for about 215 units of low-income housing. But history has also repeated itself because constituents have urged you to isolate all or nearly all the units in Blair Park, physically separated from Piedmont proper.

Sixty years of research into the costs and benefits of low-income housing tells us three things.  First, low-income housing remains, unfortunately, stigmatized — it’s typically not welcomed in established neighborhoods. That’s why the State has had to require communities like Piedmont to accommodate such housing and that’s why some of your constituents urge you to concentrate the units in Blair Park, physically apart from Piedmont proper. Second, the benefits of low-income housing are greatest when the housing is least stigmatized by the host population. Third, stigma is reduced when low-income housing is dispersed throughout the community.

The hard truth is that research tells us that concentrating low-income housing in Blair Park will, by virtue of sheer physical and social isolation, create the most stigmatized circumstance imaginable in Piedmont.  Make no mistake – putting all, or nearly all, mandated low-income units in Blair Park would be the most stigmatizing choice you can make.

If you approve language in the draft Housing Element that leaves open the option of cynically isolating Piedmont’s low-income housing in Blair Park, tonight’s meeting will be, like that a century ago, continued until justice calls upon some future city council to explain why low-income families live segregated, by city policy, from other Piedmonters.  Be assured that the then City Council will think of you the same way you think of the Council that, a century ago, used the resources of the city to make clear that African American families were not welcomed in Piedmont.

Ralph Catalano, Piedmont Resident

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Jun 19 2022

Civic spaces and places are what makes a community.

The Housing Element is not a policy direction to explore ideas … it is focused on delivering sites for development, the feasibility of which has already been established.

Putting the Vista tennis courts where the high school students play on the chopping block, potentially jeopardizing the viability of vitally needed police and fire station retrofitting, removing the Piedmont Center for the Arts, and putting housing on the Highland Green that serves as the 4th of July parade staging area are extraordinary steps that are in the Housing Element that the community is not aware of, and potentially hugely destructive to the community fabric. The City needs to slow down process and more thoroughly analyze these proposals and get community feedback before the element is forwarded to the State.

The City can both protect its civic spaces and accommodate it housing needs in a thoughtful manner. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. By preserving our public and recreation spaces, Piedmont would also be preserving these for the enjoyment of new residents.

The Piedmont Housing Element should be set up for success, rather than failure, and include actual sites where the City can fulfill its housing needs, rather than sink time and energy into sites where housing is unlikely. While including housing as part of the Civic Center is a noble sentiment, it is impractical in the timeframe of this Housing Element planning period, as I will discuss below. The City should be aware of the following State laws and other requirements, which among others require the City Council to make certain findings at adoption time that the City would not be able to responsibly make for the Civic Center sites:

STATE LAW REQUIREMENTS TO BE MINDFUL ABOUT FOR CIVIC CENTER SITES

Demonstrate Realistic Development Capacity at Designated Sites

Where there are existing uses, “..Existing Uses — The housing element must demonstrate non-vacant and/or underutilized sites in the inventory that can be realistically developed with residential uses or more-intensive residential uses at densities appropriate  ….and evaluate the extent these uses would constitute an impediment to new residential development.”  See https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/building-blocks/site-inventory-analysis/analysis-of-sites-and-zoning.shtml. The City needs to show the community the analysis used to arrive at feasible housing capacity at existing civic uses and tennis courts. E.g., there is no housing feasible where the tennis courts are. The examples cited so far are of tennis courts on top of parking structures such as at UC Berkeley, which is very different than tennis courts on top of housing, that too affordable housing. The Housing Element is not a policy direction to explore ideas … it is focused on delivering sites for development, the feasibility of which has already been established.

Required City Council Findings at Adoption Time That Existing Uses Will be Discontinued

State law states that “If a housing element relies on nonvacant sites to accommodate 50 percent or more of its RHNA for lower income households, the nonvacant site’s existing use is presumed to impede additional residential development, unless the housing element describes findings based on substantial evidence that the use will likely be discontinued during the planning period. In addition to a description in the element, findings should also be included as part of the resolution adopting the housing element.”https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/building-blocks/site-inventory-analysis/analysis-of-sites-and-zoning.shtml.

Thus at the time of Housing Element adoption, the City Council will have to make findings that the tennis and basketball courts at Vista and public safety uses at the Civic Center will be discontinued during the planning period (2023-2031). I do not believe it is possible to make this finding given that there are no plans to relocate these uses to other places, unless the City does not want high schoolers and other community members to play tennis or does not want police and fire departments. If the City Council does not believe this finding can be made, it is better to drop these sites now rather than finding that we are short on sites at adoption time.

