Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

to call the city of Newark planning commission meeting of July 8th, 2025 to order. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And tonight we'll start with the roll call. Let the record reflect that four commissioner are present with the exception of Agular. He's absent tonight. And then on to item B, the minutes, approval of the minutes of the regular planning commission meeting of June 24th, 2025. May I have a motion for the approval of the minutes? I'll make the motion. Okay, I have a motion from Commissioner Becker. And can I have a second? Second. Okay, I have a second from Commissioner Fitz. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Let the record reflect that the motion carries four eyes. On to written communications. Are there any written communications this evening? No written communications this evening. Okay, that one is closed. On to oral communications. This is the part of the meeting where members of the public are invited to address the planning commission on any item not listed on the agenda. Are there any members of the public who would want to address the planning commission under oral communications? No. Okay. On to item E, public hearings. There are no public hearing items this evening. We will move on to item F, staff reports. There are two tonight. The

first one, item F1, the 2024 housing element annual progress report by Ivon Wyn, which I will turn it over to her now. Good evening, chairperson and commissioners. Tonight I will be presenting a brief summary of the 2024 housing element pro annual progress report which reflects the accomplishments for the second year of the 2023 to 2031 sixth cycle housing element. This the period covered in this report is January 1st to December 30 f 1st 2024. For tonight's agenda, I will provide a background on the housing element and the annual progress report, discuss New York's housing regional housing needs allocation and h housing production progress, highlight notable housing accomplishments in 2024, review progress on housing element programs, and go over any questions. On October 26, 2023, the city council adopted New York's sixth cycle housing element after a robust community and stakeholder engagement process and presentation to the planning commission. Subsequently, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD, certified the city's housing element on December 21st, 2023, finding it to be in compliance with state law. Pursuant to government code um 65 65400, the housing element APR must be submitted to HCD and the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, LCI, by April 1st of each year. The APR reports on housing

activity from the previous calendar year and provides the state and the public with an annual update on local government's progress towards meeting their regional housing needs allocation over the entire planning cycle. It also tracks the implementation of the goals, policies, and programs defined in each jurisdiction's housing element. This gives this process gives local governments an opportunity to assess programs and identify necessary adjustments to improve implementation. The city has submitted a housing element APR to HCD and LCI each year since 2017 for the 2015 to 2023 fifth cycle housing element and has already submitted reports for the first two years of the sixth cycle including including the APR for 2024. Although this is the first year staff has presented an APR at a public meeting, each APR in successive years will be sent to the legislative body prior to April 1st. The 2024 APR will be forwarded to the city council. A key part of the APR is tracking housing production and affordability to see if local governments are meeting the state mandated target number of housing units each city must plan. This target is called the regional housing needs also known as REA. Reena is based on projections from the state department of finance and distributed by regional planning agencies. Our region AAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments assigns Newark's arena target. For the sixth cycle, Newark must plan for 1,874 new housing units, a significant increase from the 1,078 units in the

fifth cycle. These targets are broken down by income level to ensure housing is provided for residents at all income ranges, as seen here. In 2024, the city entitled 162 new housing units. These 162 units were spread across three projects, two of which were multifamily and one of which were was a single family dwelling. 8% of units were for lowincome households with the remainder available to above moderate income households. Along with entitlement projects, building permit progress is another key metric to assess um assess reena progress. As issued, permits indicate that a project has received the necessary entitlements and can begin construction, signaling actual housing production activity that contributes towards meeting the city's assigned targets. The city issued building permits for 185 housing units in 2024. Approximately 43% of the total units permitted were part of the 79 Timber Senior Housing Affordable Project at 376 Timber Street, which includes 79 very lowincome rental units, 20 of which are dedicated to extremely lowincome residents. About 41% of total units permitted were single family dwellings intended for home ownership at above moderate rates. Accessory dwelling units accounted for the remaining 16% of the total units permitted in 2024. A total of 252 housing units were completed in 2024 as evidenced by the issuance of a certificate of occupancy

during the reporting period. About 50% of completed units were provided to extremely lowincome residents as part of the Home Keys Cedar Community Apartments Project, which converted a hotel into 125 unit supportive housing facility for households experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Roughly 45% of completed units were single family detached dwellings for above moderate income households with the rema remainder consisting of ADUs. The table shown here summarizes the data by structure type. Um all of the five plus unit structures were actually 70 plus unit structures. In 2024, the city issued building permits for 29 ADUs, showing an increase of approximately 31% compared to the 98 ADUs permitted in 2023. Although fewer ADU permits were issued in 2022 and 2023, um this does not necessarily mean that fewer applications were submitted during that time. applications were likely to have been in the review process or processing phase. Looking ahead, ADU production is expected to grow once the city revises its ADU ordinance later in the year to comply with state law and implement best practices, which should help streamline the permitting process. Additionally, production is also likely to increase as interest rates decline, um, making financing more affordable and accessible for homeowners and developers. Compared to the previous year, the city experienced a decline in the number of housing units entitled, permitted, and

completed. Between 2022 and 2024, entitled units dropped from 370 in 2022 to 162 units in 2024. This reflects a softening in the market for new construction due to the rising cost of debt, labor, and materials and is consistent with trends in other jurisdictions. Permit activity was also down compared to 2022, but increased slightly to 185 from a low of 91 permits issued in 2023. Much of the construction we are seeing being completed now stems from projects entitled in 2022 and earlier when financing conditions were more favorable. There has been a sharp sharp drop in new housing starts due to significant incre increase in interest rates. Developers are slowly slowing down on submitting for entitlements and entitled projects are delaying submitting for permits because they know they won't be able to finance new construction at this time. Industry experts anticipate tariffs will exacerbate this issue due to increased materials costs and stubbornly high interest rates. Despite the decline in recent development activity, the city is making progress towards its RENA goals. As of 2024, the second year of the six cycle housing element, Newark has achieved approximately 60 26% of its overall reena target. Although 26% of the reena target is met, this figure represents the average number average units permitted across all income levels. The city is behind on its low and moderate income unit goals, ahead on very low income units, and on track for above

