I'm the chair of the Planning Commission of the General Plan Task Force.

This is the fourth meeting of the 25-26 General Plan four-year review.

And this four-year review, the planning commission will serve as the task force.

Please remember to turn off your cell phones.

The parking validation machine for the garage under City Hall is located near the entrance.

Agendas and assign up sheet are also available in the back.

Since there is no flag, we will move on to the roll call.

Vice Chair Bickford.

Here.

Commissioner Barroso.

Here.

Commissioner Bandal?

Here.

Commissioner Cantrell.

Here.

Commissioner Cow.

Here.

Commissioner Casey?

Here.

Commissioner Escobar.

Here.

Commissioner Nguyen.

Here.

Commissioner Oliverio.

Here.

Commissioner Young.

Here.

And then that means there are eight of us here, and we have quorum.

Please note the public comment is listed as item number six on the agenda and will take place towards the end of the meeting.

There has been a request from the commissioner to move item six to be before item five.

So public comment will come before Task Force discussion tonight.

So you can so for item number six, which is now going to be before item number five.

You can 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.

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 to staff to report back on a matter at a subsequent meeting.

With that, I will hand it over to staff to begin the meeting with item number two agenda overview.

Actually, is this can I insert for a moment here?

Please do, Commissioner Cantrell.

Actually, I just want to get a clarification on what items are open for discussion in these study sessions.

We were in last week's meeting.

However, the item was on the agenda that I was I was asking clarification on.

So I just want to be clear that we are we can have yes or no appropriate conversations and expect expect answers from city staff about items that we are questioning in relationship to this planning process.

Thank you for the question, Commissioner.

Aaron U from the city attorney's office.

Yes, broadly speaking.

If the for example, if there's a general topic for discussion and there's a specific item or a project within the city that you think is related to that general discussion, you can bring it up.

Recognizing that this is a public meeting, that statements being made here may come into play later on if a decision about a specific project comes before this commission in a quasi-judicial sense, and so we want to make sure that statements made about pending projects do not uh give off an appearance of bias or how the commissioner may vote on a certain issue.

Uh but again if you have a specific question that it relates to the larger topic that has been noticed, it can be discussed here.

Okay.

That's fair and acceptable.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Staff, please uh proceed with agenda item number two.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh good evening, commissioners.

Uh, my name is Cora McNaughton, and I'm going to present uh on uh staff's proposal on small multifamily housing tonight.

Um so here's the agenda for tonight.

Uh we'll start with some background on the topic followed by analysis and our recommended strategy and next steps.

Um after that, we'll as stated by the chair, we'll move to public comment and then task force discussion after that.

Ruth Queto from Principal Planner with Citywide would like to say a few words about public outreach in the meantime, so I'll let her do that.

Thank you, Cora.

Ruth Guento, Principal Planner.

Wanted to provide a brief verbal update on our public outreach to date.

Since our last meeting, the team has met with one council district leadership group to discuss our scope of work and the general plan four-year review in general, the district one leadership group.

We have also been able to contract with an outreach consultant.

We selected winter consultants and are working with them to develop the dates for our open houses.

And right now we're targeting April and May, and as soon as we have those dates, we'll be sure to share with the commission task force as well as the public on our website.

And that's our update on outreach.

I'm just gonna assume, but I have to ask.

Yes, so we've requested and I mean directed the consultant to identify locations, and we've already given them some locations geographically diverse throughout the city, multilingual, and to work with vendors, subconsultants that can get folks who usually don't attend our meetings to come out and help give us their feedback.

You just reminded me there's another portion of our outreach that I didn't share, which is that the Office of Racial and Social Equity is supporting us by hosting four focus groups.

Two of them will be with the disability community, and the other two are one is for youth, and the other one is targeting, I think just general hard to reach populations in the city.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Great.

So we'll move on with giving you some background on small multifamily housing.

So just a reminder that the general plan for your review process is focused on land use changes aimed at increasing housing production.

Small multifamily housing, which is sometimes called missing middle housing, is the third of the four components that we're exploring.

So the next meeting on April 1st will be on the jobs to housing balance and residential capacity.

So let's start by talking about what is missing middle.

Missing middle is an intermediate level of density between single family detached houses and larger apartment buildings.

It comes in many different forms from duplexes to small apartment buildings, cottage courts, town homes.

The number of units can vary.

It's sort of generally defined as from two to 20 units, but it is defined sort of differently in different jurisdictions.

What distinguishes missing middle from other types of housing is at the scale is generally compatible with single-family neighborhoods and can provide a transition from higher density development to lower density development.

And because missing middle housing units are generally smaller than single-family houses, for sale missing middle projects have the potential to provide a more affordable home ownership option.

It's worth noting that the median price of a single family home per Redfin in San Jose is around 1.3 million dollars, which is out of reach for many households.

So missing middle housing already exists throughout San Jose.

It's mostly in older neighborhoods.

Examples would be like Victorian's that have uh two or three flats, and such as well as small mid-century apartment buildings with say four or six or eight units.

But there are also more recent examples, including the building pictured here.

So this six-unit building replaced a single family house on a parcel that's about 9,000 square feet in area.

This neighborhood has a mix of single-family and small multifamily buildings.

The general plan land use designation for this property is mixed-use neighborhood, which allows up to 30 units per acre, and the density of this particular project is 29 units per acre.

So here's another building that was recently constructed, say in the in the past five years on a street that also has a mix of single family and multifamily development.

This building has three units.

Property's general plan land use designation is residential neighborhood.

The residential neighborhood land use designation allows up to eight units per acre or up to 16 per acre if the surrounding density is above eight.

Here the density is 13 units per acre for this project, which is less than half the density of the previous project.

So why are we looking at small multifamily housing as part of this effort to increase housing production?

So our housing element in strategy P35 requires that we explore allowing four to ten units on parcels throughout the city, including high opportunity areas.

The city also needs to consider allowing missing middle housing as a buffer between higher density development in urban villages and lower density single family neighborhoods.

In 2020 as part of the general plan four-year review, staff and the task force looked at allowing two to four units on single family parcels, which at the time was called opportunity housing.

In 2021, City Council recommended that staff explore allowing housing in the residential neighborhood land use designation, which comprises more than 80% of all residential land area in the city.

That same year, Senate 9 became Senate Bill 9 became law, which allowed up to four units on a single family parcel.

So the city's work on opportunity housing didn't move forward.

And in July of last year, the Starter Home Revitalization Act was amended through Senate Bill 1123 to allow subdivisions of up to 10 parcels on vacant single family parcels.

So that provided another pathway for missing middle housing.

Well, let's take a closer look at what Senate Bills 9 and 1123 already allow on single family parcels.

This is key context for any policy changes that San Jose ultimately chooses to make.

So first, looking at Senate Bill 9, it applies to parcels in the R1 and single family plan development zoning districts.

There are some disqualifiers, such as parcels in or near wetlands, habitat areas, hazardous waste sites, etc.

SB9 allows a total of four units on a single family parcel.

This can be achieved in two ways.

First, through a duplex project, which allows two primary units plus up to two detached accessory dwelling units or ADUs.

Alternatively, you can do a subdivision project which splits the parcel in two.

You're allowed to have two units on each of the resulting parcels.

So these could be two primary units on those parcels or a primary unit and an ADU.

The minimum parcel size after subdivision is 1,200 square feet.

And the law does include protections for renter-occupied units and rent stabilized and rent restricted units.

SB9 also has an owner occupancy requirement for subdivisions where the property owner is required to occupy one of the units for three years from the date of subdivision.

Since SB9 went into effect five years ago, San Jose has received 19 applications for two-unit projects and 73 applications for parcel splits.

And of those, six two-unit projects and 32 parcel splits have been approved.

I'm sorry, could you close metrics when we put it?

Okay, sorry.

San Jose has received 19 applications for two unit projects, the duplex projects, and six have been approved, and it's received 73 applications for parcel splits and 32 have been approved.

Thank you.

Senate Bill 1123 went into effect on July 1st of last year, and it goes further than SB9.

It allows you to subdivide single family parcels into up to 10 parcels.

The minimum size for the resulting parcels like SB9 is 1,200 square feet.

To be eligible, the existing parcel can't be larger than one and a half acres with the same disqualifiers as SB9.

One difference though is that SB 1123 says that the existing parcel must be vacant.

However, the state has subsequently said an existing unit may be designated as a remainder parcel to allow subdivision of the rest of the parcel.

Another difference with SB9 is that SB 1123 has a minimum density requirement of around 20 units per acre.

If a parcel is included in the housing element inventory, it has to be developed at its identified density.

Also, the law aims to generate smaller units, so the average size of the resulting units may not exceed 1,750 square feet.

Yes, go ahead, sorry.

Just real quickly.

SB9 requires the homeowners to stay in the house for three years.

At least a parcel for three years.

How about this?

This one does not have the same requirement.

Thank you.

The city has one SB 1123 application on file.

Recall that it went into effect in July of last year.

Staff have completed several preliminary reviews for SB 1123 projects, so we do expect more to come soon.

I should also mention that it's possible to exceed the residential neighborhood density maximum by using the state density bonus law, and I'll get into that a little bit later.

So moving on to the analysis, let's look at the regulatory context in San Jose.

