Housing Element Recommendation to Planning Commission 4/8/15

I will be speaking tonight as not only a resident but also as a member of the Housing Element Advisory board.

First, I’d like to say that when we talk about the Housing Element, we need to be VERY clear that we are not talking about the Specific Plan. It is easy to confuse the two but they are completely separate. The Housing Element is a state-mandated part of our General Plan that requires certification and updates every 8 years.

I would like to speak IN SUPPORT of the Housing Element Advisory Board’s official recommendation.

From my involvement not only as a member of the advisory board, as well as my involvement with our previous Housing Element, I can categorically state that this issue is VERY complex. One of the many reasons it IS so complicated is that since the last Housing Element the state has changed a few of the rules. Previously we only had to plan, not build.

And, even though that still sounds the same now since we only have to plan, not build, the outcome will be much different. The state has forced Los Gatos to remove many constraints which will likely result in REAL developments, not just plans. The restructured Affordable Housing Overlay Zone (AHOZ) which we used almost exclusively in our previous Housing Element and its effect on our town had to be rethought. Actual rezoning as opposed to just using the AHOZ was now an option on the table.

The months of hard work that we have done over the past year on the board have resulted in an evolution of sorts. At our first meeting there was not much consensus on anything. But we worked and worked at it. Over the next several months we discussed and argued options, asked many clarifying questions of staff. Staff in turn asked questions of the HCD, the state agency that will ultimately decide whether our Housing Element is certified. We again reviewed and evaluated our options and how they would impact both schools and traffic. We tried to determine what made the most sense for Los Gatos.

We made our best effort to suggest options that would inflict the minimum impact on the town. We tried to maximize the results to meet the state-mandated RHNA requirements.

The Housing Element recommendation is to utilize the housing units already approved or built, secondary units, units from the residentially zoned Oka Road sites, units on the Oak Rim AHOZ property, and units on the North 40.

It comes down to weighing the risk that the town is willing to take. Either approve an option that MIGHT result in a process risk if one or more of our recommendations fail to produce the proposed development VERSUS the REAL RISK that Los Gatos will face with developments that will severely impact our traffic situation around the existing schools.

PLEASE don’t throw away all our hard work. SUPPORT the Housing Element Advisory Board’s official recommendation.

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