Good evening, everybody.

My name is Carlos Rosario, and I'm the chair of the Planning Commission.

Welcome to the special meeting study session on SB 79,

Statewide Standards for Transit-Oriented Development.

Please remember to turn off your cell phones,

and the parking validation machine is in the rear chamber.

Following roll call, during the summary of hearings and procedures, we will review how

the public may provide public comment during today's session.

At this time, if you are able, please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay, next we'll move on to roll call.

My name is Carlos Rosario, and I am here.

Vice Chair Big Bird.

Looks like she's not here yet.

Commissioner Borosio, not here.

Commissioner Bondal, not here.

Commissioner Cantrell?

Here.

Commissioner Cow?

Here.

Commissioner Casey?

Here.

Commissioner Escobar?

Here.

Commissioner Nguyen?

Here.

Okay, Commissioner Oliverio, Commissioner Young.

Here.

So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Here, so we have a quorum.

Alright.

Do we need to do call to order and orders of the day or can we go straight into public

comment?

I suppose.

I think we can go straight into public comment.

Okay.

If the chair so wishes.

All right.

Well, we'll let now be the time for public comment.

If anybody, this is for non-agendized items, please fill out a speaker's card and give it to the technician.

Each member of the public may address the commission for up to two minutes.

The commission cannot take any formal action without the item being properly noticed and placed on the agenda.

In response to public comment, the Planning Commission is limited to the following options.

Responding to statements made or questions posed by members of the public

or requesting staff to report back on a matter at a subsequent meeting

or directing staff to place the item on a future agenda.

Do we have any speakers for public comment on tonight's agenda?

No speakers.

It's not like there are any members of the public here other than the commissioners and staff.

So, we will move on to the study session presentation, SB 79.

All right.

Thanks, Chair.

Let me pull up the presentation here.

So Jared Ferguson, Principal Planner

with the Department of Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement.

We're going to be talking about Senate Bill 79, SB 79,

that sets new statewide standards for transit-oriented development.

We wanted to talk to you about this bill tonight

because it's really touching a lot of our work right now.

both with some upcoming specific ordinance changes that will be coming

before the Planning Commission and then also our broader work around the general

plan for your review and I'll talk a little bit later in the presentation of

what that will mean but I think this is just meant to be kind of a first

conversation to give you all background in this complicated piece of legislation

and kind of get a sense of the far-ranging impacts that it'll have on

on the city moving forward so just to get into some basic background on the legislation so it

was signed in october by the governor it it takes effect with a slight delay so it takes effect on

july 1st of 2026 of this year broadly speaking what the bill does is it supersedes local zoning

and allows residential on all sites that currently allow residential and commercial uses within a

a one-half mile radius of what's defined as transit-oriented development stops.

And I'll get into a little bit more into how that's explicitly defined in the bill.

So what that means for San Jose, generally speaking, is that all zoning districts in

the city except for light industrial, heavy industrial, agricultural, and open space that

fall within those half mile radiuses of those stops, housing will be allowed on those parcels.

So in San Jose, we have about 56 stations either in or adjacent to the city that are considered those TOD stops.

And again, I'll get into the definitions in a minute.

But roughly, that's over 40,000 parcels impacted by the bill in the city.

The half-mile radius is measured from the pedestrian access points of the station.

that that term is not explicitly defined in the bill and I'll get into a little

bit more of how we've interpreted that and what that'll mean for some of the

mapping and impacts to parcels SB 79 applies in urban counties in the state

it has a specific definition around that for the Bay Area that means that it will

apply in Santa Clara County Alameda County San Mateo County in San Francisco

County. So I mentioned the transit-oriented development stops. So those are defined in the

bill and separated into two tiers. So the first tier, tier one, is served by heavy rail transit

or very high frequency commuter rail. So it has a very specific number of trains per day.

So as it pertains to San Jose, that would apply to our Caltrain stops that are electrified,

our BART stations and our planned BART stations.

So in the city or adjacent to the city,

and when we say adjacent, there could be stops.

The Mumpetus BART is an example,

or the Santa Clara Caltrain Station,

where the station itself is in another city,

but that half-mile radius covers an area of the city, our city.

So when we say we have 10 stations,

it's including those stations as well.

So there are 10 of those Tier 1 stations in the city.

and I'll get into what the tiers mean in terms of development.

Tier 2, this is where we have the most.

So Tier 2 stations are served by light rail, high-frequency commuter rail,

or bus rapid transit with dedicated lanes.

And it applies, so San Jose, that applies to all of our light rail stations.

And then we have two bus rapid transit stops along Alum Rock that it would apply to

for a total of 46 stations in or adjacent to the city

that would be considered tier 2 under SB 79.

So we've produced a draft map.

It's linked.

We'll be having a webpage up soon with a lot more information on 79.

We do have a link to this map in the report that went to the city council.

