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16 Public Comment From:Matthew Gelfand <admin@caforhomes.org> on behalf of matt@caforhomes.org Sent:Monday, January 25, 2021 11:39 PM To:Harry Sidhu (Mayor); Stephen Faessel; dbarnes@anaheim.net; Jordan Brandman; Jose Moreno; Avelino Valencia; Trevor O'Neil; Public Comment Cc:Ted White; Robert Fabela Subject:Correspondence from Californians for Homeownership Attachments:2021-1-25 - Californians Letter to City Council.pdf To the City Council: Please see the attached correspondence regarding Agenda Item 16 being considered at your upcoming meeting. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand -- Matthew Gelfand Counsel, Californians for Homeownership 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 matt@caforhomes.org Tel: (213) 739-8206 Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to address California’s housing crisis through impact litigation and other legal tools. 1 0NIE CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP January 25, 2021 VIA EMAIL City Council City of Anaheim 200 S Anaheim Boulevard Anaheim, CA 92805 Email: hsidhu@anaheim.net; sfaessel@anaheim.net; jodiaz@anaheim.net; jbrandman@anaheim.net; jmoreno@anaheim.net; avalencia@anaheim.net; toneil@anaheim.net; publiccomment@anaheim.net RE: January 26, 2021 City Council Meeting, Agenda Item 16 To the City Council: MATTHEW GELFAND, COUNSEL MATT@CAFORHOM ES.ORG TEL: (213) 739-8206 Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. I am writing as part of our work monitoring local compliance with Government Code Section 66300, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. This letter follows up on our May 26, June 8, July 6, and July 20 letters to the Planning Commission on the same subject. At your January 26 meeting, you will consider the second reading of an ordinance that would increase parking requirements in the City. It is puzzling that the City is considering increasing parking requirements despite the near -universal agreement among today's professional planners that minimum parking requirements are misguided, bad policy. Minimum parking requirements lead to increased traffic and vehicle use; they don't help anything. In any event, the City's draft ordinance is unlawful under the Housing Crisis Act because it would "lessen the intensity of housing" developable on the City's residential lots. See Gov. Code § 66300(b)(1)(A). And the City has conducted an inadequate review of its environmental impacts. Accordingly, we are considering litigation against the City to invalidate the ordinance and challenge its environmental review if it is adopted. 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 Our concerns are detailed in the attached letters to the Planning Commission. We urge you January 25, 2021 Page 2 to abandon this misguided and outdated effort. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand cc: Ted White, Planning and Building Director (by email to tedwhite@anaheim.net) Robert Fabela, Esq., City Attorney (by email to rfabela@anaheim.net) 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP ATTACHMENT 0NIE CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP May 26, 2020 VIA EMAIL MATTHEW GELFAND, COUNSEL MATT@CAFORHOM ES.ORG TEL: (213) 739-8206 Planning Commission City of Anaheim 200 S. Anaheim Blvd. 1 st Floor, Suite 162 Anaheim, CA 92805 Email: jarmst2534@aol. kimberly. natalieameeks@gmail. rmulleady@aol. dhiruhv@gmail. planningcommission@anaheim.net RE: May 27, 2020 Planning Commission Meeting, Agenda Item 4. To the Planning Commission: Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. I am writing as part of our work monitoring local compliance with Government Code Section 66300, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, which was established by SB 330, Stats. 2019 c. 659 § 13. At your May 27 meeting, you will discuss an ordinance that increases parking requirements for new residential units in the City. The ordinance violates the Housing Crisis Act because it lessens the intensity of residential use allowed in the City's residential zones. We urge you to reject this unlawful proposal. Under the Housing Crisis Act, an "affected city" is prohibited from "enact[ing] a development policy, standard, or condition that would have any of the following effects:... [R]educing the intensity of land use within an existing general plan land use designation, specific plan land use designation, or zoning district below what was allowed under the land use designation and zoning ordinances of the affected county or affected city, as applicable, as in effect on January 1, 2018 ...." Gov. Code § 66300(b)(1)(A). "For purposes of this subparagraph, `less intensive use' includes, but is not limited to, reductions to height, density, or floor area ratio, new or increased open space or lot size requirements, or new or increased setback requirements, minimum frontage requirements, or maximum lot coverage limitations, or anything that would lessen the intensity of housing." Id. 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 May 26, 2020 Page 2 Anaheim has been deemed an "affected city" by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.' The proposed ordinance would make three changes increasing the City's residential parking requirements: • It would increase the parking requirements for homes with four or more bedrooms in the RS -4 Zone. Proposed A.M.C. § 18.42.030.0403. • It would redefine "bedroom" throughout the City's residential zones to increase the number of "bedrooms" in typical floorplans, thus increasing parking requirements. Proposed A.M.C. § 18.42.030.0102. • It would reduce by 80% the number of parking spaces that can be provided in a tandem configuration, requiring a drastic increase in the space dedicated to parking with no increase in the number of parking spaces actually available to residents. Proposed A.M.C. § 18.42.030.0205. These changes violate the Housing Crisis Act because they have the effect of lessening the intensity of housing that can be developed in the City's residential zones in at least two ways. First, by increasing parking requirements and increasing the amount of space that must be dedicated per parking