As I've already alluded to, more than 80% of residential land in San Jose has a general plan land use designation of residential neighborhood.

And for properties with that designation, density, as I said, is limited to eight units per acre, and in some exceptions, up to 16 dwelling units per acre.

Along the density continuum in our general plan, the next higher residential land use designation is mixed use neighborhood, which allows up to 30 units per acre.

Mixed use neighborhood could be applied in areas where you'd want to allow small multifamily projects, but it also allows commercial uses, which isn't necessarily desirable in all residential areas.

So in addition to the limitation on density in the land use designation, the zoning code itself prohibits multifamily housing in R1 zoning districts.

And it's also prohibited in the vast majority of single family planned development zoning districts.

We talked to developers who have developed or proposed small multifamily projects in the city about what kinds of obstacles they've encountered with the permitting process.

The main issues that they highlighted were uncertainty about how state laws are implemented at the local level with interpretation of the language and new laws varying among jurisdictions.

This is challenging for smaller developers who may have high land holding costs.

It's also challenging for city staff trying to provide timely and thorough advice to prospective permit applicants.

Another obstacle that they found is the owner occupancy requirement in SB9.

It can be a deterrent for some people who would otherwise subdivide their properties and build more units under that law.

Developers also say it's difficult to make small multifamily projects work with the development standards that exist in single-family zoning districts.

They cite, for example, the 2.5-story height limit, 20-foot front and rear setbacks in the R1 zoning district as particularly challenging.

So missing middle regulations have already been implemented in several major cities in the US, including Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis.

Some jurisdictions in California, including Sacramento and Berkeley have more recently passed their own ordinances.

Sacramento's ordinance has been in effect since late 2024.

The ordinance allows multifamily housing in all zoning districts.

It doesn't impose a maximum density, but there is a minimum density required.

The ordinance has development standards to control the massing of buildings, including height, setbacks, among other parameters.

So for example, in the Sacramento ordinance, the allowed floor area ratio, which is the ratio of the floor area constructed to the parcel area.

It increases with the number of units proposed from 0.4 or 40% for a single family house up to one for 100% for a triplex or fourplex.

Another example is that buildings with three or more primary dwelling units are required to incorporate side and front planes that angle inward at a 45 degree angle above a certain height, and you can sort of see in this diagram how they're letting people know what's possible.

As of mid-February, Sacramento had received about 30 applications for missing middle projects.

Berkeley's how many were approved.

I don't know how many are approved, sorry.

Berkeley's missing middle ordinance has been in effect since this past November, so just a few months.

It allows density between 10 units per acre and 70 units per acre in its single family and two family zoning districts.

And please note this was incorrectly stated in the memo as a maximum of 50 units per acre.

It actually should be 70.

Berkeley doesn't limit floor area, but it does cap lot coverage at 60%, and there are other objective development standards that it applies to these projects.

And notably, missing middle housing is not permitted in high fire severity zones in Berkeley, so that precludes these projects in hillside areas.

So our housing element strategy P35 includes consideration of small multifamily as a transitional density level surrounding urban villages.

You may recall San Jose has 62 urban villages, which are areas designated for employment and housing growth.

Many of these are located near major transit stops.

State Senate Bill 79, which will become effective in July, will increase density and height limits within buffer areas within one quarter and one half mile of rail and rapid bus stations.

This will affect 25 of San Jose's urban villages, which are located wholly or partially within the SB 79 zones.

In this image, the urban villages are the areas that are shown in pink with the red outline.

The one quarter and one half mile SB 79 zones are depicted by the red circles around train and bus stations.

So as you can see, the SB 79 boundaries often extend beyond urban village boundaries.

Yes.

Which ones are pink?

Sorry.

The urban villages themselves are the sort of irregularly shaped pink ones with the red outline, and then the circles are the buffer zones for SB 79.

So staff uh sorry, um, there are 31 urban villages that won't be affected by SB 79.

Those could be candidates for some type of transitional density.

Staff has evaluated some of the larger urban villages that fall into this category to see where a missing middle buffer could fit in.

Ideally, uh, the buffer boundary would follow an existing street pattern with missing middle development on one side of the street and then lower density development beginning on the other side of the street.

However, what we've found is that the areas around urban villages are frequently developed with single family subdivisions that are that don't have regular sort of street grids.

They're often kind of inward facing with winding streets, cul-de-sacs, and minimal connections to the broader street grid of the city.

The lack of a regular street grid pattern in these areas does make it challenging to draw a boundary that reflects a consistent distance around the urban village or even a consistent walking time from the urban village boundary.

So in addition, you may recall that at the meeting on residential capacity in January.

This task force encouraged staff to explore beyond 16 units per acre that was proposed for residential for the residential neighborhood land use designation.

So given the difficulty of creating buffer zones around urban villages and the task force task force's direction, staff is instead recommending a citywide policy change for small multifamily.

So just before I present staff's recommendation, let's recap what's currently possible to develop on a single family lot in San Jose.

We're gonna use as an example a typical 6,000 square foot parcel.

The general plan and zoning code limit density and use.

So generally, one single family unit is permitted, up to eight units per acre, or as we mentioned, up to 16 units per acre in limited instances.

Per state law, you can also build one ADU and one junior ADU.

When you include the ADUs, the actual density on the site is about 21 units per acre.

A discretionary planning permit is required in some instances for those, but if the project meets the development standards of the zoning district, typically only a building permit is required.

With an SB9 duplex project, you can build two primary units and two ADUs for a density of 28 units per acre.

With an SB9 subdivision project, you can also build four units, again at a density of 28 units per acre.

This requires a parcel map in addition to a building permit.

With SB 1123, as I mentioned, there's a minimum density in addition to the maximum imposed by the 1200 square foot parcel size minimum.

On a 6,000 square foot parcel with SB 1123, you could build three, four or five units.

The minimum would be three.

Plus each one could have their own ADUNJ ADU.

So you're talking about a potential density between 64 and 107 units per acre at maximum build out.

SB1123 also requires either a parcel map or a tentative map along with the building permit.

So staff's recommendation is to establish a pathway for development of multifamily housing that consists of primary units on single family parcels without the need to subdivide the property and to establish a ministerial permit process for these projects.

The foundation for this is to increase density from eight units per acre to 32 units per acre on parcels in the residential neighborhood land use designation throughout the city.

Along with this, multifamily uses would be permitted in single family zoning districts without the need to use SB9 or SB1123.

This density level fits within what is already possible and would simplify the process for certain projects.

So this chart shows how many primary units and ADUs would be permitted on parcels of various sizes under this proposal.

As you can see, the number of units gradually increases with parcel size.

So for that typical 6,000 square foot lot, four units would be permitted.

Under state law, ADUs are allowed on multifamily properties at a rate of one per primary unit, up to a maximum of eight.

So in this case, they could add four ADUs potentially.

So to give you a sense of the typical sizes of residential neighborhood parcels, here's a breakdown by size range.

As you can see, 38% of the parcels are between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet, and about 75% are between 3,000 and 7,000 square feet, where a range of two to five primary units would be possible with the proposed increase in density.

This map shows the distribution of residential neighborhood parcels throughout the city with the different colors showing the various parcel ranges in those areas.

The darker the color, the larger the parcels.

There aren't many parcels less than 3,000 square feet, which is sort of the bright yellow, and lots greater than 7,000 square feet, the darker colors tend to be concentrated just in specific areas.

So as part of this, it's important to consider which areas aren't suitable for intensified development.

For example, properties within very high fire severity zones, wetlands, conservation lands, and hazardous waste sites, among other characteristics, aren't eligible to use SB9 or SB1123.

Those laws also prohibit demolition of existing units that are subject to restricted rents or rent stabilization, as well as units withdrawn from the rental market under the Ellis Act, and units that are tenant occupied or have been tenant occupied for a specified time period.

The city should evaluate imposing its own disqualifiers, which could include those mentioned, plus, for example, airport safety zones or historic landmark districts or conservation areas.

With the proposed density increase in single family zones, the city would need to look at implementing development and design standards that are balanced to support both project feasibility and compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood.

We've heard from project applicants that some of the single family development standards, particularly limits on height and minimum setbacks, can make projects infeasible.

We've also heard over many years from single family homeowners that they are concerned about loss of privacy and light, and so that also needs to be taken into consideration.

Regarding historic properties, the recent zoning code update, which goes into effect tomorrow, includes a process for reviewing changes to historic properties and evaluating the significance of properties when developers want to utilize a streamlined permitting process.

So this could be adapted for missing middle type projects as well.

Increasing the development intensity in single family neighborhoods also has the potential to disproportionately affect renter households.

So measures to prevent displacement would be essential.

San Jose has a large renter segment.

About 44% of housing units are renter-occupied, and a significant percentage of those are single-family houses.

The city could adapt its demolition regulations to prevent loss of stabilized and rent restricted units, as well as provide protections for tenant-occupied units.

SB9, for example, prohibits demolition of any unit that has been tenant-occupied within the previous 10 years before the application date, or the permit application date, I should say.

For SB 1123, the period is five years.

And although the owner occupancy requirement in SB9 can be inhibiting in some instances, its suitability should be evaluated as part of this process.

As mentioned earlier, missing middle projects would be subject to state replacement unit requirements under the housing crisis act.