Required Rezoning for Shortfall

The City would need to commit in its Housing Element to a process and timeline to make sites it owns available for residential uses. The draft Housing Element currently lacks this, and HCD would most likely want to see this detail included. Under the Housing Accountability Act, should housing not be feasible at a site and there is a shortfall mid-cycle, the City will have to proactively undertake a rezoning program to find sites elsewhere to make up for this shortfall. This means doing a Housing Element Update and EIR all over again mid-cycle in three or four years, and tying the City’s hand in being able to proceed with rehabbing the public safety buildings until alternative housing sites are in place. Thus, In designating the Civic Center sites I believe we are just kicking the can down two or three years, rather than solving any housing problems. We should be focused on finding and delivering those alternative housing sites to meet our housing needs and obligations now, rather than five years later.

CITY CHARTER

Reclassification of zones under the Piedmont Charter requires a vote of the people. If the City Council wants to reclassify the Public zone (which allows a de minimus one house at every parcel in the city) to permit high density residential and thus make this zone Public/Residential, this should be submitted to the voters and placed on the upcoming November ballot. Lack of legal certainty will not inspire confidence on part of any developers the City may wish to attract.

PHYSICAL FEASIBILITY OF SITES AT THE CIVIC CENTER

Not finding any drawings or information in the Housing Element on methodology to determine housing capacity at Civic Center sites, I sat down over the weekend and tried to understand this for myself.

Vista Tennis and Basketball Courts

Assumption in HE: Housing at 60 units per acre, 34 realistic housing units. The courts presently fill up the entire site. It is physically not possible to vertically integrate housing and whole bunch of tennis courts and bleachers on top of a residential building without extraordinary expense, and I am not aware of any examples in the Bay Area where this has been done. Tennis courts can go on top of parking structures as they have been at Cal for over three decades and industrial and office buildings, but not residential, as the building floorplate is entirely different. Is the proposal to remove tennis courts? The facilities were just renovated a year ago for something like $2 million. This idea does not seem even physically, let alone financially, feasible.

Center for the Arts

Where is the space for the five units? Will this be razed and replaced? Again, wasn’t this rehabbed a few years ago, and didn’t the City recently sign an agreement on this?

City Hall/Police/Veterans Building

The site area for this in the Housing Element includes City Hall, and the area is counted at 60 units per acre to calculate resultant housing. Neither tearing down City Hall, nor putting housing on top of it is a credible suggestion. The eastern half of the site is about 0.5 acres, and that is where the police and veterans building are located. It would be quite a structure that includes a new police station, rec. building, and 40 housing units (which, because of the small acreage, would actually be at 120 units per acre max)  all at the same small site.  It would require razing the existing facilities and starting from scratch, and be surely several multiples more expensive than the cost to rehab these, plus the higher cost for housing building and having the civic facilities support the resultant structural weight and complexity of housing above. Theoretically it could work if the housing can be on its own pad as staff mentioned for other examples they shared at the Planning Commission meeting, but looking at our site I don’t see any area where housing can just be squeezed in without messing with the existing buildings. Rehabbing the existing Veterans Hall and Public Safety buildings will also be a lot more environmentally sustainable and emit fewer greenhouse gases than razing these buildings and building something new, when the same housing can built more sustainably and be delivered to the community at lower cost by adding say one more story to the Mulberry/BofA site across the street, where housing is already planned, and provide an additional density incentive for the property owner to develop that site.

Highland Green

The width of this parcel during most of the stretch is 30 feet. With required front setback of 20 feet in Zone A, and rear setback of 5 feet, the remaining buildable width of housing would only be 5 feet. So, these sites are also physically not feasible. The loss of five units assumed here would not be that significant.

All of these sites are impractical given the dense fully built out conditions of civic facilities and the fact that we don’t any have vacant land there, and a distraction from the real work the City needs to do to deliver feasible sites.

PRACTICAL APPROACH TO MEETING THE CITY’S HOUSING OBLIGATIONS

I believe the most practical approach for the City to meet its RHNA is as follows, in order of importance:

•       Count every housing unit (including ADUs) expected to be completed between July 1, 2022 and January 1, 2023. These units, under State law, can be counted toward both the 5th Cycle (in which we are) and 6th Cycle (starting in 2023), because of data projection period overlap.

