Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Evidently refused.

All right. Good evening, and thank you for joining our 02/17/2026, Regular Planning Commission meeting. As a reminder, items will be taken in the order they are listed on the agenda. Before we get started, I wanted to briefly go over public comment procedures for the meeting for those who may be joining us for the first time. Public comments on the approval of minutes, consent items, matters of commission interest and items not on the agenda will be taken during item number three tonight.

Comments on other agenda items will be taken only when that item is called. In person speakers will be called first followed by virtual. For in person speakers, please fill out speakers' cards. For those joining virtually, you may raise your hand or if you're doing teleconference, you may raise your hand by dialing 9 and 6 Please only raise your hand at a time when the item is called on which you're speaking, and each speaker will be three minutes, but the time may be adjusted depending on the number of speakers. For in person speakers, there will be a light on the podium to let you know how much time you have left.

Lastly, we know that we each bring different perspectives to the discussion, and we want to be sure that everyone has a chance to be heard without interruption. Planning Commission welcomes public comment on items within our purview. Any speaker whose comments are on topics not under the commission's purview will be warned and then removed if necessary in order to allow for the Planning Commission to conduct their business. Thank you for your attention and consideration during this process. I will now turn it over to staff for to call the roll.

Present.

Here we go. I'll start again. Commissioner Butt. Present. Commissioner Guarnejo. Here. Commissioner Finch. Here. Commissioner Hunter. Here. Commissioner Robinson.

Here.

Vice chair Coke? Here. Chair Sinegretz?

Here.

We have all commissioners present. Here. For the purpose of this meeting, I would also state that my name is John Francis, principal planner and staff liaison for this evening to the planning commission. And other city staff that are attending this meeting include Jake Rick Jarvis, consultant assistant city attorney, Ellen Lancaster, housing leadership manager, Liz Lang, management analyst with our homelessness initiative team, and Christina Matteo, administrative secretary and meeting host.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is AB2449, notifications and considerations. Do we have any remote participation notifications or requests from the commission to consider?

Currently, we do not have any remote participation notifications or requests.

All right. Let's move on to the next item agenda. Item number three is public comments. All right. At this time, we will take public comments from those joining us in person through Zoom. As a reminder, public comments should be on topics within the Planning Commission's preview. If you haven't joined us in person, please fill out the speakers' card. If you've logged into a Zoom, please raise the hand button now. Or if you've dialed in, enter 9 and 6 to unmute. In order to see how many speakers we have for general public, I okay. No, none of that. Do we have any speakers online?

We do not have any speakers online.

Alright. Seeing that there are no in person speakers and no online speakers, if there's no objection, I will now close the public comment and move on item number four, approval of minutes. We have the 12/16/2025 special meeting. Is there a motion to approve the draft meeting minutes?

Motion to approve the draft meeting minutes for 12/16/2025.

Alright. Moved by commissioner Baut. Do I have a second? Second. Alright. Second by commissioner Robinson. Moving on to vote.

Commissioner Baut. Yes. Commissioner Conejo. Yes. Commissioner Finch? Yes. Commissioner Hunter?

I will abstain because I was not present.

Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Vice chair Coke?

I recused myself.

Upstate. Chair,

Sinegretz.

Yes.

So we have the motion passes five votes four and two abstentions.

Great. Thank you. The next agenda item is a consent calendar. There are currently no items on tonight's consent calendar. We will now move on to public hearing item six a. Six a is a public hearing. It's a request for review and recommendation to city council of Redwood City's 2025 annual progress report on the status of the housing element, implementation in compliance with state law, and as well number two is the review and recommendation of the city council's Redwood City's 2025 general plan annual progress report in compliance with state law. Principal planner, John Francis, will give a presentation on the item.

Great. Thank you, chair. We are here tonight, as the chair just mentioned, to present a summary of the 2025 housing element annual progress report or APR for short. This is a state mandated report that all California jurisdictions are required to submit to the Department of Housing and Community Development by April 1 of each year. And the APR the APR reports on the city's progress towards approving and building housing projects as well as progress made towards implementing the programs in the city's general plan housing element.

Additionally, tonight, I'll provide a summary of the 2025 general plan annual progress report, which jurisdictions are also required to submit to the state by April 1. The purpose of the the general plan APR is to report on progress towards implementing the city's general plan. So we'll start with the housing element APR first. The APR itself is actually in the format of a large spreadsheet, which is provided by HCD. And this is included as an attachment to tonight's agenda.

The report is broken down into various data tables in which the city is required to report the number of housing units that are currently in various stages of the development process. And the slide on the screen, I'm going to just walk through very in a basic way the development process and how the data on the APR kind of aligns with each step of the process. So the first stage of the process is when a project sponsor submits a development application to the planning division. Although I'll note that this data is actually not requested by the state in the APR, so you won't find it there. The next stage, which is the first part of the process that is captured on the APR on table a, is when an application is deemed complete.

And this is when planning staff in consultation with other relevant city departments determines that they have all the information they need in the application to evaluate the proposed project and thus make a decision on whether it meets city's requirements and standards. The following stage is when the project is either ministerially approved at the staff level or, if required goes to a hearing and is approved by a city body. We often say the project has been entitled at after this point and is captured on table a two of the APR. After a project has been approved, it goes through the building permit review process where construction drawings are evaluated. And once a housing project receives its building permits, this is when the units are counted toward the city's regional housing needs allocation or RENA for short, and those are captured on table b of the APR.

Projects are considered complete when they receive a certificate of occupancy and are available for residents to reside in. So in 2025, four ninety housing units were issued building permits. 400 of those or 82% are were actually in just two projects at 557 East Bayshore Road and 112 Vera Avenue. And I'll note the other major contributor to permitted units is in the form of accessory dwelling units or ADUs, which those continue to be a significant source of new housing in Redwood City. The table on this slide shows a summary of the city's RENA and its progress towards meeting its RENA obligation in the current eight year RENA cycle.