We started the exercise of mapping just for our analysis purposes

to do some of the initial work around this to understand the impacts

and also to help inform the general plan process

to understand what capacity is being added through SB 79.

But officially through the law, MTC, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission,

is responsible as a responsible entity for producing the map for all jurisdictions.

So we produced this draft.

We've been in contact with them and are working closely with them.

and I think the timeline is somewhat fuzzy at this point but I think you know they're trying

to work as quickly as they can to produce the map so I mentioned that pedestrian access point

is sort of the key to defining those half mile buffers we've worked over the past few months

at kind of plotting those points it isn't something that we or even VTA had necessarily

plotted before and so we went through that exercise so that we would at least

have an understanding a general understanding of what those half mile

radiuses look like around these stations so this overall map gives you a sense of

kind of the areas of the city impacted by SB 79 it's pretty substantial in terms

of how much is covered within those half mile radius. So there's two different tiers and then

what 70 SB 79 does is it sets a maximum density and height that the city cannot preclude a

development from achieving that's on a parcel within one of those tier stations. So these are

the maximum densities and heights set within those tiers and then there's kind of within the tiers

there's sort of three layers if you're a parcel that's adjacent to a tod stop with that's within

200 feet of a pedestrian access point you're afforded the highest density and then if you're

a quarter mile and a half mile away that you know it kind of scales outwardly from there

So to give you kind of a sense of where these densities land within existing San Jose land use designations,

transit residential is typically our most dense designation that we apply to parcels near usually heavy transit,

so around Deirdon Station, around our Berryessa Bard Station.

That starts at 50 dwelling units an acre and then goes to 250 dwelling units an acre.

So while these are within that range, the application of that designation is much more

limited to parcels very directly adjacent to transit stations and not as widely used

as what's covered in the half quarter mile radius.

So some additional provisions around it.

So other requirements.

So there is a requirement for projects with 11 or more units that on-site affordable must

be included in those projects.

And it cannot be used on sites with three or more units that are subject to either rent

or price controls.

So in San Jose, properties that have units subject to our apartment rent ordinance or

mobile home parks that have spaces subject to our mobile home rent ordinance, which is

all of our mobile home parks would not be eligible to utilize SB 79.

Generally, projects are eligible for state density bonus law,

except we are not required to grant a height increase above the maximum heights in 79.

We could choose not to provide density bonus for height.

But for other provisions, they can use state density bonus law.

And there's actually some for 100% affordable projects under SB 79,

they can be granted additional concessions as a part of that as well. It's in the law.

One other provision included in this, so transit agencies, such as VTA, that own properties within

the SB 79 half mile radius, they can set their own development standards for sites that they own

prior to July 1st of last year. So we've been in discussions with VTA. They do intend to utilize

this and are looking at developing their own development standards for the

properties that they own within these within these areas generally you know

we have park and ride lots those sorts of things that they would be looking at

developing in the future now on the approval pathway for these future

projects generally they would be required to apply for a site development permit

and those would be approved at a director's hearing so our Wednesday

morning hearings. Projects also can be eligible for state streamlining, so SB 35, 423, if they

qualify for those pathways could use that, and that would be a ministerial approval.

These projects are subject to CEQA, but generally they would be eligible for the new exemptions,

you know, eligible for, well, potentially eligible for other exemptions, but would be eligible for

than the new exemption created through AB 130,

which is for infill housing projects,

or potentially SB 131,

which is the near miss CEQA pathway.

So that's a summary of at a very quick,

I know it's a lot of what SB 79 does.

And I think the one thing I failed to mention,

So it sets maximum densities that we can't prevent a development from achieving.

It also sets a minimum density of 30 dwelling units an acre in San Jose,

unless the city has a higher minimum density set for those properties.

So that's sort of the summary of what SB 79 allows.

And then there are a number of other, what we're calling here, implementation options,

but sort of pathways to how certain properties could be exempted.

And a lot of them are an opt-in model,

and there's different pathways for how a city could opt in and how they qualify.

So there's kind of three categories.

The first are more permanent exemptions, and I'll talk about those first.

And then there's a delay, what we're calling delayed effectuation,

which essentially delays the effects of 79 until one year following the next housing element.

So for San Jose, that would be 2032.

And then there's a more permanent modification of Senate Bill 79 through what's called in the bill TOD, Alternative Plan, or Alt Plan.

And I'll go through each of these and talk about some of the requirements and then also discuss some of the initial analysis that we've done around some of the station areas.

So the first option under the permanent exemptions is afforded to industrial employment hubs.

This is a new term coined in the bill.

This is something that the city advocated for inclusion in this bill to protect primarily industrial areas.