•       Count SB 9 Units. The City does not have a trend of these because the City has not allowed these in the past. With properly development rules and methodology, the City should attempt to have these counted now to bring the remaining need down, rather than just as Housing Element success stories later. There are many cities that have successfully counted these units, consistent with HCD guidelines.

•       Consider densities that are much higher than currently contemplated at Grand and Highland avenues, while developing standards so that these are well designed, with ground level retail and cafes, and housing above. Densities of 180 units per acre with ground floor retail and four stories of residential above (60 feet building height), with structured parking may be appropriate for Grand Avenue, and 120 per acre for Highland Avenue. If necessary, the City should add a real architect with experience in doing projects like these in the Bay Area to the out-of-town planning team.

•       Add missing middle housing (fourplexes, six-plexes, etc.) and smaller-scale multifamily development in some or many existing neighborhoods. Some of the City’s rules relating to allowable densities, lot sizes etc. may need to be modified. There may, again, be some City Charter issues involved, but these would be of lower magnitude than high density residential issues in Public zones.

•       Continue counting all the remaining single family and religious sites with the good work staff has done, although it remains to be seen if HCD will buy off on allowing so many of these to be counted.

•       Anything else needed should be added after the above has been done, and this remaining need would be modest.

Rajeev Bhatia, Piedmont Resident

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Jun 19 2022

“Embracing SB9 is a more realistic and sensible approach than envisioning multi-unit dwellings in church parking lots, City Center, 801 Magnolia Avenue next to the new pool, or the Highland Avenue median, as now included in the draft HE before you.”

Letter sent to the Piedmont City Council:
June 15, 2022
Re: June 20 Housing Element Hearing
Dear Mayor King and Council,
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At the last Planning Commission meeting concerning the Housing Element (“HE”) draft, Kathryn Slama of Lisa Wise consulting was asking about the potential of satisfying Piedmont’s RHNA (Regional Housing Need Allocation) by the potential of SB9.  Her response was that the State only allows numbers based on past production.  Planning Director Kevin Jackson repeated this information June 7, 2022: “Where SB9 is concerned, the State will only allow a jurisdiction to project future housing development at the current rate of production.” This production answer is contrary to published HCD (California Department of Housing and Community Development ) SB9 guidelines.
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Attached is the HCD SB9 March 2022 Fact Sheet, and kindly view the bottom of page 6 “HOUSING ELEMENT LAW: To utilize projections (italics added) based on SB9 toward a jurisdiction’s regional housing need allocation (RHNA). . .”  HCD then lists four elements needed in a Housing Element to have projections count towards a RHNA reductions: site specific inventory, undeveloped site analysis, identify government restrain and show policies that establish zoning standards early in the process. All are well within the ability of the consultants to include in the draft Housing Element.  Explicitly,  HCD has stated a process for potential housing under SB9 to be used to partially satisfy Piedmont’s RHNA. Other Cities such as affluent Atherton are including this element.
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For Piedmont, a fundamental positive aspect of embracing SB9 is that new small sized homes still require Piedmont’s thoughtful and neighbor involved design review. Embracing SB9 is a more realistic and sensible approach than envisioning multi-unit dwellings in church parking lots, City Center, 801 Magnolia Avenue next to the new pool or the Highland Avenue median as now included in the draft HE before you.
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Finally, the HCD time frame includes minimally two examination and revision phases and further phases are permitted. There is no downside by including SB9 projections, as HCD can simply ask for further analysis if needed.
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Respectfully,
Rick Schiller, Piedmont Resident
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June 20, 2022 Council Agenda >  62022 Council Agenda

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Jun 18 2022

Hello City Council:

I won’t have time this weekend (Father’s Day festivities) to review the staff report but wanted to offer up these observations and suggestions about the Housing Element (HE) for your consideration Monday. I attended the HE workshops, participated in the online surveys and have read the HE.

1.     SB 9: staff has stated at several meetings that the Department of Housing and Development (HCD) is not accepting unit projections based on this SB 9.  HCD guidance says otherwise and several cities are submitting such projections.  Please clarify why staff has not done so and direct them to conduct this analysis for inclusion in the final HE.  Not considering the potential for SB 9 to produce units in the next cycle is bad planning.

2.     Multi-family zone:  the HE makes no projections for units from this zone over the next 8 years.  This is short-sighted in that this area is a logical zone for new units and the HE increases zone density for that reason.  Staff simply needs to cite other such developments in the Temescal, Pleasant Valley Rd etc. to show that this development is highly likely. These developments are not in Piedmont but are very local and I would think HCD would understand that similar developments are likely to occur in Piedmont.  Also clarify whether the small housing policy prohibits the destruction of the small houses on Linda to the Oakland Avenue bridge.  Conversion of these lots to multi-family buildings could vastly increase the number of units.

