He can present and be the same.

Let's see.

All right.

Good evening, and thank you for joining our February seventeenth, twenty twenty-six regular planning commission meeting.

As a reminder, items will be taken in the order that are listed on the agenda.

Before we get started, I wanted to briefly go over public comment procedures for the meeting for those who may be joining us for the first time.

Public comments on the approval of minutes, consent items, matters of commission interest and items not on the agenda will be taken during item number three tonight.

Comments on other agenda items will be taken only when the item is called.

In-person speakers will be called first, followed by virtual.

For in-person speakers, please fill out speakers' cards.

For those joining virtually, you may raise your hand, or if you're doing teleconference, you may raise your hand by dialing star nine and star six to unmute.

Please only raise your hand at a time when the item is uh called on which you're speaking, and each speaker will be allotted three minutes, but the time may be adjusted depending on the number of speakers.

For in-person speakers, there will be a light on the podium that lets you know how much time you have left.

Lastly, we know that we each bring different perspectives to the discussion, and we want to be sure that everyone has a chance to be heard without interruption.

Planning commission welcomes public comment on items within our preview.

Thank you for your attention and consideration during this process.

I will now turn it over to staff for two calls to roll.

Commissioner Robinson.

We have all commissioners present.

For the purpose of this meeting, I would also state that my name is John Francis, Principal Planner and Staff Liaison for this evening to the Planning Commission.

And other city staff that are attending this meeting include Rick Jarvis, Consultant Assistant City Attorney, Alin Lancaster, Housing Leadership Manager, Liz Lang, Management Analyst with our homelessness initiative team, and Christina Mateo, administrative secretary and meeting host.

Thank you.

The next item on the agenda is AB 2449 notifications and considerations.

Do we have any remote participation notifications or requests from the Commission to consider?

Uh curly, currently we do not have any remote remote participation notifications or requests.

Alright, let's move on to the next item agenda.

Item number three is public comments.

All right.

At this time, we'll take public comments from those joining us in person through Zoom as a reminder.

Public comments should be on topics within the planning commission's purview.

If you have joined us in person, please fill out the speaker's card.

If you've logged into a Zoom, please raise the hand button now.

Or if you've dialed in, enter star nine and star six to unmute.

In order to see how many speakers we have for general public, I okay.

No, none of that.

Do we have any speakers online?

We do not have any speakers online.

All right.

Um, seeing that there are no in-person speakers and no online speakers.

If there's no objection, I will now close the public comment and move on.

Um item number four approval of minutes.

Um we have the December 16th, 2025 special meeting.

Uh, is there a motion to approve the draft meeting minutes?

Uh motion to approve the draft meeting minutes for um December 16th, 2025.

All right, moved by Commissioner Buddh.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Sorry, second by Commissioner Robinson.

Moving on to vote.

Commissioner Butt.

Yes.

Commissioner Connejo.

Yes.

Commissioner Finch.

Yes.

Commissioner Hunter.

Uh I will abstain because I was not present.

Commissioner Robinson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Koch.

I recuse myself.

Abstain.

Chair Sinegrates.

Uh, yes.

So we have uh the motion passes five votes for and two um abstentions.

Great, thank you.

Um, the next agenda item is a consent calendar.

There are currently no items on tonight's consent calendar.

We will now move on to public hearing item 6a.

6A is a public hearing.

It's a request for review and recommendation to city council Redwood City's 2025 annual progress report on the status of the housing element.

Implementation in compliance with state law, and as well, number two is the review and recommendation of the city council's Redwood City's 2025 General Plan Annual Progress Report in compliance with state law.

Principal planner John Francis will give a presentation on the item.

Great.

Thank you, Chair.

Um we are here tonight, as the chair just mentioned, to present a summary of the 2025 housing element uh annual progress report or APR for short.

Um, this is a state mandated report that all California jurisdictions are required to submit to the Department of Housing and Community Development by April 1st of each year.

Uh and the APR the APR reports on the city's progress towards uh approving and building housing projects as well as progress made towards implementing the programs in the city's general plan housing element.

Um additionally tonight I'll provide a summary of the 2025 general plan annual progress report, um, which jurisdictions are also required to submit to the state by April 1st.

Um the purpose of the general plan APR is to report on progress towards implementing the city's general plan.

So we'll start with the housing element APR first.

Um the APR itself is actually in the format of a large spreadsheet, which is provided by HCD.

Uh and this um is included as an attachment to tonight's agenda.

The report is broken down into various data tables in which the city is required to report the number of housing units that are currently in various stages of the development process.

Um, and the the slide on the um on the screen, I'm going to just walk through very in a basic way the process the development process and how the data on the APR kind of aligns with each step of the process.

So the first stage of the process is when a project sponsor submits a development application to the planning division.

Although I'll note that this data is actually not requested by the state in the APR, so you won't find it there.

The next stage, which is the first part of the process that is captured on the APR on table A, is when an application is deemed complete.

And this is when planning staff, in consultation with other relevant city departments, determines that they have all the information they need in the application to evaluate the proposed project and thus make a decision on whether it meets city's requirements and standards.

The following stage is when the project is either ministerially approved at the staff level, or if required, goes to a hearing and is approved by a city body.

We often say the project has been entitled at after this point and is captured on table A2 of the APR.

After a project has been approved, it goes through the building permit review process where construction drawings are evaluated.

And once a housing project receives its building permits, this is when the units are counted toward the city's regional housing needs allocation, or RENA for short.

And those are captured on table B of the APR.

Projects are considered complete when they receive a certificate of occupancy and are available for residents to reside in.

So in 2025, 490 housing units were issued building permits.

400 of those or 82% are we're actually in just two projects at 557 East Bay Shore Road and 112 Vera Avenue.

And I'll note the other major contributor to permitted units is in the form of accessory dwelling units or ADUs, which those continue to be a significant source of new housing in Redwood City.

The table on this slide shows a summary of the city's arena and its progress towards meeting its arena obligation in the current eight-year arena cycle.