moderate income units. The table presents the number of building permits issued for new housing units during the second year of the 2023 to 2031 planning period. In 2018, the fourth year of the fifth cycle housing element, the city reached approximately 46% of the arena target. However, there was no progress of very low, low, or moderate income units. By the end of the fifth cycle, the city surpassed its total reena target of 1,078 units. During the fifth cycle, the city provided 2,42 new housing units. However, Newark did not meet its targets for very low, low, and moderate income units. In the past year and ongoing, the city has made significant progress towards meeting its arena targets and advancing the development of affordable and accessible housing across all income levels. Key accomplishments include the Saha Thornton Avenue Apartments. Um, entitled in April 2025, this five-story development will provide 59 affordable housing units, including one manager's unit. 10 units are designated for individuals with intellectual or development disabilities. The project fulfills half of the city's 20 unit goal under housing element program H4.7, placing the city in a strong position early in the planning cycle. The city also permitted the timber senior affordable housing project in 2024. This 79 unit affordable H senior housing development, including one manager's unit and 20 units reserved for extremely

lowincome residents, is on track to open as early as December 2025. And lastly, the Homeke Cedar community apartments received a certificate of occupancy in 2024 and is now fully stabilized. Public safety data from the police and fire departments report that service calls have dropped to standard levels for multi-family housing, indicating a successful transition to long-term operations. And while the city has made notable progress over the past year, staff are continuing to implement remaining programs. A few programs scheduled for the review by the planning commission and/or city council later in 2025 include a revised ADU ordinance which will be reviewed by the planning commission and city council later in the year to ensure compliance with state law and incentivize ADU development. The city is also preparing to release the RFP for a consultant to help develop a 5-year homeless action plan. This action is anticipated to go to city council later this year for a contract service agreement. In October 2024, the city contracted a consultant to assist with developing objective design standards. The city held community and stakeholder engagement activities in 20 winter 2024 and 2025 and anticipates bringing the objective design standards to the planning commission and city council later in the year. The just cause eviction ordinance will go to city council for review later this year along with other policies and programs that advance housing element goal H4 key people in their communities.

A contractor has been selected for the firsttime home buyer program design and an administration and will go to city council for approval of a contract services agreement. Lastly, inclusionary the inclusionary housing ordinance will be presented to the planning commission and the city council later this year to prioritize affordable units on site instead of prioritizing the collection of a housing impact fees. In response to the state housing element compliant requirements, staff are working promptly and efficiently to implement all required programs within the one-year deadline to ensure compliance with state housing law. Uh, this concludes my presentation and I will be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Ivon. That was very thorough and I will open it up if any of the commissioners have questions. Couple of questions. One, um that number, the 3% number for low and moderate um income levels, what is being done to address that? Is there something in the pipeline? Come on. Uh, Commissioner Re, which which um table were you referring to again? The table that showed the progress right there. So, the low and moderate income percentage of goal met 3%. I know you had mentioned that Ivonne. Um, do we have any um projects in the pipeline that would address that number being as low as it is? Uh I can answer that one. Uh Commissioner Becker. Um so for the

moderate, those will likely come along along with the uh uh fair kind of market uh type projects. Um eventually right now we've had a little bit of a slow start to these entitlements and some that are actually getting developed. Um there's there's a few projects that um well there's one in the works and that's the Maui Village project. um at least as it's proposed today, there's 196 units that will fall into probably the above moderate. Um but in terms of some of the affordable, uh there's 30 units that'll be affordable and they'll likely fall into the very low and low moderate, I'm sorry, very low and low income levels. So assuming that project goes forward and and you know gets approved, then um that will contribute to that. Those are the only real projects that are in the pipeline right now. Um that will address that. Um and and yeah, yeah, that's always a challenge. Unfortunately, there's a lot of programs for very low and of course above moderate market rate homes. You know, the developers are going to build those. It's really that kind of that tweener position that's always been the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as um you know per city council's kind of direction of staff is you know every project that comes in that's one of the discussions that we have is when we look at these arena numbers and the levels and we start having those discussions about how do we um bring in those affordable units at the levels that are necessary you know part of the tables. Yep. Okay. And then my second question is you mentioned a first-time home buyers assistance program and I know probably the details haven't been worked out on that. in general, what is staff thinking about as far as a program like that? Thank you for the question, Commissioner Becker. Michael Cool, housing policy and programs manager. Um, typically first-time home buyer programs and the program as it's been imagined in our housing element would target moderate

income households. Um, often the times these programs take the form of a down payment assistance loan um, but could possibly um, be designed to provide other types of financial assistance as well. Okay, thank you very much. Excellent report, very thorough. I I just wanted to know if when the market conditions are such that there's high interest rates or money's not available and we can't get these things built, how does that does the state pen penalize us for that and how does that come into our thinking because you know you have these market conditions sometimes where you know businesses just don't invest. Uh does that affect our status with the housing element when we can't build them even though we approved them? Uh no in it it doesn't affect us um in the immediate term. Um at some point down the line after the years go by um of course they will start to push us to do um um to make further progress. But at least right now it doesn't seem like there'll be um necessarily a penalty. Um but I think that's something that we'll address as the years you know go by. Great. Thank you. And Commissioner Fitz, I might add on to a little bit of that and perhaps Mr. Kulum can add on as well. There is state legislation that um no way it doesn't necessarily penalize uh jurisdictions who don't meet the different affordability levels, but uh make it easier for developers to have a streamlined review process based upon a certain level of of uh affordable units at specific income levels that they propose for their project. So recently it's been determined that Newark has produced enough housing for us to be in I don't think it's called a 50% bucket, but it means that if a developer comes along with a project that includes at