3.     ADUs: the incentives workshop mentioned increasing ADU height from 16 to 18-20 feet. The workshop also presented the idea of garage conversions by presented to specific building height. The HE now has specific height for garage conversions (24 ft) but does not mention what the new height for ADU will be. Please clarify this point;  I asked staff but received no response.  I think the ADU projections (20/year) is an underestimate; ADU development rate these past three years was likely influenced by COVID restrictions.

4.     Extremely low/very low-income units:  the HE provide no details on where these units will occur in Piedmont, which according to HCD should be over 120 units.  I asked about this at the last workshop and the consultant could not answer.  Instead he referred to the Alameda County family of four income ($100,000) as a target for Piedmont’s low income housing.  The HE policy to prioritize housing for PUSD and City of Piedmont employees dovetails with this target – these employees will meet this income level but very low and extremely low Alameda County residents won’t.  Where will the housing be for families of these income levels?

5.     Better outreach:  the process leading up to the HE utilized several different communication/engagement methods. Now that the draft of out, those methods should be used again.  Particularly, staff should conduct an online survey of the HE and particularly focus on policies not included in the workshop or prior surveys:  ADU tax on large remodels, purchase of supportive housing by the City of Piedmont, revocation of charter elements for example.

6.     General Plan:  staff conceded it has not completed an analysis of how the HE integrates with the General Plan.  Inquire about this and what elements of the Plan staff thinks will be impacted.

Garrett Keating, Former City Council Member

Editors’ Note:  Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Jun 16 2022

While a lot of work has been done on the Housing Element, some significant changes to the sites inventory are needed to ensure compliance with State laws and community objectives. In particular, the element fails to include a single realistic site that would be available for construction of lower-income housing over the next several years.

Additionally, the City’s proposal to locate majority of its housing, including all affordable housing, on currently non-surplus public sites (as defined under State law), many actively used for civic and recreational uses (e.g., police station, Veterans Hall, tennis courts) is highly unusual, and perhaps unique among hundreds of California cities. This would encumber the City with obligations post-adoption it may struggle to meet, resulting in highly messy implementation, significant financial burdens, and potential loss of civic facilities and parks, even if this strategy passes muster with the State.

I will first start with some easy opportunities that should be captured, followed by a discussion of the some of the items raised above.

1.      COUNT ALLOWABLE SITES CURRENTLY NOT INCLUDED IN THE INVENTORY

The Housing Element currently fails to reflect housing and sites allowed to be counted under State laws, which should be included in the sites inventory, and would put some dent in remaining housing needs:

Housing for which certificate of occupancy will be issued July 1, 2022 to Jan. 31, 2023

These are not included in the current draft of the Housing Element, as it seems from the June 6th community workshop, that the City’s consultant was unaware of this provision. This stems from the difference in the Housing Element Planning Period (which starts January 2023) and the regional data Projection Period (which starts July 1, 2022). The State HCD reference to this has been provided to staff and hopefully this will be corrected in the next draft of the Housing Element. https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing-element/docs/6th-web-he-duedate.pdf. At the current pace of development, this would likely be 12 to 15 units, but City staff should have precise building permitting data.

SB-9 Units

It’s a bit puzzling why these have been left out of consideration for housing sites. City staff mentioned at the public workshop that housing built under SB-9 would be reflected in the City’s Housing Element annual progress reports as achievements following adoption, but including this now would help the City meet a portion of its housing needs. Several Southern California jurisdictions have used SB-9 without running into issues with the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), and Bay Area cities such as Mill Valley, Larkspur, and Ross are using these as well. SB-9 has both a lot split and a non lot-split component. However, rules (e.g., direct street access from a new lot to street) need to be spelled out by cities, and Piedmont has not done so yet. Actual yield would need to be calculated using Geographic Information Systems calculations, but a guess is that 40 to 50 units from this could result.

2.      PROVIDE MEANINGFUL LOWER-INCOME HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES

The draft Housing Element fails to make available any realistic sites for affordable housing, as required under State law. All lower income sites are located on City-owned land, none of which is surplus. I am not aware of any other city in California that is doing this, especially for the entirety of its lower-income housing program. The Civic Center sites are unrealistic (see below) and the Housing Element would require preparation of a Specific Plan for the Moraga Canyon sites, adoption of which is a discretionary City Council action, and thus there is no certainty that this will happen, and even if it does, would certainly push out site availability by several years. Thus, the City’s commitment to lower-income housing is questionable.