The numbers in the second column, titled Total RENA, show the number of the total number of housing units that the city is obligated to permit between 2023 and 2031, broken down by income level.

The city's total obligation is 4,588 housing units.

Shows the number of housing units that have received building permits from the city this cycle so far.

And those count towards arena obligation.

So the total number of units issued building permits so far this cycle is 1,321.

So this next figure shows basically the same data in a more graphic format.

The portion of the bars outlined in black shows the city's total arena obligation for each level of affordability.

The colored bars show the number of housing units permitted in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

And then the percentages above each bar show the proportion of units counted toward meeting the RENA obligation for each income level.

So in aggregate, the city has fulfilled approximately 29% of its total RENA obligation across all income levels, and we still have another five years ahead of us in the current cycle.

Again, this figure shows housing permit data for Redwood City for 2025 as compared to the previous five years.

Notable is the fact that permitting activity in the city was above average in 2025 relative to the previous five years.

So at year three, just taking a bit, taking stock a bit of where we're at, about a little bit more than a third of the way through the cycle.

We are a bit behind where we would want to be in terms of meeting the city's RENA obligation.

In the table on the slide, column B shows the number of units the city needs to permit per year on average to meet its RENA obligation.

So that's 574 units total.

So that means by the end of 2025, we would want to have entitled around 1700 units as shown in column C.

In reality, we're at about 1300 units, as shown in column D, which means we're about 400 units behind the pace that would help the city reach its total arena obligation in 2031, as shown in column E.

Now, obviously, this isn't the best news, but it's important to remember that Redwood City does have a deep pipeline of residential projects in the works that include uh approximately 900 units in some phase of construction, 750 units that the city has already entitled, and six another 650 units that the city is currently reviewing for entitlement.

So this is I think a good indication that developer interest in building housing in Riverwood City remains strong, and that city staff are working to approve new housing in Redwood City at a healthy clip.

But to put this data a bit more in context, our best understanding of the market currently is that challenging conditions that have been present throughout 2024 at the local, regional and state level, which included elevated interest rates, high construction labor costs, and some uncertainty in the office market in particular.

These things continued to weigh at least partially on housing development activity in 2025.

So we're seeing that despite having city-entitled housing projects, some developers are not pursuing building permits as quickly after entitlement as we've typically seen in the past due to marketing conditions.

So in order to respond to the marketing conditions we're seeing, the city took action in 2025 to incentivize developers to with entitled projects to pursue building permits.

So in October, the city council adopted an affordable housing ordinance incentive program for currently entitled housing projects, which makes certain projects eligible for a 25% reduction in their affordable housing requirement if they build if they pull building permits by June 2027.

So staff anticipates this will move approximately 800 units to construction by 2027, and that's including 120 affordable units.

So some examples I'll walk through in the next slides.

And this is not an exhaustive list, but it's a kind of an overview.

So the city staff worked to streamline and clarify processes to facilitate residential development.

The city council adopted a new tenant protection ordinance, which updates the city's minimum lease term and relocation assistance requirements and also adds just cause for eviction protections.

In the area of affordable housing preservation and funding, the city issued its first loan for the over the counter affordable housing preservation program, which launched in 2023.

The 1.2 million loan was for an eight unit project at 417 Stamba that is owned by the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust, or HERT.

The city also issued this past fall a notice of funding availability or NOFA for $7.9 million for new housing affordable housing construction, and we received two applications.

The city's been investing in homelessness initiative since 2018 and contracted with the nonprofit Life Moves for Homeless Outreach Services between July 20, July 2022 and December 2024.

And in January 2025, Life Moves began a new homeless outreach team that is funded by the county.

This team, which is uh referred to as the Bayside Homeless Outreach Team, is comprised of eight staff and serves Redwood City and six other San Mateo County communities.

Staff in the city manager's office and the Fair Oaks Community Center coordinate closely with this team, and staff from several city departments utilize the county's homeless outreach app to request outreach to people experiencing homelessness in Redwood City.

And last year there were 225 non-emergency requests submitted to the Bayside Homeless Outreach Team.

Looking ahead, the city is in the process of beginning a two-year agreement with search for services with life moves to add four additional outreach staff to provide outreach case management, rapid response, and services coordination to prioritize encampment circuits in Redwood City.

And this new program is funded by the state's encampment resolution grant that was awarded to the city in December 2024.

So I am going to, we're now going to move on to the general plan APR.

So every incorporated jurisdiction in California is required to adopt a general plan that covers a specific set of topics and sections called elements.

Redwood City's general plan, which was originally adopted in 2010 and most recently amended in 2024, is the vision document that guides growth and development of the community through the year 2030.

And Redwood City's general plan has five elements as shown on the slide.

For example, in the built environment element, city staff continued environmental analysis on an updated recycled water master plan, and to implement improvements to the city's circulation system, including implementation of 15 mile per hour school zones, construction of new ADA compliant curb ramps, and designs for new bike lanes on El Camino Real.

The city also secured over 10 million dollars in grant funds for roadway safety and bike path improvement projects.

Some of the kind of bigger projects included continued construction of the Veterans Memorial Senior Center, which is slated for a soft opening in March of this year.

Approval of a new YMCA facility in Red Morton Park in partnership with the YMCA of Silicon Valley.

Renovation plans for Hoover Park were approved.

Commencement of design development and environmental review of the new downtown library park was initiated.

Turf replacement projects at Mitchell Field and Fair Oaks Field were also completed.

And lastly, continued construction was continued, and I think it's nearing completion at the Hardin de Niños Park expansion.

The city made progress in implementing the public safety element by initiating or continuing projects and studies related to sea level rise mitigation, including uh the Redwood Shores Sea Level Rise Protection Project, the Redwood Creek watershed and wetland capacity study and um design of the new price pump station.

Uh related to the natural resources element, the city um continued its tree street tree inventory, which is scheduled to be wrapped up uh this first quarter of 2026.

Also began drafting an update to this treat, the tree ordinance.