least 50% of the units as affordable, they can go through a streamlined review process. some jurisdictions have not uh produced uh as much housing as Newark or uh just haven't um uh haven't seen those units come in yet and they are at a lower threshold. So some jurisdictions if a project comes in at 10% affordable they go through a streamlined process uh as well. So that in a way is a is a states the states court either carried it or stick to try to encourage jurisdictions to have the right policies and programs and regulations in place that make it easier for affordable housing units to be developed within the community. Is that pretty close to correct very accurate director? Yeah. Did you have any question? Now just uh a simple question that uh you just mentioned that the city is going to help for the first time home buyers in the financial what about if they leave if they leave the house that they can afford? So the city is going to how they going to get the money? Uh that's a very good question. Thank you for that commissioner. Um that will be something that we uh explore during the uh program design process. There are a couple of different models um for how the program could be um could be um designed. Um but part of the role of the contractor, the consultant that we're bringing on will be to monitor and manage those units so that we don't lose them and so that we don't lose any money if they are resold. um they will have stipulations requiring that either they remain affordable or that the city gets back some portion of the um the appreciation from the resale for example. Thank you. And um I just had a couple questions. The timber senior affordable units, are

those on Timber Street? I was just trying to figure out where they were. Yes. Okay. Yes. Timber Central. And then also the five-year homeless action plan. Um, do we have any idea what's what's that going to look like? Like is it a center where they come in for all services and they go from there or is it a place with beds or any ideas? Yeah, as in I think anticipated um the uh the scope of work and an agreement with a consultant would help the city prepare a five-year homeless action plan that's consistent with the with Alamus County 5-year action plan as well. So, we want to have the right policies and programs in place at the local Newark level that are consistent or at least complimentary to what the county is doing. We think this would um allow us to be eligible for certain funding that might become available. Certainly if we have the right policies and programs that are consistent with what the county is doing too um that uh we could take advantage of programs offered at the regional level. But uh it may it's not necessarily meant to create a physical center although that might be something that perhaps the as an outcome of of the of the effort of the plan. uh it's not anticipated that that would be the case. It's more the development of policies and programs that would address uh Newark's unique homelessness issue uh within our community. Okay, thank you. That was all I had. I don't think there are any questions from the public on this. Okay, so that is closed. So then I will go to item F2, the housing element update and look ahead presented by Michael Pullum.

[Applause] Thank you, honorable chair and city planning commissioners. My name is Michael Kulum, housing policy and programs manager with the community development department and I appreciate the opportunity to share with you this evening current housing policy trends and progress toward implementing our housing element. Uh this is aformational item for this evening. There is no formal action. Uh but I do welcome any questions in conversation in response to what I share this evening and I look forward to giving a slight preview into some of our forthcoming program work. The agenda for tonight's presentation will include a bit of an expanded introduction um followed by some history into the housing element and housing element law in California uh an evaluation of our housing need trends and challenges in housing policy in California today. select housing element programs in pro in progress or soon to launch and then um any uh questions and answers from the commission. So given the amount of work uh with our housing element, you're going to be seeing a lot of me. So I wanted to take a brief moment to introduce myself a bit more and share with you how I approached this work and why it means so much to me. I've had the privilege of living in and traveling to many different places. And every time before I set off for a new trip, my mother asked me, "Where will you sleep? Do you have a place to sleep?" Moms are really good at knowing what's most important for taking care of yourself. Thankfully, everywhere I've gone, I've experienced tremendous hospitality. And in all of those places, I've learned that regardless of people's race, religion, or whatever other factor, people just want a safe and stable stable place to call home where they can live with dignity and take care of themselves and those they care about. And so, working in housing, I've learned

that it's important that we all tell our own story. So, the story that I want to tell starts with my grandma, Barbara Jean. Uh, this is her on the cover of the August 1956 edition of the Connecticut Homebuilder magazine along with my two-year-old father and some man who has far more business being on a job site than they do. Uh, I'd like to think that I got my interest in home building from Barbara as well as some of her good looks. Barbara and my grandfather were high school sweethearts and they had four children before separating when they were in their mid20s. My grandfather wasn't always around and Barbara supported herself and her four kids as a banquet server, working long shifts, doing everything from setting up the room, taking orders, serving, busing, and breaking it all down. Being a single mother in the 60s and 70s wasn't easy, as it isn't now, and Barbara had to make difficult decisions to provide for herself and her children. Those decisions were hard on my father and his siblings, and by the time he was in college, he'd become mostly estranged from his mother. With time, Barbara was able to get subsidized housing and she moved what she moved into with my aunt. She went back to school and got a job with the state as a court reporter, which also came with health insurance. For the first time in her life, she was financially independent. And along with some coaxing from my own mother, my father, and Barbara rebuilt the relationship. And so, it's because of that that my siblings and now nieces and nephews get to have Barbara in their lives. She's 93 now and still reminds me to save my steps when I go back and forth from the kitchen setting the table. So, I'm telling you this because I think it's important to share the different ways in which affordable housing makes the impossible things possible, but also because I am grateful to work in a city that shares my values and leads with its community's interests at the top of mind. And so, with that, I'll I'll stay back in time in history for a moment to talk about the housing element. While housing