3.     REMOVE CIVIC CENTER SITES AS THESE ARE UNREALISTIC FOR HOUSING AND HAVE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE MASSIVE PROBLEMS FOR CITY POST HOUSING ELEMENT ADOPTION

The Housing Element has sites in the Civic Center area that are actively used for civic and recreational uses (e.g., police station, Veterans Hall, tennis courts), and Highland Green. There are no details in the Housing Element of housing will result on these sites.  There are some real practical problems – e.g., the cost to rehab and seismically retrofit Veterans Hall and the Police Building alone was estimated by the City at $15 million to $20 million two years ago, and the City decided not to place these together with pool reconstruction on the bond ballot measure at the same time. So currently there is no funding for these. If housing is built together with these facilities, these facilities will need to be replaced, not just rehabbed, at significantly higher costs, which may be several multiples of the rehab cost. The City does not have money to rehab these facilities, let alone build new ones. Housing on top of these structures would also be much more expensive to build and be unlikely for even market-rate housing, let alone for affordable housing.

Additionally, there are legal uncertainties. The City Charter does not permit reclassification of existing zones, and going from allowing one single-family unit per site in the Civic Center area to higher density housing at 60 or 80 units per acre is reclassification of Public zone to Public/Residential for all practical purposes, regardless of whether the zone title is changed. The City also cannot commit any monies to affordable housing under the California constitution, without a vote of the people (as example, Oakland has a ballot measure in place for November asking the voters to authorize this).

It should be noted that following the demise of redevelopment which provided monies for affordable housing to cities, State law was changed to allow cities to use a minimum “default density” as a proxy for affordable housing. In the Bay Area/Piedmont, this is 30 units per acre. So while housing elements may have sites at densities higher than this as having potential for income-restricted housing, in practice, it is rare for these sites get developed with affordable housing, as these require subsidies and assembling of financing packages, that are often difficult to cobble together. The higher densities do facilitate development of market-rate workforce and senior housing, so these sites do serve a useful purpose.

Because the City is the owner of the sites where the lower-income sites are shown, it would be incumbent upon the City to demonstrate how lower-income (that is, income-restricted) housing would result, in more detail in the Housing Element. The City needs to lay out this roadmap in the element to satisfy the State. Later, say when the City is ready to move along with rehabbing Veterans Hall, it would need to wait for a housing partner. The City may need to issue RFPs to attract developers, convince the State that no developers were found if that is the case, and have to find other sites to zone under new State laws passed in 2018, which means starting over.

This approach is so fraught with potential problems, that I don’t readily know of any city in California that is doing this as part of their Housing Element inventories, not even cities with a lot more dedicated staff and resources or huge commitments to housing. While this may seem like an easy way to find sites and get the Housing Element certified, the real problems will emerge and consume the City for the several years AFTER the Housing Element is adopted and certified, and present problems that the City may find hard to extricate itself from.

The City should remove these sites from further consideration in the Housing Element, especially as it is possible to meet both lower-income and overall housing needs through other methods.

4.      REMOVE HIGHLAND GREEN FROM CONSIDERATION

The City should also remove Highland Green from consideration as a housing site. This site has a total of five paltry units capacity as per the Housing Element (which is a lot less than the SB-9 units the City believes it doesn’t need to count), is used for July 4th parade staging, and is barely 25 feet deep, and unsuited for housing. Piedmont also is short on parks and recreation space, and the EIR on the Housing Element will likely show a significant and unavoidable park impact with the addition of new housing, requiring the City to undertake all feasible measures to mitigate these impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

5.      REMOVE REQUIREMENT OF SPECIFIC PLAN FOR MORAGA CANYON DEVELOPMENT

A requirement of a Specific Plan as a prelude to any development in this area will delay development. This is also unnecessary, as utilities are available at the site and the City can apportion areas here easily for housing development to enable development to proceed. The City is already required under State law to prepare objective housing design standards, which could be tailored for the area.

6.      DESIGNATE ONE OF THE TWO GRAND AVENUE SITES FOR LOWER-INCOME HOUSING

The Housing Element designates Ace Hardware and Sylvan office building for moderate and higher income housing. These sites are within the acreage (0.5 acres to 10.0 acres) range that HCD recommends for lower-income housing, and should be designated for these instead of Civic Center sites. Development at these sites will likely take place by razing the existing buildings, and housing can be easily incorporated as part of redevelopment. Regardless, it will up to the market to perform development here–whether it’s affordable, market rate, or senior–rather than encumbering the City with this responsibility.