Upcoming work um to continue implementation of the general plan includes an overhaul of the city's historic preservation ordinance, which is kicking off this year, uh early this year, um design and construction of projects to implement bike and pedestrian improvements, uh, updates to the circulation chapter and city code to support complete street goals and environmental review work to advance the Caltrain grade separation project.

In the public safety element, the city will continue um and initiate various projects related to sea level rise mitigation and in the natural resources element, the city will conclude its street tree inventory and continue drafting updates to the city street ordinance and then and to ensure compliance with state law, the city will also update the element to address climate resilience and rewilding opportunities, and lastly, uh the city is continuing to continuing to advance the greater downtown area plan effort with a focus in 2026 on developing a preferred plan framework and of course continued community engagement.

Um and we will also continue to work to advance the Redwood Life Precise Plan.

So concluding the presentation, uh it is staff's recommendation that the planning commission by motion accept the 2025 housing element annual progress report and the 2025 General Plan APR, and recommend that the city council accept them for submittal to the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development and Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation in compliance with government code section 6540.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Francis, um, for your presentation.

Are there any clarifying questions that the commission would like to ask staff at this time?

Commissioner Hunter.

Yeah.

Thanks so much, John.

Yeah, I have one question.

So you mentioned in your um presentation as well as in the staff report that um with this challenging market um market conditions that sometimes developers will let entitlements just lapse.

Uh does that ever happen with building permits also where they'll receive a building permit and um allow those to lapse?

It can happen.

Building permits to, I don't remember off the top of my head exactly how long a building permit is valid.

I think it's probably similar, like two years with some possibilities of extension.

I think it's less common than a planning um entitlement, but it's it's possible.

I I I can't think of an example recently that I've seen in the three three and a half years that I've been here, but okay.

Yeah, I would think it would be rare, but so because um for RENA purposes, it's the issuance of building permits that counts.

So if a developer gets a building permit in year one and say in year three, they let it lapse.

Would that re make us uh require us to reduce the that is a great question?

I don't totally know the answer.

Hopefully, we don't ever encounter that problem.

But we would have to, I guess we would have to check in with HGD.

I don't know if uh Rick, you have any experience that HD's standpoint is good enough.

You know, they're not gonna try to do it.

They're not gonna try to have a perfect, um, sorry.

They're not gonna try to have a perfect record of everything, but the building permit issuance is a very reliable indicator, and and I doubt that they practically have that issue come up where they want to revisit the question.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Hunter.

Commissioner Corneho.

Oh, okay.

Um thank you for the presentation.

There was a lot of great information and um I was trying to soak it all in.

So some of my questions might have already been answered, but it don't help me to understand.

Um, so I know that you mentioned that there's um 13 21 units that for 2025.

Um, and you also talked about how they are still some that are in the process because we were a bit behind.

That's what I understood.

Do you know how many are in the process?

Yeah, so let me pull up a slide.

So this slide provides some context here.

So we are we call it our development pipeline.

So this projects that are in some stage of um some stage of the development process, whether that's you know, they've submitted a planning application and there's they're working with the planning department to um, you know, make sure they meet all the the code requirements, um, or maybe they've gotten approval from planning and they've gotten entitled.

Um, and so they they basically would then from that point um they they have their their approval and now they can go in and seek building permits.

So that's the second stage, and then once they get their building permit, we we basically even if they haven't totally like started construction, like physically, we we kind of count that as the under construction phase.

So this on this slide you can see we have 650 projects or 650 units, excuse me, um, that are in that pre-entitlement phase.

So they've they've submitted an application, and uh the planning division is reviewing um that application to make sure it's complete, make sure they're meeting all their requirements.

Um we haven't entitled it yet, and um, and but the next stage would be once they're entitled.

Um, so then we have 750 units that have gotten that planning approval, but haven't gotten a building permit yet.

So that's like phase two.

This is a different group, like a different thing.

Yeah, so there's 650 in the pre pre-entitlement, 750 in the post-entitlement, and then we have 900 units currently that have building permits that um are under construction and haven't received what we call a certificate of occupancy saying they're done, the residents have moved in, there's no more construction happening.

Um so we have we have a very robust development pipeline.

Um a lot of projects that are in the works at some stage, which is a good sign.

Um if we if we had a much lower number, I'd I'd be worried about our ability to kind of make up some of that lost ground where we are at right now.

Um so hopefully that answers your question.

That actually did, which is was really helpful to break it down that way, and then um kind of leads me to my follow-up question where you touched on that we were a bit behind.

Um, and I know there's like a lot of information on to why and everything, but what would be like the simplest why we're behind in a way that I think I could understand, and maybe someone that's not on the dais could understand.

Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot, there is a admittedly a lot of complexity to it, and every project that comes to us is a little different, has different needs.

Um, and so you know I I think that there's a lot of market forces, you know.

There's a lot of the costs of building and construction are very high.

Um, and I don't, you know, uh I we I feel like that's the same refrain from year to year for for a long time, um, but the costs just don't seem to be going down.

Um so that's I think there's a lot of there's a lot of and there's a lot of factors to that.

Labor, like the cost of labor, uh the cost of materials, which have you know, there's a global market for those, which we in Redwood City don't have a lot of control over.

Um we are part of a regional and national labor market that also has certain constraints, um, and then you know, I think that um we're well one thing that the city staff is trying to do is we're trying to find ways to streamline our process to uh to get more projects through the process faster.

Um, and you know, I think, you know, the our our um city manager uh and our our housing excuse me.

Our housing team, um, our my colleague a Lynn Lancaster's here.

Um they you know helped to put together this incentive pack program, the affordable housing incentive program.

Um it's a temporary program to kind of jump start some of those projects to get them into that construction phase um so you know so we're trying to do what we can from the city side to um to make things go faster but of course we can only do so much uh ultimately we don't we don't build and develop the housing ourselves um it's it's the private market that does that and so you know we we're trying to do everything in our power to make sure um we're kind of upholding our end of the bargain of like approving the housing and getting it done quickly um so yeah I I got I know that's not like a pithy short answer but it is great because it's just I mean I think we understand it a certain way but like the average resident what is that short answer as to like why we're a little behind yeah thank you.