elements have gotten much attention in California over the last few years, they've actually existed in state law for nearly half a century. A product of the civil rights movement, housing elements are California's way of implementing fair housing law by requiring all cities and counties to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community at all income levels. I highlight those words because I think oftent times we we speak about um low and very low-income communities, but I appreciate the questions tonight already about making sure that we're taking care of our middle class as well. So, the recent hub about housing elements flashing forward in time is the really the result of significant legislative activity that kicked off in 2018. Concerns about the price of housing and overall cost of living began bubbling up in the years since 2012, coinciding with the Bay Area tech boom. And so in 2018, the California legislature passed the housing omnibus bill, which included several measure measures to beef up housing element reporting requirements and establishing consequences for not adopting a housing element or permitting the jurisdions's required regional housing need allocation or RENA. At the same time, voters passed Prop One, which was a $4 billion uh bond measure to fund affordable housing construction and rental and home loan subsidies for low and moderate income households. But what is the real housing need in the state of California? HCD publishes a statewide housing plan every 3 years. These don't always align with the housing element cycle schedule, but these plans do provide helpful data on total need and progress. And the story is that California needs 2.5 million more homes by 2030 to adequately address our housing needs, of which 1 million should be for low and very low-income households. That's not just to house everybody, but that's to address the affordability crisis as well. Uh 2.5 million is a huge number, and it may be

difficult, if not impossible, to achieve by 2030. But at the very least, it's helpful in diagnosing the problem so we can start looking forward towards solutions. Associate Planner Wim presented, Newark has made steadfast progress toward addressing our own Rena. Uh during the last housing element cycle from 2015 to 2023, we permitted nearly two and a half times our reena. While we fell short in targets for very low, low, and moderate income units, uh it doesn't hurt to overproduce in other areas. uh the market rate units as uh deputy director uh mentioned did produce some inclusionary affordable units and also filled our housing impact fee fund with resources that we can now use to support low and moderate income home seekers in our current housing element. If you're noticing any discretion in these numbers and the report from uh assoc assistant planner win, that's because um HCD allows jurisdictions to claim units that are produced in the projection period um which is effectively the overlap between cycles, but that projection period is not captured in this uh data dashboard um from HCD's web page. So then looking at our six cycle data, um we are 25% through the cycle and making good progress with our very low and above moderate income units. Um and we do have a pipeline of households um of projects that will provide additional um units across the board. So all in all, I think we're in pretty good shape at this cycle. Um okay, so what are the challenges then to meeting the arena and serving our community? To start, the biggest challenge is that we are starting from a pretty big deficit. While the last few years may have felt like a big construction boom, statewide, we've actually been building below the 40-year average, which is the middle horizontal line going across this

chart. The horizontal line at the top of the chart is the amount of units we need per the statewide housing uh plan to permit each year to meet that need. We've only reached that line once in the last 40 years back in 1986. And so, while some have called the last 10 years a boom in multif family construction, I think that this graph is helpful in visualizing that in those 10 years, we've actually been building at rates more akin to the recessions of the early 80s and '90s. So, we'll need to find a way to build more like we used to. Also compounding the problem is that we've added far more jobs in the last decade than we have housing units. In Alama County before the pandemic, we had about four jobs for every one housing unit. A healthy jobs to housing ratio is typically around 1.2 to 1.5, which provides enough demand uh to induce new development and support the economy, but not so much pressure as to squeeze out existing residents. Not only have we added jobs, but the jobs we have added pay exceptionally high wages. The bottom chart compares 1990 household incomes in green to 2018 household incomes in orange. You'll see that in 1999 our household income distribution which is reflected by the uh green dotted line reflected a bell curve indicative of a more a more middle class economy. But by 2018, that curve had become an upward sloping line, reflecting tremendous growth in high-income households and a decrease in moderate and lower income households. And then according to a more recent report from Alama County, moderate income households now only make up about 17% of all households in the county, whereas high high earners um those making over $239,000 a year make up 42% of households. So the conclusion here is that our middle class is shrinking and folks who might once

have been moderate income are more likely to be considered lower income or to have moved away. With the confluence of scarcer housing supply, increased demand from high earners, we've seen tremendous increases in the price of housing. New York is in the San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont metropolitan statistical area, uh, which is the the graph on the top, but obviously we're very close to the San Jose, Sunnyale, Santa Clara, MSA 2, which is the graph on the bottom. Um, it now takes more than 10 times the median income to purchase a median priced home in our area and 12 times the median income in the San Jose MSA. For context, the national average is five, which is um about where we were um up until about the year 2000. And then things started escalating. Um looking at this another way, the cost of home buying in Alama County has increased by 64% just since 2020. The cost of a mortgage in taxes for a bottom tier home, basically what your monthly payment is, is now about $5,414 a month. And to comfort to comfortably pay that, you'd need a household income of about $140,000. Um, buying a mid-tier home, one in a in a better neighborhood, maybe uh better wellkept, perhaps a little bigger, would cost about a household of of $230,000. Many folks are finding it's more economical to rent, um, seeing as the average monthly rent is half the price of a of that bottom tier mortgage. Um, and so, uh, home ownership is increasingly growing out of reach. Uh, this data is specific to Newark. Um, it's from a local realtor, the Juliana Lee Realtor team of Silicon Valley Real Estate. Um, in Newark for the second quarter of 2025, the median home sale price was $1.3 million. Um, per square foot costs

