On March 12, 2025, the San Jose Planning Commission held a study session to receive the 2024 Housing Element Annual Progress Report and the Housing Catalyst Team Work Plan. Staff from Planning, Building & Code Enforcement and the Housing Department presented updates on housing production, preservation, and anti-displacement efforts. No formal action was taken by the commission.
Present the 2024 housing element annual progress report and housing catalyst team work plan. Members of the public are welcome to participate. No action will be taken by the commission. We'll get things started with roll call. My name is Anthony Tordios, and I'm here. Vice Chair Cantral. Commissioner Barosio. Commissioner Bendal here. Commissioner Bickford. Here. Commissioner Lardnois. Here. Commissioner Oliverio. Commissioner Rosario. Commissioner Young. Here. That's six in attendance. So we have quorum. All right. We will now call this study session to order. We will get things started with public comment. If there are any members of the public who would like to provide comment before we jump into the study session, feel free to move forward at this time. Cool. Seeing none, I will turn it over to staff to present our housing element annual proper support and housing catalysts team work plan. Thank you. Good evening, Chair, Council, Commission. Sorry. So Jared Ferguson, a principal planner with planning building and code enforcement. I'm here with Kristen Clements, a division manager with our housing department, and Michelle Flores, supervising planner with the planning. So we're here to talk to you tonight about our housing catalyst team work plan. You know, we wanted to bring this to you. You see some of these items I think come through the commission, you know, as far as zoning changes, general plan changes, but we thought it would be helpful to share with you kind of this this work plan on an annual basis, just to kind of give you the full context and picture of all the things that we're working on in terms of housing. Next slide. So first to get into some background on the work plan. So our housing catalyst team was established in 2018 as part of our our housing crisis work plan, which is a which was the predecessor to the housing catalyst work plan. Um and that was really uh started uh later on in our fifth cycle housing element to try to uh coalesce our policies around advancing housing production to to meet uh some ambitious housing goals at that time, and that really ran through the end of the last housing element. And in November of 2022, we proposed transitioning that housing crisis work plan to the housing catalyst team work plan. And our housing catalyst team was created as part of that process of the housing crisis work plan, and it's composed of staff from our planning housing department staff, our office of economic development in the city manager's office, as well as uh parks recreation and neighborhood services that work on housing. And so we meet twice a month to work on uh housing issues to work through the work plan to meet and discuss and collaborate together through the the work items. And so with the end of the housing crisis work plan and the transition to the housing catalyst team work plan, we're also working on creation of our new housing element, our six cycle housing element. So we took that opportunity to really pair those two things together more closely to align our work. So in June of 2023, as you're aware, our city council adopted our housing element, and then in January, after further work, the uh the state HCD certified our housing element, and last year we provided our first update on the housing catalyst work plan in connection also with our annual uh progress report on the housing element that we provide to council and are required to submit to the state each year. So, to kind of go into detail of what is in our housing catalyst team work plan. So, as a part of the housing element, there were approximately 130 multi-part work items focused on production, preservation, and protection of housing. The housing catalyst work plan is meant to be a subset of those work items that we're working on right now in kind of either the short term we've already started work or we're going to soon initiate work within the next one to two years. And it provides an additional place to kind of catalog other housing related policy work items that weren't in the housing element, but that the city council or staff have proposed to add to that that body of work you know around production, preservation, protection of housing. So in the work plan, um we also have tried to prioritize our work around these two metrics that we've developed, and um we can in the full report that we can share with the commission. We go into some detail on these, but uh they're focused first on impact. So, what will what do we estimate the effect of a particular policy will be when it's implemented? You know, how many units do we think it might result in a production, how many units might be protected through a particular policy change, etc.