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adjustments will be made to get the Sustainable Communities Strategy and regional transportation funding all on the same cycles. Mr. Dolan added that "RHNA" stands for Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Approximately every 5-7 years the State determines what the housing needs statewide will be and they, or ABAG in the City's case, assigns the numbers to the various metropolitan areas. ABAG distributes allocations to all 9 counties and to the cities within them. Cities then determine where housing can be located within their respective communities. Mr. Dolan continued his presentation, stating the City submitted a Draft Housing Element to the State for review and initial feedback and work was conducted addressing the various sites. He presented a graphic of the 17 sites included in the submission which were evaluated in the EIR and presented a graphic of those having 23 units to the acre, a category which the City no longer must address but could utilize in the future. The list of sites had to be paired down closer to the actual need for sites and certain criteria were considered which were discussed at the joint session. He noted there have been themes of discussion for quite some time as well as themes and decisions made more recently which he briefly outlined. He then presented a map of the shortened list and said the original list totaled 111 acres which was shortened to 72.8 acres to accommodate 2,326 units, which is 238 units over the minimum the City needs to provide. While it is a small number of added units, staff is comfortable with this cushion as additional comments may be heard on some of the sites from HCD when the final document is submitted. Councilmember McGovern suggested the possible need for two changes; Stoneridge Shopping Center did not want to go to 400 units and 40 units per acre, and CarrAmerica indicated they were willing to go to 35 units per acre. She asked if these changes would be made. Mr. Dolan clarified that Stoneridge did not want to go to 50 units per acre, not 40 units per acre. Councilmember Thorne said the Growth Management Plan indicates that the City will meet its RHNA numbers and questioned if this would remove that cushion if everything were approved by HCD. Mr. Dolan said it possibly could if the City actually built that many units, but it is unlikely this many applications would be received. Mr. Fialho said if the Growth Management Ordinance is built around the premise that it cannot exceed RHNA, then the City is left with the cushion that it can, on a case-by- case basis, then decide whether the City wants to absorb this through an approval that may come at some point in the future. Or, the Council could structure it in a way where it just is going to meet RHNA numbers and the delta of 243 units gets credited to the next RHNA cycle. Councilmember Cook-Kallio said the Council has received comments worrying about the cushion. She said it is important to understand that these numbers float to the next RHNA cycle and the City is not doing more than it has to. Mr. Dolan continued his reply, stating that CarrAmerica agreed to 35 units per acre which is contained in the footnote in the report. He then re-clarified with Councilmember Sullivan that Stoneridge Mall is still at 40 units per acre. The City needed 2,088 units and the City is providing 2,326 units, leaving a cushion of 238 units. He said the Council can discuss variations, ask questions on individual sites, and if there are changes that the City's ultimate inventory be no more than half at mixed use, some of the sites will not work if they are just zoned as HDR without the mixed use, which he said will also need to be discussed. Mr. Dolan added that the balance of the task force and subsequent discussions has been about the balance of multi-family housing throughout the City, and pointed out was that it was unfair to look at sites with other previously approved multi-family housing. He presented a graphic showing a sense of City Council Minutes Page 4 of 13 January 4, 2012