have increased by 7.1% in the last 5 years. Rents are also increasing. Um it says albeit slower. Um but that's an increase of 242% as opposed to a 300% increase in in sales prices. Um I think a big takeaway here is that low-income households can no longer afford the median rent in Alama County whereas 20 years ago they could. This means more people are being priced out overpaying or leave living in substandard conditions. that then puts increased costs on us in government to address these market failures through things like increased rental subsidies, code enforcement, rental inspections and so on. So looking at cost burden, which is one of the things we're required by legislation to include in the housing element, uh we see that across the board, um folks in Newark um are spending more than 30% of their household income on housing costs with one in 10 Newark households being severely costburdened, meaning they spend more than 50% of their income on housing. Once you pay for housing, that leaves little left over for education, child care, or a safety net. um in the event of a medical event, car crash or so on. That's acute among renters. Two-fifths of renters are cost burdened with nearly a third being severely costburdened. Uh a lot of people have decided that the cost of living in the inner bay area has just become too much. Um those migrant flows are particularly strong in southern Alama County. Um with people from our area predominantly going to the Sanwin County cities of Tracy, Stockton, and Mntika. uh the people who are living who are leaving you know may have been here for generations uh but they just can't compete against the folks that are making higher incomes in Santa Clara, San Monteo or San Francisco. Those people themselves probably make good money but can't afford a home in Santa

Clara, San Mo or San Francisco and so they are moving here. Um we see that over a third of the people that are taking part in this migration are doing so because of housing as their primary motivation. either they think they can get a better or larger home in the central valley, become a homeowner there, or just generally they're in search of cheaper housing than we have on offer. This has other negative effects um based around the fact that most of the jobs are still here in the in the inner bay area and our jobs pay better than jobs in the valley. So we we see increased rates of super commutes, which are people who drive more than 50 miles one way uh for work. This results in increased congestion on our freeways and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, this puts changes on our labor market, challenges finding low and mid-wage workers, and community and social disruption as long-term neighbors and support systems are scattered around the mega region. One final graph I'll show on this um illustrating the impact to travel patterns of workers of different industries and wages. Uh this shows that lower wage industries such as agriculture, hospitality, and retail are losing workforce or seeing their workforce commute longer and longer distances. This workers choosing the longer commute because wages are higher here and there's more work here than in Merrced, for example. I got an email the other day from the general manager of the Double Tree Hotel asking to be connected with the general contractor for the Saha project because they know that most likely the construction workers for that project will live in the valley and have temporary accommodations here while working. Um this graph here, moving on to demographic change. Um, generally speaking, this what this graph is showing is a population change from the 2010 to 2020 censuses. Green represents

increase in population, red represents decreases, white represents no change. The deeper the color, the greater the change. Newark's population trends generally track with countywide trends. Um, we've had moderate growth overall, um, but with decreases in white and black populations. Growth is more so driven by increases in Latino and Asian populations. Another thing to note here is that um the average Alama County household is now older and less likely to include children, but interestingly larger overall. This indicates an increase in multigenerational housing. Roommates are doubling up situations, which is an indicator of our housing supply shortage. Um I think looking at this graph again by race is interesting. um we see that um the only area in which the black population increased and where the white population loss was was the least is in the Bayside area which as you all know is where we've built significant new housing over the last 10 years but also this is a place where we've built a lot of different types of housing from multif family to town homes condos and single family we've had a great diversity of housing types there serving a diversity of people at different household incomes and sizes. Uh we see that trend again reflected in the change of Asian and Latino populations. Bayside attracted significant growth um and was the only area in the city with um with good growth in the Latino population. Um I wanted to make a quick note here on the national implications of this change. Um while our population is growing, that growth has slowed and we're actually below the national growth right now. Um um in the after the 2020 census, we got a little warning sign of this when we actually for the first time in our history lost a congressional seat. Um and it's now being predicted

that at this rate of of slower growth, uh we could lose an additional four to five congressional seats and electoral college votes in 2030. The map on the right shows the states that are losing seats in yellow and orange and the states that are gaining population and seats in blue. So we're predicted to have the biggest loss. Um this would have um significant impacts on um electoral politics. Um and so in in summary of this section of the presentation, we we see that the housing element is a valuable tool for advancing equal housing rights. Um that state and regional housing supply have not kept pace with demand. Renters and homeowners are struggling with rising costs and residents of all income levels are leaving the region um with negative impacts. Solving this won't happen overnight and will require sustained effort over the next 20 years, 10 to 20 years. So, what's in our way now? I promise this is my last section of bleakness. Um, and then we can we can get on to the the call to action. Um, but I want to talk quickly about um four big trends. We talked about history, some four big current trends. So, right now, not only is the purchase price of a home at an all-time high, but interest rates are also reaching record highs. Um, nationwide growth in the number of homeowners h haved in just the year from 2023 to 2024. Um, the largest drop in homeowners occurred among people under the age of 35, meaning young people are becoming homeowners later or just not at all. Um, addition to that, most of our current homeowners bought their homes or refinanced them during the low interest rate period of a few years ago. To move now and refinance and finance a new home, they'd pay a significant penalty. So, as a result, those wouldbe sellers are choosing to stay put, which is impacting our inventory and making it harder for new people to get on the um