The numbers in the second column titled total RENA show the number of the total number of housing units that the city is obligated to permit between twenty twenty three and twenty thirty one broken down by income level. The city's total obligation is 4,588 housing units. As noted previously, a total of 490 housing units were issued building permits in 2025, and 65 or excuse me, 56% of those are deed restricted at very low low or moderate affordability. The second to last column in the table titled total through 2025 shows the number of housing units that have received building permits from the city this cycle so far, and those count towards our RENA obligation. So the total number of units issued building permits so far this cycle is thirteen twenty one.

So this next figure shows basically the same data in a more graphic format. The portion of the bars outlined in black shows the city's total RINA obligation for each level of affordability. The colored bars show the number of housing units permitted in 2023, 2024, and 2025. And then the percentages above each bar show the proportion of units counted toward meeting the RENA obligation for each income level. So in aggregate, the city has fulfilled approximately 29% of its total RENA obligation across all income levels, and we still have another five years ahead of us in the current cycle.

Again, this figure shows housing permit data for Redwood City for 2025 as compared to the previous five years. Notable is the fact that permitting activity in the city was above average in 2025 relative to the previous five years. So at year three, just taking a bit taking stock a bit of where we're at, about a little bit more than a third of the way through the cycle. We are a bit behind where we would want to be in terms of meeting the city's RINA obligation. In the table on this slide, column B shows the number of units the city needs to permit per year on average to meet its RINA obligation.

So that's five seventy four units total. So that means by the 2025 we would want to have entitled around 1,700 units as shown in column C. In reality we're at about 1,300 units as shown in column D, which means we're about 400 units behind the pace that would help the city reach its total arena obligation in 2031 as shown in column E. Now obviously this isn't the best news, but it's important to remember that Redwood City does have a deep pipeline of residential projects in the works that include approximately 900 units in some phase of construction, seven fifty units that the city has already entitled, and six another six fifty units that the city is currently reviewing for entitlement. So this is I think a good indication that developer interest in building housing in Redwood City remains strong, and that city staff are working to approve new housing in Redwood City at a healthy clip.

But to put this data a bit more in context, our best understanding of the market currently is that challenging conditions that have been present throughout 2024 at the local, regional, and state level, which included, you know, elevated interest rates, high construction and labor costs, and some uncertainty in the office market in particular. These things continue to weigh at least partially on housing development activity in 2025. So we're seeing that despite having city entitled housing projects, some developers are not pursuing building permits as quickly after entitlement as we've typically seen in in the past due to market conditions. In fact, a few case in a few cases, some developers have even let their entitlements expire. So in order to respond to the market conditions we're seeing, the city took action in 2025 to incentivize developers to with entitled projects to pursue building permits.

So in October, the city council adopted an affordable housing ordinance incentive program for currently entitled housing projects, which makes certain projects eligible eligible for a 25% reduction in their affordable housing requirement if they build if they pull building permits by June 2027. So staff anticipates this will move approximately 800 units to construction by 2027, and that's including 120 affordable units. So as I mentioned, the housing element is made up of more than just the city's RINA obligation, but it also includes a series of programs that the city must implement during the eight year RINA cycle. So the city made significant progress in implementing these programs on several fronts. So some examples I'll walk through in the next slides.

And this is not an exhaustive list, but it's a kind of an overview. So the city staff worked to streamline and clarify processes to facilitate residential development. The city council adopted a new tenant protection ordinance, which updates the city's minimum lease term and relocation assistance requirements and also adds just cause for eviction protections. In the area of affordable housing preservation and funding, the city issued its first loan for the over the counter affordable housing preservation program, which launched in 2023. That $1,200,000 loan was for an eight unit project at 417 Stambaugh that is owned by the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust or HEARTS.

The city also issued this past fall a notice of funding availability or NOFA for $7,900,000 for new housing affordable housing construction, and we received two applications. The city's been investing in homelessness initiatives since 2018 and contracted with the nonprofit Life Moves for homeless outreach services between July '2 and December 2024. And in January 2025, Life Moves began a new homeless outreach team that is funded by the county. This team, which is referred to as the Bayside Homeless Outreach Team, is comprised of eight staff and serves Redwood City and six other San Mateo County communities. Staff in the city manager's office and the Fair Oaks Community Center coordinate closely with this team, and staff from several city departments utilize the county's homeless outreach app to request outreach to people experiencing homelessness in Redwood City.

And last year, there were 225 nonemergency requests submitted to the Bayside homeless outreach team. Looking ahead, the city is in the process of beginning a two year agreement for services with LifeMoves to add four additional outreach staff to provide outreach, case management, rapid response, and services coordination to prioritize encampment circuits in Redwood City. And this new program is funded by the state's Encampment Resolution Grant that was awarded to the city in December 2024. So I am going to we're now going to move on to the general plan APR. So every incorporated jurisdiction in California is required to adopt a general plan that covers a specific set of topics in sections called elements.

Redwood City's general plan, which was originally adopted in 2010 and most recently amended in 2024, is the vision document that guides growth and development of the community through the year 2030. And Redwood City's general plan has five elements as shown on the slide. The city advanced several initiatives in 2025 to implement its general plan. For example, in the built environment element, city staff continued environmental analysis on an updated recycled water master plan and to implement improvements to the city's circulation system, including implementation of 15 mile per hour school zones, construction of new ADA compliant curb ramps, and designs for new bike lanes on El Camino Real. The city also secured over $10,000,000 in grant funds for roadway safety and bike path improvement projects.

In twenty twenty twenty five, the city also made a lot of progress in implementing the building community element. Some of the kind of bigger projects included continued construction of the Veterans Memorial Senior Center, which is slated for a soft opening in March. Approval of a new YMCA facility in Red Morton Park in partnership with the YMCA of Silicon Valley. Renovation plans for Hoover Park were approved. Commencement of design development and environmental review of the new downtown library park was initiated.