That bill requires replacement of existing units that are demolished for a new project.

I mentioned briefly before that using the state density bonus law is one way that owners or developers can currently build multiple units on a single family lot.

This would still be the case with the proposed increase in density on residential neighborhood parcels.

The density bonus law applies to projects with at least five units, and the amount of the density bonus increases with the percentage of affordable units that are provided and their affordability level.

So just as an example, a five-unit project where one unit is restricted to low-income households, either as a rental or a for sale unit, would be eligible for a 35% density increase.

That's two additional units for a total of seven under the state density bonus law.

If one unit is restricted to very low income households, the potential density bonus is 50%.

So that's three additional units for a total of eight.

So just to reiterate that this is what is possible now.

Density bonus projects are also eligible for waivers and concessions from development and design standards.

Typical requests include increases in height, number of stories, and reductions in open space or setbacks.

So any decision about allowable density, of course, needs to take into account the potential for density bonus, which does also generate affordable units for the city.

Increased housing production should not come at the expense of social and racial equity.

State law already requires replacement of demolished housing units at previous affordability levels.

SB9 and SB1123 prohibit demolition of protected units, whether they're rent stabilized, rent restricted, or are occupied or have been occupied by low-income tenants.

And similar protection should be considered for this proposed land use change.

On the other hand, opening up single family neighborhoods to multifamily development does create the potential for smaller units in high resource neighborhoods.

This could make those neighborhoods more accessible to a wider segment of the population.

While San Jose's general plan focuses high density residential growth downtown and in its urban villages, this would create a gentle density option that spreads the responsibility for creating more housing throughout the city.

And finally, tracking and evaluating the impacts of this proposed change through a lens of social and racial equity would be an essential part of implementation.

So to summarize, staff's proposal would increase allowable density from eight to 32 units per acre in the residential neighborhood land use designation, allow multifamily use in single family neighborhoods.

Implementation would include development and design standards and anti-displacement measures, and it would create a ministerial permitting process for small multifamily projects on parcels again within the residential neighborhood land use designation.

As we've seen through ADU laws, SB9 and SB1123, building to this density and even higher is already permitted in most single family neighborhoods.

So next steps.

After discussion here tonight, we will be presenting this housing concept at public outreach events, as Ruth mentioned, and based on feedback from this task force and from the public, we'll bring a more refined concept to the task force at a second meeting on this same topic on May 20th.

So that concludes my presentation.

We're looking forward to hearing any questions or comments.

And it looks like we've already got one.

Thank you.

I could hardly wait.

Actually, I'm just curious if you guys have done any calculation on what the anticipated number of new units might be from these changes.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Jared Ferguson Principal Planner.

We haven't done that yet.

I mean, as Cora said, I think what we're hoping, you know, this is sort of the first set of this conceptual conversation and questions like that and some of the other you know details we would come back with in meeting number two.

So I think that's that's something we we could come back with and sort of if this is sort of directionally, you know, where uh the majority of the task force is at, you know, we would we would refine this more and come back, but that's a question we can come back with that calculation for you.

I I was I'm asking because I I think sometimes we're underwhelmed by what happens with these changes.

Uh and I I just wonder if there will be opportunity for us to review how we actually implement in order to secure more housing specifically.

Um so I I guess we'll we'll get to that at some point because I I think you know, SB9 is we thought it was gonna be some sort of you know you know windfall.

Um this seems like a such a unique opportunity to really change the dynamics of a city.

Um I'm just wondering how do we how do we secure this outcome?

Yeah, and we can come back with sort of it it at this stage is still theoretical in terms of what what build-out looks like.

I will say um, you know, even with SB911123, you know, when when these changes take place, it it does take a while for response and change in in the marketplace and expectations to see things happen.

Um, you know, as an example right now, we see we're at about 500 ADUs a year, and it's kind of plateaued, but you know, it took several years, you know, just to get to a large amount, and it kept growing, you know, that's sort of stalled, but it sort of takes time to build up, and so what we do have is a part of that housing element program is we are required to sort of track three years after implementation and then start to measure how many units we're seeing under that.

So we we are kind of bound by that tracking, but it is uh you know post post facto in terms of of how we would look at it.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, but before we leave the presentation portion, can I just ask to show slide 32?

Um, which is in the in the back, and maybe say something about what the uh actual threshold is for that slide or for that diagram.

Sorry, you're talking about slide 32?

Well, I have a different slide 32 than you do.

Sorry.

Sorry, that's uh hold on, that's the VMT.

That's BMT actually.

Yeah, it is VMT.

And I just wanted to ask what the threshold was.

Hold on, let me get to that one real quick.

Uh keep going back up to the top, sorry.

As she's looking for it, um question on six and five.

Like, did we reverse reverse them?

Okay, and I don't know if we do any public comment before commissioners' comments.

Yeah, or will that commission uh Vice Chair Bigford can ask for a question and then we will ask for Robert Wood, is it Gia Lee and Kales Anderson to give public comment.

So if you would like to stand up uh and get in line at the microphone, feel free.

Is that now or after the no after okay?

So this um sorry, this is just an extra slide we had in case there were any questions about uh vehicle miles traveled.

So um vehicle miles traveled is a way of of determining the um transportation impacts of of housing.

So what this shows you is uh the green areas are areas where the VMT impact is less than the threshold, yellow is where that's it meets the city average, orange where it's mitigatable, and red where it's immitigatable.

I'm actually just asking what the threshold that is that is being calculated here.

Like what is what is the threshold?

Is it three miles?

Is it a mile?

Is it I I'm not sure about answering that question.

It's thank you.

We can cover can we come back to it?

Yeah, I think we might, yeah.

As a reminder, commissioners, the reason that we switched these around was there was a request from a commissioner to get public comment first so that way we could take public comment into consideration before moving forward with the conversation between the task force members.

So with that uh each speaker will be allowed two minutes, and uh so Mr.

Wood, please come forward.

So I'm Robert Wood, I'm the chair of the housing committee of the Sounds A State uh California Faculty Association, and I want to say first of all that I really appreciate all the commissioners who spoke out last time in January about um uh the need for more housing.

Vice Chair Bickford, uh Commissioner Barozzio, Commissioner Bandal, Commissioner Contrell, Commissioner Cow, Commissioner Escobar, and Commissioner Young.

Uh we really appreciate your standing up for more housing.

Uh we do hear you, and we think city planning is hearing you, and that's terrific.

I also appreciate city planning proposing changing the maximum density of residential zones to 32 units per acre.

I appreciate you taking the needs of existing renters seriously.

I hope we don't get into a situation where there's zero redevelopment of rental housing because quite a few of such houses need redevelopment.

What we need is a comprehensive revision of the general plan with the spirit that we see in today's presentation.

I felt that the so-called streamlining of the urban villages process is going to take us years to perhaps not produce any projects.

Last time in January we had uh four new growth areas, and as the commissioners talked, it sounded like the reason we wound up with only four was that that was all those staff time to actually produce.

Um it's really difficult to say this in a time of fiscal challenge for the city, but we can't get the kind of um uh um progress we need on changing the general plan without more time and more resources for city planning.

Um it's feeling to me that like to get the changes that people like my teacher members need uh is going to need us to go beyond June 17th.

Um and um uh maybe San Jose State Faculty can help with this.

Uh I've talked to consultants who work with Sacramento in their changes, possibly they or other consultants can help with the review process is very crucially important.

We in San Jose need the kind of housing at minimum that people can get in Seattle and Sacramento and San Diego.

Even there, housing is very difficult to come by, but it's much easier than here, and we hope you'll step forward to uh view of what the people of San Jose are really looking for.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.

My name is GLe.

I'm a local real estate um developer and builder.

I'm strongly support staff recommendation for ministerial process of small multifamily housing, but we face a critical timeline problem.

The staff report notes that while we have state pathway like SB9 and SB 1123, um, they are currently stalled by mandatory subdivid requirement that can take up to a year or a year to complete.

We cannot afford to lose momentum while the long-term zoning code update uh wind through months of our reach.

I urge the commission to the task force uh to recommend the inch um to recommend an interim ordinance that allow the small multifamily projects to move forward now to avoid the delays of full general plan amendment and sequel review.

We appreciate the task force considering an interim density cap of 19.8 units per acre.

This is it uh this is the exact threshold use under the SART of Home Revitalization Act, SB 1123, SB 6084.

By using this 19.8 dwelling units per acre, uh the safety valve.

The city can begin testing the standard immediately.

It provides the townhome and courtes cluster in San Jose.

Um, the San Jose desperately needed um without asking developer to stall their pipeline for another year.

Let's not that uh let the administer uh administrative process stand in the way of building homes.

Please move forward um with an interim uh ordinance to ensure housing production um doesn't hit the stand still.

Thank you.

Next will be Kale Zanderson, followed by Teresa Doe and Re Regina Celestin Williams.

Somebody set the clock.

That's a quick question.

Um good afternoon.

Uh my name is Caleb Anderson.

I'm a student here at the uh university.

Um I just wanted to inquire about the outreach efforts and um get more specifics on uh the youth focused groups and um how youth are being chosen and uh also uh what uh you had mentioned uh underrepresented groups, I believe, and uh to dwell more into that because you said disabled and then um youth, and then you just said unrepresented as a whole, and you didn't really give any specifics, and I always wanted to can you get more specifically into that.

