By Khalida Sarwari
When the city of Saratoga updates its housing element next year, it will have to plan for nearly double the number of affordable housing units than in the previous cycle in response to the Association of Bay Area Governments’ recommendation to build 438 new units by 2022.
On April 1, Saratoga’s elected officials went before a five-member committee to appeal the allocation, but were denied on a 3-2 vote a reduction in the number of units. Saratoga Mayor Jill Hunter said the city presented a strong case.
“Saratoga made a valiant effort,” she added. “Because it was a 3-2 vote, we felt that we were heard and they understood what our concerns were and they didn’t shut us down right away.”
The recommendation that each city build a certain number of units was passed down from the state through ABAG to comply with the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, or RHNA. What ABAG wants, according to the city, is for smaller cities to do their “fair share.”
According to Saratoga community development director James Lindsay, the city’s issue isn’t with affordable housing but the number of new homes Saratoga is being required to plan for.
The city had proposed 204 or 215 units as a reasonable estimate based on its own calculations, claiming that the methodology used by ABAG was flawed, particularly for small communities. Not only did the methodology not take into account figures from the 2010 U.S. Census, but what ABAG failed to take into consideration when coming up with the 438 figure, according to the city, is that that Saratoga offers limited employment opportunities and access to transportation, especially in comparison to other municipalities in the county. The city claimed that based on those factors alone, ABAG’s allocation was not responsible.
“Saratoga hasn’t had any growth in 20 years,” said Hunter. “A town like ours doesn’t have much growth.”
Furthermore, the allocation will have detrimental impacts on the city’s air quality, the city has claimed. Significantly increasing the number of housing units in outlying areas away from jobs and transit is inconsistent with greenhouse gas reduction strategies contained in Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375. Along with the MTC, ABAG was given a role in implementing SB 375, which was passed in 2008 and aligns housing plans with regional transportation plans.
“ABAG unfortunately gave us an allocation which is inconsistent with those principles of planning for future housing growth,” Lindsay said.
With RHNA’s denial of the city’s appeal, Saratoga is now required to update its housing element to show how the 438 units can be accommodated in their jurisdiction within the next eight years.
The new homes, according to the city, would be built on the limited commercial property that exists in the city, which would first have to be zoned for affordable housing.
“For us to find space for 438 more units, land is very expensive and we have only 2 percent commercial, so you cannot put affordable housing numbers where single-family homes are,” Hunter said. “That leaves us with very tiny pieces of land that we can attach these numbers to.”
Still, she said the city would abide by RHNA’s numbers.
“We will continue our battle and see if we can make any headway in another fashion.”
Lindsay said the city would also begin closely reviewing the environmental impact report recently released by ABAG and the MTC for the agencies’ One Bay Area plan, an integrated land use and transportation plan that all regions in California must complete under SBl 375. The law calls upon California’s 18 metro areas to plan jointly for transportation, land use and housing as part of a “Sustainable Communities Strategy,” with the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions for cars and light-duty trucks.
“One of the points of our appeal is that requiring cities on the fringes of the county to produce more housing will have air quality impacts on our communities because people will be driving farther to jobs,” he said.
The city filed a similar RHNA allocation appeal in 2001 for the 2000-2007 cycle, requesting a reduction from the 539 units it had been allocated to 223 units. That appeal was also denied. The last time the city’s housing element underwent a revision was in 2007. For that cycle, which is due to end in 2014, ABAG’s allocation was 292 units.
Saratoga isn’t the only city in Santa Clara County that appealed the housing allocation. Others included the cities of Mountain View, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
The ABAG committee that considered Saratoga’s appeal was comprised of elected officials including Clayton Mayor Julie Pierce, Palo Alto Mayor Gregory Scharff, Novato Mayor Pat Eklund, Oakland Councilwoman Desley Brooks and Napa County Supervisor Mark Luce. Scharff and Luce cast the two votes in favor of the appeal.
ABAG committee denies Saratoga’s appeal of housing allocation
