REPORT TO PLANNING COMMISSION
SUBJECT
Title
PUBLIC HEARING: Recommendation on a General Plan Text Amendment for the 2023-2031 Housing Element Sites Inventory List
Report
BACKGROUND
The Housing Element, one of the required elements of the City's General Plan, includes policies and programs intended to help the City meet the housing needs of all current and future Santa Clara residents. State law requires that local jurisdictions update their Housing Elements every eight years and that the Housing Element be reviewed by the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). HCD "certifies" housing elements that it determines to be in substantial compliance with State housing law. Since the Housing Element statutes were first enacted, six such cycles of adoption and certification have been completed. A certified Housing Element allows the City to pursue Federal and State grant funding for housing and infrastructure, such as One Bay Area Grants (OBAG) and retain local control.
At the conclusion of the three-year Housing Element Update process that began in early 2021, the City's sixth cycle Housing Element was adopted by the City Council on May 7, 2024 and certified by HCD on May 31, 2024.
One of the required components of the Housing Element is the development and maintenance of an inventory of specific sites that have been analyzed for their suitability to develop with residential uses within the eight-year planning period (2023-2031). The Sites Inventory must include sufficient capacity to meet the City's Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) in all affordability categories (i.e. Lower, Moderate, Above Moderate).
Staff is requesting an amendment to the Sites Inventory List to remove one of the sites from the list and add a recently approved project to the list as discussed below. Such action would implement the terms of a pending settlement agreement with Housing Action Coalition and would mitigate the risk of other potential challenges to t...
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