So for us, North San Jose in particular.

but how it's defined is contiguous areas of at least 250 acres designated as employment land

in a general plan prior to January 1st of 2025. And then they also must be primarily dedicated

to industrial use. And the city must opt in through adoption of an ordinance that has to

be approved by the state HCD. So we have really three, sorry, five areas that we, that would

qualify under these provisions based upon our initial analysis. So I mentioned North San Jose,

well above the requirements there in terms of its percentage of industrial and then total acreage.

the Berryessa International Business Park

Lundy-Milpitas BART station which is sort of just

I have a map I can show of this in the next slide

sort of just to the east of

North San Jose and then kind of to the south

nearby the Berryessa BART station we have East Gish

and Mayberry which also would meet

the category and then centrally located kind of near

Tamien station is our Monterey business corridor

actually I just go to the map it's probably easier to sort of show you rather than explain it so you

can see that the cluster in the north there and then in the central the Monterey business corridor

and then in the south near our Santa Teresa station we have old Edenvale old Edenvale

transit employment center that meets those definitions and I'll talk a little bit more

about this as we talk about next steps. The other permanent exemption that's available in the bill

relates to sites where there is no walking path of less than one mile from the TOD stop. So

you could have a site that's within the half mile buffer, but there's no way to walk to the station

from that site that's less than a mile. And so cities can opt in and choose to exempt those sites

from the provision of SB 79. Again, it has to be done through an opt-in model with an ordinance

that has to be approved by HCD. Right now, we estimate there's over 2,000 parcels that

could potentially be eligible. We really need to conduct further analysis of those sites

specifically, you know, when we are able to get those final maps, understand a little bit more

about the methodology of how to measure the walking path and those sorts of things. You know,

I think we also want to do some more nuanced review of those sites to understand, you know,

is it how inaccessible is it? Is it, you know, there's a freeway in the way and you can't get

there? Or is it, you know, is it just an extra, you know, 100 feet and there's, there is, you know,

a clear sort of walking path there and kind of do that review with some of our partner departments

like the Department of Transportation.

Okay, and then, so the next bucket gets quite a bit more complicated,

so I'll try to explain it as best I can.

So this is what we call delayed effectuation, so it's the temporary exemption,

and then there are kind of multiple ways in which you qualify for that temporary exemption,

And you can exempt either individual sites, TOD zones or stations, or low resource areas.

And those low resource areas are those areas defined by the state through their mapping that define opportunity.

And so, again, this is an opt-in model where you need to opt in through an ordinance that's approved by HCD.

And so in the law itself, there's some pretty detailed criteria for how a city needs to

show that they qualify for this delay.

And it's really based primarily around what's the existing zoned capacity within those areas.

So at a TOD zone level, at least one-third of sites must allow 50% of the density afforded

through SB 79.

And then cumulatively, the zone overall allows greater than 75% of the average density granted

by SB 79.

And we've done some specific station level analysis around this exemption that I'll talk

about on the next slide.

And then there's some other site-specific exemptions that are allowed.

A site that allows 50% of the density that SB 79 allows can be removed.

sites located in very high fire severity zones or vulnerable to one-foot level sea rise

or sites that contain locally designated historic resources that were designated prior to January 1st

of 2025. And then lastly on the low resource exemption again that's based on the state maps

from TCAC they have to meet either one of these requirements so at a city-wide level across

TOD zones in low resources sorry in low resource areas allow greater than 50 percent of the density

SB 79 grants and that's that's at a citywide level across multiple low resource areas or

if there's a TOD zone that's primarily in a low resource area and it allows greater than 40 percent

of the SB 79 density, then it could be temporarily exempted.

So given that we have over 50 stations,

and this just took effect in October,

and we don't have the final maps,

we tried to at least provide the city council

and now you all with some, you know,

what would this mean?

Is it possible?

You know, do we have kind of that level of density

that sort of meets some of these requirements?

and I will say too it's some of these the interpretation of a lot of these is sort of

evolving in real time it's you know understanding of what primarily means what average density means

all these things are sort of you know we're looking to HCD for guidance they're not explicitly

required to provide guidance until July 1st so I mean we have been talking with them and they've

been you know meeting with cities but I think you know they're sort of also

trying to get at some understanding of it as well so I just want to caveat that

you know this analysis could change as we have greater understanding of how

these calculations are done but what we wanted to do is since we can't look at

all 50 we wanted to look at kind of a representative sample of our stations in

the city so we wanted to look at I thought it would look at a high high

density station so a station with a high level of zoned capacity so we looked at the barriers of

bart station which has included in an adopted urban village plan with a high degree of density

you know zoned into that plan the tamian station so that's a has the caltrain station located with

it along with the light rail station has a specific plan there not quite to the level of the the

the Berryessa-Bart Urban Village, but still at a higher level of density than I think

what's typical.

And then on the low end, looking at the Snell Light Rail Station, which has an unplanned

village that's nearby the Light Rail Station.

