Honorable City Council and Planning Commissioners,
As you may well know, SB423 was signed earlier this month by Governor Newsom. This bill extends SB35, an earlier law that streamlines housing developments in cities that have fallen behind on their obligations for housing at all income levels. For streamlined projects any design review or public oversight must be completed in 90 days for 150 or fewer units and 180 days for projects with more than 150 units, measured from the date of application submittal.
SB35 streamlining contributed to 18,000 housing units around the state, according to this Terner Center report
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/sb-35-evaluation/
The passage of SB423 has important implications for Menlo Park as the city works on finishing touches for the citys Housing Element and Zoning.
1) Continued streamlining. SB35, and its successor SB423, require streamlined approval of development projects for cities that have fallen behind on their RHNA obligations (see below). The projects subject to streamlining depend what income levels the city has fallen behind on. Menlo Park was subject to streamlining for 100% affordable projects. With the new RHNA cycle, the clock does not get reset - Menlo Park will remain subject to streamlining through the next midcycle review.
2) Even more streamlining for cities without an approved Housing Element. With SB423, if a city does not have a compliant housing element, the city is subject to streamlining for all housing developments with at least 10% below market rate. With Menlo Parks inclusionary policy, this means that effectively all housing developments will be subject to streamlining.
The passage of SB423 hopefully is motivation to the Planning Commission and City Council to ensure a valid housing element as soon as possible.
And also, the passage hopefully provides motivation to strengthen zoning so that the city will be able to actually fulfill its housing obligation. It may be possible to have a valid housing element with zoning that is insufficient to actually enable the housing to be built. In that case, the city will soon be subject to more streamlining if it falls further behind on the higher RHNA obligations for the new cycle.
Thank you for working on a compliant housing element and zoning that will enable the city to meet our RHNA obligations,
- Adina
Adina Levin