Turf replacement projects at Mitchell Field and Fair Oaks Field were also completed. And lastly, continued construction was continued, and I think it's nearing completion at the Jardin De Ninos Park expansion. The city made progress in implementing the public safety element by initiating or continuing projects and studies related to sea level rise mitigation, including the Redwood Shore's sea level rise protection project, the Redwood Creek watershed and wetland capacity study, and design of the new Price pump station. Related to the natural resources element, the city continued its tree tree inventory, which is scheduled to be wrapped up this 2026. Also began drafting an update to this treat the tree ordinance.

Upcoming work to continue implementation of the general plan includes an overhaul of the city's historic preservation ordinance, which is kicking off this year early this year, design and construction of projects to implement bike and pedestrian improvements, updates to the circulation chapter and city code to support complete street goals, and environmental review work to advance the Caltrain grade separation project. In the public safety element, the city will continue and initiate various projects related to sea level rise mitigation. And in the natural resources element, the city will conclude its street tree inventory and continue drafting updates to the city's tree ordinance. And then to ensure compliance with state law, the city will also update the element to address climate resilience and rewilding opportunities. And lastly, the city is continuing to continuing to advance the greater downtown area plan effort with a focus in 2026 on developing a preferred plan framework and, of course, continued community engagement.

And we will also continue to work to advance the Redwood Life precise plan. So concluding the presentation, it is staff's recommendation that the Planning Commission by motion accepts the 2025 housing element annual progress report and the 2025 general plan APR and recommend that the city council accept them for submittal to the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development and Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation in compliance with government code section 65,400. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Francis, for your presentation. Are there any clarifying questions that the commission would like to ask staff at this time? Commissioner Hunter? Yeah.

Thanks so much, Ken. Yeah. Have one question. So you mentioned in your presentation as well as in the staff report that with this challenging market conditions that sometimes developers will let entitlements just lapse. Does that ever happen with building permits also, where they'll receive a building permit and allow allow those to lapse?

It can happen. Building permits do I don't remember off the top of my head exactly how long a building permit is valid. I think it's probably similar, like two years, with plus some possibilities of extension. I think it's less common Mhmm. Than a planning entitlement, but it's it's possible. I I I can't think of an example recently that I've seen in the three three and half years that I've been here.

Okay. Yeah. Would think it would be rare. But Yeah. Because for for RENE purposes, it's issuance of building permits that counts. So if a developer gets a building permit in year one and, say, in year three, they let it lapse, would that make us require us to reduce the

That is a great question. I don't totally know the answer. Hopefully, we don't ever encounter that problem, But we would have to I guess we would have to check-in with HED. I don't know if, Rick, you have any think HED's that.

HED's standpoint, it's good enough. You know, they can they're not going to try to do it they're not going to try to have a perfect Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. They're not going to try to have a perfect record of everything, but the building permit issuance is a very reliable indicator, and I doubt that they practically have that issue come up when they want to revisit the question.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Hunter? Commissioner Cornejo?

Oh, Okay.

Thank you for the presentation. There was a lot of great information. And I was trying to soak it all in. So some of my questions might have already been answered, but it will help me to understand. So I know that you mentioned that there's thirteen twenty one units for twenty twenty five. And you also talked about how there are still some that are in the process, because we were a bit behind. That's what I understood. Do you know how many are in the process?

Yeah. So let me pull up a slide that so this slide provides some context here. So we call it our development pipeline. So there's projects that are in some stage some stage of of the development process, whether that's, you know, they've submitted a planning application and there's they're working with the planning department to, you know, make sure they meet all the code requirements. Or maybe they've gotten approval from planning and they've gotten entitled.

And so they basically would then, from that point, they have their approval, now they can go and seek building permits. So that's the second stage. And then once they get their building permit, even if they haven't totally started construction physically, we kind of count that as the under construction phase. So this on this slide, you can see we have six fifty projects or six fifty units, excuse me that are in that pre entitlement phase. So they've submitted an application, and the planning division is reviewing that application to make sure it's complete, make sure they're meeting all their requirements.

We haven't entitled it yet. And but the next stage would be once they're entitled. So then we have 750 units that have gotten that planning approval but haven't gotten a building permit yet. So that's like phase two.

This is a different group, like a different

Yeah. So there's 150 in the pre pre entitlement

Mhmm.

Seven fifty in the post entitlement. And then we have 900 units currently that have building permits that are under construction and haven't received what we call a certificate of occupancy saying, they're done. The residents have moved in. There's no more construction happening. So we have we have a very robust development pipeline. Mhmm. A lot of projects that are in the works at some stage, which is a good sign. If we if we had a much lower number, I'd be worried about our ability to kind of make up some of that lost ground where we are at right now. So hopefully that answers your question.

That actually did, which was really helpful to break it down that way. And then kind of leads me to my follow-up question, where you touched on that we were a bit behind. And I know there's a lot of information onto why and everything, but what would be the simplest why we're behind in a way that I think I could understand and Yeah. Maybe someone that's not on the dais could understand?

Yeah. I mean, there's there's a lot there is, admittedly, a lot of complexity to it, and every every project that comes to us is a little different, has different needs. And so, you know, I I think that there's a lot of market forces. You know, there's a lot of the costs of building and construction are very high. And I don't I feel like that's the same refrain from year to year for a long time.

But the costs just don't seem to be going down. So that's I think there's a lot of and there's a lot of factors factors to to that. That. Labor, like the cost of labor, the cost of materials, there's a global market for those, which we in Redwood City don't have a lot of control over. We are part of a regional and national labor market that also has certain constraints.

