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December 4, 2023 Re: December 5, 2023, Council Meeting,Agenda Item 6,Agreement with EPS Dear Mayor Brown and Councilmembers, I'm pleased to see Item 6 on this week's Council Agenda. I agree that it's time to study our development impact fees, inclusionary zoning ordinance, and affordable housing fee. I'm pleased that EPS will be the chosen consultant. We have a history of working together and they know Pleasanton. The timing is good because development projects seem to be coming to us quickly. I'm also pleased to see that this contract has a quick, six-month, turnaround. Anything you could do to speed that up even more would be helpful. Here is my experience: 1. Our inclusionary housing ordinance is woefully inadequate to meet our housing element goals, especially if developers pay affordable housing fees in lieu of building inclusionary units. 2. Currently there is no "landing space", at least that I know of, for affordable housing fees, when they are paid, to build affordable housing. 3. It's a lose/lose if the fees are being paid in lieu of building affordable housing and the fees that are being collected aren't creating affordable housing. Here are some questions I have. If you could ask them of staff and the consultant, I'd appreciate knowing the answers. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the City Council Meeting. 1. Is the City any closer to having a city-sponsored affordable housing project like Kottinger Gardens, Livermore's Goodness Village, or a project with a church or school district that affordable housing fees could be used for, so housing is built with the fees? 2. Could EPS ask developers who generally build inclusionary housing units (rather than fee-out) why they choose to build, how cities achieve compliance, and what Pleasanton could do to ensure that other developers build the units? 3. Could a new affordable housing fee per unit match the cost of building a unit so there is no incentive to feeing-out? In other words, make the fee match the cost. Then rather than using an annual COLA for the fee, match the fee to an index of current construction costs per unit. 4. If AB 1505 requires alternative compliance to building on-site (I'm guessing that means that now an in-lieu fee is required), could there be an alternative to a fee and instead require that units be built off-site? On sites such as city-owned and church-owned, or even ADUs. Legislation has been passed recently that allows ADUs to be sold as condominiums. Compliance-built ADUs could be sold to and owned by the city and rented out as affordable housing. Page 1 of 2