So this chart here, and I have maps of each of these stations I think is helpful to kind

of look at to get a sense of scale, but at a high level, looking at, so if you remember,

there was two layers of the analysis that had to be done.

You had to be at 75% of the average density allowed under 79,

and then you had to have at least one-third of sites allowing 50% of the density of SB79.

So in the case of the Barrios-of-Bart station,

our initial analysis shows that it would meet one of the criteria, but not the second criteria.

and then the other stations are quite a ways away off.

And I think, and this becomes apparent in the maps,

you know, when you look at that half mile buffer,

it extends much further beyond what we've typically planned for

when we think of a station area plan.

And so you're capturing in, you know, existing lower density residential,

you're capturing industrial properties and other commercial properties

that are low density and not, you know, planned for housing.

so I think the first one that's a good illustration of this so this is the Snell

the Snell station the light rail station so you see the station there along the freeway

the green dot represents the pedestrian access point the yellow inner circle that's that adjacent

adjacent properties which are not too many and then you have the the quarter and the half mile

radius. The pink properties there, that's really, so that's the major intersection there, Snell and

Blossom Hill. That's the unplanned urban village, basically all those pink properties. And then you

can kind of see how much further this goes out and covers, you know, from the station area. So

yellow is residential neighborhood, single family. You have some of the darker brown, which is

mixed-use neighborhood or urban residential and then the blue is is

public quasi-public so some school properties there as well.

So again kind of digging in on Tamien station in this case there are three

pedestrian access points to the station so you can see the circles again and you

can see how how the complexity increases when you have multiple pedestrian access

points you can kind of see how those bubbles go out further because you go

from each pedestrian access point outward so that's why you kind of get

those extra areas there to the south. But again you can see how it stretches the

brown there is really what's what's planned right now is the stationary and

the Tamiyan specific plan but then going further out you can see it covers a

wider area. And then this is the Berryessa BART station so you've got the

three pedestrian access points there at the station,

kind of tucked in close to the station there with the blue,

and then the red and the brown is the urban village area.

To the south there, that's actually the Mayberry East Gish,

so those are the industrial areas that we are looking to exclude,

although a lot of the properties in there would also not be eligible

because they are light and heavy industrial.

but again as we're starting to do we're doing that calculation based upon that entire station

area those are sites that don't allow for housing and so our ability to reach those thresholds

is limited because we're capturing those those sites that don't permit housing

so therefore don't meet the density levels required for that delay

and then so the last bucket is a more permanent exemption to sp79 called the alternative plan or

alt plan and you can permanently modify or exempt sites or areas from the

standards of SB 79 and you can apply the alt plan could apply per stop at

multiple stops or citywide you can adopt it at any time if you adopt it prior to

the next housing element cycle you have to sort of reevaluate it as a part of

your next part of the next housing element again the alternative plans must

be submitted to HCD and approved by them. It kind of sets a higher bar to the density

than what's under the delay. So at a citywide level, the plan must maintain equal or greater

net zone capacity. So we must account for existing units and FAR developed on the site.

And then at a site level, it can't reduce density by more than 50% or increase it above

200% of what SB 79 allows, except for historic sites and very high fire severity zones, which

can be exempted. And then at a station level, you can't reduce any station by more than 50%.

So it's kind of a big balancing act you have to do in order to show that you're essentially

allowing the level of capacity or density created through 79 and sort of shifting it

around on sites.

So I think in the near term it will be very hard for us to achieve this without kind of

comprehensive upzoning and new plans in order to achieve some of those densities.

So one of the primary next steps that we're looking to take, one of the recommendations that staff made to city council on January 27th is that we move forward immediately on the industrial employment hub exemption.

And so there's kind of this timeline set up in SB 79 around the approval of HCD that creates some challenges.

so at least 14 days before the city council adoption of the ordinance we submit a draft to

hcd and then within 60 days of enactment we submit that to hcd and then they actually have 90 days to

review the ordinance for substantial compliance and then they can request an additional 30 days

so we'd like to have it we definitely want to have it effective before july 1st and then we'd like to

try to build in as much time for that HCD review period as possible.

So the timeline that we have here is that we submit a draft to HCD in early March,

in just a couple weeks here, and then we would be before you all on March 11th with that ordinance,

and then for a city council hearing on March 17th, and then the second reading the week after that.

So that would be the enactment date for an effective date in April, which would put the ordinance effective prior to July 1st.

And so we've been trying to closely coordinate as much as possible with HCD on this work.

There's still some questions that we have around how kind of the mechanics and logistics of it work.

but there'll be another opportunity to kind of dig into that when the ordinance comes forward

itself so this was kind of the largely the presentation given to the city council on the

27th to kind of give them a perspective of like what the options are moving forward and how it

will impact san jose and so we had some initial staff recommendations i mentioned the ordinance

on industrial employment hubs.

This is kind of a summary of what the city council decided to go with.