7.      CONSIDER HIGHER DENSITIES ALONG GRAND AVENUE AND HIGHLAND AVENUE TO MAKE UP SHORTFALL RESULTING FROM REMOVAL OF CIVIC CENTER SITES

The proposed densities of 80 units per acre along Grand and Highland avenues are low, and can be increased to 120 or 140 units per acre, within five stories. For context, much of the new development along Broadway in Oakland in Broadway Valdez area are at about three times this density. The new six-story residential building with a 35,000 s.f. Target store and other commercial uses Broadway/26th is at 240 units per acre, in a seven-story configuration (six stories residential above commercial). Half this much density, especially along Grand Avenue, is not unreasonable. This a great area, walkable, with access to stores, school, and amenities.

Calculation of how increase in density at Grand Avenue to 140 units per acre max. and Highland sites to 100 units per acre would result in the same number of units after removal of Civic Center sites has been provided to the City. It should be noted that were SB-9 units to be counted, the proposed Highland Avenue densities can be left as proposed in the Housing Element (80 units per acre), and Grand Avenue densities increased to 120 units per acre.

8.      ADDITIONAL ITEMS FOR CONSIDERATION

Promoting Missing Middle Housing

The Housing Element does not consider strategies to foster a greater variety of housing types (for examples triplexes, fourplexes) in some or all single-family areas. This may run afoul of the City Charter, but is a strategy worth considering, and is much less of a change from the City Charter than what is being considered for the Public zone in the draft element. The City can maintain the existing development regulations (pertaining to setbacks, heights, floor area ratios) to ensure that these blend in into existing neighborhoods.

Consideration of Walkability and Access to Amenities

The draft Housing Element has a lot of housing units (132) squeezed into a relatively small area at the Corp Yard site. This area does not have the same access to stores, services, and transit as the Grand Avenue area, yet the highest densities (80 units per acre max.) are the same in the two areas. This number should be reduced, and more housing accommodated along Grand and Highland avenues. The City may also find that less development is needed here once SB-9 sites are counted.

Rajeev Bhatia, Piedmont Resident
The above letter was sent to the Piedmont City Council.
Editors’ Note:  Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Jun 15 2022

One of the missing puzzle pieces from the Piedmont Housing Element is an analysis of the potential for Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) to add new housing to Piedmont over the next 8 years.

In short, SB 9 allows property owners with lots of a certain size to subdivide and add two units on the new lot with virtually no restrictions from the municipal authority.  There are many of these lots in Piedmont’s Zones A and E and their development under SB 9 could contribute significantly to meeting the goal of 587 units by 2031.

This type of housing growth is new and in March 2022 the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the state agency in charge of setting the 2031 housing goals, published guidance on how cities can develop projections for SB 9 growth to include in their 2023 Housing Elements.  That guidance states:

“To utilize projections based on SB 9 toward a jurisdiction’s regional housing need allocation, the housing element must: 1) include a site-specific inventory of sites where SB 9 projections are being applied, 2) include a non-vacant sites analysis demonstrating the likelihood of redevelopment and that the existing use will not constitute an impediment for additional residential use, 3) identify any governmental constraints to the use of SB 9 in the creation of units (including land use controls, fees, and other exactions, as well as locally adopted ordinances that impact the cost and supply of residential development), and 4) include programs and policies that establish zoning and development standards early in the planning period and implement incentives to encourage and facilitate development. The element should support this analysis with local information such as local developer or owner interest to utilize zoning and incentives established through SB 9.”

SB 9 Fact Sheet

Several Bay Area cities are following this guidance and including SB 9 projections in their Housing Elements. The City of Atherton projects 80 units over the next 8 years based on limited community input and a GIS analysis of large lots in their community (see page 72 of the draft Atherton Housing Element).  Larkspur is conducting a survey of property owners to gauge their interest in developing their property ( Larkspur Property Owner Survey).  The City of Ross is also considering including an SB 9 analysis in its Housing Element  (Ross Housing Element).   Housing advocates are calling on cites to include SB 9 projections in their housing elements as well.  A letter sent to the City of Piedmont from East Bay for Everyone and the Greenbelt Alliance states:

“The Draft Housing Element states that the city plans to “Amend the Zoning Ordinance to encourage large lot splits under SB 9 by early 2027”.  Piedmont’s primary method of building new Moderate and Above-Moderate Income housing may well be lot splits and duplexes on existing lots, which makes this an unreasonable time frame. The City should go further than SB9 requires and allow for building housing in Zones A and E, such as fourplexes, six-plexes, Cottage Courts, Townhouses, and similar building styles. We believe that allowing the construction of fourplexes and six-plexes will increase the likelihood of development on each site and lower the price per square foot of the new homes, which will make them available to a wider range of people. Adding more units per lot will increase the amount of tax revenue and impact fees the city collects, which will make it easier to construct subsidized affordable housing on other sites in the inventory.”
                                                                                                            East Bay for Everyone/Greenbelt Alliance

Yet with all this evidence to the contrary, the Piedmont Planning Department insists that HCD will not accept SB 9 projections in its housing element.  The public record says otherwise and staff should explain its position in light of the HCD SB 9 guidance.   Staff does acknowledge that these SB 9 units will count towards housing goals should they develop but in so doing are losing an opportunity now to properly plan for that growth for the betterment of the community.  For example, to incentivize development, the Housing Element increases densities in the multi-use zone, thereby risking the conversion of Ace Hardware to housing.   Likewise, to develop moderate income housing, the Housing Element proposes using public sites in the Civic Center and Corporation Yard, important public spaces the city needs to modernize.  Were the Planning Department to account for SB 9 moderate income units in Zones A and E (and incentivize that as the housing advocates suggest), the City would not need to propose housing development for these essential private and public spaces.

Fortunately, there is time for an SB9 analysis to be included in the Housing Element – the deadline for the document is May 2023.  But Council will have to step up and direct staff to do so.  Otherwise, the Housing Element will fail to account for a significant source of new housing potential, which staff always reminds us is the whole point of this exercise.

Garrett Keating, Former Member of the Piedmont City Council

Editors’ Note:  Opinions expressed are those the author.
Jun 7 2022

Elected Positions Open on City Council and School Board –

Campaign Coffee Invitation

Are you an active community leader with vast talents you would love to put to work to make our community and schools a better place to learn, live and grow? Have you ever considered running for public office but don’t know where to start?

Whether you’ve always dreamed of running for office or thought that would never be you, there’s a place and a path for everyone. Our city and schools need YOU! And we’re here to show you how and to support you on your journey.

During the November 2022 election cycle, the Piedmont Unified School District will have two openings as Amal Smith will be termed out and Board Member Megan Pillsbury is not running for reelection. The Piedmont City Council will have three openings as Mayor Teddy Gray King will be termed out, Council Member Betsy Andersen will be up for reelection and  appointed Council Member Jennifer Long will be up for election.

Please join us to learn more about what’s it like to serve your community in elected office. Tues. June 14th at 9:30 a.m. PST.  RSVP to Jen Cavenaugh (jcavenaugh3@gmail.com) for location details. If you can’t make it at this time, but would like to learn more, please contact us to set-up a one-on-one conversation at your convenience.

If you know someone you think would be great, please tell them you see their potential and send them our way.

Jen Cavenaugh, Vice Mayor Piedmont

Megan Pillsbury, Vice President PUSD Board of Trustees

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the authors.
Jun 3 2022

What’s with all those suggestive banners on Grand Avenue?  “A Housing Element for All,” “How Will Piedmont Grow?” and a couple more I could not either see (for the trees) or remember.

Anytime I see advocacy for Piedmont to grow, I hope they mean more kids in the existing housing.   I was one at ABAG — at both Regional Planning and the Executive Board, who insisted that some communities were not meant to build more housing for a number of reasons.  
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There is this compulsion that California needs to grow its population.  This began with Governor Pat Brown (Jerry’s Dad) in the early 1960’s.  The senior Brown wanted California to become the most populous state and, therefore, have the most electoral votes.  Well, we have the most votes but we have a state whose population is outrunning its resources.
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The State water project (also championed by Pat Brown) was never completed.  We lack the water capacity to support both population and agriculture.  Now, how does this affect Piedmont and it’s planning?  You run the very real risk of over burdening the community’s resources by way of infrastructure and effect on other imported resources such as water and energy.
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The State has adopted this philosophy of build, build, build and we have, have, have.  California loses valuable agricultural land to development every year.  We have less land to produce food for more people.  When did this become a good idea?  This elongated period of drought has caused tremendous harm to the underground water supply in the Central Valley.  Yet there is this continuing demand to build right over those aquifers.
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I am not even going to get into the status of public education and the effects this has on the future of public vs. private education.   
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Forcing communities, such as Piedmont, to grow its housing is just symptomatic of the harm being done throughout California.  Jerry Brown, as Governor, the second time around, spoke of a California with 50 million people.  However, he did not add that it would be 50 million living with resources for 35 million.
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The State needs to pull back on the draconian mandate to build more housing and assess California’s resources and how best to manage them.  The only State offered water plan continues to be building a piped version of the Peripheral Canal.  Likewise, why has the State been lax in planning for California’s agriculture assets?  How much more ag land can be paved over before Sacramento realizes the danger this poses for the future of this state?
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“How shall Piedmont Grow” is an indicator of how far off the rails California is headed (and I don’t mean all the money invested in “high speed rail”) with this forced building policy (more like extorsion) while under planning for the resources to supply the population.
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Steve Eigenberg, Former Piedmont Mayor and Councilmember
Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.
May 16 2022