Great thank you Commissioner Cornejo next up is Commissioner Finch.

Um yes I uh thank you for the presentation um I was wondering you also said that um well and the and the presentation said that like the permitting was higher in in 2025 relative to the past five years do you know why that is or maybe or just it's a lumpy process.

Yeah is it just a like coincidence of like a kind of a bunch of projects came around at the same time totally yeah yeah I mean I think the chair's kind of said it's a lumpy process I think that's true.

I think there's a lot of you know factors that impact the numbers year to year.

So it's hard to look at like a one or two years and make any like solid kind of conclusions like oh well this year you kind of have to look at the broader picture.

You know obviously here I can bring up that slide again.

Oh yeah here we are um you know 2021 and 2022 were really bad years obvious for the due to the the the COVID 2023 I think there was probably a lot of pent up demand and you know the COVID restrictions were were easing and so we got a big jump there.

But then I think you know I think interest spiked in 2024.

So that is probably at least part of the factor um why we saw less there but you know it might also be that you know if you go to like cities next door they might have had a great 2024 I think you know part of it's like where certain projects are in the cycle of their um their development and so sometimes you get like a whole lot of things that happen at once and then sometimes you know if the if the different projects are in kind of a similar phase they're sort of all tracking at the same time and and come online at the same time or or they get staggered so it's it's just I think a little bit of a luck in the draw.

Okay.

Okay thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Finch.

Uh Commissioner Robinson your questions.

Hello very detailed report so I this might be more of a technical question and then I have another general question.

But the first question is on page 11 under 1601 Camino Real Elco Yards.

I do see you mentioned that the project received city council approval with amendments in late 25 for the uh feasibility of construction of the city's affordable housing ordinance um and it lists the uh 540 rental units with 119 afford I'm sorry the 540 total with 119 affordable and then over on page so what I was looking for was have they already been granted the affordable housing incentive program to reduce and and I see it's the footnote on 13 on the table there where it's anticipated that well so I was just wondering if you if that should be mentioned in that bullet point there.

I'm actually gonna actually invite a Lynn Lancaster our housing uh leadership manager to respond to that.

Hi good evening Alyn Lancaster Housing Leadership Manager uh so back in November of 2025 the city council did approve modifications to the ELCO Yards project uh so they did reduce um some of the affordable units that the project was providing, and instead the project is gonna be paying a housing impact fee to the city of approximately 5.8 million.

So what's reflected on the staff report reflects the approval that the count the change the council approved back in November?

And then if they do get to the point of being um able to pull building permitts and eligible for the incentive program, they would get an additional uh reduction to this number.

So this this is reflecting the project as it currently stands, approved by city council.

Okay, so it's at 109 right now it's a hundred and nineteen affordable units based on that council approval.

I believe so, but let me double check the math on that one.

I'm on page 11 and the bullet point under 1601 El Camino Real.

And I was just seeing uh trying to clarify it based on I actually there's two page numbers, six and eleven.

Um, the package six page six of sixty of the package.

And I'm just trying to um make sure it's clear because on page eight, the table for elco yards is showing the reduced amount, and it is footnoted saying it's anticipated they will utilize the temporary affordable health.

So to clarify, there are already 38 affordable units built that are considered part of the elco yards project.

What we are showing on pay on table two is just for lots A and D.

So lot F is already completed and constructed, so that might be the difference there.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

I was just trying to follow along and I noted uh a little bit of a difference in the in the numbers there.

So and then just a general question on um when you say you're making the process go faster.

So in my orientation as a newer uh planning commissioner, it was explained to me that many of the uh housing process uh housing developments now go through staff, they don't actually come to planning commission.

Do they still go to at what point do they still go to council?

Um if a project has a development agreement, for example, um which is not very common.

I mean, the city has a few few development agreements, but that's kind of a special situation.

Um but most projects sh don't go to city council unless they're they can be called up to city council if there's a matter that the council wants to review.

And then but there's still public notice so that the planning division of the city um so that those developers will then have to issue public notice so that you would get input with it, not necessarily having a public hearing, but members of the public would be aware that there's a a proposed development.

I'm trying to the what I'm trying to get to is if city staff is trying to make things go faster, how do you do that with still getting community input if at all possible?

Yeah, I mean, so a lot of the um a lot of the process related to um, especially affordable projects and and a lot of housing, a lot of housing projects actually, not just affordable, um, are um often regulated by the state in terms of um, you know, state laws which require certain types of review and certain types of notice.

And so generally speaking, um, you know, one one thing I'll just say is like a lot of a lot of times noticing is is getting um shorter or or or less broad um as a result of state law.

Um I don't know if Rick if you have like additional kind of input on that.

Yeah, I mean, I've been wrestling with these and for different clients and lawsuits and all that.

Um but the the law has ratcheted down the level of discretion that cities have over these development projects uh quite a bit over the last few years to the point and I think the philosophy, if I were like making the argument in favor of the policy behind the law, and your point is, you know, what point is the you know, should there be community input?

It's when the zoning ordinance is adopted, when the general plan is adopted.

But once a project's consistent with the zoning that's been established for the property, the level from the state's perspective and HUD's perspective, the legislature's perspective, the level of input community, you know, the community should have on a project that's fully consistent with the general plan, fully consistent with the zoning, is uh more minimal than when the plan plans are adopted in the first place, and there's a certain level of frustration by the legislature by HUD with you know like people opposing development projects that are consistent, and so that's why a lot of this is ratcheted down and there is less opportunity for that type of community input on a project that's already consistent with the zoning.

Thank you.

Thank you for your questions, Commissioner Robinson.

Um I also have a few questions.

First I'll have for Mr.

Francis and also for uh Mrs.

Lancaster.

Um, speaking of efficiency, I mean, I think you noted here that also some improvements in terms of um e-filing the permits and e-track it uh improvements.