So our initial recommendation was the employment hubs exemption,

which the city council agreed with,

to return later with a separate ordinance on those one-mile walking path sites.

I think we need to do, like I mentioned, some additional analysis

to understand what sites those are, understand some of the methodology.

and so that would be on a slightly longer horizon not to where it would be effective before July 1st

but we would be looking at a timeline sometime after that depending on workload.

Additionally the city council this was something that they added asked us to return

with an ordinance increasing minimum densities in downtown

down above that 30 dwelling units an acre.

And then also to consider and assess options in the future around other increasing minimum

densities and other growth areas based on further analysis.

So I mentioned that we can set higher minimum densities or that projects that utilize SP79

must follow our minimum densities, but if there is no minimum density then 30 dwelling

units an acre is the default.

And then lastly to return to the City Council with additional analysis on how the CEQA process

for properties on the historic resources inventory would work, especially for those projects

looking to utilize the AB 130 exemption.

So our initial staff recommendation was that we move forward with the temporary exemption

on designated historic sites, but they wanted to, City Council wanted to understand a little

bit more about how the CEQA process would or would not protect historic properties

before kind of making that decision. So in March on the 17th we'll come back with some

further analysis on that for them as well.

So I think the other piece of this so there's kind of I mentioned this at the beginning there's kind

of the the near-term direct kind of ordinance work that'll be coming before the planning commission

But then there's also the longer term work discussions we're having with you all as the task force on the general plan process.

And so we got into this discussion a little bit at the last task force meeting around residential capacity.

But this this law coming into effect kind of midway through or at least at the beginning of the process of our general plan is really changed.

You know how you look at some of these categories and how we might want to consider some of the policy changes we're looking at.

So the next meetings that we have, we have our March 4th meeting on missing middle small multifamily housing, and then our April 5th meeting on residential capacity.

And so we're sort of embedding into some of that analysis how SB 79, you know, kind of overlaps or doesn't overlap with those policy decisions.

And particularly on the capacity decision, you know, it adds a great deal of capacity in areas.

you know maybe it's not all the areas we want to add capacity but it really has changed you know

some of the dynamics kind of done a lot of the lifting for us in terms of adding that capacity

and so just having continue to have the conversation of what that will mean and how we should proceed

in other areas I think is really important and so I think we're going to have those conversations

in the future and just having a background understanding of SB 79 we thought would be

helpful as we have those other conversations because you could spend a lot of time discussing

this and some of the nuanced details of it. It's taken up a lot of our time. I can tell you that.

So that was the staff presentation. I'm happy to have a discussion, answer questions.

Like I said, it's very detailed, so I know it was a lot, so hopefully it's

undigestible. So thank you.

Okay, on to any questions or concerns by the commissioners.

Commissioner Oliverio and then Commissioner Young.

Thank you for the presentation.

SB677, which is coming forward, is an expansion of SB79.

As far as I'm aware, it would expand it to standard bus stops throughout the city.

Is that a fair assessment?

A lot of the cleanup is sort of evolving.

Some of it, I know in particular what's moving forward quickly is a specific categorical exemption of mobile home parks.

I know that's on a faster track.

My understanding is some of the other discussion around expanding stations is on a little bit longer of a track.

And I think being pulled out of 677 and going into maybe some other legislation.

but we're trying to track that while we do some of this analysis on what this will mean

but yeah there is some talk about how it might be modified I know there's some talk of maybe delay

too as well I think the timing is challenging because if you you know all of those things

you know this takes effect July 1st so any legislative change you know to sort of happen

that quickly would be a challenge but yeah we're trying to monitor that and what that will mean

but it's evolving quickly.

Okay. SB 677 has passed the Senate

and is due scheduled for an assembly vote.

I don't know where that is, and I don't know timelines on that,

but just FYI, it seems as though that would provide this type of density

in other parts of the city that aren't on the map today.

Of course, this is pending.

It's not law like it is SB 79.

And then could you cruise back to the beginning of the presentation?

I had some thoughts that came up, but I don't see it.

I can't recall what I thought when I saw your presentation.

It wasn't this one, I tell you that one.

Was that the first slide?

Sorry, this is the first slide here.

Okay, so out of 40,000 parcels, if those qualify, how many units does that stack up for the general plan?

I don't have that number, but that's kind of what we want to get into in the task force conversations, having more of that data.

So that's something we're working on.

But maybe if we simplified it and just sort of made a grand, you know, wild idea,

that could potentially contain enough housing.

I don't know.

That could be upwards of 40,000 units.

It's more substantial.

Or actually even more, right?

400,000.

So, I mean, as you look, I mean, SB 79 could just pretty much wrap up the city's obligation under the general plan.

I think at the Snell Station alone, it looks like it may go from 3,200 that are allowed right now to 37,000 at the Snell Station alone.

Right.

So, but understanding that takes time, right?