Constraints. And then, you know, I think that we're one thing that the city staff is trying to do is we're trying to find ways to streamline our process to get more projects through the process faster. And I think our city manager and our housing team, my colleague, Alin Lancaster, is here. They, you know, helped to put together this incentive pack program, the Affordable Housing Incentive Program. It's a temporary program to kind of jump start some of those projects to get them into that construction phase.

You know? So we're trying to do what we can from the city side Mhmm. To to make things go faster. But, of course, we can only do so much. Yeah. Ultimately, we don't we don't build and develop the housing ourselves. It's it's the private market that does that. And so, you know, we we're trying to do everything in our power to make sure we're kind of upholding our end of the bargain of, like, approving the housing and and getting it done quickly. So, yeah, get I know that's not like a pithy short answer, but

is great because it's just I mean, I think we understand it a certain way, but the average resident is what is that short answer as to, like, why Yeah. We're a little behind? Yeah.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Commissioner Cornejo. Next up is Commissioner Finch.

Yes. I thank you for the presentation. I was wondering, you also said that well, and the and the presentation said that, like, the permitting was higher in in 2025 relative to the past five years. Do you know why that is? Or maybe or It's

a lumpy process. Yeah.

Yeah. Is it just a, like, coincidence of, like, a a kind of bunch of projects came around at the same time?

Told it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the chair kind of said it's a lumpy process. I think that's true. I think there's a lot of factors that impact the numbers year to year. So it's hard to look at, like, one or two years and make any, like, solid kind of conclusion. It was like, oh, well, this year, you kind of have to look at the broader picture. You know, obviously here, I can bring up that slide again. Oh, yeah, here we are. You know, 2021 and 2022 were really bad years, obviously, for the due to the the the COVID.

2023, I think there was probably a lot of pent up demand, and, you know, the COVID restrictions were were easing. And so we got a big jump there. But then I think, you know, I think interest spiked in 2024. So that is probably at least part of the factor why we saw less there. But, you know, it might also be that, if you go to cities next door, they might have had a great 2024.

I think part of it's like where certain projects are in the cycle of their development. And so sometimes you get a whole lot of things that happen at once. And then sometimes if the different projects are in kind of a similar phase, they're sort of all tracking at the same time and come online at the same time, or they get staggered. So it's just, I think, a little bit of luck in the draw.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Finch. Commissioner Robinson, your questions?

Hello. Very detailed report. So I this might be more of a technical question, and then I have another general question. But the first question is on page 11. Under sixteen oh one El Camino Real Elko Yards, I do see you mentioned that the project received city council approval with amendments in late 'twenty five for the feasibility of construction of the city's affordable housing ordinance.

And it lists the 540 rental units with a 119 afford I'm sorry, the 540 total with a 119 affordable. And then over on page so what I was looking for was, have they already been granted the affordable housing incentive program to reduce? And and I see it's the footnote on 13 on the table there where it's anticipated that Yeah. Well. So I was just wondering if you if that should be mentioned in that bullet point there.

I'm actually gonna actually invite Alin Lancaster, our housing leadership manager to respond to that.

Hi. Good evening. Lynn Lancaster, housing leadership manager. So back in November 2025, the City Council did approve modifications to the Elko Yards project. So they did reduce some of the affordable units that the project was providing, and instead, the project is gonna be paying a housing impact fee to the city of approximately 5,800,000.0.

So what's reflected on the staff report reflects the approval, the change that council approved back in November. And then if they do get to the point of being able to pull building permits and eligible for the incentive program, they would get an additional reduction to this number. So this this is reflecting the project as it currently stands approved by city council.

Okay. So it's at a 109 right now, it's a 119 affordable units based on that council approval?

I believe so, but let me double check the math on that one.

I'm on page 11 and the bullet point under sixteen o one El Camino Real. And I was just seeing trying to clarify it based on I actually, there's two page numbers, six and eleven. Six of 60 of package. Six of page six of 60 of the package. And I'm just trying to make sure it's clear because on page eight, the table for Elko Yards is showing the reduced amount, and it is footnoted saying it's anticipated they will utilize the temporary

affordable housing. To clarify, there are already 38 affordable units built that are considered part of the Elko Yards project. What we are showing on table two is just for lots A and D. So lot F is already completed and constructed. So that might be the difference there.

Got it. Thank you. I was just trying to follow along, and I noted a little bit of a difference in the numbers there.

So

okay. And then just a general question on when you say you're making the process go faster. So in in my orientation as a newer planning commissioner, it was explained to me that many of the housing pros housing developments now go through staff. They don't actually come to planning commission. Do they still go to at at what point do they still go to council?

If a project has a development agreement, for example Okay. Which is not very common. I mean, the city has a few few development agreements, but that's kind of a special situation. But most projects don't go to city council unless they're they can be called up to city council if there's a matter that the council wants to review.

And that but there's still public notice so that the planning division of the city so those developers will then have to issue public notice so that you would get input with not necessarily having a public hearing, but members of the public would be aware that there's a proposed development? I'm trying to what I'm trying to get to is if city staff is trying to make things go faster, how do you do that while still getting community input, if at all possible?

Yeah. I mean, so a lot of the a lot of the process related to especially affordable projects and and a lot of housing a lot of housing projects, actually, not just affordable, are often regulated by the state in terms of, you know, state laws which require certain types of review and certain types of notice. And so generally speaking, you know, one one one thing I'll just say is, like, a lot of a lot of times noticing is is getting shorter or or or less broad as a result of state law. I don't know if, Rick, if you have, like, additional kind of input on that.

Yeah. I mean, I've been wrestling with these and for different clients and lawsuits and all that. But the the law has ratcheted down the level of discretion that cities have over these development projects quite a bit over the last few years to the point and I think the philosophy if I were, like, making the argument in favor of the policy behind the law, and your point is, you know, at what point is the you know, should there be community input? It's when the zoning ordinance is adopted, when the general plan is adopted. But once a project's consistent with the zoning that's been established for the property, the level from the state's perspective and HUD's perspective and legislature's perspective, the level of input community you know, the community should have on a project that's fully consistent with the general plan, fully consistent with the zoning is more minimal than when the plan plans are adopted in the first place.