the home ownership ladder. Um these high interest rates are also impacting multif family housing starts as assistant planner W mentioned. Um what happened you can kind of see in this graph is that those interest rates shot up just as a lot of new housing inventory was coming online. So there was a sudden increase in supply which helped to stabilize rents which is what we want. But as the interest rates went up and rent stabilized, there wasn't enough income um to make these new projects feasible. So, we're seeing that's why we're seeing projects get entitled, but developers are holding off on permitting them because they can't presently get the financing um to build those projects. A second challenge is uh major long-running shifts in the labor market. While our demand for housing has increased, our labor force is shrinking. Key trades like the carpenters saw a workforce decline of 30% and iron and rebar workers decreased by 52%. Part of this is likely due to the fact that construction worker wages haven't meaningfully increased in nearly 20 years. Um, this chart shows the misalignment between multif family permits issued and construction employment. The blue line is multif family permits in the Beijes workforce. In 2012, we saw an inversion of these lines where permits outpaced the workforce. So, the workforce has struggled to rebuild its ranks after losing significant workers in the Great Recession. And a 2019 survey of general contractors in California found that over 60% of firms are having a hard time filling some or all positions. And then on top of that, construction sector productivity has also been decreasing since the 70s. While other sectors have seen significant increase in labor productivity, a lot of attention has turned to

analyzing construction costs. If we can't control interest rates and we can't uh control the labor force, what can we do to bring down costs? A recent report by the Rand Institute has garnered a lot of attention for its analysis of this issue. finding that California has some of, if not the highest residential, multif family construction costs in the nation. And according to that report, the Bay Area is actually the most expensive place to build. Low-income housing is one and a half times the cost of the average market rate um project here in California. But when you compare us to other regions, our market rate housing is 1.6 times more expensive to build in San Diego. Our affordable housing one and a half times more expensive than San Diego. But where it really gets bad is when you compare us to states like Colorado and Texas. Computer might have just died. Um, all of ours did. Oh, okay. It's not just me. Thank goodness. Um, we'll just take it. Well, I'll just continue that thought maybe while they come back up. Um, our affordable housing and market rate housing. um cost three to four times more to build in the Bay Area than it does in the state of Texas. Um and while we may not want to adopt everything that Texas does, um there are um there are uh things worth looking at um in their policies. Just give us like one moment and I'll try bring it back. Yeah, that's because my battery is Do you want to maybe try Michael maybe unplugging your computer and then plugging it back in? Could I use your computer? Okay.

Oh, quite an eyeopening report. It's very sobering. Definitely. Oh, the connection to the individual computer. Oh, okay. Michael, you just might need a Yeah, we're gonna change to Art's computer. Oh, okay. [Music] Apologies. Okay. Yes. Slide. Okay. Okay. Um and so the other major finding from that RAND report is that our development um timelines are also um significantly longer than other states and that those timelines are strongly associated with higher costs. So in California on average it takes 22 months longer to complete a project than Texas. Um again Texas is the the more extreme end of the spectrum. Um, but specifically that 22-month gap breaks down into a 15-month gap in development approvals and then a 7-month gap in uh construction. Um, I put time is money

here because um um that 22-month gap um results in increases in contractor gener general conditions, architectural and engineering fees, higher costs for carrying the land, debt, and property taxes without generating rental income, and then high higher labor costs for having laborers on the job for longer periods of time. And as we just went over, that labor force is scarce. So, uh, in summary, our high interest rates are depressing multif family housing starts and home ownership. There's not enough construction labor for all the housing we need to build. Construction labor growth is trending down when we need it most. Construction costs are among the highest in the nation. Development timelines are also among the the longest in the nation. And we need to figure out how to use scarce dollars and workers more efficiently to meet our housing need. So the policy response to a lot of the this this research and thankfully we're in a place where we have a lot of research and a lot of people thinking about these issues. Um I've kind of broken down into four four primary um buckets. Um the first are policies that are intended to speed up land use approvals and permitting such such as shot clocks and local agency approval and processing times, limits on local agency discretionary decision-m, SQA reform and streamlining. You may very well have heard about a lot of this stuff in the news lately. Uh the second is policies and programs intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Uh policies intended to improve project financial feasibility. I think the density bonus law is um is a good example of that where feasibility financial feasibility um is often used as a justification to entitle projects to the use of density bonus and then also policies intended to reduce displacement and entrances into homelessness. So these are big challenges these are

big problems um they are not all our responsibility and we do not have the power um to address all of them. So, we have to figure out what levers that we can pull versus what are the ones that the state could pull, Uncle Sam or of course, you know, the invisible hand. Uh, and I think Newark's housing element is really our strongest lever. Um, while our arena is a high number, 1,874 homes, um, that's less than we permitted in cycle 5. Um, and that was a good exercise and a good learning opportunity. um in looking at how we can better meet our very low, low, and moderate income units. And we're setting off on a good step um to do so. Um I do think that this is achievable if we stick to our plan, the goals of our housing element, and keep to the mission of serving our community at the forefront. And so now at long last, I'm going to give you a brief preview of some of the programs that we've been working on um that will be coming to you um andor city council in the coming months that will work towards these goals. Um the first up that I wanted to feature is a communitydriven plan for the four corners area. Um the housing element set a quantified objective of increasing housing and local retail in this area. We're talking about the corner of Jarvis and Newark Boulevard. Um, with a minimum target of 360 new homes, but there could be potential for more. Um, and then this policy, this program really specifically aligns with statewide policies and associated legislation to incentivize transit oriented development. And what transit you might be asking? In November, the Capital Corridor Joint Powers Authority approved the EIR for the South Bay Connect project, which would build a new commuter rail station at the Ardanwood Park and Ride just on the other side of Highway 84 from us. The IR also shows um that the station

