CITY COUNCIL CLOSED SESSION AGENDA

Karla Brown, Mayor Jocelyn Kwong, City Clerk Aptil 23,2024 Page 2 Offices ("PUD-l/C-O") (Pleasanton Zoning Map), which designates the Project Site as Garden Office District ('OGPD'). But the staff repo( fails to acknowledge that the General Plan land use designation objectively allows residential development at 20 or more units per acre (General Plan Table 2-3), and despite that objectively allowed density the staff report claims the planning designation "defers" to the existing PUD zoning, which does not allow residential land uses (i.e., housing) at any density. The underlying PUD and OGPD zoning are basic office classifications and they do not allow residential uses. While the OGPD states that it conditionally allows nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and it organizes those uses in a chart under a "residential" heading, nothing in the City's land use regulalions substantively treats such uses as residential or housing (see, e.9., Land Use Element at p. 2-23 [explaining that residential uses include detached and attached single-family homes, duplexes, townhouses, condominiums, and apartmentsl and Land Use Element Table 2-5 (explaining the amount of land in the City designated for various land usesl). This is consistent with other jurisdictions in California and even with the state itself, which treats uses like nursing homes and assisted living facilities as institutional and not as residential or housing. We are unaware of any jurisdiction, including Pleasanton, that treats nursing homes and assisted living facilities as residential land uses such as housing and the "residential" heading in the City's chart does not change this fact. The Planning Commission staff report and the underlying recommendation and decision are thus incorrect on the facts, as the General Plan land use designation for the Project Site plainly allows housing and the zoning classification does not. But the staff report, recommendation, and decision are also incorrect on the law. Even without the benefit of state housing law, which will be addressed in more detail below, longstanding and controlling principles of basic California land use law make clear that the plan is the constitution for development and the zoning must follow the plan, The state's Planning and Zoning Laws expressly require the land use element to affirmatively designate the proposed general distribution and general location and extent of the uses of the land for housing and other categories of public and private uses of land. Moreover, the land use element itself must provide for the standards of population density and building intensity for the various districts and other territory covered by the plan. (Gov. Code $ 65302(a)). State housing law does not allow general plan land use elements to "defe/ to zoning ordinances on these critical and mandalory issues. This is simple blackletter law, and it is reinforced by a long line of cases such as Lesher v. Walnut Creek, 52 Cal.3d 531 , 540-41 (1992), which make clear that the zoning must conform to the plan and thus that "[t]he tail does not wag the dog." Again, nothing in California law allows a city's general plan land use element to "defer" to the zoning or for the zoning to othenrrrise direct the plan, particularly with respect to the mandatory contents of a city's land use element requiring the TRLt-5883n2919580.2