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If such units were to be counted as housing units and applied towards the cap, fewer conventional housing units would be available to be built under the cap than are now anticipated. Regarding second units, they would not be counted due to the provision of State law that mandates that second units shall not be counted as housing units for the purposes of any policy to limit residential growth.la Regarding assisted living facilities, the City's historical practice has been to consider such facilities as commercial uses and therefore not counted as "housing units" towards the housing cap.15 This has been the practice because these facilities have been generally approved in commercially zoned areas, have characteristics of commercial facilities (e.g., employees, provision of services for the elderly, central dining, payment of commercial impact fees), and generally do not create the same type of impacts on the community as do residential developments. Examples of this include Eden Villa (the assisted living facility on Mohr Avenue) and the City's Parkview Assisted Living Facility (on Valley Ave.). Notwithstanding these factors, the City Council has previously indicated that if the Continuing Life Care (CLC) proposal on Staples Ranch were to be approved, the City may count 240 (of the proposed 636) assisted living units toward the housing cap, based on a formula that considers a number of impacts of such a facility on the community. If the Council, in taking action on the CLC project, were to count the entire number of assisted living units (636) as "housing units" towards the housing cap, then it would further reduce the number of conventional housing units that could be developed elsewhere in the City under the housing cap by 396.16 4.2. Effect of Initiative on Consistency of General Plan and any Specific Plans A General Plan has been called the `constitution' for development within a city. As with any new policies added to a General Plan, these new policies are required by State law to be consistent with the existing policies, programs and elements within the General Plan. To the extent that Initiative's new General Plan policies conflict with policies in Specific Plans, the Specific Plan policies could not be implemented and would need to be revised to be consistent with the new General Plan policies. is See Government Code §65852.2 (a) (2). 15 Even if it were determined that assisted living units are housing units for purposes of the housing cap, previously approved assisted living units would not be counted towards the housing cap, since initiatives (or any other policy or ordinance) are not usually applied retroactively, unless specifically stated. i6 As of January 2007, there was a potential for 2,755 units left under the housing cap. Reducing this by 240 units for CLC would leave 2,515; reducing it instead by the fu11636 units for CLC would leave 2,119 units. Moreover, any of these numbers would be reduced by the number of building permits that have been issued between January 2007 and now. 7