Um I allowed to ask questions or is this only comments?

Um I don't know, it's my first time here.

I think commissioners may ask respond and ask questions if they would like Teresa though.

Uh thank you for the time to speak, Commissioner.

Um I am Teresa Dow from San Jose Yimby.

Uh I would like to say that I'm really excited about the staff recommendation to significantly increase the residential density throughout the city.

This is going to be a great opportunity to see more variety of homes being built in San Jose that we haven't seen before for several generations.

I think we encourage the task force to be even bolder by recommending a higher density of 40 dwelling units per acre to in order to meet the RENA obligations.

As the city expands housing capacity, we ask that the city should consider expanding potential broader use for public and quasi-public land to support affordable and workforce housing.

We see a trend of shrinking school populations and destabilizing district budgets, leading to multiple uh school closures that are disrupting our communities.

We ask that the city look into revisiting use for these lands, and we hope that there could be more partnership for school in Faith to support more school districts to make more community serving affordable housing faster and easier and less expensive.

Thank you.

We'll have Regina Sliston Williams, followed by Robert Swerk, and then Mani Bekele.

Good evening.

Okay, thanks.

Good evening, commissioners.

I just want to express deep appreciation for the staff for their thoughtful work in creating this set of recommendations.

I also want to thank you all for taking on this very important work of reviewing and updating the general plan and deeply engaging with that work.

This work gives San Jose the opportunity to demonstrate that in a thriving and innovative economy, everyone is valued and everyone plays a role.

With thoughtful planning, we can support the growth that comes with our region's success and prosperity without pushing people out of the communities they call home.

We appreciate staff's recommendation to significantly increase residential density to our in R1 zones and to allow ministerial processing of small multifamily projects on almost all R1's parcels citywide without requiring a subdivision application.

This is an important step towards expanding the types of homes that can be built in neighborhoods across San Jose.

A citywide approach is critical.

To meet San Jose's fair housing obligations, neighborhood scale multifamily homes must be allowed in high opportunity neighborhoods that have historically limited multifamily development.

We encourage the task force to take bold action to address the housing crisis by recommending a slightly higher density of 40 homes per acre.

This level of density allows neighborhoods to support a wider range of housing types, homes for downsizing, grandparents, young professionals, and families just starting out.

Importantly, a higher density also increases the likelihood that proposed projects are financially viable.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Robert Swerk, and I'm a principal planner with VTA.

Thank you very much for uh allowing us the opportunity to speak briefly on this item.

Uh VTA staff has been following the city's general plan for year review process very closely, both through this uh task force process as well as through discussions at the staff level.

Um VTA staff supports the recommended strategy and the staff memo of making general plan and zoning code changes to allow ministerial processing of small multifamily projects outlined in the staff report and the residential neighborhood designation.

We believe that the recommended strategy would help achieve shared city and VTA goals, including creating vibrant and complete communities, uh supporting transit ridership and reducing single occupant vehicle use and vehicle miles traveled.

Um this multi small multifamily strategy is also an important complement to some of the housing production strategies that were discussed at the January task force meeting on residential capacity.

And I just like to note that since the January meeting, BTA staff has met with the city's general plan team within PBCE to discuss the strategy number one in the task force meet uh meeting in January, the designating new growth areas around high quality bus transit corridors to help the city staff further refine that strategy, and we're also looking forward to the continued discussion of residential capacity and jobs to employed residence ratio at the April 1st Task Force meeting.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Stephanie from a local developer.

Actually, while Peter showing is our project in Park Avenue.

So like I shared everyone some approaches for Mesa Meetd.

So we're actually a developer locally for Mesa Meetal focused on SB9, AGUs, SB193, and some of the town homes.

And then we have over 300 units across the Sing Jose.

I feel like really touched.

Thank you, everyone.

I would like to strongly ask us to think about ministerial approval.

All the project you guys are seeing right now, we actually take a very long time to get approval.

I know City of Shorty staff, and there are a lot of processes, actually, state law actually have restrictions, like SP9 on our C Pi and our staff, our employees actually get a benefit to moving to San Jose because of SB9.

And we have ADUs right now.

We're we're the first one to get an ADC conversion and we're putting on sale.

We would like to do a lot more.

But right now I feel like this opportunity going to open up is San Jose going to have a dramatic change for a neighborhood.

But at the same time, it's open up tons of opportunity because I think more than 70% of the neighborhood actually are single family lonely, which is going to open a lot, a lot of opportunities for the younger family and younger generation.

At the same time, please consider like how can we expertise the processing for the planning and the building process.

And at the same time, how can we actually get a permit within like kind of a six-monthly if we can, and then we can expire with the construction and reduce construction costs, and then we can actually help with more homeowners actually to move back into San Jose or move into San Jose.

Thank you.

You mentioned additional ministerial approval or new ministerial approval.

Was there a specific streamlining ministerial approval and uh like for example SB 113?

I know City has been uh like ministerial about like uh TMAP and the building permit, right?

If we can consider approval plan, I think St.

Jose had like this approval plan, but we are doing proof of plan for ADUs, but at the same time, the approval plan also require going to site conditions, going to regular process, and also uh, you know, TMAP and the parcel map.

If we can do TMA parcel map building permit at the same time, then concurrency review that's going to help a lot.

And then and also if we're able to go going through pre-opal plan for SB193 duplex, traplex is going to help a lot about building permanent timeline.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

My name is Mani Vaka, and I am policy officer for the student-led nonprofit Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action and a district three resident.

I'd like to thank you for your commitment to encouraging the development of small multifamily or missing middle housing as part of the solution to help us create more affordable and hopefully uh well connected homes for all San Jose community members.

I'd like to particularly draw your attention to the climate benefits of this and similar policies.

Transportation, mostly from uh personal gas-powered cars accounts for just over 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions in San Jose.

And this is largely because we are a city built around cars, not around people.

Um it is difficult or impossible for most residents in most neighborhoods with most jobs or work schedules to get where they need to go without a car.

We need to build our housing more densely and in closer proximity to our daily needs so that we can access them on foot or by bike or public transportation.

As we reduce our reliance on cars and the number of miles we drive, it's both a climate solution and a solution for our our health and safety and quality of life.

Um it cuts down on dangerous air pollution, uh, prevents injuries and deaths from collisions, and it saves residents on some of the significant financial costs of owning and using a car.

Please continue to pursue this approach while promoting more equitable and climate forward housing.

I also encourage the staff and commissioners, um task force members working on this four-year review to work closely with the climate smart San Jose team to ensure that the general plan updates contribute as much as possible to the targets in our climate smart plan.

San Jose is committed to reaching carbon neutrality by the year 2030, so we quite literally cannot wait for another four-year cycle.

Climate impacts and unattainable housing costs are the two biggest threats facing the future of my generation.

So please use this opportunity to address them both.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much for your time good evening.

My name is Lisa Chapontier, and I am with the San Jose team of the community-based California Donut Economics Coalition, and we work to maximize common good in San Jose, aiming to meet the needs of all community members within the means of our living planet.

I would like to thank you for your commitment to encouraging the development of small multifamily housing, this missing middle housing model, which can be a significant part of the solution to create a diverse housing supply for all San Jose community members.

Our community, as many of us know, currently suffers from a housing needs allocation allocation shortfall.

It's at 66.8%, and this is resulting in a homeless, homeless inflow outflow rate of 112%.

Historic redlining in our community echoes into our housing landscape to this day.

Properties that were green lined now have healthier populations, while residents of formerly redlined properties now have worse outcomes for asthma, birth rates, cancer, and a lower life expectancy.

But in contrast, the equitable benefits of missing middle housing, if implemented with conscious policies such as form codes and requirements for affordability, offer a divergence from this historic injustice, which can bring more common good into our community's housing environment.

The benefits include increased infill development, less costly construction that achieves higher density at a human scale with plenty of space for trees, walkable neighborhoods, and diversity.

These social benefits will result in reduced auto trips, trees, which will help to reduce the warming of greenhouse gases, and will preserve San Jose's surrounding open space, thereby reducing our impacts on our climate.

Please continue to pursue this approach as part of the solution to promote more equitable and geographically balanced housing environments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we will have Cyrus Jahanian, followed by Lindy Hayes and Stephanie Yi.

Hey, uh good evening.

My name is Sarus Shanian.

Thank you so much for the presentation and just working towards this super important issue.

I cut my teeth in development six doing six years of affordable housing.

And while the intentions were good, we weren't as effective as I wished.

These were projects that took 10 years to build, seven years to build, million dollar units.

And so over the last two years, I've been working with a team, City Connect Partners, uh Vice President, but you know, we're super hyper focused on townhomes.

It's a great way to bring home ownership opportunities, and we're building them effectively and fast.

This is just music to our ears.

We're super excited about it.

And so special thanks to Cora, Jerry, Ruth for putting this together this evening.

One of the like most important tools in a developers tool belt today is density bonus law that was mentioned previously.

So in exchange of a couple of affordable housing units, we get concessions and waivers to allow flexibility in the design standards.

So I guess my question for this evening is if we're bumping up density, how do those design standards uh play out with this new zoning?

Uh, just out of curiosity.

But all in all, great job, great work.

Super excited.