space (by limiting tandem parking), the ordinance would increase the amount of lot space and structural footprint dedicated to parking. By necessity, this would decrease the lot space and structural footprint that can be dedicated to housing, resulting in a decrease in housing units or bedrooms built per square foot of lot space or enclosed space. The staff report before you acknowledges that "developable land in Anaheim is becoming harder to find while the demand on housing continues to increase," but puzzlingly requires developers to dedicate more space to parking and less to housing. Second, they would drastically increase the per-unit cost of developing a typical multifamily housing project in the City. The impact of parking requirements on residential development costs is well-documented. The cost of developing a single parking space in a multifamily dwelling's parking garage is $25,000–$50,000.3 One of the stated purposes of the ordinance is to increase by 60% (from 1.25 spaces/unit to 2 spaces/unit) the parking requirements for a popular studio apartment floorplan commonly built by developers. For a multifamily building with 50 such units, the increase in costs could reach $1,500,000. Because parking requirements mandate the above -market production of parking—they would be unnecessary otherwise builders cannot recoup these costs by charging directly for parking. The result of this ordinance would be a reduction in unit or bedroom counts of future proposed projects to allow those projects to "pencil out." https://www. hcd. ca. gov/community-development/docs/Affected-Cities.pdf. See Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking, Updated Edition (2011). https://www. strongtowns. org/journal/2018/ 11/20/the-many-costs-of-too-much-parking. 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP May 26, 2020 Page 3 We urge you to abandon this unlawful plan. To allow us to monitor the City's conduct, we request that the City include us on the notice list for all future public meetings regarding this ordinance or any other change to the City's residential parking requirements. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand cc: Nick Taylor, Associate Planner (by email to njtaylor@anaheim.net) David See, Principal Planner (by email to dsee@anaheim.net) Robert Fabela, Esq., City Attorney (by email to rfabela@anaheim.net) 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP 0NIE CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP June 8, 2020 VIA EMAIL MATTHEW GELFAND, COUNSEL MATT@CAFORHOM ES.ORG TEL: (213) 739-8206 Planning Commission City of Anaheim 200 S. Anaheim Blvd. 1 st Floor, Suite 162 Anaheim, CA 92805 Email: kimberly. natalieameeks@gmail. rmulleady@aol. planningcommission@anaheim.net RE: June 8, 2020 Planning Commission Meeting, Agenda Item 4 To the Planning Commission: Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. I am writing as part of our work monitoring local compliance with Government Code Section 66300, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, which was established by SB 330, Stats. 2019 c. 659 § 13. This letter follows up on our May 26 letter on the same subject. At your June 8 meeting, you will again discuss an ordinance that increases parking requirements for new residential units in the City. As we explained in our prior letter, the ordinance violates the Housing Crisis Act because it lessens the intensity of residential use allowed in the City's residential zones. The new staff report before you suggests that the ordinance is lawful because it imposes only objective criteria and does not limit the number of housing units that can be approved. Neither of those features changes the fact that the ordinance would unlawfully lessen the intensity of housing that can be developed in the City's residential zones. Several of the policies that are expressly listed in Government Code Section 66300(b)(1)(A)including reductions in height or floor area ratio and increased open space and lot coverage requirements—can be implemented without reducing unit count, through reductions in unit size, bedroom count, and the like. Which is exactly what developers will have to do in Anaheim to build units on the same lot or building footprint, or with the same amount of money. The Legislature designed the Housing Crisis Act to cover this broad range of changes, not simply reductions in density. The staff report also confusingly references the Housing Crisis Act's limitations on moratoria and changes to density, which are not the subject of our correspondence. 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 May 26, 2020 Page 2 Additionally, the staff report refers to a discussion with staff at the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). With the exception of the Housing Crisis Act's limitations on moratoria, HCD is not authorized to permit a local jurisdiction to ignore the Act's restrictions. The proposed ordinance is unlawful. The City's environmental review of the proposed ordinance is also insufficient. The staff report before you appears to acknowledge that the ordinance is a "project" for the purposes of CEQA, but asks you to determine that the ordinance qualifies for the "common sense" exception under CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3). But the ordinance does not qualify for the "common sense" exception because it cannot "be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the [ordinance] may have a significant effect on the environment ...." To the contrary, a cursory review suggests that the ordinance could have a significant impact on the environment, for at least two reasons. First, the region is operating at a significant housing deficit. Overcrowded dwelling units and homelessness are common. By reducing the buildable number of units and bedrooms in the City, for the reasons identified above, the City will push the effort to meet regional housing needs farther from the region's j ob centers, increasing emissions and other environmental impacts driven by distant commutes. This push will be especially acute for larger families, who bear the highest burdens under the proposed ordinance. Second, by forcing developers to build parking