And there's a certain level of frustration by the legislature, by HUD with, you know, like, people opposing development projects that are consistent. And so that's why a lot of this is ratcheted down, and there is less opportunity for that type of community input on a project that's already consistent with the zoning.

Thank you.

Thank you for your questions, commissioner Robinson. I also have a few questions. First, I have for mister Francis and also for Mrs. Lancaster. Speaking of efficiency, mean, I think you noted here there are also some improvements in terms of e filing the permits and e track it improvements. Is this something that the goal is just to digitalize some of these paperwork processes, both to reduce staff time or increase and the throughput? Or is it just a general improvement of processes that it's involved?

It's it's a little bit of both. So part of it is to make the process kind of just more streamlined from the perspective of paperwork Mhmm. Allowing people to actually submit their their materials online through a portal. And that kind of helps city staff track it more easily and and route it to the appropriate reviewers more easily. But then on the other side, we are you know, some of the improvements that we've started to make and we are continuing to make over the course of 2026 is that the public will also have more access to understand where in the process their permit is.

You know, they can sort of they'll be able to get documentation through that portal more easily than you know, it kind of reduces, like, email, think getting lost in an email. Mhmm. You know, it just kind of less back and forth in that way. So we're we're trying to just make the process a little bit more transparent for folks and easier to navigate. And, you know, we are we're in the process of rolling some of that out.

There may be a few kinks along the way Sure. That we will, you know, need to work out, but we've we have kicked off a couple kind of smaller types of permits, like signed permits and and such that just as a test. And so far, so good. We've the the process has been pretty smooth so far. So we'll be we'll be kind of incorporating more permit types into our eTrackIt online system over the course of 2026.

Good to hear. Next question is about housing production, which I think what what, I guess, the housing element in our review or annual review is about. And the second part was about preservation of affordable housing. And I wonder if those are kind of commingled in the same report. Like, what is statutorily required of us to submit? Is our progress towards building new housing? Or does the HCD also have a requirement for each municipality, including River City? Like, how many, I don't know, housing units did you save or made deed restricted to be affordable? Is that something that I know it's a worthy goal, it's a priority for our council and the city. I'm just wondering, is that also part of our report?

It is. There are the APR itself, there are there's a table. I forget which letter table it is. Does Table f. Table f. Page

35 of the report.

Yeah. Asks for information related to how many housing units, affordable housing units have been preserved. Alin, I don't know if you wanna kind of jump in and add any other additional context to that.

I mean, I I just was gonna say that I don't remember us having any numbers in terms of, oh, let's shoot for like 500 conversions to affordable, you know, it's just something that's, I guess, organically going through. I wonder if was there a goal set? Are we meeting those goals?

We do not have any preservation goals. And as you might have noted in the staff report, it's actually incredibly hard to count most preservation projects towards Rina. So we actually had two projects this year for 118 units that actually were preserved. Only one of them was counted towards Rina. So I would say as a city, we've still made it a priority for us even though we aren't getting credit and the state isn't giving us a goal or a target for that. I think we as a community have still identified that this is important and that we should be pursuing this regardless of not getting RINA credit.

I agree and I wholeheartedly agree with the policy and I am happy to hear that all 118 units of the Whipple Avenue property were able to be restricted. So this actually brings you to next question is about, you know, in lieu fees that developers pay in case they don't build their own affordable housing. So we have this fund that we allocate funds towards either building new construction or, I guess, converting. So my question is how does the city or the staff, I'm not sure who makes this decision, decide how much of this money goes towards building new affordable housing versus taking an old building that's about to be either sold or whoever else and try to secure it as a as a affordable housing need restricted for, I don't know, thirty, fifty years?

I don't say I wouldn't say there's a specific methodology or, like, x percentage goes to production or preservation. We have a variety of funding sources, so not just impact fees, but we have federal grants, state grants, and so, you know, we look at what are the restrictions on those funding sources. Generally, new production can handle more stringent funding sources, whereas preservation tends to need more flexible funding sources, so like higher affordability levels and just less strings because there is less funding in general in that preservation. So we kind of take assessment of what funding sources we have and try to match as best we can where the need is, but also where the restrictions are going to make the most sense. So we have a separate over the counter preservation fund that has already committed to it, about 5,600,000.0 left.

And then as we noted, we've just did a new NOFA for just under $8,000,000. So as money comes in, we try to assess and actually even when we've made allocations, we will sometimes make amendments to change them to better fit our needs Yeah. To just kind of maximize our funding.

Got it. I mean, I think it does help to have these sorts of unrestricted funds So I guess one can leverage it. I presume that many of them are kind of like a, what is called, co co development or co financing that one leverages these unrestricted city funds with either state or or federal. So that all sounds good, but the one last thing I was going to ask about this, and this is purely for my information or at least the information today is in terms of how are they evaluated, like many dollars per unit? Is there like a goal if something is too expensive and not worth the city's involvement in terms of getting the, I guess, the bang for the buck that we have?

Yes. So we for new construction, we do have a maximum subsidy limit of $200,000 per unit. For preservation, we actually it's higher at $300,000 again recognizing there are just fewer funding sources for preservation. And then we do have a set of underwriting criteria. So if a project doesn't meet our underwriting standards, know, that's one area. And then we do score them based on things like project readiness, you know, are they entitled? Are

they

you know, have they started on building permit drawings, that kind of thing. We look at different kind of design and like location aspects of a project. These are in line with what you see in a tax credit application. We look at again budget and then also affordability. So right now we do give priority points to projects that provide more extremely low income units. So we have a set kind of scoring criteria and rubric. We have tried as best as possible to align it with the county's NOFA requirements as well as with TCAC's requirements so that hopefully, if a project gets funding from the city, would in turn be able to qualify for the county and tax credit financing.