Thank you.

I think that question will be addressed when we get to discussion.

Good evening, y'all.

Nice to see you again.

I'm Lindy Hayes, and I'd like a clarification from the gentleman from the city attorney's office.

We are from the Corey neighborhood, which is to the north of Valley Fair Shopping Mall.

When the neighborhood was built in 1949 to 1951, the developer also bound each plot of land with CCNRs.

That no plot of land could contain more than a single family home of up to 25 feet in height.

What I'd like to know from you is what does that mean in the face of change of zoning regulations?

In the face of changes in state law in the recommendation last week by the planning department that the zoning for at least part of the neighborhood be changed.

Can you clarify?

What takes precedent?

State law if you'd like me to respond.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you for the question.

Uh, without actually seeing the CCNR, I cannot speak to what would be controlling most likely state law would trump any sort of agreement between private party private property owners, which is what the CCNR does.

Uh the city's local zoning ordinance would also take precedence.

But again, I can't speak to your personal situation, having not reviewed that CCNR before and and not being familiar with that particular project.

I do apologize.

I I can only speak in generalities.

I am not permitted to provide legal advice uh to private individuals.

I I would perhaps recommend that you seek the advice of uh real estate council.

We are trying.

Thank you.

But I did want to hear from you also in general.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

So we have Stephanie Yi, Sandra, and Chris Gian Greco.

There was a gentleman.

Oh, you are supposed to.

I'm sorry.

Okay, I don't have any prepared statements, but I do have a few comments.

I'd like a clarification on SB9.

I'd like to make it.

The state law requires an attestations.

Attestations are generally not enforceable.

SB 677, which is on a hold, and being held at desk in the assembly, would eliminate all C C and Rs and all HOA requirements in general, and would eliminate any type of ownership requirement on SB9.

I would like to take issue or have you used some different words.

Resource rich to me means that that area has lots of resources, medical, transportation, groceries.

I don't believe that's what you're meaning.

I think your resource rich when you say it means high income or higher income.

You should change the word so you don't confuse us people who aren't in the mainstream.

I'm concerned about infrastructure.

Um parks and recreations, open space, our tree canopy.

As you move and take away setbacks, etc., you lose trees, you lose open space.

As you reduce park fees, you will lose lose parks, and we have parks that aren't even developed yet that were done.

We have sewer backup in D3.

I have experience friends that have experienced that.

We have water issues, we have power issues.

We have fire insurance issues in some areas.

I have friends that have actually not been able to get fire insurance in areas that you're talking about increasing density in, but you don't consider them fire hazard areas.

So I think you need to be looking a little bit broader than the definition of fire hazard.

Umlimination of choice.

A lot of what you've discussed here expands, but it also eliminates choice.

And I guess I'm sorry I ran out of time.

Um wish I had more prepared.

I do want to say one more thing, which is inappropriate.

You need better outreach.

All right.

It's not adequate.

You need to be in every district.

It's not adequate.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Chris Gian Greco.

I'm with the Winchester Orchard Neighborhood Association.

I'm the vice president.

Corey neighborhood is one of our uh adjacent neighborhoods.

Uh we've all got a lot of serious concerns about growth in San Jose.

This is increasing housing is very much needed.

We all understand that, but our neighborhood is bounded by Stevens Creek Boulevard, Winchester 280 and San Tomas.

We've got two major urban villages that we're being impacted by within our uh neighborhood boundaries, and we've already taken a big hit in growth with the Poulty project and the handover apartment up against highway 280.

Uh the Gal student behind me had mentioned uh basically how can I say it?

I'm here to speak for uh long-existing residential neighborhoods like mine, like the quarry neighborhood, where those neighbors have been the backbone of San Jose for decades and decades, half a century, people have lived in these neighborhoods, and now we're expected to take a hit.

When I hear the term resource rich, I interpret that as single family dwellings in existing residential neighborhoods that can provide the opportunity for multi-unit and the opportunity to have our neighborhoods destroyed for their neighborhood feel and what they've been for decades and decades as the backbone of this city.

I'm suggesting that through this process, single family residential neighborhoods like mine, like Cory have some kind of protections, particularly where they can be severely impacted by urban village growth in that neighborhood like mine.

Staff, what is the definition of resource rich?

We actually didn't use that term.

We used the term high opportunity.

Okay.

So resource rich would indicate that there are resources and infrastructures such as parks, libraries, um, all of that, your shopping centers, everything that's sort of um one needs to be able to, you know, not leave your neighborhood to do to take care of you know key needs.

So we do tend to sort of consider those neighborhoods as I mean they they tend to be higher income neighborhoods, but it's definitely neighborhoods that will have shopping, uh educational facilities, library facilities, uh parks, and other services within them.

Commissioner Kentrell.

Just quickly actually I think there's a state definition for this as well that has to do with those very same things that she's talking about.

Yeah, so there are um some official maps produced through the state.

Um there's a there's a methodology actually through um UC Berkeley, um, and it goes into how those are calculated and those maps are produced and updated regularly.

Um, and they they go from from low resource, moderate resource to high, highest resource.

Um primarily they're used in how tax credits are awarded to affordable housing, and so trying to position affordable housing in those highest resource areas.

Um, but it's uh we use it for other analysis like this to understand um you know our proposals like this.

So next we have Sandra Ruby Hugh, Ruby Tower, and Ken Hittleman.

If there's anybody else, please fill out a card, and that's all we have.

Hi, hello.

I'm Ruby Hu.

I represent a small new uh local builder that is specialized in missing metal housing.

So we believe the streamlined review process is a great start, but you know, um, what is uh the underlying uh factor that's decide if a project can happen or not is actually the uh fee structure.

So the current uh did the majority of it we're talking about is the impact fee structure.

So uh the current structure actually unnecessarily proportionally penalize uh small uh projects with less homes.

So we have a couple recommendations.

Uh first of all, is how the structure works.

So, first of all, uh I wish like there would be some reductions on fees for smaller projects or simply switch from like a per unit fee structure to a uh structure that's special uh that both basically focus on uh square footage.

So um this way can actually help um local builders to uh focus on smaller projects that happen uh simultaneously, and you would see the homes delivered to the market faster instead of like a bigger project that would usually take years happen uh to happen.

So the second one is the fee deferral.

Um so usually uh most of the impact fees are due upon uh final map approval, which is mines were years before the homes are actually sold, meaning uh capital directed back to the builders.

So we definitely recommend to defer the fees to temporary certificate of occupancy.

So this way I think it would allow builders to you know put their limited capital into the caring cost and then uh spend the money um somewhere else actually on construction costs, and then we feel like this way um it would help the project pencil out instead of uh heating a standstill.

So thank you so much.

All right.

Hi, my name is Ken, and I'm requesting clarification um of the details of how an urban village buffer zone will be implemented in areas like the Cory neighborhood, for example, along the Winchester Boulevard near the intersection with heading.

I'd like to advocate for the higher densities and heights of like mixed-use neighborhood along there, but not extending into the R1 housing units behind them on residential streets and on heading.

What is the plan and when will specifics be available for that?

Thank you.

Do we have an idea when specifics will be available for that?

So this is covered a little in in Cora's presentation, but the the buffer areas, so that was a piece of the small multifamily.

Um since we're proposing the 32 dwelling units citywide, um, we're we're saying we're not gonna pursue the the the buffer area proposal given that we have this citywide approach with a density of 32.

So that that's that's sort of the conceptual of where we're going.

So all right.

Thank you.

Yeah, that that's right.

Since it's it would be citywide 32 dwelling units an acre in residential neighborhood, then we weren't considering a buffer zone around urban villages.

So all right, thank you, staff.

We will now move on to the task force discussion.

Commissioner Bondal.

Excellent.

Oh, service.

Commissioner Kentral.

I love participatory democracy.

This is an amazing example of it.

I am so happy to see so many people with their own perspectives and interests being represented in this meeting today, asking questions and saying thank you as well.

This I wish we could have this at every meeting we have.

I I think it's beautiful and amazing, and I really want to thank you all for showing up today.

That's all Commissioner Bottle.

Um thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Cora, for the presentation.

Uh Cora, was that your memo that you wrote?

Yes, but it's a towards a joint effort.

Okay, I enjoyed reading the memo a lot.

Um I thought that was uh it was it was very easy to read.

Uh I enjoy the amount of examples you gave in there too, the pros and cons, and I like uh how you compared to Berkeley and uh what Sacramento is doing as well.

So I was good to hear and good to know what other cities are doing.

So for example, uh Sacramento, the FAR, which increases by unit count, FAR's transfer floor area ratio, and Berkeley per the memo it said 10 to 50, but you made a corrections in the presentation is 10 to 70.

So we uh or you guys and all of us were uh proposing uh uh eight dwelling euchre unit acre change to 32.

My question is uh do for developers will that pencil out.

Do you want to answer that?

Sure.

It's a fair question.

You know, um initially as we were thinking about small multifamily, um we wanted to do some analysis as part of our cost of development study to sort of inform some of our policy work.

But as Cora explained, the context has changed significantly due to state law.

You can kind of already build in these ranges.

Um so I think as we move forward, if we do you know move forward, we do want to understand financial feasibility of these projects, but given that this is already in the boundaries of what's allowed by state law, we feel it's an appropriate um policy proposal, um, but look to in the future understand more about financial feasibility.