It takes someone with your graph software to count the unit.

And then, of course, development will occur whenever it occurs,

and that's all we're trying to do is create the potential for capacity,

whether they do it with one single-family home

or they buy the two adjacent ones and have a larger lot to work with.

But I'm assuming then HCD would recognize that SB79 creates housing capacity

for all the counties that are eligible,

not the ones that were exempt like Marin and Contra Costa and Santa Barbara,

and I'll pause there.

Monterey.

Yeah, I mean, I think getting into the longer-term conversation,

you know, I think it does, you know, as I mentioned,

it is involved in the general plan discussion.

Are we kind of done?

Does it add enough?

I mean, I think we want to look probably beyond a little bit

to provide other opportunities, but it does, in terms of numbers,

it adds enough to what we would need.

But I think there's a question longer term of how can we use this capacity

in our future housing element?

How much is realistic, right?

Because that's what we get into when we start looking at the housing element is they ask us to show realistic capacity in our housing element, not theoretical maximums, what will actually be built.

But who's to interpret, pardon me, who's to interpret that?

The legislature and the governor passed SB 79 to create housing capacity.

Who's HCD to say, oh, we think it's fictional or theoretical?

That's the law.

and I'm a city and I'm allocating my housing capacity to that state law.

Yeah, no, I think that's a very fair point.

I think that's where some of the conversation I know we've had at the staff level

is having that clarity going into the next housing element

that at least some amount of this capacity that we could reliably rely upon

in our future work in the site's inventory for the housing element would be critical.

Because I think we agree with you.

like if you're saying we have this capacity there's some level of it that we should be able

to count you know as realistic but that that whole interpretation of realistic capacity is what

really tripped up a lot of cities especially large cities because you're looking at so many parcels

and the level of specificity and data that were required to go into showing those sites being

realistic was a very very high bar to me and very challenging which is why we got a lot of feedback

and a lot of criticism because there's a lot of elements that we don't know, right, you know,

why a site might choose to redevelop or might not redevelop, you know.

Well, it would seem that that's really up to the free market because government doesn't build housing.

It's the commercial sector that does, and we don't know why or why not a particular parcel is developed

on any given day because we're not a party to the purchase of the property.

We're not a party to the interest rates that they may qualify to go build.

I mean, that's insane.

I mean, we can even have general plans or specific plans that have been in the city for decades.

We can't control when those things go forward.

So for HCD to have that viewpoint, I know it's not staff.

I'm just, you know, highly critical of HCD and their viewpoint of the world.

First, they say, jump through all these hoops and do this.

And then here's an option.

Well, that's not, we don't believe you.

It's your law.

I mean, so I'll pause there.

Thank you.

Would it be different than when we're doing the housing element

and the folks say, well, this is realistic and this isn't,

would the threshold for SB79 be different,

or would it be the same as when HCD reviews our housing element?

Do you have any idea?

I mean, you know, inherently, whether someone chooses to build three stories,

six stories, or nine stories, you know, that all depends on the year.

You know, 2027 may be the most amazing housing construction year, and then nothing happens for six.

I don't know.

You know, it's really, I'd rather have the planning specialist in the house comment.

Thank you.

Yeah, happy to share my thoughts as well, Maniur Sandir, Deputy Director of Planning.

So to the chair's question and to comments from Commissioner Oliverio,

like the markets really determine what gets developed.

When it comes to the housing element implementation in past cycles,

there has been extensive sites analysis to determine where is it realistic for housing to be located,

and that's what HCD has relied on in the past.

Now, if the legislature was to say that we have provided SB79

and maybe there's a path not to do that kind of detailed sites analysis

or HCD comes up with new guidance, that would be up to the state to decide.

It's not something we can directly influence.

Yeah, just to add to that, too, it's really around housing element law, right, and HCD's interpretation of housing element law.

But a lot of even that realistic capacity that we talk about, that is in, you know, state law right now.

And so, you know, some of it is, if it were to change, it would need to be, you know, changes made to housing element law in order for them to sort of change how they interpret or how we can show or use the capacity.

but I think it will be critical

going forward into this next housing

element is how this newly created

capacity can or can't be

used in housing elements

and through the chair if I can

give another example so SB9

was adopted right before the start of

this particular housing element cycle

and in that instance like the state

took the position or HCD took the position

that cities still could not fully

rely on SB9 to show

that development capacity was being met

Commissioner Young.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks for the presentation, Jared.

It was very, very helpful.

Very well done.

Thank you.

I had just a couple of questions on certain of the pages.

Would you be able to bring up page 11?

Sure.

I just clicked on chair.

Okay.

Okay, let me go to 11.

Okay, here we go.

Yeah, I just had a question on the term TCAC maps.

What are those?

So TCAC is the Tax Credit Allocation Committee.

