CC Min 1997-10-27 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

. I , . I . City of Redwood City how many units it must produce, Associate Planner Riordan said, "It has to do with Housing Element law. .. The State has determined that there is a shortage of affordable housing in northern California." - Councilman Leipzig said, "I would challenge that process, before we go any further. Further on in the Report there is a recent letter from ABAG to you. Yes, they agree that things have changed since 1986-87 including the gobbling up of 1,600 acres in South Shores which would have accounted for quite a bit of the housing requirements from the State. So things have changed. I agree with Councilman Ruskin that we have to go slowly on some of these changes in the neighborhoods. But let's look at the State. The bottom line with me is, how dare they come into Redwood City and say, you have to do 4,741 units. Who the heck are they? And that was ten years ago. Who is ABAG? We are the City of Redwood City. We are the people here who know best. I'm not throwing this on top of you, I am suggesting this to my colleagues, that we should look at that. Let's talk to Ted Lempert. Let's talk to Byron Sher. They always claim about doing things for Redwood City.... 4,741 units, some guy in Sacramento sat there and figured this out, folks... This is ridiculous. I think we have to challenge the basic premise before we move forward." Associate Planner Riordan said the staff letter in the Report is the City's response to the State, and asked Council for direction about which proposals to continue researching. She said staff was not reviewing the whole Housing Element at this time, but would bring it to Council for consideration at the end of 1999. She said it was necessary to respond to the - State addressing its list of deficiencies in order to receive federal funding for future housing developments. In response to Council questions regarding the Housing Element approval process and eligibility for federal funds, City Attorney Schricker said, "The State Planning Act makes mandatory a Housing Element of the General Plan of the City. In implementation of that, sorne authority is designated to ABAG to implement the requirement, particularly in respect to affordable housing. The affordable housing aspect, or element, there are several elements, is given a great deal of priority by the State. In implementation of that, ABAG, which has approval, authority or allocation authority in respect to certain funds, is used as the stick, so to speak, in context of administering State law, and the mandatory requirements. At the time the allocation came out a few years ago, the reaction of Council was quite similar to your reaction in the sense that something seemed to have been wrong in the numbers. They were so high for Redwood City. Obviously staff has tried to work with ABAG to modify that, and perhaps further efforts could be made in that regard. But, apparently the State and ABAG have been relatively unsympathetic to those changes. But it does seem... that the allocation to Redwood City seemed extremely disproportionate to its ability to produce." - REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 55 OCTOBER 27,1997 MINUTES Page No. 623 PAGE 7