CCMIN111501 - Laserfiche WebLink

the community. He supported the process and higher density. With regard to the question of what drives this process, the ABAG numbers or the voter approved housing cap, he felt the City has a responsibility to the region and state. He respected the sovereignty of the Pleasanton voters and supported their opinions. He supported the staffrecommendations. He would like to change the word "guarantee" to "encourage". He had a question regarding second units. He was not sure how reliable the use of second units would be to decrease affordable housing units. He supported energy and resource conservation as well as the other staff recommendations. Regarding Measure D, the Pleasanton voters supported it and we need to adhere to its policies. Maybe that means increasing densities on available land in Pleasanton. Ms. Michelotti referred to all the comments supporting the staff recommendations, but she wanted to make certain as many of the Task Force recommendations as possible were included in this document. She wanted to include the density bonus concept and to maintain the over all umbrella policy. Ms. Ayala wanted to preserve as much flexibility as possible to allow the document to go forward and to allow modification later after public comment. Ms. Michelotti would like another meeting to review the final document and to have a televised hearing. She would like to see a redlined draft. Mayor Pico said the Task Force was given a job that was very difficult. He appreciated their efforts to show what is necessary to get there. However, he believed the price to get all the affordable units was bigger than the community was willing to pay. He did not feel the ABAG numbers should be the guide for the City. He strongly felt the City needs to develop as much affordable housing as possible and to continue to accomplish that. He was not willing to give up local control or the public process to get it. He also wanted to look at what the cost will be. There is a price to be paid to create these units and for incentives, subsidies, land banking, etc. The reality is there is not a lot of surplus land owned by the City. Last week Council approved an assisted living project and that will take about $3 million out of the affordable housing fund, reducing that balance to less than $10 million. Council is also considering the purchase of some mobile home parks to continue affordable units for seniors. We also have to consider rehabilitation of other senior housing projects. If we are serious about providing affordable housing in the future, we need to consider raising the affordable housing fee and to insure that developers actually build affordable units. When you look at the ABAG numbers, there are over 1,000 low or very low income units to be built by 2006. That would take a significant amount of public subsidy from the City of Pleasanton. Not from the State of California or anyone else. He felt the cost of all this would be at least $50,000 per unit. We don't have that kind of money. He did not want the ABAG numbers imbedded in Pleasanton's General Plan. He thought that would be an incredible mistake. He realizes there is a need for affordable housing and we need to be creative. But every dollar we don't have in the affordable housing fund has to come from somewhere else in the City budget, such as the general fund, which pays for City services, or the capital improvement fund, which is already short of funds to build the necessary infrastructure. He believed this was an unfunded mandate. He had a problem with losing local control and discretion for some of these projects. He absolutely would strike out the word "guarantee" or "require" from the Housing Element document. As an example, he referred to policy 5 which Pleasanton City Council Joint Meeting Minutes 15 11/15/01