Assistant City Attorney.

Christina Mateo, administrative secretary, meaning host.

And Apollo Rojas, senior planner.

Thank you.

We'll now move on to item number two approval of minutes, which we have none.

Item number three, public comment.

For this is a time for the public to comment on items that are not on their agenda.

If anyone has a comment, would you please raise your hand?

And I did not have this on my screen.

So are you pleasing?

I am not seeing any hands raised.

Right.

Thank you so much.

Then we will go on to item number four, consent calendar.

There are no items on our consent calendar, which brings us into our study session item number five.

This is a study session on proposed zoning code and map amendments associated with the housing element update, including zoning code changes to facilitate missing middle housing and amendments to the mixed use districts to increase housing and opportunities.

This is a study session, and the commission is taking no action at this time.

Environmental review for the housing element update and associated zoning ordinance and missile and municipal code amendments will be completed prior to when we do have approval.

We have a staff presentation, Miss O'Dell.

Yes, good evening.

So before I get started, I just wanted to put this into context.

This is actually the fifth study session we've had with Planning Commission on this very important project for the city.

We have had previous meetings giving overviews of the housing element process, talking in a very broad way about some of the strategies that we would pursue in order to build additional housing in Redwood City.

And then we had some very specific conversations this year on the goals, policies, and programs, and very specifically some of the major rezoning actions that we'll be taking in order to increase the amount of housing we can build in Redwood City.

And so that for this study session, we're going to be diving deeper into some of the details associated with the rezoning and what that would mean for our zoning code.

So tonight's meeting purpose is to receive feedback on three subject matter.

First is proposed missing middle amendments.

And this is a topic we've talked about with the planning commission in the past, and I'll be giving an update on that.

The second is proposed streamlining and use changes in the residential and mixed-use zoning districts.

And then third are some details about proposed mixed-use zoning district changes that we'll be proposing.

So first, just a quick overview on what is missing middle housing.

It's a term used to describe duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes that are compatible in scale with detached single family homes.

Concise definition is a house scale building with multiple units in walkable neighborhoods.

And it's great that tonight this sort of follows on with the SB9 discussion.

As this sort of takes what is happening in SB9 and builds even further on it, as this will not be impacting the RH and R1 zoning districts.

So between the changes that are being considered with SB9 and these missing middle changes that I'll be talking about tonight, we'll be covering a lot of the city's existing residential neighborhoods and making changes that allow for this incremental development and new housing.

And in this case, particularly close to El Camino and transit.

So I wanted to speak briefly about missing middle and why we're doing this.

We've met with planning commission, it was I think it was back in 2019, as we have identified this as being a barrier.

The previous commenter on the previous item talked about some of these barriers, where right now the zoning district has very specific minimum lot size and lot width requirements before you can even build a duplex or a triplex.

And these requirements actually don't match up with the way our existing loting pattern is in Redwood City.

And the staff report also discusses some state law changes that have occurred that make this even more urgent that we make these changes to our zoning code to make that density possible.

So on we these are three key changes and then some other miscellaneous changes I want to speak about.

We are going to change our lot density restrictions.

So we're no longer going to tie your potential lot density to whether or not you have a lot width of 50 feet or 75 feet.

We are going to make the density consistent with the zoning district and the general plan densities, the general plan densities that are allowed.

So we're not going to have sort of different, more restrictive constraints on what development you can build in the R2 through R5 zoning districts.

We are going to reduce parking to one space per unit, in many cases to make this consistent with some of what we're mandated to do through SB9.

It doesn't really make sense to require more parking spaces in lots that just because they happen to have an R2 zoning as opposed to an RH or R1.

So we wanted to make this consistent and it would allow for some additional flexibility in developing these addition and more housing.

The third major change is about open space.

Right now we have an open space requirement that not only requires open space per unit, but then increases the open space for every additional bedroom that you add.

This can be a real constraint as the lot size is what the lot size is, and it's really difficult if you have an existing footprint to add more open space if you want to add a bedroom on your second story.

So instead, we want to simplify this and require open space per unit, not per bedroom.

There may be other miscellaneous changes staff is considering that would help facilitate some of this missing middle density while maintaining the existing neighborhood character and build out of these lots.

So next I wanted to go on to the second topic for tonight, which is promoting and streamlining residential development and different types of housing.

So streamlining review, which is a program that was discussed in the housing element, reduces costs.

So it makes development feasible and increases the total homes built, and it may make it easier for the city to achieve its regional housing needs allocation or its arena.

So streamlining review is a sort of key program, and we've identified some ways to implement that.

Do you have a larger family?