They're the ones who award tax credits for affordable housing.

so as a part of that process there are maps produced that that there's a lot of methodology

that goes into them but they show areas of high low opportunity and it's it's how TCAC

awards some of those or allocates those tax credits based on criteria so high opportunity

areas you know some of what goes into the determination of that high quality schools

you know other factors that contribute to making something high resource and

affordable housing projects located in those areas tend to score better therefore getting

tax credits awarded to them so when we talk about low resource areas those are defined in those maps

so that's why it's just as a reference point. Okay great thanks and then could you go to page 12?

Through the chair if I may add so the TCAT maps were also included in our housing element

identifying the areas of the city which were low resource areas. Okay great.

I'm not sure I completely understand this little chart. So

yeah. Yeah sure. Let me just say that could I'm not exactly sure what the red X and the green check

mean. Yeah so if I can let me go back to this slide. Okay. And so if you kind of look at the

third bullet point. So looking at the TOD zone level, that's really the station area, right,

the half mile radius around one TOD stop. So if you look at the two bullet points below that,

there's kind of two levels of criteria. We have to meet both of those in order to qualify for the

temporary delay. So at least one third of the sites have to allow 50% of the density granted

in 79 and then cumulatively over the entire area there has to be an average density of 75 percent

of what 79 provides so we taking that even that just that specific area the tod zone level because

doing it at a larger level is pretty complex right across multiple zones we looked at these three

areas. And then each column there is meant to show, do we meet that two-step criteria?

So in the case of Baryessa, it does meet one of the two, but not both of them.

So essentially what it's saying is these three areas would not qualify for delayed effectuation.

Correct. And so since we looked at those three areas, kind of meant to be a representative sample,

you know, while we didn't do all of the calculations, it's probably unlikely that many of our stations,

if any, would meet kind of that criteria absent some pretty significant, you know,

upzoning to sort of get to those levels. Again, I said we've done this initially,

the calculations are evolving in real time, and so just doing the calculations is a pretty

substantial, like, resource, you know, intensive activity. So even sort of continuing to, like,

recalculate is sort of burdensome.

But we wanted this as just

to sort of show, is it even

a possibility? And it's pretty

unlikely that it's possible

is what we're trying to show.

Okay, great. That makes a lot more

sense.

Let's see. Could you bring up page

16?

trying to remember what my question was here um i i think so is the intent of this alt plan is

in the legislation i guess what was the what was the intent of having this in here was it to give

more another option for cities to try and do or yeah it was really meant i think it's like well

what if you know 79 grants all this density what if i as a city or jurisdiction you know can basically

show you an alternative that does what you did, you know, and provides the same level of capacity.

And therefore I can sort of opt out either citywide or a more specific level. That's kind of the

theory or thought behind it, I think. Okay. And does it, do you feel it's likely we would,

as a city, try to go this way or? I think, so if you look at it, the delay is sort of

a lower bar in terms of density and this is an even higher bar okay so um we didn't do specific

analysis around this um but i think the delay was sort of meant to show you know um that it would be

hard so i mean it's not to say that we couldn't pursue these in the future but in the near term

it would be very challenging you know it's something we could potentially consider if we're

doing station area work and we wanted you know in the station we're doing this work we're upzoning

therefore we want to opt it out of 79 and there's some there's maybe some more targeted approaches

that we could look at but in the near term it's it's a pretty heavy lift for us to develop something

like this and to fit it it's not anything that we've contemplated in our current work plan

you know for for citywide planning got it okay last question um i i'm trying to understand kind

of like what would the potential real world impact be of this so I'll just throw out a typical

7,000 square foot city r1 lot that was in the half mile radius let's say snell

which would be that outer circle what potentially could could someone build on that

so there is a threshold I didn't get into this but to be a 79 project you need to have at least

five units right so that would be kind of the lower bar and then you know could you calculate

up to so I'm just going to go back to the the density so if you're at the half mile

you know on tier two you'd have to be at you know 80 dwelling units an acre so you'd have to

calculate that.

Yeah, just, and I'm,

the reason I'm asking is

I'm

looking at this,

I'm understanding it incorrectly,

but looking at this tier two,

so

55 foot height,

so

does that mean on an R1 lot

someone could build a, basically

a four story building?

In

theory, I think in practicality, it will be more challenging. I think what you're more likely to

see is, I think Manira was alluding to this too, is that a more slower uptake and probably at the

lower end. But as far as, you know, the whole area sort of quickly changing and utilizing this

process, I think it'll be slower as people sort of figure out what works and what doesn't work.

but I think, you know, whole scale changes quickly are unlikely, you know, given kind of the economic realities.

But, you know, all of these policies take time.

You know, I think the example I always use is around ADUs.

You know, we started in the 2017 range, you know, and that there was like almost single digits in ADUs.

And now, you know, we're at like 500 a year.

It's kind of plateaued.

But it's to show that it takes time for changes to actually take root before we see it.

