In response to a group of state laws that streamline the process for housing developers, Los Gatos is creating a set of local objective standards that developers must meet in order to build in town.
This state legislation has cut out steps like design reviews and public hearings from the process for new housing development projects, so long as developers can meet the objective standards set by local governments, like building height requirements, facade designs and landscaping,
The town hosted its first community meeting Tuesday evening to consider what standards to adopt for mixed use and multi-family projects, and to hear public feedback.
“If the developer can prove that they met those standards, and their project provides a certain amount of the right kind of affordability, they are able to go through a streamlined process, and the town can only use objective standards to judge the project,” said Tom Ford, principle for M Group, the consultants working with the town to create theses standards.
Following Tuesday’s virtual meeting, Ford said, the consultants will draft the preliminary objective standards that will be presented at a second community meeting in the spring. They will present a final draft of the objective standards to the planning commission and town council in the summer for final approval.
Senate Bill 35, the Housing Accountability Act and the Housing Crisis Act each make it easier to build new housing units in California. Housing advocates say these laws will help address the state’s housing crisis and take subjectivity out of the development review process, while suburban communities are concerned about giving up local control over new projects that they say could bring in traffic and strain infrastructure.
Before these laws were enacted, developers went through a discretionary review, which included a design review, qualitative judgment and review by town staff.
Now, developers will go through a ministerial review that is meant to remove personal or subjective judgment.
Ford said the town’s standards can’t leave room for interpretation. Standards like “minimize the visual mass and bulk of the structures” are too vague, he added. The town must use more definitive language, he said, like, “Provide a mix of one- and two-story masses or set the second floor back from the first-floor walls by a minimum of 5 feet for at least 50 percent of the facade of the structure.”
The town can adopt different tools like score cards, checklists, ratios or counts and measurements to create the objective standards, Ford said.
Three community members spoke during public comment, mainly asking clarifying questions about the timeline of these standards.
The latest controversial housing law,, Senate Bill 9, makes it easier for developers to split lots and build duplexes. Los Gatos extended its Urgency Ordinance for SB 9 at a meeting earlier this month. The ordinance includes local objective standards like housing restrictions, fire hazard mitigations, building height maximums and minimum lot sizes.
A handful of West Valley cities have backed a potential ballot measure that would allow local governments to reject state-level land use and zoning laws like SB 35 and SB 9.
Source: www.mercurynews.com