Dear Members of the Menlo Park City Council,
Please see the attached support letter regarding the Willow Village proposal set for discussion at the upcoming November 30, 2022 City Council Special meeting.
You may also find the text of the letter below:
Dear Mayor Nash and Members of the Menlo Park City Council,
The Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County (HLC) works with our communities and their leaders to produce and preserve quality affordable homes.
On behalf of HLC, and as expressed in our previous communications, I’m writing to express our support for the Willow Village proposal by Peninsula Innovation Partners and Signature Development Group. Of the potential 1,730 homes, a total of 312 will be affordable, including 119 set aside for your senior community members at both the Very Low (VLI) and Extremely-Low Income (ELI) levels. These homes, combined with the newly increased $6 million in additional funding for affordable housing for your community members in Menlo Park and rent subsidies for local teachers, can provide the City of Menlo Park with the much-needed relief against the job-housing imbalance that all your residents are collectively experiencing at this moment.
In addition, by approving the Willow Village, you have the opportunity to help ensure that your city will achieve a legally compliant Housing Element in January 2023. HLC has been closely following the City of Menlo Park’s 6th Cycle (2023-2031) RHNA obligations and Housing Element Update process over the past year. The City Council is scheduled to adopt the updated Housing Element on December 6, 2022 and the statutory deadline for HDC to certify updated Housing Element is no later than January 31, 2023.
As you may know, this proposal alone represents 1) 59% of Menlo Park’s total 6th Cycle 2023-2031 RNHA obligation, 2) 16% of the Citys VLI RNHA obligation, and 3) 19% of Menlo Parks VLI to Moderate (MOD) ("BMR") RNHA obligation. Please see Table 7-1 RNHA Allocation below.
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It has taken more than five years of input from your community members and fellow city leaders, and revisions by the developer, for Willow Village to get to this juncture; leading to its overlap with the aforementioned and upcoming Housing Element. With your support of this proposal, you can avoid the onerous task of revising your City’s Housing Element and the need to identify new housing sites throughout your city to fulfill it’s RNHA obligations,
We also caution you to fully comply with California State housing law and adopt a realistic Housing Element with viable versus theoretical housing sites, as the consequences, such as what has occurred in Santa Monica over the past year, are pronounced. Any city that does not have an adopted Housing Element by January 31, 2023 is subject to the “builder’s remedy.” Under California State law and the builder’s remedy application process, your authority to approve or reject certain housing proposals can temporarily be taken out of your control.
A builder’s remedy proposal also DOES NOT need to comply with your city’s Zoning or General Plan standards — it can be much larger than Menlo Park would otherwise permit AND you will not be able to deny a builder’s remedy proposal solely on the basis that it does not comply with those standards. The only grounds for the rejection of a proposal is if it can be proven to “have a specific, adverse impact upon the public health or safety,” which is a much higher standard than California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and a very difficult finding to make with a housing proposal.
According to the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), any housing proposals submitted after a city fails to meet its compliance deadline, will earn automatic permit approval if they meet the standards for serving low- and moderate-income households by committing least 20% of their homes as affordable to lower income households or 100% as affordable to moderate income households. In addition, these proposals are not necessarily subject to community amenities requirements and may not be required to provide any; like the ones included in Willow Village. If a jurisdiction were to receive a housing proposal while it’s Housing Element is out of compliance, any potential benefits afforded to the applicant as a result of the jurisdiction’s noncompliant status would remain throughout the entitlement process even if the jurisdiction subsequently achieves compliance during the entitlement process according to HCD. If Menlo Park falls into this category, it would make it that much harder for you to make impactful and meanful land use decisions for your community.
To illustrate the “builder’s remedy” in action: while the City of Santa Monica was out of compliance with Housing Element law, leaders had no choice but to approve 12 development proposals in just this year alone - totaling nearly 4,000 homes. Please see: Developers capitalize on Housing Element fiasco to force 3,968 undeniable units into the city’s pipeline.
With your support of the Willow Village proposal, Menlo Park can avoid the consequences experienced by your counterparts in Santa Monica and also provide much-needed quality affordable homes for your community members. We urge you to take all the necessary steps to approve this proposal at the November 30, 2022 City Council meeting.
Sincerely,
Ken Chan
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Ken Chan
he/him/his
Senior Organizer
Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County
2905 S El Camino Real
San Mateo, CA 94403
(408) 421 - 0586
www.hlcsmc.org