Okay, and then Jared, so for just for the example sake, Berkeley's moving from 10 to 70.

Uh, did you guys consider 50, 60, 70, more than 32?

No, the reason why we landed on 32 was um really looking for that minimum four units on um on a six thousand square foot parcel, which as we mentioned is sort of the majority of of the residential neighborhood parcels.

So um recognizing that you could go up um uh you could add additional units as you as the parcel got larger.

So we were really sort of looking for that spot where you would um sort of hit most of the parcels in the city, but allow at least four units.

We could consider higher density if that is something that you'd like us to explore.

If I could add to it, Cora explained it well, but I think this is it was looking at that four number, kind of having to pick a a starting point, and then also understanding how ADUs can also add to the number of units on a potential site as well, and sort of balancing all of those factors is where we landed on 32.

But you know, if if there's uh a strong opinion of many of the task force members that we should consider higher, I think you know that's something we could return with uh in the meeting number two.

Okay, and then one more question on uh page 14, uh, which is uh developers' perspectives, some of the challenges I think they face when uh building.

So you know, um Cora, uh the SB9 requires the homeowner to stay in a parcel for three years.

Uh SB1123 does not.

So would it and SP9 came out in 2021, SB 1123 is more new, it's from 2025.

So wouldn't a build a builder just take the 1123 route?

Why it's why is it still a challenge?

It's still a challenge because there's a minimum density required for SB 1123 of about 20 units per acre.

Um so what we have heard from developers that is that I mean let's distinguish there's there are many different types of developers.

Um we're talking about someone who's considering adding units to their own property, that's one thing.

A developer who, like we've heard today, is specializing in missing middle projects, that's different.

Um, but we have heard that there is sort of a sweet spot in terms of the um parcel size to be able to achieve that um that required density for SB 1123 and also achieve feasibility in their project.

So it can be kind of a delicate dance.

Okay, and then Cora, you guys will and Jared, you guys mentioned that the the one to four ratio was very important.

So moving to the 32, I think somebody brought up in the audience that uh will there be any affordable housing requirement.

Will there be uh no?

There's so we have our the city has its inclusionary housing ordinance, which requires um affordable housing.

Um the the unit or development of this size number of units is not subject to the inclusionary housing ordinance.

Now Cora mentioned SP11 um sorry, SP 330.

So depending on the types of units there and the type of if there was a tenant renting a unit there, uh certain uh replacement units might be required, um, but there's no specific uh affordability requirement from from the city for these.

Okay.

Thank you for the clarification.

Um just my two cents and I'll and I'll go and I'll give it up to somebody else.

Um I think uh housing is important and we're we're missing the housing.

Um part of the cost of development study that we we went through, uh you guys helped us out with so much with going through that.

Some of the high rises are aren't feasible, but some of the small houses are penciling out, and we have I believe developers and builders here who give us this file that we didn't have time to look at today, but we'll look at it later.

But those those those do pencil out on the they do number out.

Um it's a challenge right now uh within our city that some of the young folks um can afford housing, and some of the older generation, they have purchased house back in the day that has multiplied in value, and they'll be quick to say they're back in our day, it was so easy, but it it is a challenge.

Uh you know, where we are the third largest city and the fourth fifth biggest economy in the world.

So we're gonna have to urbanize it.

I understand that it it's it's difficult sometimes for for residents to traffic and and so many things, but it's it's housing is a challenge as well.

So um I think missing middle is is such an important topic.

Um, and I think we're we're headed towards the right direction.

So thank you.

And could staff could you please look into uh 40 move from eight to 40 units per acre and let us know how that kind of pencils out or what developers would think of that.

I know multiple people in the audience uh commenters suggested that as well.

Yeah, we'll we'll um bring come back in the next so it won't be the next meeting, but the next meeting on missing middle with analysis around 40.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Commissioner Barroso.

Perfect, thank you.

I echo my fellow commissioners' sentiment that the presentation is great.

Um and it addresses a very important topic.

Question that I have is in slides six and seven, there was an example of projects existing middle housing on six.

It was six units, eleven parking spaces, and on slide seven, page seven project three units, seven parking spaces.

Are these parking spaces on the parcel or are they are they on the streets?

Those are parking spaces on uh that are included in the project.

So they are off-street parking spaces.

It should also be noted that both of those projects were permitted before San Jose reformed its parking ordinance.

Um so they built the required number of parking spaces at that time on the property.

On the property, okay, perfect.

So with that, I go to the proposal summary, page page 28.

So the second bullet, allow multifamily use in single family neighborhoods.

What in the proposal with X amount of units, you know, it's either 32 or wherever we land on.

Is there parking on site attached to that?

A minimum or some sort of formula, like for every five dwellings, there's going to be 2.5 parking spaces.

Is there any parking attached to the dwelling units per acre that is being proposed or that will be proposed?

So as I mentioned, um in 2023, San Jose changed its parking ordinance.

We do not have a parking minimum.

Um however, what we are seeing with most of the residential um the residential projects that are built or that are getting permitted is that they are including parking.

It may not be at the ratios that what they were required to provide prior to that reform, but they are requiring it, and it is generally part of a marketing strategy for these units.

Okay.

And would there be if you know this is just a hypothetical, if the proposal for X amount of dwelling units per acre comes with a minimum of parking, like on parcel parking, would that reset what happened in 2023, or does 2023 not even allow that hypothetical to happen?

Um we could consider it.

I mean, the the 2023 was a over overhaul of our whole all parking program.

Um as a as a part of this, I mean, we do mention parking.

I don't know at this point that we've gotten into those specifics.

So as a city, we you know, we and the city council approved, right?

We removed our parking minimums.

Um it's not something out of scope for this that we could consider if you know the task force felt strongly input felt strongly.

Um, but as a whole, it would it would sort of be reversing course in terms of a policy decision that was made in the past, but it it's something that could be discussed or considered.

But right.

Um I would recommend to look into that because a lot of the and again I go to the nice slide, I think, I think slide five was awesome.

Um, there's a lot of great visuals here, but the one that had I think it was towards the end, it was slide 22 that had the RN parcels geographic distribution by parcel area.

A lot of these parcels, and I live in a neighborhood that has you know, like the two percent or the nine percent of seven thousand to eight thousand, eight thousand to nine thousand, those are built deep, right?

So the parking spots that you know a property owner thinks they own, but you know, it's city land is those one or two spots where they put their trash cans, right?

They're not wide.

So if any of those parcels ever become a 20, 25, 32 unit with no parking, those people, as much as bike lanes and VTA and all those things will be in the neighborhood, people will bring their cars, and if we don't plan for that to be on site, that's gonna impact the street, the neighborhood.

So that's just my two cents on why I think we need to entertain some sort of um relationship or some sort of minimum of on-site parking for X amount of units.

Thank you.

Maybe what we could do, or I could suggest in the for meeting number two is is maybe return with some of the what's been built post-2023 that's kind of in this, you know, through whether through SB9 or others, and show you what parking they've proposed in those developments.

Um it's certainly something we can continue the conversation, but you know, there are market factors, and people do generally seek to build parking with their units, you know, especially for sale units, you know, it's it's it's very challenging to sell one without a space with it.

Um, but maybe as a starting place for that discussion, just so you can kind of see how current development is including parking or or what amount of parking they're including and what's being built.

Yep, that would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Commissioner Casey.

Thank you, Chair.

Um on SB uh 1123, you mentioned the minimum is 20 units today.

I think that was it.

And the maximum is how much.

So how do they determine the maximum is really determined by how many um lot how many um of the lots you can fit and meet the minimum lot size?

So it's a 1200 square foot minimum for the for less SB7.

Sorry, SB 1123.

Um it's as many lots as you can fit onto the onto your parcel that are at least 1200 square feet.

Okay, so in an acre.

You're capped at 10 units too.

Right.

So there's a minimum uh dwelling is an acre, but then you can't go past 10.

So that's sort of the effective maximum, so to speak.

Okay.

I thought the minimum was 20 an acre, so that's why yeah, yeah.

So there's a minimum it's density versus the actual number of units you can build.

So the density can range from whatever the minimum is, like 20 units per acre, um, up to the whatever density you get from as many units as you can fit on that lot up to 10.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was just trying to sorry, it is confusing.

It's not the easiest way to do the calculation as they've done it.

I guess the main thing is with 1123, we already have some rules and opportunities in place for the development.

I know we touched on some of the challenges, etc., but just moving it from 20 an acre under where we're not seeing great uptick to 32 or 40.

It's great we can change what they can do, but if we're not putting in other mechanisms to make it actually successful for the developers, it's not going to make much of a difference, I don't think, in terms of actual development.

Some of the other changes, and it was alluded to in some of the comments.

You know, the requirement to do the subdivision to do a parcel map does add time and expense and complication to the process.

So, you know, even if you're allowed to do a similar number of units but through a faster process, you know, a simpler process makes it easier to design.

You know, I think we feel like there is benefit to that.

I guess as long as we're confident enough that the other mechanisms we're putting in place will actually unleash this.

Because I know we passed lots of things before where people get very scared that everybody thought we're gonna have duplexes and fourplexes all through the neighborhoods, and everybody was up in arms, and that was years ago.

