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Page 14 of 23 <br />City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.org <br />ANALYSIS <br />The analysis below is intended to provide the City Council with factors for consideration as it weighs a <br />boundary expansion for the GDAP. It focuses on issues related to land use, mobility, and the GDAP process, <br />schedule, and budget, and provides alternative options to a GDAP boundary expansion. <br />Land Use <br />As noted in the Background section of this staff report, the proposal to transition land uses within the <br />potential expansion area from light industrial to mixed-use with residential, office, and retail would <br />represent a significant shift from long-standing City policy that has focused on preserving some land within <br />Redwood City for light industrial uses in balance with other important land uses such as housing, office, <br />and retail. That said, the reevaluation of jurisdictional land use is a normal prerogative of local government <br />that can help support community values and balance between community goals. When evaluating the <br />concept of land use change for the potential GDAP boundary expansion area, City staff suggests <br />consideration of the following factors. <br />Effects of the Loss of Light Industrial Uses and Economic Diversity – Currently, 94 acres of <br />property in Redwood City have a light industrial General Plan designation. The largest contiguous <br />area of property with a light industrial General Plan land use designation is located within the <br />potential GDAP expansion area, comprising 41 acres or 44% of all land with a light industrial <br />designation in Redwood City. The potential GDAP expansion area supports over 1,100 jobs, almost <br />60% of which are light industrial uses such as manufacturing, robotics, and industrial supply. <br />Industrial uses play an important role in the local and regional economy by:2 <br />o Contributing to economic diversity, which, in turn, supports resilience during economic <br />shifts and disruptions; <br />o Supporting middle-income jobs (i.e., jobs with a median wage in the middle-third of the <br />income distribution) that typically require less than a bachelor’s degree, thereby <br />maintaining a diverse labor market and career opportunities for workers with diverse <br />educational backgrounds; <br />o Supporting the regional supply chain which provides local, timely access to important <br />goods, materials, and services that local businesses in other sectors and residents rely on, <br />and which, if pushed to the periphery of the region, become more difficult and expensive <br />for locals to access, and; <br />o Contributing directly to the local tax base (and indirectly by supporting the regional supply <br />chain, as noted above). <br />If the light industrial blocks within the potential GDAP expansion area are converted to a mixed- <br />use General Plan designation the existing uses established under the LII zoning would be <br />grandfathered as legal non-conforming uses, which means that their ability to expand their <br />2 See Roach, Emily and Chapple, Karen, “Regional Industrial Land Preservation: Perspectives from San Francisco Bay <br />Area Cities on a Priority Production Area Program,” (University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Transportation <br />Studies), 2018, accessed June 25, 2026, at https://www.planningfor.jobs/research. <br />9.A. - Page 14 of 27 <br />541