would have a pedestrian and bicycle access point to Newark under State Route 84. Um the image here on the slide is um the is from the EIR. It's the station area looking north from Highway 84. Planned components might include revisions to residential and commercial zoning standards, including mixeduse development, station access studies and improvements, vehicle and bicycle parking standards and management policies, affordable housing and commercial stabilization policies, and an affordable housing sighting analysis as well as potential inter agency collaboration with the city of Fremont and Capital Corridor Joint Powers Authority. A second program uh that will be coming your way is objective design standards or ODS. Um the goal of um the goal that this program falls into is one of reducing and removing constraints to affordable housing development. Um, our housing element aims at uh uh states that developing new objective design standards will result in designs that reflect the needs of the community while supporting new developments that are responsive to local ecological conditions and climate change while reducing development costs where applicable. ODS were established as a legal concept in SB35, one of those big 2018 housing bills, and then incorporated into several other housing laws since then. and they govern how jurisdictions review applications for all sorts of residential projects from ADUs to duplexes, large multif family apartments and condos. Um, as a result, ODS are really now the primary basis for a local agency to deny or augment a project. Many jurisdictions have language in their codes um stating, for example, the roof line shall be compatible with the neighborhood character. But what one person finds compatible with the neighborhood character may not be compatible in the

eyes of another person. And that subjective interpretation of compatibility could change from staff to staff, commissioner to commissioner, council to council. Uh that can be difficult for a applicant to interpret and result in more back and forth between the applicant and the jurisdiction until that definition of compatibility is reached and mutually agreed to. Um, I think another big benefit of ODS is that they go through a lengthy public uh process. Um, many of you participated in one-on-one interviews with our consultant working on developing the ODS um attended the uh workshop open house that we had uh this winter. Um and in this way um by collecting community input undergoing community review and the local legislative process um the theory behind ODS is that project approvals can actually be more inclusive than by conducting a project by project review. Uh and so finally by clearly communicating to builders the community's vision standards and acceptable practices. It's the aim of ODS to reduce development costs and timelines through transparency and streamline review. and we hope to present these to you later this summer and early fall. Um during the process of drafting the housing element, we heard significant concerns from residents about the pressures that renters were feeling and the increased pressure of displacement. The housing element includes several programs to protect tenants to help them stay in their homes. Some of these programs include adopting ordinances that will codify state laws that would other otherwise sunset in coming years or use the city's affordable housing fund to expand services that the county has at times offered but which are significantly overs subscribed and we know that there's additional need for in Newark. And so we've conducted extensive outreach to renters and landlords alike and anticipate presenting recommendations to council in early fall. Some of these recommendations will be for housing element programs. Some will be for programs that resulted out

of um out of that community engagement process but weren't included in the housing element. We touched on the first-time home buyer program earlier this evening. Um but for a long time it's been a council priority to establish a first-time home buyer program and the city released an RFP for those consultant services. We've now uh evaluated completed our evaluation of proposals um and we'll be rep uh recommending um that council authorize the city manager approve a contract with a with a consultant to develop and administer two programs um this coming month. Um the first program is that first-time home buyer assistance loan program and then the second is affordable home ownership administration. Um also known as really managing our deed restricted home ownership units such as the leakshi affordable homes which are in our pipeline. Okay. Um and then coming towards the end um we have our inclusionary zoning work. Uh we aim to present this to you the planning commission later this summer um in response to council's direction uh to amend the city's affordable housing program. That's um uh chapter 17.18 of the New York municipal code. Um currently the code requires housing developers pay a fee to mitigate their housing impact. Um and as an alternative they can pay uh to build um so as an alternative they can build those affordable units but council have directed and staff will recommend uh changing this requirement to prioritize on-site construction of affordable units with payment of a fee as one possible alternative. And my last slide here um is on various zoning amendments. The housing element includes several programs related to zoning um that respond to several different policy objectives. We won't be tackling all of these at once. We're also working in a package of minor zoning code cleanups, but we've identified a suite of housing element

programs that advance several policy initiatives and bring us into compliance with state law. I've included here on this slide and I can certainly circulate this to you um some of the works that I've I've cited in this presentation if you're interested in looking at any of these reports further yourself. And now I welcome any questions, comments, conversation from the commission. Thank you. Thank you Michael. That was very eyeopening, very sobering. Well, thank you for making us aware of the urgency of this and how we compare to other states. Do any commissioners have comments or questions? No, other than I thought it was an outstanding reports. 35 years I've been either writing these reports or listening to them. It's the first time I had a staff member actually do an introduction of their family history. So, I found that interesting. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yeah, it was actually quite humorous. I thought that makes everybody laugh, but sometimes it's not. One of the things I had uh I know we've talked about the ADUs and stuff. Doesn't seem like we're really having that much of a surge in applications for ADUs. Is there is there something we could do to speed that up or is there something that because that's seems to me like a quick way you could get some additional housing units if there are more uh ADUs allowed on certain properties. Mhm. Yeah, it's uh good question. Um one of the programs that we're working on is the ADU incentives program. Um so we're kind of nearing towards the end of that and so that'll be coming forward to the commission in the next probably like two months. Um, as part of that effort, um, we're looking to make some changes not only in the zoning code to help kind of incentivize those, um, but also large, um, allowing larger units, um, and

potentially even some reductions in the types of, um, fees that are charged for that. So, we're hoping that with some of those efforts that the number of ATUs will increase going forward. Um, and so that's that's what's going on. And I've seen some uh advertisements for prefabbed already built uh ADUs that can be installed uh very quickly. And uh some jurisdictions have pre-approved contractors and plans to reduce the amount of time it takes to uh u build one of those things too. So, do we don't have any restrictions on offsite uh manufactured housing that would slow that down or we we don't have any um kind of limitations in that sense. But in terms of you know the pre-approved um plans that is part of that ADU incentive program also that's coming forward to you um essentially working with um you know make it more easible for any easily um available for anybody who's looking to develop these to see not only existing plans that have already been approved so that they can kind of see what um is possible and what the city has already kind of approved um but also allowing architects and designers to have pre-approved plans on our web page. um so they can so any citizen or resident who lives here can come and kind of look at those also as a potential option for them in case they're looking to do that. So those are the different ways that we're trying to kind of get that information out there and so you know uh to give residents more confidence in in uh starting the process. Good. Thank you. That's the only question I had. So aside from cutting down on the permit time to get the job started, so to streamline it, the the big key would be just having the labor force. So like needing construction workers and not having as many as say Texas, which probably has a lot. That's why they're able to build so quickly. So

