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BACKGROUND <br /> In August of 2002, the City Council approved PUD -18 for the development of 363 <br /> housing units on the Busch property by Ponderosa Homes. This PUD included the <br /> development of a 172 -unit senior apartment project now called the Gardens at Ironwood. <br /> As part of Council's review of this PUD, it determined that inclusionary zoning <br /> requirements for the entire 363 -unit development could be met with 87 affordable units <br /> included in the senior apartment project. However, subsequent to this approval, the <br /> developer requested, and the Council approved, a change to the unit mix of the <br /> apartment project resulting in an additional 51 affordable units. As a result of this <br /> change, the Gardens at Ironwood was approved with 138 affordable units representing <br /> 38% of the total units developed on the Busch Road site. <br /> As part of the developer's request to modify the unit mix, it requested it be granted <br /> 51 IUC's as outlined in the City Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (IZO). The request was <br /> consistent with the IZO since the 138 units provided were /are in excess of the 87 <br /> required affordable units. At its meeting of March 7 2006, the City Council finalized its <br /> approval of Ponderosa's request. <br /> Prior to taking action on this request, the City Council adopted Inclusionary Unit Credit <br /> Guidelines (Attachment 2) establishing how and when IUC's may be used. In general, <br /> IUC's, which are permitted as part of the IZO, are affordable housing credits acquired <br /> from a development that exceeds affordability requirements that may be applied to <br /> another development that does not meet IZO requirements. As an example if project "A" <br /> is a 100 unit multi family development, in accordance with the IZO, it is required to <br /> provide fifteen (15% of the total units) affordable units. If the project provides twenty -five <br /> affordable units, the developer may request that ten units be used to offset affordability <br /> at another development. Therefore, if project "B" is a 50 unit multi family development <br /> that is required to have eight affordable units, the developer could use its ten ICU's to <br /> meet all of the affordability requirements on project "B" even though the development <br /> would be 100% market rate. The basic concept of IUC's is that in the end, the City is <br /> assured of meeting IZO affordable units targets regardless of whether they are in one or <br /> two developments. Section 1 (G) of the guidelines, which are included as Attachment 3, <br /> establishes five years as the term for use of IUC's subject to an extension approved by <br /> the City Council. To date, IUC's have only been approved on the Ponderosa <br /> development. <br /> As part of the City Council's approval of the IUC's for the Ponderosa development, <br /> considerable time was spent determining the period of time during which the credits <br /> could be used. This effort was necessary because use of the IUC's on the Busch Road <br /> site could not be considered until the Pleasanton Unified School District (PUSD) made a <br /> decision on whether it would exercise an option granted to it from Ponderosa Homes to <br /> develop a 23.1 -acre site on the Busch property for school facilities. Terms for exercising <br /> its option on the 23.1 -acre site, and Ponderosa's subsequent decisions /actions, were <br /> spelled out in an Option Agreement with the PUSD and Ponderosa Homes. In the end, <br /> the City Council determined that the IUC's term would be tied to the date that the School <br /> District exercised its option. The PUSD eventually decided that it would not develop the <br /> site and Ponderosa regained full control of it on March 27, 2007. As a result of the <br /> Page 2 of 4 <br />