Is this something that the goal is just to digitalize some of these paperwork processes, both to reduce staff time or into and to increase the throughput uh or is it um just a general improvement of processes at C Hall?

It's it's a little bit of both.

Um so part of it is to um make the process kind of just more streamlined um from the perspective of paperwork, allowing people to actually um submit their their materials online through a portal, and that kind of helps city staff track it more easily um and and route it to the appropriate reviewers more easily.

Um but then on the other side, we are, you know, some of the improvements that we've started to make and will are continuing to make over the course of 2026 is um that the public will also have more access to understand where in the process their permit is.

Um, you know, they can sort of they'll be able to get um documentation um through that portal more easily than you know, it kind of reduces like email, think getting lost in an email, um, you know, it just kind of less back and forth in that way.

So we're we're trying to just make uh the process a little bit more transparent for folks and easier to navigate.

Um and you know, we are we're in the process of rolling some of that out.

Um there may be a few kinks along the way that we will you know need to work out, but um we've we have um kicked off a couple kind of smaller types of permits like sign permits and and such um that um just as a test, um, and so far so good.

Um we've the the process has been pretty smooth so far.

So we'll be we'll be kind of incorporating more permit types into our e-track it online system over the course of 2026.

Good to hear.

Um next question is about um housing production, which I think what what I guess the housing element in our review or annual review is about.

Uh and the second part was about preservation of affordable housing, uh, and I wonder if those are uh kind of co-mingled in the same report.

Uh like what is statute, statutorily required of us to submit our progress towards building new housing, or does the HCD also have a requirement for each municipality, including over city, like how many, I don't know, housing units that you save or made deed restricted to be affordable.

Uh, is that something that I I know it's a worthy goal and it's a priority for for our council and the city.

I'm just wondering, is that also part of our report?

And it is the there are the the APR itself, um, there are there's a table, I forget which letter table it is.

Does um, F table F.

Page 35 of the report.

Yeah, asks for information related to um how many housing units, um affordable housing units have been preserved.

Um, I don't know if you want to kind of jump in and add any other additional context to that.

I mean, I just was gonna say that I don't remember us having any numbers in terms of oh, let's let's shoot for like 500 conversions to affordable, you know, it's just something that's I guess organically going through.

Uh, was there a goal set?

Are we meeting those goals?

We do not have any preservation goals, and as you might have noted in the staff report, um, it's actually incredibly hard to count most preservation projects towards RENA.

So we actually had two projects this year for 118 units that actually were preserved.

Um, only one of them was counted towards RENA.

So, um I would say as a city, we've still made it a priority for us, even though we aren't getting credit, um, and the state isn't giving us a goal or a target for that.

Um, I think we as a community have still identified that this is important, um, and that we should be pursuing this regardless of not getting RENA credit.

I agree.

I agree, and I wholeheartedly uh agree with the policy, and I am happy to hear that all 118 units of on the Whipple Avenue property were able to be feed restricted.

So this actually brings you to the next question.

Is about uh you know, in lieu fees that developers pay in case they don't build their own affordable housing.

So we have this fund that we allocate funds towards uh either building new construction or um I guess uh converting.

So my question is how does the city or the staff?

I'm not sure who makes this decision uh decide how much of this money goes towards building new affordable housing versus taking an old building that's about to be either sold or whoever else, and try to um secure it as a affordable housing need restricted for I don't know 30-50 years.

I don't say I wouldn't say there's a specific methodology or like X percentage goes to production or preservation.

Um we have a variety of funding sources, so not just impact fees, but we have federal grants, state grants, and so uh, you know, we look at what are the restrictions on those funding sources.

Generally uh new production can handle more stringent funding sources, whereas preservation tends to need more flexible funding sources, so like higher affordability levels and just less strings because there is less funding in general in that preservation.

Um so we kind of take assessment of what funding sources we have and try to match as best we can where the need is, but also where the restrictions are going to make the most sense.

Um so we have a separate over-the-counter preservation fund that has already committed to it.

About 5.6 million left.

Um, and then as we noted, we've just did a new NOFA for uh just under eight million dollars.

So as money comes in, we we try to assess and actually even uh when we've made allocations, we will sometimes make amendments to change them to better fit our needs.

Um to just kind of maximize our funding.

Got it.

I mean, I think it does help to have these source of unrestricted funds.

Uh, so I guess one can leverage it.

I presume that many of them are kind of like uh what is it called um co-co-development or co-financing that one leverages these unrestricted city funds with either state or or federal government.

Um so that that's all sounds good, but the one last thing I was gonna ask about this, and this is purely for my uh information or at least the information of the day is uh in terms of how are they evaluated, like how much how many dollars per unit is there like a goal if something is too expensive and not worth uh you know the city's involvement in terms of getting the I guess the bang for the buck that we have.

Yeah, so we for new construction we do have a maximum subsidy limit of 200,000 per unit.

For preservation, we actually it's higher at 300,000.

Um again, recognizing there are just fewer funding sources for preservation.

And then we do have a set of um underwriting criteria.

So if a project doesn't meet our underwriting standards, you know, that's one area, and then we do score them based on things like project readiness, you know.

Are they entitled?

Um, are they, you know, have they started on building permit drawings, that kind of thing.

Um we look at different kind of design and like location aspects of a project.

These are in line with what you see in a tax credit application.

Um we look at again budget and then um also affordability.

So right now we do give priority points to projects that provide more extremely low-income units.

So uh we have a set kind of scoring criteria and rubric.

We have tried as best as possible to align it with the county's um NOFA requirements as well as with uh TCAX requirements, so that hopefully if a project gets funding from the city would in turn be able to qualify uh for the county and tax credit financing.

Great.

That's all sounds wonderful.

I mean, I'm happy to hear it as a very well developed process and scoring uh mechanism to to be able to prioritize those opportunities.

Um, all right.

I I'm hogging the the microphone for a long time.

I only have one more uh clarifying question.

It was also about um, you know, removing barriers to building new housing.