at levels above the market demand for parking, the City is forcing developers and residents alike to pay for parking they might not otherwise choose to use. This incentivizes and subsidizes the use of personal automobiles even for those who would otherwise be inclined to use public transit. Anaheim is a transit -rich city, with a strong bus network provided by OCTA and ART. And because of the City's combined access to both the Metrolink and Amtrak rail trunk lines, the City has better public transit access to the region's major job center in Downtown Los Angeles than many Los Angeles County communities. At the center of the City's transit infrastructure is ARTIC, a crown jewel in Southern California's multimodal transit system and a future connection point to the state's high-speed rail system. The City's decision to incentivize car use despite its strong public transit connections will have a serious environmental impact. If the City moves forward with this unlawful proposal, we may initiate litigation against the City. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand cc: Nick Taylor, Associate Planner (by email to njtaylor@anaheim.net) David See, Principal Planner (by email to dsee@anaheim.net) Robert Fabela, Esq., City Attorney (by email to rfabela@anaheim.net) 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP 0NIE CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP July 6, 2020 VIA EMAIL MATTHEW GELFAND, COUNSEL MATT@CAFORHOM ES.ORG TEL: (213) 739-8206 Planning Commission City of Anaheim 200 S. Anaheim Blvd. 1 st Floor, Suite 162 Anaheim, CA 92805 Email: kimberly.keys614@gmail. natalieameeks@gmail. rmulleady@aol. planningcommission@anaheim.net RE: July 6, 2020 Planning Commission Meeting, Agenda Item 3. To the Planning Commission: Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. I am writing as part of our work monitoring local compliance with Government Code Section 66300, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. This letter follows up on our May 26 and June 8 letters on the same subject. At your July 6 meeting, you will again discuss an ordinance that would increase parking requirements for new residential units in the City. For the reasons identified in our prior letters, the ordinance violates the Housing Crisis Act, and the environmental review conducted by the City has been insufficient. If the City moves forward with this unlawful proposal, we may initiate litigation against the City to invalidate these changes. We write now to make a comment based on our further review of staff's account of their discussion with staff at the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The staff report says: HCD believes that the proposed amendments would not be in conflict with the following criteria for SB 330: a) change the General Plan or zoning to reduce density b) impose a moratorium on housing c) impose design standards that are not objective, or d) limit number of housing units that can be approved This appears to be a strawman. We did not suggest that the City's ordinance would do any of those thin&s. Instead, we expressed concerns that the ordinance would unlawfully "lessen the 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 July 6, 2020 Page 2 intensity of housing" developable on the City's residential lots. See Gov. Code § 66300(b)(1)(A). It seems that staff's discussion with HCD ignored the law's prohibition on "lessen[ing] the intensity of housing" and instead focused on density, presumably because the ordinance is tailor- made to "lessen the intensity of housing" without decreasing the stated density of a zoning district. The Legislature structured the Housing Crisis Act to prohibit any change that would "lessen the intensity of housing"—and not just reductions in density—precisely to handle these sorts of backdoor exclusionary zoning efforts. In any event, as we have said, HCD is not authorized to permit a local jurisdiction to ignore the Act's restrictions on "lessen[ing] the intensity of housing." The proposed ordinance is unlawful and exposes the City to the serious risk of litigation. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand cc: Nick Taylor, Associate Planner (by email to njtaylor@anaheim.net) David See, Principal Planner (by email to dsee@anaheim.net) Robert Fabela, Esq., City Attorney (by email to rfabela@anaheim.net) 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020 CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP 0NIE CALIFORNIANS FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP VIA EMAIL Planning Commission City of Anaheim 200 S. Anaheim Blvd. 1 st Floor, Suite 162 Anaheim, CA 92805 July 20, 2020 MATTHEW GELFAND, COUNSEL MATT@CAFORHOM ES.ORG TEL: (213) 739-8206 Email: kimberly. natalieameeks@gmail. rmulleady@aol. planningcommission@anaheim.net RE: July 20, 2020 Planning Commission Meeting, Agenda Item 2. To the Planning Commission: Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. I am writing as part of our work monitoring local compliance with Government Code Section 66300, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019. This letter follows up on our May 26, June 8, and July 6 letters on the same subject. At your July 20 meeting, you will again discuss an ordinance that would increase parking requirements for new residential units in the City. For the reasons identified in our prior letters, the ordinance violates the Housing Crisis Act. The City has never addressed our actual concern regarding the ordinance's compliance with the Act, instead arguing that the ordinance is consistent with other aspects of the Act that we never raised as concerns. The environmental review conducted by the City has also been insufficient. The City has never made any effort to argue otherwise. If the City moves forward with this unlawful ordinance, we may initiate litigation against the City to invalidate it. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand cc: Nick Taylor, Associate Planner (by email to njtaylor@anaheim.net) David See, Principal Planner (by email to dsee@anaheim.net) Robert Fabela, Esq., City Attorney (by email to rfabela@anaheim.net) 525 S. Virgil Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90020