Dear Council and Staff,
Thank you for all of your hard work around the housing elements creation
and implementation. Im in strong support of adding affordable homes
downtown! I’ve read the staff report for the RFP and have a concern about
the newly added conditions at the end of page K-1.3.
In essence, it looks to me like the RFP would ask respondents to create a
large amount of affordable units as well as parking spaces, without
increased height or density at the site. While that sounds good in theory
and I’m sure is a result of trying to create a solution that satisfies
various parties, I’m concerned that these conditions could be viewed as a
constraint on development by HCD and could even render the project
infeasible if theyre treated as hard requirements.
I’ve looked into other affordable developments around our area and I’m not
aware of a project that meets all three of these constraints: hundreds of
affordable units, plus a lot of developer-provided public parking, plus
moderate height and density -- though Id love to be wrong if you do know
of examples! For instance, I believe Palo Altos current plans for homes
on a downtown lot have the developer building the homes only, with the city
building its own replacement parking offsite.
The fact that such a unicorn project may not have been created in the
recent past, when interest rates and materials costs were much lower, would
not be a good sign for the economic environment that we’re now in.
I do think this is a “pick two of three” kind of scenario. Since we know
we need the housing to be one of the two things picked:
- Additional height/density could allow market rate units to be in the
mix and subsidize parking
- Or if keeping height and density lower is most important, then the
subsidized homes would have to take priority for the space rather than
parking
Im all for asking for something ambitious, so perhaps these parking and
height/density goals could be reframed as goals that are ideal but not hard
requirements, especially if no developers are able to find a way to make
all three conditions work. Otherwise, I worry that if there are no viable
projects submitted/built, well lose more of our workforce and diversity as
a city, and may be at risk with HCD.
Thank you,
Brittani Baxter
District 3 Resident