So I know it was referenced in the report that we have a new tenant protection ordinance, and it certainly addresses some of the issues that we've had and things that the community has brought up in front of the council to address, but some of them also include some pretty how shall I say um um components that, let's say, for example, require relocation assistance that's like four months worth of uh of rent for all the residents in case of let's say major renovation.

So uh I guess maybe my question at first is that there's the tenant ordinance new tenant ordinance apply to new construction, or is it backward looking like do you foresee any of the uh features of this particular tenant ordinance as being um detrimental towards ability to attract builders or developers to it?

Um so anything constructed in the last 15 years is exempt from the ordinance, so any new construction, and this is in alignment with the State Tenant Protection Act, so um similarly the rent cap requirements at the state level do not apply uh to newer construction.

Great, okay, good to hear.

Um let someone else ask question, Commissioner Koch, please go ahead.

Thank you.

This is an amazing report.

Thank you so much.

Um I just have one question.

I had a conversation earlier with Mr.

Francis, and something came up and he said to ask you.

So here we go.

Uh when it comes to what counts and what does not count for RENA numbers.

Someone comes in, purchases a home, tears it down, rebuilds it.

That counts as new construction and goes towards RENA numbers, correct?

I heard earlier that yes, it did, because my question is if we do like a hundred and twenty unit preservation, say an apartment building or something, it's a hundred plus units, but it counts as one.

I'm just curious as to why.

Why they calculate it that way.

So I think there's I might answer the second question first, and then we can go backwards.

Um the project we're referring to uh is on Whipple Avenue.

Um, and you know, it's a market privately owned property that was purchased converted to affordable uh deed restricted for about the low income level.

And so there was kind of two issues with this one.

The state requires that the deed restriction has to be for 55 years, um, and the deed restriction on this property is only for 30.

We did we, the city are not the one deed restricting it, and so we did try to advocate to see if they would do a longer restriction.

Um that particular property said no, but the agency that did grant do that restriction has actually agreed for future projects to change to change their requirements to 55 years.

So maybe if they do another project in Redwood City, it'll count.

The other issue is that the rents prior to the acquisition have to reduce.

So if the rents were already at the low-income level and we are preserving them to keep them at the low income level, it does not count.

So in the case of the Stambaugh project, most of the all the units were at the low income level and stayed at low income, but one unit was reduced to extremely low income, and that's why it counted.

Thank you.

That makes a lot of sense now.

And then to the other question about if a unit's demolished, how that counts to arena.

So if someone rebuilds, they isn't that what we discussed earlier and that it actually counts as for the members?

I think there's a um so HCD requires jurisdictions to report on all housing units constructed, uh excuse me, uh that are issued building permits, um, whether they are as a result of a demolition and a rebuild or not, or if they're just fresh units.

Um and uh HCD is the APR spreadsheet that all cities are given to fill out, um, has it's very complex and it has all of the the kind of formulas that HCD uses to calculate um, you know, the city's RENA uh progress are all built into that spreadsheet.

We as jurisdictions we don't have any like power to change them.

Um so um one thing we've noticed is that uh you know a demolished unit does not get subtracted from the the final RENA count.

So it's something I was surprised to see, but you know, we've checked in with HGD and that's how their their formula works, and we will continue to follow that formula as they give it to us.

Thank you.

That's very informative.

Thank you, Commissioner Koch.

Commissioner Robinson, follow-up questions.

Oh, sorry.

Um I actually was gonna ask about SB79, but I think that's uh prospective, and this is a retrospective report.

So uh I I just assume that that will come up in the future.

So yeah, I I uh SB 79 is definitely um very much on our radar.

We're thinking a lot about it.

Um I don't have any kind of insights or kind of uh updates for you right now of in terms of what the what we're thinking about, but um, we are thinking a lot about it.

Okay.

Sorry, I got distracted by my note on SB79 that but the one question I I do have for you is that um I'm very proud of this report and very proud of the work that everyone at the city has done to achieve this and the council over the years and and I feel like we've been a very pro-housing city.

How do we show up compared to the neighbors?

And I don't expect, you know, if you have any you know factual data or anything like that, but you know, anecdotally um are we ahead of the the pack, do you think here on the peninsula?

You know, I would say we can probably better answer that question in a couple months once everyone turns in their reports and we can kind of see where things fell.

I think every community right now is probably even literally today going before their planning commissions and city councils with this report.

So um perhaps we can share more information.

I think once everyone's submitted and we have a better sense of how our neighbors are doing.

Thank you.

Yeah, I would like to echo that sentiment.

It would be nice to see that checkup, but also I just comparison-wise, I think uh was also wondering uh given one of the um tables in terms of how many of these opportunities are rentals versus ownership opportunities, and I'm curious whether that we are an outlier.

I know there's only one um project at least on this particular list that allows for someone, you know, community to really you know own and put roots and uh and and facilitate those type of developments.

So I'm just curious whether the other cities are similarly constrained.

Uh and are we specifically for some reason uh only having uh majority rentals uh being built.

So, I suspect we're probably not an outlier in that.

Um I think a lot of it depends on the size of the project.

Um I think large in in the peninsula, uh larger apartment buildings um are just generally um marketed and and put out to market as as uh rentals.

Um I think it at least right now, um the ownership typology that is more common is uh townhomes.

Um, and there's just smaller units.

Um, and so you know, I think uh, you know, uh I think it just depends on your community, whether you're kind of, you know, the size of uh size of units you're you're seeing come in or size of projects I should say that you're seeing come in, um I think really dictates a lot uh uh in terms of whether you're getting a lot of rental or ownership.

Got it.

I mean I was gonna follow up on that question is that 20 years ago when some of the first large um buildings that are built as rentals in my city uh were being built.

I remember someone asking from the audience in one of the council meetings asking, like, where's the ownership opportunities?

And I think either the staff or maybe the council responded in a way that naturally over X number of years a rental opportunity may mature into a ownership opportunity by by change of ownership.

Uh I don't know is that something that does occur, has it has occurred in in Moa City.

I I haven't been around long enough for Road City to know that for sure.

