AGENDA REPORT - Laserfiche WebLink

consideration. The first calls for creating a rating system to determine a project's overall benefit to lower income households (for example, relationship to transportation, percentage of inclusionary units, project amenities, units for disabled households). This system could be developed along the lines of the State's tax credit application evaluation system that looks at similar key factors as part of the tax credit awarding process. It should be noted that as part of the Housing Element update, staff did rate each high density site and determined its suitability for tax credits. As a result, while this process could provide benefit as a means of weighing a project's overall benefits, its application may be difficult in practice. The second process change would be to require that all affordability proposals be presented to the Commission at two public meetings. The first meeting would include a project overview and a discussion on the affordability proposal/concepts to allow for public comment and for the Commission to provide feedback for staff and developer consideration early in the review process. The second meeting would be to review the affordable housing and final terms of affordability. The Commission sees this approach as being similar to the Planning Commission's utilization of workshops to conduct a preliminary review of a proposed development. In the past, staff has attempted to present projects on more than one occasion; however, developers have expressed dissatisfaction with this approach as it disrupts the project review timeline and is inconsistent with Palmer. Finally, the Commission also urged staff to promote state legislation that can reverse the impacts of Palmer and establish new criteria for affordable housing. As an example, Assembly Bill-1229 would allow for cities to adopt ordinances regulating zoning that include inclusionary zoning as a condition of development approval. As part of the workshop, the City Council may want to comment on these matters and direct that they be included as part of the IZO amendment process. Timeline Depending on the City Council direction provided at the workshop, staff anticipates it could provide a general report to the Housing Commission at its June/ July meeting and that there would be at least one additional public meeting to review final draft language. Staff also assumes that the final draft documents would also be forwarded to the Planning Commission and/or the Economic Vitality Commission for comment. As such, a final document may be available for City Council for its action in September/October. Direction for Interim Affordable Housing Standards/Process Due to concerns related to Palmer, staff has taken a cooperative approach with the St. Anton, California Center and the Auf der Maur projects in an attempt to both identify incentives that result in an agreement to provide affordable units and to generally stress the importance of affordable housing within the context of the City's Housing Element and the City's Housing Site Development Standards and Design Guidelines. As evidenced with the California Center project, this approach resulted in 15% rent restricted units that are at higher income limits than are currently allowed in the IZO. Page 8 of 9