Great. That all sounds wonderful. I mean, I'm happy to hear there's a very well developed process, it's going mechanism to be able to prioritize those opportunities. All right. I'm hogging the microphone for a long time.

I only have one more clarifying question. It was also about removing barriers to building new housing. So I know it was referenced in the report that we have a new tenant protection ordinance, and it certainly addresses some of the issues that we've had and things that the community has brought up in front of the council to address. But some of them also include some pretty, how shall I say, components that, let's say, for example, require relocation assistance that's, like, four months worth of rent for all the residents in case of, let's say, major renovation. So I guess maybe my question first is that does the tenant ordinance, new tenant ordinance apply to new construction?

Or is it backward looking? Like, do you foresee any of the features of this particular tenant ordinance as being detrimental towards ability to attract attract builders builders or or developers developers to to to work?

So anything constructed in the last fifteen years is exempt from the ordinance. So any new construction and this is in alignment with the state Tenant Protection Act. So similarly, the rent cap requirements at the state level do not apply to newer construction.

Great. Okay. Good to hear. All right. I will let someone ask that question. Commissioner Koch, please go ahead.

Thank you. This is an amazing report. Thank you so much. I just had one question. I had a conversation earlier with Mr. Francis, and something came up, and he said to ask you. So here we go. When it comes to what counts and what does not count for RENA numbers, someone comes in, purchases a home, tears it down, rebuilds it, that counts as new construction and goes towards RENA numbers. Correct? I heard earlier that, yes, it did.

Because my question is Mhmm. If we do, like, a 120 unit preservation, say an apartment building or something, it's a 100 plus units, but it counts as one. I'm just curious as to why. Why they calculate it that way?

So I think there's I might answer the second question first. Sure. Then we can go backwards. So the the project we're referring to is on Whipple Avenue, and, you know, it's a market a privately owned property that was purchased, converted to affordable deed restricted for about the low income level. And so there was kind of two issues with this one.

The state requires that the deed restriction has to be for fifty five years, and the deed restriction on this property is only for thirty. We did we, the city, are not the one deed restricting it, and so we did try to advocate to see if they would do a longer restriction. That particular property said no, but the agency that did grant due that restriction has actually agreed for future projects to change their requirements to fifty five years. So maybe if they do another project in Redwood City, it'll count. The other issue is that the rents prior to the acquisition have to reduce. So if the rents were already at the low income level and we are preserving them to keep them at the low income level, it does not count.

So

in the case of the Stambaugh project, most of the all the units were at the low income level and stayed at low income, but one unit was reduced to extremely low income, and that's why it counted.

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense now.

And then to the other question about if a unit's demolished, how that counts Right. For And, Rena

someone rebuilds, they isn't that what we discussed earlier, that it actually counts as

Yeah. Four chamber members? I think there's a, so HCD requires jurisdictions to report on all housing units constructed, or excuse me, are issued building permits, whether they are as a result of a demolition and a rebuild or not, or if they're just fresh units. And HCDs, the APR spreadsheet that all cities are given to fill out has it's very complex, and it has all of the kind of formulas that HED uses to calculate, you know, the city's RINA progress are all built into that spreadsheet. We as as jurisdictions, we don't have any, like, power to change them.

So one thing we've noticed is that, you know, a demolished unit does not get subtracted from the the the final REN account. So something I was surprised to see, but, you know, we've checked in with HGD, and that's how their their formula works. And we will continue to follow that formula as they give it to us.

Thank you. That's very informative.

Thank you, Commissioner Cook. Commissioner Robinson, follow-up questions.

Oh, sorry. I actually was gonna ask about SB 79, but I think that's a perspective, and this is a retrospective report. So I I I just assumed that that will come up in the future.

So Yeah. I I SP 79 is definitely very much on our radar. We're thinking a lot about it. I don't have any kind of insights or or kind of updates for you right now in terms of what the what we're thinking about. But we are thinking a lot about it.

I can

assure you that.

I got distracted by my note on SB 79, though. But the one question I I I do have for you is that I'm very proud of this report and very proud of the work that everyone at the city has done to achieve this and the council over the years, and and I feel like we've been a very pro housing city. How do we show up compared to the neighbors? And I don't expect, you know, if you have any, you know, factual data or anything like that, but, you know, anecdotally, are are we ahead of the the pack, do you think, here on the Peninsula?

You know, I would say we can probably better answer that question in a couple months once everyone turns in their reports, and we can kind of see where Okay. Where things fell. I think every community right now is probably even literally today going before their planning commissions and city councils with this report. So perhaps we can share more information, I think, once everyone's submitted and we have a better sense of how our neighbors are doing.

Thank you. Yes. Would like to echo that sentiment. It will be nice to see that checkup. But also, just comparison wise, I think I was also wondering, given one of the tables in terms of how many of these opportunities are rentals versus ownership opportunities, and I'm curious whether that we are an outlier. I know there's only one project at least on this particular list that allows for someone in our community to really own and put roots and facility those type of developments. So I'm just curious whether the other cities are similarly constrained. And are we specifically, I don't some for reason, only having majority rentals being built? So

I suspect we're probably not an outlier in that. I think a lot of it depends on the size of the project. Mhmm. I think large in in the Peninsula, larger apartment buildings are are just just generally marketed and and put out to market as as rentals. I think it at least right now, the ownership typology that is more common is townhomes.

Mhmm. And there's just smaller units. And so, you know, I think, you know, I think it just depends on your community, whether you're kind of you know, the size of size of units you're you're seeing come in or size of projects, I should say, that you're seeing come in, I think really dictates a lot in terms of whether you're getting a lot of rental or ownership.