Um not not that I'm aware of, but I'm not I don't know, I don't want to say that it hasn't happened.

I don't know, Alyn, if you have any data on that.

I don't have any experience with an apartment building converting to like condos, but at least in my time with the city, but I do know there are several uh apartment buildings within kind of our downtown area that are condo mapped.

So that does mean that down the line they could potentially uh convert to condos, but I've I've not experienced that uh during my time here.

I do think it tends to happen in older buildings.

Right.

Um, um and you know, I think most of the large apartment buildings in Riverwood City are newer.

Yeah, so makes sense.

All right.

Um seeing the other questions.

Uh I will now open a public hearing in order to see how many speakers we have.

I ask everyone who wishes to speak on the items.

Please raise your hand now in Zoom.

Um there are no in-person speakers.

Uh, are there any speakers via Zoom?

There are no speakers on Zoom.

All right, thank you.

Um I guess at this point, maybe I should ask were there any written comments also received by staff what is meeting what is agenda.

Any written comments we see.

Oh, no, we did not receive it.

Okay, no problem.

If there's no objection, then I will close the public hearing and I will open the meeting for committee discussion.

Commissioner Bott.

As a point of order, do we need to make two separate motions here?

Um, one for the housing element and one for the general plan APR.

No.

Okay, I'll just put the motion on the floor then and then we can have our discussion.

Uh motion for recommendation to city council um for both the housing element um 2025 APR and the General Plan 2025 APR.

All right, move by Commissioner Bott.

Uh, do we have a second for this motion?

Second.

Uh Commissioner Hunter.

That's a second.

So I will open now a discussion on this motion.

Commissioner Finch.

The floor is yours.

Uh yes, I just wanted to say thank you again for the report.

I I I think we're doing um pretty good.

I especially you know, as it has been like a challenging like intro with just with all the challenges around, I think 2025 looks really really good.

Um I wouldn't be surprised if we were looking good compared to our neighbors, but I guess we will we'll see.

Um the 117 units preserved.

Uh, that was also really exciting to see, even though it doesn't count.

Um but it that's still great.

Um it's it's really great to see the low the very low income units.

I feel like we're we're really doing great in that category and the low income as well.

That's that's really exciting.

Um and uh the ADUs also stood out to me, um, permitting 63 this year.

Um that is that's great.

I I love ADUs, you know, they don't really change the character of the neighborhood that much, um, and it gives an opportunity for homeowners to have a bit of passive like income and invest in their home in their neighborhood.

So that's that's really great to see.

Um and the online permitting thing was also really exciting to hear about.

So, big fan of this report.

I think we're we're doing a good job.

And um, yeah, thank you to staff for the report, and I yes am in favor of the motion.

Thank you, Commissioner Fitch.

Uh Commissioner Cornejo.

Yeah, I thought the report was really um it was so much good information that it just wanted you I wanted to talk about it more and more because there were so many good points.

Um I thought staff did a really good job in answering, clarifying all the questions.

I was um aside from all the housing, I was really glad to see that you all highlighted um Jardin de los niños and the YMCA building, all of those things are really exciting for the community in Redwood City, on top of obviously more housing and opportunities.

Um so yeah, I'm actually just really curious on um thanks to our colleague here who brought up the competition question on if we're doing great with the housing unit.

So I'm really curious on like what the results gonna be of that.

So thank you.

I will call it collaboration.

We all want to be able to do that.

It's okay.

We gotta be the best.

The example for the country.

Uh Commissioner Bott.

Yeah, um thank you, staff for the very well prepared report.

Um, I'm in favor of approving.

Um just as a few of my personal notes since we've been adding them.

Um I think uh I I'm very hesitant about the future because I personally anticipate that some of these market challenges may persist.

Um, and we we can't take it for granted that we're just in a temporary period right now where things cost too much, things might continue to cause too much, as it has in the past.

Um so I I hope that we can adapt um should the market not calm down.

Um but apart from that, yeah.

I on the top of competition.

I I don't think that we should even care about competition.

I think our goal should be.

I think the state, the arena requirement is the bare minimum.

We should be a forward-looking city that sees housing not as an obligation, but as something that we're providing for the community.

So I'll be very happy to see what is the probable outcome of us being ahead of our neighbors.

But we shouldn't care about that too much.

It was a light comment.

Yeah.

Everybody calm down.

But yeah.

Cool report.

Great.

Thank you, Commissioner Butt.

Any other comments?

Commissioner.

I mean, I would just say, in in the context of how are we doing relatively on the peninsula?

We are a county with no major city.

What 21 cities in the county?

For example, Santa Clara County.

They have one big city, and its neighbors lean on them to provide all the affordable housing, while they host the headquarters to some of the largest corporations in the world that are doing massive hiring.

And so it's for cities like Redwood City and San Jose that have sheltered the burden.

I think it is important context to know, especially if we're not fully meeting Arena numbers.

Our zoning, upzoning, to really bring back the downtown and to bring people into downtown and a very significant amount of affordable housing.

And I think that tells a really good story when we're we're still struggling with how to house many of the unhoused individuals in our neighborhoods, and some of those policies are very controversial.

But that's why I will look forward to hearing how we're doing relative to that.

And I'm very proud of Redwood City and your work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Robinson.

Commissioner Hunter.

Yeah, just very briefly.

Um I agree with everybody.

This is an outstanding report and comprehensive, and thank thank you to both of you and I've I'm sure you have many other staff people that you worked with on this.

So thanks to all of you.

I just wanted to point out one little thing in in parsing through all these numbers here, and uh uh another another positive thing is that um unlike the last RENA cycle, as I recall, um, where most of the units that were built or that were counted uh with with building permits were in the moderate to above moderate uh area.

Um in these last three years, uh the the very low and low-income housing is uh has actually been the strength.

Um you know the um so the the number of units issued building permits so far is the 1,300 that you mentioned, and where we where we should be as a three-eighths of our cycle is 1700.

So we're it's 77% of where we want to be with RENA.

