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Following the state’s latest rejection of Portola Valley’s housing element draft late last month, morale is low among town officials.
“To be honest, I’m very discouraged,” said Town Council member Judith Hasko at an Aug. 9 meeting. “I think we’ve put in what is arguably a huge amount of effort proportionately for our size relative to other jurisdictions, a huge amount financially into supporting these efforts, a huge amount of community engagement to get to a place where we had nice, innovative ideas.”
Town Council members spent hours discussing the next steps for bringing Portola Valley’s housing element to completion at the Aug. 9 meeting. The council also approved $15,000 to the planning department to fund continued work with the town’s housing element consultants, which Planning Director Laura Russell said is essential for getting the housing element over the finish line.
“It’s just not possible for staff to complete this work without consultant support,” Russell said. “The contract that we currently have for the housing element (is) depleted. We are out of funds under that contract.”
The housing element update is a process that every city and town in California must undergo every eight years, in order to prove how they’ll meet housing standards set by the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Each jurisdiction must create a sites inventory, or a list of properties that are likely to be developed into housing in the next eight years, in order to meet the number of new housing units each jurisdiction is required to account for, called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) number.
To comply with state law, cities and towns must also implement programs that create incentives for the development of affordable housing, or as the state dubs it, “affirmatively further fair housing.” Per HCD’s July letter, that’s one of the main areas where Portola Valley needs to improve.
The state letter brings up a number of concerns about the town’s current housing element draft, including its reliance on accessory dwelling units to meet affordable housing standards, and the lack of assurance that certain affordable housing sites included in the draft element will actually come to fruition.
Planning Director Russell said that while she’s disappointed by some aspects of the process, she’s optimistic that the town can get its housing element certified by January 2024. Towns like Portola Valley that failed to meet the Jan. 31, 2023, deadline are now subject to the 2024 deadline. What happens if a town can’t meet that deadline is still unclear, Russell said.
“I don’t know if anybody really knows,” Russell said. “But each time we don’t meet a deadline, it gets worse, we just don’t know how much worse, and what penalties are really going to (be) realize(d).”
This lack of clarity was particularly troubling to Portola Valley Town Council members.
“Even if we submit and get a response back, I don’t see a clear path to getting an element approved at the end of January,” Hasko said.
Update on threatened lawsuit, emergency preparedness concerns
Attempting to get a compliant housing element on the books with Sacramento isn’t the only major concern facing town staffers: There’s also the looming threat of a lawsuit against the town by PublicSafety4PVNow, Inc., which is led by residents Rusty Day, Bob Turcott and Ron Eastman, public documents show.
The group wants the Town Council to reverse its approval of environmental studies supporting the housing element draft. They argue that the review didn’t adequately consider fire safety. Meanwhile, the town is working to update its safety element, a part of the general plan that’s meant to reduce the risk of natural disasters like wildfire, something many members of the public spoke passionately about at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
According to a report from the closed session at the Aug. 9 meeting, the council voted to extend the tolling agreement, which is the deadline by which the parties must negotiate before a plaintiff will file a lawsuit. The tolling agreement was extended to Nov. 10, according to the closed session report.
“The issues raised in the threat of litigation intersect with several pending projects of the town, including the safety element, finalizing the housing element for certification, and coordinating with and supporting programs at the fire district,” said Mayor Jeff Aalfs. “The continued tolling period enables the town to prioritize working on these projects and potentially narrow these issues.”
The council also voted on Aug. 9 to create a two-person subcommittee – Mayor Aalfs and Council member Craig Taylor – dedicated to reviewing the town’s draft evacuation plan for wildfires, earthquakes, and other town-wide emergencies.
“The goal of the council subcommittee would be to work with the EPC (Emergency Preparedness Committee) to review, clarify and gather input from staff for incorporation into the document before bringing it to the full council, hopefully in September,” the staff report stated.
What happens next
While much of the future of Portola Valley’s housing element journey is still a question mark, Planning Director Russell said that, with the newly allocated funds, town staff will continue to push forward on getting the document certified by the state.
Russell said the town was recently assigned a new HCD reviewer, who she’s hopeful will help guide Portola Valley in the right direction.
“She was very collaborative in her approach, she had some ideas about how to address some of the items, said that she would be willing to provide us some examples of what’s been successful in other communities and perhaps even draft some language to help us meet the requirements,” Russell said.
As far as what happens next, Russell said town staff will continue to engage with the HCD reviewer “to formulate some approaches to satisfy (their) comments, and then we would engage with the planning commission for their review.”
“Then that would be the opportunity for the public to really engage in that discussion and participate in making revisions to the housing element for future certification,” Russell said.
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Congratulations to the state for sticking to its moral guns in the face of elite and moneyed opposition.
Day, Turcott and Eastman are pretty smart guys. Why not put them in charge of meeting the HCD requirements?
This is simply abusive behavior by deranged YIMBYs in the state government. Of course, large majorities of Portola Valley voted for this, so it’s hard to feel too sorry for them.
My question is how and when does the state decide that a community is built out and no longer must completely redesign its structure?
When a community which has, over a long period of time, developed thoughtful planing regulations with the support of it’s residents, why is it the state’s authority to overrule that?
N. Berry asks “when does the state decide that a community is built out and no longer must completely redesign its structure?”
It’s a good question but I would suggest that “the state,” that is, politicians in Sacramento, never know. But you know who would know? It’s local government. In fact, that’s what local government is for!
For Sacramento politicians to usurp what is so clearly and obviously a local issue – with subtleties and nuances that they could never understand – is truly absurd. Local officials know what’s best for their communities. That’s why they are there!
@N. Berry “When …..”
The actual answer is probably never.
In cities like MP and RWC there is continual “infill” redevelopment of existing sites with more intense development. RWC and MP both have projects to scrape existing commercial sites, and replace them with new, larger ones. Similar rezoning and intensification can also happen with housing.
I was a seated on a “sustainable” platform 30 years ago. In my experience, the “growth” mentality never stops and the bureaucracy is habituated to perpetual growth.
When cities update general plans they almost always intensify the zoning.
Maybe you want to ask, “When would state rules stop shoe-horning housing into Portola Valley?
I don’t know. I think its reasonable that the state require cities to build housing commensurate to their employment. But towns like PV don’t really have job densities and probably run a housing surplus not a deficit.
So why is the State in your face? Honestly. Tech growth needs housing, and PV has lots of unused land. The state is pretending to address “equity”, but, some amount of San Mateo housing quotas are “shared” among cities in that county.
The “equity” thing is really a bait-and-switch government snafu in which HCD rules use “affordability” as a pretext for forcing towns like PV to upzone for multi-family housing, which, when built will become luxury housing. It’s not possible to zone for “affordability” or to force private developers to build it.
I don’t know the RHNA “sharing” rules, but I fear that PV might always be on the hook to swallow some portion of San Mateo County housing obligation whether or not PV itself “grows”.
So long as SMC jobs grow, PV might be on the hook to build more housing, and it will always be on the hook to build more “affordable” housing whether that is possible or not.
” It’s not possible to zone for “affordability” or to force private developers to build it.”
bingo
And yet, progressives continue to say you can.
PV’s experience with the state (moving target, unrealistic rules, micromanaging, etc.) is akin to what homeowners go through with cities when trying to get a development approved.