I haven't seen one build yet.

Um I've seen a couple, you know, large lots where they put in four homes.

I'm like, wow, okay, that used to be like one.

But I mean it's it's not like this thing all over the city.

So just want to make sure we're actually putting in mechanisms and other changes that are required to actually make that feasible.

So we're not just adding new new perme or new uh density rules that aren't gonna unlock anything.

Commissioner Young.

Thank you, Chair.

Um first of all, I'd like to echo Commissioner Cantrell's comments.

Thank you all for being here.

It's wonderful to see a room full of residents that are concerned and care.

And um be assured we listen to everything you say, all of you.

Uh there's diverse opinions, as with a lot of issues in the city, but we appreciate everyone's concerns.

Um I have a couple questions.

Of first of all, Cora, thank you very much.

It was a great presentation, and thank you for the uh for getting us the uh PowerPoint slides for tonight.

That was really really helpful to me.

Um I just have a couple questions and then I want to make an overall comment.

Um the 1123 parcel, uh, and then there's a partial parcel.

I I know it was intended for vacant parcels, but then I could you just explain that because I'm not really clear what that means.

So the way the that the law was written, it says vacant or uninhabitable single-family lots.

Um, and then uh through through the law and then through some determinations from HCD over the past few months, uh, an existing home can be designated as a part of a remainder lot.

So you can sort of parcel that out, and then on the rest of it, you you can you know, as long as you can achieve that minimum density, try to get to the the 10 units.

Um as you can imagine that that's created it creates some tricky challenges and where you might be able to do some, might not be able to do others.

Um, you know, and it also the way that vacant and uninhabitable is not clearly defined.

Um, you know, some cities are allowing demolition of single family home, and then you have a vacant lot, you know.

So that's where it's it's sort of like this 10 unit is possible, but the the framework that 1123 has set up is somewhat complex, and so we feel like our proposal sort of fits in the lane but makes it much easier to sort of accomplish a variety of different you know ways you could build your site.

Great, thank you.

Um the other question I had is the in particular the the Berkeley ordinance that restricts I believe to 60 percent of the lot.

Isn't that preempted by the state?

I mean it or am I misunderstanding that so if you're if you're using Berkeley's missing middle ordinance, then they have the you know the development standards that they've implemented for that, you have to abide by them.

So it's really a matter of choosing if you're choosing Berkeley's version of missing middle, um, then their standards would apply if you're choosing you know SB9 or SB1123, then other standards apply.

So like for example, San Jose recently implemented development standards for SB9 uh projects that make they're a lot more flexible, for example, than R1, the typical R1 development standards.

So it's really sort of giving you another option.

It's like for ADUs, we have a city option that has different standards than the state option.

Great, thank you.

Could you bring up uh page 25?

That's the one right there.

Thank you.

So I want to say I am very proud of the staff and uh Chris and um your leadership.

This is very courageous move you're taking.

I think it's great.

Um I am really glad to see us taking a global approach.

Um I know last meeting we talked about, you know, two blocks, four blocks.

This is great.

Uh you talk about fairness, this is fair.

Um I'm I'm not sure what the concern was about the high resource versus low resource folks.

This applies to every R1 lot in the city.

Okay, that's about as fair as you can get.

Um, I I come from a fire service background, I'm a retired firefighter.

The the housing situation in the city, it's a five-alarm fire.

We can't stop nibbling at the edges of this problem.

We are literally creating, if not if we're not already there, a place where the folks that work here can't live here, they can't afford to live here.

When we have people that work for the post office or teachers, or you know, people that work in grocery stores having to live in Stockton or Modesto or Los Banos, that's unsustainable, and it's not right.

So there was a comment made about the backbone of the city.

44% of San Jose units are renter occupied.

That's the backbone of the city.

Those are the people that live and work and clean our houses and you know, take care of our gardens and feed us food in the restaurants, etc.

etc.

etc.

Right.

That's the backbone.

And I feel very grateful that those folks are here because they allow me to have a really nice lifestyle.

So I don't think it's too much to ask for those of us like myself that were fortunate to buy a house here a long time ago, and now that house is whatever it has increased in value.

I don't think it's unfair to ask us to give up a little bit and allow more density in our neighborhoods.

We need to do it.

The days of just saying that we're a single-family home city, it's over, whether we want it to be over or not, and that's why the state has passed all these laws because we've been unwilling at the local level.

I'm not addressing us specifically.

Um this is badly needed.

I'm I'm really glad that staff's taken the approach of you know, let's just have one standard.

I like that.

And you know, we can argue about whether it should be 32 or 40 or or whatever.

I I have no strong opinion on that, but um I just think this is really needed.

I'm I'm very very strongly in favor of the direction we're going.

I'm really I'm really happy.

Thanks.

We're we're talking about 32 or 40, and it looked like the other slides when you spoke about Berkeley had 70, and then Sacramento had no cap.

Is that right?

That's correct.

I was just asking.

Commissioner Cantra.

Actually, I just wondered if you're gonna be able to answer the young man's question about equity and process.

Uh regarding outreach, yes, I can answer that question.

Um the as I mentioned, the Office of Racial and Social Equity is helping us with these focus groups, and I'm just gonna pull up some information I've found my notes here.

Um doesn't want to work with me.

One of the youth group is actually going to be um we have uh high school students that are Crystal Ray High School interns.

Um they work sorry, they have an internship here in the city, and so um we will reach out to them to be part of our focus group on youth, and then the other group, which I said was hard to reach populations, I misspoke.

I think that was our initial um target.

It it's going to be actually what we call diverse lived experience group, and it's through the Office of Racial and Social Equities San Jose for All Commission advisory board.

So they will serve um as a that second focus group.

Um the disability focused group, uh the Office of Racial and Social Equity has a contract with a vendor that provides services and uh on um for disability for the disability community, and they will be the ones who can um reach out to people they serve or people who are served through disability services and get them to those groups.

Chair, can I just a brief point?

I I I don't want to um hog the time here, but I did want to talk a little bit about lead uh outreach.

Um I used to be on the neighborhoods commission, which it it's very sad that's not here anymore because I think it was really important for things like this.

But there is a couple of there's a group called the all district leadership group, which I think kind of is what the neighborhoods commission kind of uh has come to be, and it's managed through not managed, it's liaison through PR PRNS.

Uh I would really encourage staff to reach out to that group.

Uh and the uh the PRNS also has a contact person for each leadership group in the city.

Um so uh I think it's I think you said you met with with D3.

Um District one, D one, okay.

I think it would be great if you could outreach uh to that all leadership group and the uh and the and the districts because this is flying somewhat under the radar right now, and I think it's very important to get the word out to folks that it's happening because if folks know it's happening, they have a chance to attend meetings like this and provide their input.

So I would much rather see folks know about it now than we get to June or July, and all of a sudden people are saying, you know, what the heck?

We didn't we haven't heard anything about this.

So thanks.

Yes, we can definitely reach out to that group, and I do want to note that for every meeting we do email the council offices, give them a link to the agendas and the memorandums, and um we're here to meet with them as well to give them updates as a time as the work goes along.

Vice Vice Chair Bickford, and I definitely inform my uh district neighborhood leadership count council.

So great.

I have I have um three things.

Could somebody bring up slide 27?

Uh this is the one that that talks about equity for those that might be following along.

And I wanted to specifically ask a question about the second bullet point, uh, which was one that that has come up here.

Potential for smaller units in high resource neighborhoods.

I know that the resource, whether it's high or uh whatever it is, it it implies that we are going to go into potentially high income, largely single family, and impose something on them.

And my my question really is if there are a bunch of take the Corey neighborhood, which I don't know, I don't live there, but if there aren't any vacant properties in that neighborhood, wouldn't it be up to a homeowner to come and say I want to do something high density on my property?

So what we're proposing would not necessarily require that the uh property is vacant.

SB1123 um does require uh that the property be vacant.

Am I understanding the question correctly?

Yeah, no, you are, but to the simple answer is yes, it requires the property owner to either agree to do something or to sell it to someone else to do something.

Thank you.

That the this my second point is actually around um, you know, we we've we've talked about buffered zones.

My second point is actually around you know, we we've we've talked about buffered zones.

I do commend you for taking a sort of one size fits all uh across the city, and yet I'm not sure that one size fits all.

And so I I would really like to understand if there is a desire to have some kind of buffering, whether we we get to a number that's 40 or 70 or uh or 32 or whatever the number is, a builder could still choose to create buffer zones in their construction, hot really high on the front facing lower in the middle toward a residential area.

Yeah, I think there's there's maybe two two issues.

So there's there's sort of how we might treat on individual property step downs to to interface with another property, and that that's something that um Cora alluded to around design standards, um, and we haven't gotten as into those details as much, you know, and that relates to height as well, and that's something I think we want to bring back in meeting number two to kind of get more into those details.

The the buffer zone um idea was more around, you know, we have uh urban villages, and oftentimes you know, those are much higher density, right?

We're looking at maybe five, seven story uh potentially, and how they may interface with single family, even with the step down can be challenging.

Is so the idea with the buffer is could you you know provide this certain amount of buffer, right?

After the urban village before you get to maybe other areas or deeper into the neighborhood where you could increase the density to provide a gentler transition.