If you add up the two um low and very low income um categories, we're 90 percent.

So um I think that's really to our credit, and and that's uh um contrary to what we what happened in the in the uh previous arena cycle.

So again, good job, Redwood City.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Hunter.

Commissioner Koch.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say I agree with both Commissioner Bott and Commissioner Robinson.

Um housing people is no joke, and our population continues to grow, our tech sector continues to grow, and I know a lot of people myself that work in Santa Clara but live in Redwood City because it's the most most affordable that they can find south of San Francisco with a reasonable commute.

Um, I think we're doing an amazing job.

I know that the cost of construction loans are outrageous and supplies and tariffs and all of that.

So we may have to wait a little while, I think, until we can shake loose some of those projects that we've already approved.

But I think that as a city, we're doing everything that we can to do that and to make that happen.

Um, and I think we should all be really proud of where we are, and especially being the county seat.

You know, I don't take that lightly, honestly.

I did people always laugh at me about that, but it's true.

You know, and I think sometimes people do turn and look at, oh, what are they doing down in Redwood City, you know?

Like friends in South City or San Bruno.

Oh, that's an idea.

I'm gonna present that.

So I think we're doing great.

Well then.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Finch.

I'm sorry, I just wanted to add one thing.

I looked at some of the past the ADUs just fascinate me.

I was looking at some of the the past reports, and for the past uh in 2022, we had 83 ADUs, and 23 was 73 ADUs, 24 was 49 ADUs this year is 63.

I mean, that's that's really I I that's really great.

I feel like just seeing that many ADUs and consistently also is is really exciting to see.

So sorry, I just wanted to.

I could just note, you know, I think in our in our housing element, we say we're um our goal is to permit I think it's something like 550 ADUs um over the whole Renault Cycle, and we are exactly hitting our average, like it to within a tenth of a percent or something like that.

So we're we're right on target.

Cool.

Yeah, that's great.

I feel like that really speaks to the stuff that you guys as staff are doing to try to make it easier to to build those ADUs.

It seems like it's it's going well, so that's that's great.

Also, the their modeling is very accurate as you can see.

So Commissioner Cornejo.

Yeah, um, just kind of going back to some of the comments, the comments that I was doing, all jokes aside.

But anyways, um one of the things that I've done in the past, just like working with government and like being an aide, it was to do a lot of research on what other cities are doing, whether it was on housing or other problems that we're all trying to solve, and so um one of the reasons that I'd be curious, and maybe this is even like a question or a bare discussion, is like although we're all saying, oh, this is great, a great report.

Is there anything that other cities are doing that we can maybe replicate or we can learn from?

And obviously, that will come with the other uh reports from our neighboring cities or um just other areas, but I'm always curious on like what other people are doing, especially when it comes to the incentives.

Maybe there's incentives that we can replicate here, um, but it would be really at least for me as not only a commissioner but a resident to to know that we're ahead of the game and we're doing a great job, and there's doesn't mean the problems are solved, but it does mean that we're working on it every day, which I think is the goal.

So, yeah.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Uh I mean uh I'm pretty sure the housing staff uh is is on top of it in terms of trying to you know utilize the full toolkit uh the reason why I'm bringing this up.

When when the incentive program came last fall in front of us, I think um Mr.

Heisinger, am I pronouncing the right name?

The current city manager, uh, he was saying that you know he they were referencing actually the tools used by City of San Jose and and City of San Francisco to try to move some of these projects past the finish line.

So I'm it sounds like they're they're they're looking around to the other um neighborhoods.

Go ahead.

I was just gonna make a plug that uh in San Mateo County, we work really collaboratively with all of the other jurisdictions in the county.

You may have heard us reference 21 elements, but we meet as planning staff get together in all the cities.

I actually meet with all the housing managers tomorrow.

Um, so we coordinate very closely on sharing ideas, resources, best practices.

Um I think in Redwood City we tend to be out in front on a lot of things, and a lot of other communities end up copying us, but again, we we have a lot of different ways to connect and share resources with all of our neighboring cities too.

Great to hear.

All right.

Um, my comments I'll keep them short.

I think the other commissioners have have said everything already.

It's a wonderful report.

Uh, I do want to highlight that uh in the report, 126 people who have been transitioning through life moves from um from outside into permanent housing, which I think is agree for a one year total.

Uh so I just wanted to shout out uh to that team.

Um all right.

Any other comments?

If none, I would uh like staff to conduct roll call.

I mean, sorry, voting.

Very good.

Uh Commissioner Batts.

Yes.

Commissioner Cunninghouse.

Yes.

Commissioner Finch.

Yes.

Commissioner Hunter.

Yes.

Commissioner Robinson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Koch.

Yes, Chair Synegrats.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Congratulations, good work.

Item seven seven eight planning commission liaison updates.

Uh, Mr.

Francis.

Yes.

Um, have one update I wanted to just share.

Um, we took the um the Greater Downtown Air Plan vision uh framework presentation that you all saw, uh, or a version of that to um a study session with the city councilor on council on January twelfth, um, of just last month.

Um, we got a lot of really helpful and and and uh insightful uh feedback from our council members.

Um and we've we basically uh took notes and have a nice uh meeting summary on um the project website, um which is RWC greater downtown dot com slash resources.

That's where you can find um the PDF of that uh that uh study session summary.

And that that is the the main update um in terms of upcoming uh planning commission meetings, the regular meeting on March third, twenty twenty six has been canceled.

Um, but we have uh regular meetings scheduled for March 17th, April 7th, and April 21st.

Thank you.

I mean, just for the record, I I will be away uh April 7th.

I will not be able to attend this particular one.

Um other commission updates uh from the oh, Commissioner Robinson.

Oh, just did I hear you say our March third meeting is canceled?

Yes, yes, thank you.

Um all right, um, if there are no other commissioner updates or commission updates, uh we'll move to item eight adjournment.

This concludes tonight's agenda.

The next planning commission meeting is scheduled for March 17th, not third, 2026.

The first thing we have to do, the first thing, I think.