AGENDA REPORT - Laserfiche WebLink

buildings. Nevertheless, to make the option feasible, there would be "affordable buildings" that would house the majority or all of the affordable households in the development. Staff's review to date indicates significant legal issues with establishing zoning for a specific type of entity, e.g., requiring a non-profit specifically. The City Council may recall a similar dialogue regarding the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market proposal in that cities cannot create zoning that would specifically ban Wal-Mart or similar corporations from developing or occupying a site where the proposed use is consistent with the zoning. Further, staff anticipates that this option would result in considerable financial contribution from the City since this is typically necessary to obtain the levels of affordability anticipated in this option. While the City cannot legally zone a property to require a non-profit to develop part or all of a site, staff does see the value in promoting this type of nonprofit/for profit arrangement and would not hesitate adding it to the listing of alternatives to providing inclusionary units and to strongly encourage developers to work with nonprofits. Recently, the City of Dublin processed a development application that utilized this model whereby two developers, a nonprofit and a market developer, worked collaboratively to develop a single site. 5. Establish an affordable housing overlay zone designation that provides a density bonus, unique development standards or other benefit to accommodate a stand- alone affordable housing project or one that is combined with a market project. In general, this designation requires a high level of affordability concentrated in a specific building or portion of a site and, like option 4; its purpose is to have one portion of the development assume affordability for the entire development. With this option, which has been adopted recently by Corte Madera and is being considered by Menlo Park, most of the development incentives included in the zoning overlay are included in our existing IZO and can be applied as needed to assist the project. (The exception is the option of a density bonus.) Further, staff has not received any feedback from developers indicating that the City's recently adopted development standards and design guidelines are creating impediments to providing affordable housing. As such, staff sees little advantage to pursuing it at this time. Based on the above, staff recommendation includes the City Council identifying one or two of the above amendment options that staff would use during a public review process guided by the Housing Commission. In addition, during the workshop the City Council could identify additional or alternative options for staff review. Housing Commission Processing Recommendations As indicated above, at its April 9 workshop, the Housing Commission reviewed all of the above IZO amendment options but did not recommend specific ones in favor of having then considered as part of the workshop. However, in addition to the above options, the Housing Commission at its April 9 workshop outlined two process items for Page 7 of 9