But even then, I don't know that there's going to be wholesale changes quickly in those family neighborhoods that that would happen.

I think it's more likely on some of those maybe like the school sites that are larger or the, you know, some of those unplanned village sites, the shopping centers, you know, there might be some interest there as well.

But again, you know, as we talked about in the study session, the economics are challenging right now for development.

and so it still will be relatively, you know, the pace could be somewhat slow.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Through the chair, if I could add a little bit of context to that, to what Jared shared.

So SB 79 doesn't preclude like a project from going through a regular process

like a site development permit or a CEQA as well.

So there are other options available to single-family home development under state law,

like SB 1123, which allows for 10 units,

up to 10 units on vacant lots,

or SB 9, which already allow for up to four units.

So we'll just have to see.

We might see some proposals here or there,

but it's unlikely that we would get a rush of proposals

in these neighborhoods.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Casey, did you still have?

Thank you, Cher.

Actually, Commissioner Young basically came up

with most of it.

But just clarification, the 40,000 lots,

those are all the lots within those range,

but most, well, I don't know how to say most,

but many of them are already developed

and things like that.

So when we're talking about how quickly

can we get X number of units,

logically we'd probably, developers would probably start

with vacant lots or something like that to begin with,

was just my clarification.

I don't know if we have numbers about,

or will we have numbers in the presentation

that come up later on about which of these

are actually more likely to be developed

as opposed to these are existing single-family homes

within a half mile of the Snell Station,

which hopefully no one buys up one lot

and then builds a five-story building

in the middle of the neighborhood.

For the most part, most of these parcels are infill,

so they have an existing use or something on them.

You know, it might be a vacant building or an unused building,

but there's not just kind of vacant property,

so it will depend on some change

and a little bit of what you're asking

gets into the conversation around

what that realistic capacity is

and what could happen

but generally all of it will be

sort of replacement or infill

for the most part in these station areas

they're built areas

with existing buildings and structures

on sites for the most part

and would it really

back to Commissioner Young's question as well

of the Snell station as an example

because I grew up in that area

is it really just economics

that would be the only precluding factor

for someone to literally buy a house

a half mile from the station,

tear it down and build a four-story building?

Or are there other zoning and codes

and things like that that may come into play there as well?

Is it really just kind of economics and the environment?

The economics is the key driver.

I think the lot size would be hard to build that,

so you'd have to combine multiple lots.

And again, that gets into the economics

and some of that feasibility aspect of it.

I think that will be the real limiting factor.

We can apply standards,

so there can be setbacks and other things

that can apply to projects,

although we can't preclude them

from achieving the maximum height or density that's allowed.

So it kind of creates some ability to work around

even what standards we apply,

even though we can't apply standards.

Commissioner Oliverio, then Commissioner Cantrell.

SB 79 will go to an administrative hearing.

Assume then that is there an option on the appealability where it's planning commission

or city council?

If it's an EIR, then it's planning city council.

If it's a different appeal, it's planning commission?

That's right.

It would be a site development permit that could be appealed to planning commission unless

Unless there was a certain, yeah, an ER environmental document, then that could be appealed to city council.

But otherwise, it would be primarily at the director's level and then come to planning commission on appeal.

Okay.

And then just to the prior conversation, I think, you know, there are clearly areas of San Jose that have different home ownership percentages.

And I clearly think that areas that are maybe not more rental property is maybe potentially again

This is theoretical but potentially could convert first to something more sizable on SB 79 because someone has amassed

1 2 3 4 5 x properties in the same geographic area etc

But you know time will tell I mean we've seen the speculation on converting one house to one house

so I clearly think being able to do one house to many is

potentially more

fruitful for those individuals.

Commissioner Cantrell.

Thanks.

Hey, Jared.

I hope you're feeling well.

There's a lot of work there.

I appreciate it.

I'm curious.

You showed North San Jose

as largely industrial.

Is all of that land

currently in use as industrial

land?

or? Okay. So this is proposed use

or zoned for industrial, but never used for industrial.

In North San Jose, we have a mix.

A lot of North San Jose is industrial park, so it allows the flexibility

kind of mixed either commercial or industrial, primarily industrial.

In North San Jose, we do allow housing. We do have our overlays that we've

put there where we've tried to be very careful about where we put those sites

so as not to impact or affect the industrial,

both for the residential and for the industrial uses.

So those sites would continue to allow for housing in this exemption,

but the big area, those large industrial sites,

could be exempted through this.

That's exactly what I was wondering.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

All right.

Any other questions from any of the commissioners?

I think those were insightful.

They answered certainly all of my questions.

All right.

Anything else?

Moving on to open forum.

Do we have any public comment or anything for the record?

Seeing none, we're able to adjourn.

All right.

Meeting is adjourned at 6.31 p.m.

We'll be right back.

Thank you.