Got it. I I think I was gonna follow-up on that question is that twenty years ago, when some of the first large buildings that are built as rentals in Mueblo City were being built. I remember someone asking from the audience in one of the council meetings asking, like, where is the ownership opportunities? And I think either the staff or maybe the council responded in a way that naturally over x number of years, a rental opportunity may mature into a ownership opportunity by by change of ownership. I don't know. Is that something that does occur or has it has occurred in in RoboCity?

I I I haven't been around long enough for RoboCity to know that for sure. Not not that I'm aware of, but I'm not I don't know. I don't want to say that it hasn't happened. I don't know, Alin, if you have any data on that.

I don't have any experience with an apartment building converting to, like, condos, but at least in my time with the city. But I do know there are several apartment buildings within kind of our downtown area that are condo mapped, so that does mean that down the line they could potentially convert to condos, but I've I've not experienced that during my time here.

I I do think it tends to happen in older buildings. Right. And, you know, I think most of the large apartment buildings in Rivet City are newer. Yep.

So Makes sense. Alright. Seeing the end of questions, I will now open the public hearing. In order to see how many speakers we have, I ask everyone who wishes to speak on the items, please raise your hand now in Zoom. All right. There are no in person speakers. Are there any speakers via Zoom?

There are no speakers on Zoom.

Alright. Thank you. I guess at this point, maybe I should ask, were there any written comments also received by staff for this meeting or this agenda Any written comments received?

Oh, no. We did not receive any. Okay. No problem.

If there's no objection, then I will close the public hearing. And I will open the meeting for committee discussion. Commissioner Baat. As a point of order, do we

need to make two separate motions here? One for the housing element and one for the general plan APR?

No. We do.

Okay. I'll just put the motion on the floor then, then we can have our discussion. Motion for recommendation to city council for both the housing element twenty twenty five APR and the general plan twenty twenty five APR.

Alright. Moved by commissioner Bhatt. Do we have a second for this motion?

Second.

Commissioner Hunter, who wants a second. So I will open now a discussion on this motion. Commissioner Finch, the floor is yours.

Yes. I just wanted to say thank you again for the report. I think we're doing pretty good especially, you know, as it has been like a challenging like just with all the challenges around, I think 2025 looks really really good. I wouldn't be surprised if we were looking good compared to our neighbors but I guess we will we'll see. The 117 units preserved, that was also really exciting to see even though it doesn't count but it that's still great.

It's it's really great to see the the very low income units. I feel like we're really doing great in that category and the low income as well. That's that's really exciting. And the ADUs also stood out to me permitting 63 this year. That that is that's great. I love ADUs, know, they don't really change the character of the neighborhood that much and it gives an opportunity for homeowners to to have a bit of passive like income and invest in their home and their neighborhood. So that's that's really great to see. And the online permitting thing was also really exciting to hear about. So big fan of this report. I think we're we're doing a good job. And, yeah, thank you to staff for the report. And I, yes, am in favor of the motion.

Thank you, Commissioner Fitch. Commissioner Cornejo?

Yeah. I thought the report was really there was so much good information that I just wanted you I wanted to talk about it more and more because there were so many good points. I thought staff did a really good job in answering, clarifying all the questions. I was aside from all the housing, I was really glad to see that you all highlighted and the YMCA building. All of those things are really exciting for the community in Redwood City on top of, obviously, more housing and opportunities.

So yeah, I'm actually just really curious on thanks to our colleague here who brought up the competition question on if we're doing great with the housing unit. So I'm really curious on what the result's going to be of that. So thank you.

I will call it collaboration.

All Competition is okay. It's okay. Friendly conversation. Be the best. The example for the country.

Here we go. Commission commissioner Butt.

Yeah. Thank you, staff, for the very well prepared report. I'm in favor of approving. Just as a few of my personal notes since we've been adding them. I think I I'm very hesitant about the future because I personally anticipate that some of these market challenges may persist, and we we can't take it for granted that we're just in a temporary period right now where things cost too much, things might continue to cost too much as it has in the past.

So I I I hope that we can adapt should the market not calm down. But apart from that, yeah, I on the topic of competition, I I don't think that we should even care about competition. I think our goal should be I think the state the arena requirement is the bare minimum. We we should we should be a forward looking city that sees housing not as an obligation, but as something that we're providing for the community. So I'll I'll be very happy to see what is the probable outcome of us being ahead of our neighbors, but we we we shouldn't care about that too much.

It was a light comment. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody calm down.

But, yeah, cool report.

Great. Thank you, commissioner. But any other comments?

Commissioner? I would just say in in the context of how are we doing relatively on the Peninsula. We are a county with no major city. We have 21 cities in the county. For example, Santa Clara County, they have one big city and its neighbors lean on them to provide all the affordable housing while they host the headquarters to some of the largest corporations in the world that are doing massive hiring.

And so it's for cities like Redwood City and San Jose that have sheltered the burden. I think it is important context to know, especially if we're not fully meeting our arena numbers. It's you know, we we've we've done over the past twenty years significant changes to our city, our zoning, up zoning to really bring back the downtown and to bring people into downtown and a very significant amount of affordable housing. And I think that tells a really good story when we're we're still struggling with how to house many of the unhoused individuals in our neighborhoods, and some of those policies are very controversial. But that's why I will look forward to hearing how we're doing relative to that, and I'm very proud of Redwood City and your work.

Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Robinson. Commissioner Hunter.

Yeah. Just just very briefly. I agree with everybody. This is an outstanding report and comprehensive, and thank thank you to both of you. And I'm sure you have many other staff people that you worked with on this, so thanks to all of you.