that would be something that would still kind of be a slowdown for construction. Just the labor force, lack of labor force. I think labor force is going to be an obstacle to to scaling up construction and meeting our need. Uh the other significant um significant driver there is the interest rates and the cost and availability of financing. Um the recent federal budget bill um actually looks to have increased the availability of financing for lowincome housing, but we'll have to see how that um interacts with other elements of the bill. Um um and then additionally at the state level, they are looking at reforms um to state affordable housing subsidy programs to help get that money out faster and easier so that projects can break ground quicker. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, I don't think there's any questions from the public. Okay. I thought before we leave I might put one plug into how we are obviously we're doing a ton of work here um and the staff is to be commended about um taking on uh the uh requirements uh and the policies and programs as outlined in the housing element. Um but uh there this is a complex uh topic for sure. Uh there's lots of different factors that feed into how we kind of got to where we're at. And for I think a lot of people who are not involved on this in a day-to-day basis, it can get a little overwhelming, right? So like what can we really do as a as a as a city and how do I even get to really understand what the problems are in Newark or what is Newark

really doing? So staff over the past um few months or so um has uh created uh that you can see up on your screen here that is public. We haven't made a big deal out of it yet because I think we're still tweaking it to some degree, but um it's really intended to be a one-stop shop for folks to learn about affordable housing, learn about what Newark's vision and goals, policies and programs out into the future about how we are going to address housing within the city. provide uh resources and describe our current efforts and and announcements. And so if you go on to this site, you can certainly learn about affordable housing and and and see some pages about what that really means within the community. Um you could also and learn a lot about our housing element. Uh and this page uh and actually this website was kind of born out of if you might recall the housing element website, development website that we used to communicate with the community about um the produ um the production and and of our of our housing element. And so you can learn about kind of what a housing element is and uh find out a lot of detailed information about what is in our housing element. Um there are housing resources pages. So going into um what's happening locally and region regionally uh with regard to housing uh housing assistance and supportive services. Um there is a and I haven't clicked on this for a while so I'm not exactly sure where it's going to go but if you're looking for housing in uh in Newark and in the region um there is information here that you can go to uh including maps to show like where uh housing could uh eventually be. And then we have a whole page dedicated to our

current efforts of what we're doing within within the community uh as well as announcements of things that are coming up. um uh for uh for the community to to be aware of. So, we really see uh this as uh a a great um opportunity and learning tool for for the public uh to learn about what Newark is is doing. We are doing a lot uh for a city of our size. I would say we're punching above our weight in terms of the types of programs and policies that we are implementing. And I think over time uh we certainly will be providing a a a greater sense of of resources and opportunities for for our community members in the housing space. So I'm very proud of of the work that our team is doing uh with regards to implementation of the housing element uh and certainly uh reaching out to the community uh about how we they community can get involved and learn about the things that we are doing. So, thank you very much for for your time. This seems like a really amazing website. Is it like up and running? Is it going to go out in the New York newsletter to let people know or how is it going to get out? You can find it right up there at housing.new yorkca.gov and is it to get out to the general public? It is live and we we haven't done a full sort of announcement or release of it. Um certainly we we we have been directing folks to it. um uh sort of as needed. But uh as we certainly uh come back to the planning commission and city council with a lot of these um policy programs that we're working on, I think we'll make a bigger deal about this site being a resource for for people to go to. Thank you. Yeah, I kind of surprised staff with bringing this up, but I thought it was important to be able to show how we're taking some very complex information and making it hopefully more digestible for the

public. Yeah, it's very nice. Thank you. Okay. Um on mission matters on city council actions. Just one uh action to report on. At the last planning commission meeting, the planning commission adopted a resolution for the approval of the prologes industrial warehouse building on central avenue. Um that project was um called up for review by the city council. uh meaning that they are going to take a look at the planning commission's adoption of that uh and um uh and perhaps take action on that project. Uh whether to reaffirm the planning commission's decision to modify it or to overturn it. Um calling a project up for review is an allowed process as defined in our municipal code. Uh, one council member is able to call up any decision of either the planning director, the zoning administrator or the um um or the planning commission. And in this case, uh the prologus project was requested to be uh brought forth in front of the council for review. That review is going to take place uh on July 24th. Uh so the second council meeting uh in July um and uh we will provide um the staff report and information to the planning commission ahead of time so you can um see what we're presenting to council. Thank you. That's all to report tonight. Okay. Thank you. So we'll go on to H planning commissioner comments. Any comments? Nothing this evening. Nothing from me at nothing. I just want to say I'm really really glad that the door at the library is finally fixed for people with strollers or walkers. It's been out for over a month and so if you have a walker, a stroller or a wheelchair, you couldn't get in the

library unless somebody did the door for you. So that's nice to have that finally fixed. It was because the part was on back order for so long. The library was on it, but they were just stalled by because it was on back order. And also, um, I don't know if anyone knows, but the sign at Mirabbo Park is in. They're just waiting for the polls, which come in this month. So, it'll be nice to have that sign back up at the park. So, that's good. Great. That's all I wanted to say. Okay. No other comments. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. Excellent.