Um I think what we're saying is that given that we're we're going with 32 citywide, and Cora also alluded to, we we did look at a lot of different villages.

It's it's very hard to sort of draw that buffer without um either being arbitrary or not quite capturing the right amount of area, and so that's why we said um we should just go with the citywide approach rather than trying to draw the buffers.

So it's kind of two two separate issues, but that's sort of our thinking on each of those.

So okay, thank you.

Um my next comment is just I I agree with what my uh fellow commissioners have said.

I think we need to look at a higher number.

Um, as much as it pains me because I'm I'm I live in a condominium and it's not very dense, and it could have been denser, and that would have made room for more people to live there.

And I I still think density is the only thing that is going to drive us toward the housing numbers that we need to get and not continue to be forced by the state to do things because we're not meeting our numbers, because that is just going to make it worse for every citizen in the city.

Commissioner Burroughs.

So just to follow up on that, um, is there a way to you know say it's 32 per per acre?

If is there a way to say if it's if it's a project under four acres, it's 32.

Project 4 plus it's it's 40.

If it's something 10 acres plus, okay, now you know we're talking about a bigger project, so maybe that could hit 60 or something.

Is there something that we can do in that regard, or is that just not feasible?

So are you referring to sort of different density levels depending on the size of the parcel?

Yes.

That's what it sounded like.

Okay.

We can certainly look at that.

Um I I'm just trying to understand which direction you wanted so for a larger parcel, maybe a lower density is what you're saying.

Other way around.

Other way around.

Okay.

Well, what I'm thinking is if you know, say we go follow in the footsteps of what is it, Berkeley 70, right?

Per per okay.

To me, no, right?

Like if it's one property owner happens to have one acre in the middle of and they're gonna put 70 there, no to me that doesn't make sense.

I don't know.

I need to see it, right?

But if the lot is is 10 acres or five acres, okay, then I can see where it's not just going to be one driveway in, it's you know, it's a big enough property, maybe it'll be on a corner, so there'll be a way for traffic to go in and out.

So for me, the one size fits all, I totally get it.

I think I think we need to think about the size of the lot and how many dwellings can fit there as opposed to you know, say we do land on 50.

Well, okay, good luck for that one acre that can now hold 50 in a neighborhood that they're just not built for that.

But by what we pass, they can do it, right?

So just thoughtful in terms of the one size fits all.

Maybe there's an opportunity for for a scale.

Okay.

Yeah, we can certainly look at that.

I I will say um, and it's an option we could come back with in terms of maybe a sliding scale type of density based on size.

What one of the things that we did think about in this proposal too, and I think some of the challenges I think we sort of asked in your questions about state laws.

We have so many complicated pathways now and rules, and so I think our thought is trying to make it simple, you know, and so having this, it applies citywide, it's one density, you know, and there's still other state laws that stack on top in terms of you can do ADUs and you know, you can have density bonus.

So there was in sort of the policy thought process of trying to keep it simple so that it's understandable both for you know neighbors, for city planners, for developers.

So that was sort of in the thought process as well.

But I understand we're coming from, you know, if a larger site, maybe it you know, higher density makes sense, and so we can certainly look at that.

But that was our policy thought process approach of just trying to be simple.

Simple as San Jose's descent San Jose's density bonus was just discussed at City Council a few weeks ago.

Yeah, we had to um make some changes around um our ordinance to implement um density bonus laws constantly changing, so to modify our zoning code to meet current state density bonus law.

But yeah, there's you know, we have uh fair number of projects that that you do utilize it now quite frequently for I'm uh sorry, I I wasn't quite done.

I just had um two more points.

Sorry.

That's okay.

Um we also have some builders in the audience, and and they asked for for two things, and I don't really understand the process for them.

One of them was can there be an interim process to uh uh do some streamlined approval plans or an interim approval plan while we work through this process, which isn't destined to be gone to be done until next year sometime.

We have builders that want to build today, we have a housing need today.

What, if anything, do we have latitude to do to help get those things done?

Yeah, um uh there's some challenges trying to do something interim or quicker.

Um, you know, as much as the states streamlined certain elements of uh environmental review through CEQA, um we still have to do it on our policy changes.

Um this density is modifying our general plan, so it's sort of hard for us to adopt some of those changes in our zoning without modifying the general plan.

Um so I think it's something maybe we could think about in the meeting number two along timelines.

Um, and if there's an interim approach, I don't I don't know that it would be significantly faster to do something in the interim versus going fully with what we're proposing or how much time would actually be saved.

Um, you know, and some of the other policy approaches mentioned um or solutions around fees.

It is something it's not something we're as part of the general plan for your review, but we do have some other proposals around fee structure, and which includes fee deferral um that we are going to be pursuing um through some of our policy work through the housing element as well.

So that would be helpful to to these types of projects.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cantrell.

I I just want to make sure I what I thought I heard earlier, is what I heard in terms of um the outreach.

So the consultant that you hired will be looking to relationships that they may already have or may need to recruit in to include racial diversity in this mix, including organizations like um someone's mayfair, uh, African American Community Services Agency and the Vietnamese community.

Um I forget what they call it.

Um those types of organizations as well, I would hope.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That's Commissioner Bundle.

Thank you, Chad.

Just a quick comment.

Um, I I really enjoyed uh having public comment go first uh before our discussion.

That just uh opens up uh some more time for us to kind of go back on some of the questions they had, like Commissioner Brickford just piggybacked off of uh my request to the chair is and planning staff.

Can we make this permanent going forward?

And is that possible?

We can certainly discuss it.

Yes.

Thank you.

I had a question.

One of the uh letters that we received um from the public identified a paper from Berkeley that suggested that building in San Jose or sorry, building in San Francisco reduced the sorry, the renters risk of displacement by 17%.

Do we ever do analyses that try to determine what type of renter displacement would occur if we were to implement certain types of bonus densities or setbacks, heights, you know, all the things that we discussed tonight?

Yeah, um what familiar with what they mentioned.

I don't know of any recent that's been done for San Jose in terms of how the changes would would impact that in the future.

Um it's something we could we could look at again and do some more analysis to come back with um at the second meeting.

I assume it requires a lot of math.

So Commissioner Bandal.

Um since we have time and I'll so I'll take a question.

So SP 330, I'm still kind of maybe you could jump in.

330 is kind of confusing to me.

Uh when it correlates on top of SB1123 and the nine, could you kind of just shed some light on that?

Sure.

So SP 330.

Oh, do you mind taking it?

No, yes, okay.

So SB 330 um has a provision that's called replacement unit.

So you have to replace certain units that you are demolishing for either a commercial project or a residential redevelopment project.

Um you only have to replace those units if the units are deed restricted rental units, if they have been occupied by people who um are low income, or if they are part of some the city's local um local rent control program.

So many of the cities, like I guess projects that fall within those um those categories, they're typically apartments of three units or more, but it's possible that you know there's a house that someone's renting where someone is low income.

And so the city has to make that determination to find out, and they work with the developer to get that information and they share that with us.

And if they say, yes, there was one person here living, you know, renting a unit of that was low income, then when they come back with this potential program, one of those units has to be deed restricted.

Thank you.

Since we have a moment, I'm just curious.

I I assume that that would the other um benefits to that tenant would be in place as well in terms of relocation and go make it.

Uh yeah, there so the city does have an LS Act ordinance um which governs relocation.

I will need to follow up if it if it applies on single family.

I don't know that it does, but um that that's our ordinance that that um governs how if there's relocation assistance required, certain types of notification requirements for tenants.

Um yeah, I would need to verify if it applies on single family.

But that's why, again, going back to some of the policy discussion, SB9 and SP 1123 have restrictions on demolition of units that have had tenants, and it varies the number of years and the look back period.

Um, but but that's a sort of additional layer of um anti-displacement policy um that sits on top of the SB 330 replacement requirement where they say you those units cannot be demolished if it's had a tenant in that amount of time.

So which it can be it can limit potential redevelopment, but is also you know can limit displacement.

So there's there's sort of trade-offs there.

Um so I think that that's something that the city can discuss in the context of its policy, how how or if we would want to add on any requirements around um demolish demolishing of units that have had tenants in a certain amount of time.

Question could you pull up page 22 of the slides?

The residential neighborhood parcels sizes.

In general, the areas why are the parcels larger in the areas that are more historically blue lined or green lined.

Do we have do you have any idea why?

I mean, I would I would guess that those parcels are in areas that were developed with larger parcel sizes to you know target a specific market.

I think that's you know San Jose has a lot of subdivisions that are at you know different aimed at different income segments.

So somebody else has something more.

No, yeah, I there's the number of factors.

I think that's one factor, and then sometimes the year in which particular areas or um were developed and lot sizes can vary.

So like if you if you look at you know, uh kind of in in downtown square there, you can see more of those lighter colors, and then as you're you know, more in district nine out to ten and eight, those are newer areas, right?

And so um that that has some effect on it as well.

Um so yeah.

Okay.

I'm in a WhatsApp group for uh with the San Jose Unified, I'm in the Williams uh WhatsApp group, and boy, those guys have some ideas about busting kids from Horseman over to Williams, and it's fascinating.

Um other comments from commissioners?

All right, seeing none?

Seeing none, we will adjourn the meeting then.

827 p.m.

Thank you, Chair.