Just I just wanted to point out one little thing in in in parsing through all these numbers here, and another positive thing, is that unlike the last RINA cycle, as I recall, where most of the units that were built or that were counted with with building permits were in the moderate to above moderate area. In these last three years, the the very low and low income housing has has actually been the strength. You know, the so the the number of units issued building permits so far is to the 1,300 that you mentioned, and where we where we should be as of three eighths of our cycle is 1,700. So we're it's it's 77% of where we wanna be with Rina. If you add up the two low and very low income categories, we're at 90%.

So I think that's really due to our credit, and and and that's contrary to what we what happened in the in the previous arena cycle. So, again, good job, Redwood City.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hunter. Commissioner Coke.

Thank you. I just wanted to to say I agree with both Commissioner Bott and Commissioner Robinson. Housing people is no joke, And our population continues to grow. Our tech sector continues to grow. And I know a lot of people myself that work in Santa Clara but live in Redwood City because it's the most most affordable that they can find South Of San Francisco with a reasonable commute.

I think we're doing an amazing job. I know that the cost of construction loans are outrageous and supplies and tariffs and all of that, so we may have to wait a little while, I think, until we can shake loose some of those projects that we've already approved. But I think that as a city, we're doing everything that we can to do that and to make that happen. And I think we should all be really proud of where we are, and especially being the county seat. You know? I don't take that lightly, honestly. I did people always laugh at me about that, but it's true. You know? And I think sometimes people do turn and look at, oh, what are they doing down in Rapid City? You know?

Mhmm. Like friends in South City or San Bruno. Oh, that's an idea. I'm gonna present that. So I think we're doing great. Well done.

Thank you, commissioner Cook. Commissioner Finch.

Yes. I'm sorry. I just wanted to add one thing. I looked at some of the past the ADUs just fascinate me. I was looking at some of the the past reports, and for the past in 2022 we had 83 ADUs and '23 was 73 ADUs, '24 was 49 ADUs, this year was 63. I mean that's that's really I that's really great. I feel like just seeing that many ADUs and consistently also is is really exciting to see. So sorry.

I just wanted I to could just note, you know, I think in our in our housing element, we say we're our goal is to permit, I think, it's something like 550 ADUs over the whole arena cycle. And we are exactly hitting our average, like, to within a tenth of a percent or something like that. So we're right on target.

Cool. Yeah. That's great. I feel like that really speaks to the stuff that you guys as staff are doing to try to make it easier to to build those ADUs. It seems like it's it's going well, that's that's great.

Also, their their modeling is very accurate as you can see. So Mhmm. Commissioner Cornejo.

Yeah. Just kinda going back to some of the comments the comments that I was doing, all jokes aside. But, anyways, one of the things that I've done in the past just, like, working with government and, like, being an aid, it was to do a lot of research on what other cities are doing, whether it was on housing or other problems that we're all trying to solve. And so one of the reasons that I'd be curious, and maybe this is even like a question or a bigger discussion, is like, although we're all saying, oh, this is great, a great report, is there anything that other cities are doing that we can maybe replicate or we can learn from. And obviously, that will come with the other reports from our neighboring cities or just other areas.

But I'm always curious on, like, what other people are doing, especially when it comes to the incentives. Maybe there's incentives that we can replicate here. But it would be really, at least for me as not only a commissioner, but a resident, to to know that we're ahead of the game and we're doing a great job. And there's doesn't mean the problems are solved, but it does mean that we're working on it every day, which I think is the goal. So yeah.

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, I'm pretty sure that the housing staff is on top of it in terms of trying to, you know, utilize the full toolkit. The reason I'm bringing this up, when when the incentive program came last fall in in front of us, I think, Heissinger, am I pronouncing the right name, the current city manager, he was saying that, you know, they were referencing actually the tools used by city of San Jose and and San Francisco to try to move some of these projects past the finish line. So I'm it sounds like they're they're they're looking around to the other neighborhoods. Go ahead.

I was just gonna make a plug that in San Mateo County, we work really collaboratively with all of the other jurisdictions in the county. You may have heard us reference 21 elements, but we meet as planning staff get together in all the cities. I actually meet with all the housing managers tomorrow. So we coordinate very closely on sharing ideas, resources, best practices. I think in Redwood City, we tend to be out in front on a lot of things, and a lot of other communities end up copying us. But again, we have a lot of different ways to connect and share resources with all of our neighboring cities too.

Great to hear. All right. My comments, I'll keep them short. I think the other commissioners have said everything already. It's a wonderful report. I do want to highlight that in the report, 126 people have been transitioning through life moves from outside into permanent housing, which I think is a great for a one year total. So I just wanted to shout out to that team. Alright. Any other comments? If none, I would like staff to conduct roll call. I mean, sorry, voting.

Very good. Commissioner Butt?

Yes.

Commissioner Cunningham?

Yes.

Commissioner Finch? Yes. Commissioner Hunter? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Vice chair Koch? Yes. Chair Sinegrette? Yes. The motion passes unanimously.

Alright. Congratulations. Great work. Item seven seven a, planning commission liaison updates. Mister Francis?

Yes. We have one update I wanted to just share. We took the the Greater Downtown Air Plan vision framework presentation that you all saw or a version of that to a study session with the city council council on January 12 of just last month. We got a lot of really helpful and and and insightful feedback from our council members. And we've we basically took notes and have a nice meeting summary on the project website, which is rwcgreaterdowntown.com/resources.

That's where you can find the PDF of that that study session summary. And that that is the the main update. In terms of upcoming planning commission meetings, the regular meeting on 03/03/2026 has been canceled. But we have regular meetings scheduled for March 17, April 7, and April 21.

Thank you. I mean, just for the record, I I will be away April 7. I will not be able to attend this particular one. Any other commission updates from the oh, Commissioner Robinson.

Oh, just a Did I hear you say our March 3 meeting is canceled? Yes. Yes. Thank you.

All right. If there are no other Commissioner updates or Commission updates, we'll move to adjournment. This concludes tonight's agenda. The next Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for March 17, not 03/2026.