The City released the draft budget for 2022-2023 last week and it’s on the May 16 Council agenda. ( City of Piedmont 2022-2023 Budget).

One purpose of the document is to project tax revenue growth for the next 10 years so that City can implement long-term financial planning.  Growth from property tax revenue in Piedmont is pretty stable, increasing 4-5% a year.  Transfer tax revenue, the 1.3% tax assessed on the sale of homes, can be volatile, but contributes more to annual growth than the property tax.   
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As the figure below shows, revenue bounces between $2 and $4M/yr (the exception being the three years of the Great Recession) and shows a steady rate of growth from 2010 to 2020.  Averaged over those 10 years, the transfer tax is $3.4M/yr and the City projects that as a flat growth rate for the next 7 years, leading many city funds into the red. Alternatively, when the transfer tax growth rate is used to project growth (Transfer Tax Projection), transfer tax revenue grows to almost $5M/yr over the same time period.

The City describes 2020-2021 transfer tax revenue ($6.3M) as an outlier, but that remains to be seen.  2021 transfer tax revenue was a record for Piedmont that may well be broken this year. Through the first quarter of the 2021-22 fiscal year, transfer tax revenue was ahead of last year by about 24% and carried over the year that comes to a transfer tax of $7.8M for 2021-2022.  Staff may provide an update on this tax revenue at tonight’s meeting.

So this is good news but will it last?  I don’t know, but it strikes me that averaging over the past 10 years is too conservative an approach that naturally leads the City to seek tax increases to make up for funding it projects it won’t receive when in fact it will.   The City should at least run two financial projections – flat growth and expected growth – to provide City Council with a more balanced report for long-term planning.  Perhaps the Budget Advisory and Financial Planning Committee can request this from staff.

Garrett Keating, Former Piedmont City Council Member

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.
May 12 2022
At the Planning Commission hearing on the Housing Element on May 12, 2022, the consultant from Lisa Wise Consulting stated that Housing and Community Development Department was not accepting SB9 projections to count towards a city’s RHNA housing goals.  A little web searching revealed that Atherton is preparing SB9 projections to include in its Housing Element and there are consulting firms using SB9 potential in housing element calculations.
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SB9 projections are highly uncertain this early after implementation of the law, but if HCD is willing to accept these estimates then Piedmont should generate them.  Yes, such sites are unlikely to be very low and low affordable units, but the point is to claim this capacity so as to remove pressure to develop public sites like the Veterans Building and the 801 Magnolia Avenue Building, sites identified for moderate income units.  The Atherton estimate is based on 10 SB9 units (10 units since  January 2022, so 80 units over 8 years) and it remains to be seen if HCD will accept this projection.
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https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/10036/ITEM-17

From “Proposal for the Town of Ross Housing Element Update” submitted by Dyett and Bhatia, Urban and Regional Planners, January 28, 2022.

“Next, we will evaluate the realistic development capacity for each site with reference to demonstrated development trends, drawing on input from the Housing Forum and the Town’s recent APRs. Documenting the number of ADUs developed in recent years and prior to 2018 will be an important consideration, as HCD guidance allows jurisdictions to project based on past trends with adjustments that account for new laws that significantly increase the potential for ADU development. Capacity calculations will also consider the potential for lot splits permitted under SB9. Based on this evaluation, sufficient sites to satisfy the Sixth Cycle RHNA for all income levels will be included on the inventory.”

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Garrett Keating, Former Piedmont City Council Member and Resident
Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.