Planning commission recommends certifying housing-element EIR and rezoning program to meet RHNA

The Seal Beach Planning Commission voted 3–1 on motions recommending that the City Council certify the final environmental impact report and adopt zoning changes to implement the city’s sixth‑cycle housing element, which responds to a regional housing need allocation (RHNA) of 1,243 units. Commissioner Campbell voted no on both recommendations.

The recommendations cover a program that would identify eight “housing opportunity” sites, amend the zoning map and code, and create a new mixed‑use residential high‑density zone called MCRHD. Planning staff and two consultant teams — Stantec (environmental review) and Lisa Wise Consulting (rezoning and objective design standards) — presented the final EIR, the rezoning program and the code edits that would give the city “capacity” to meet the RHNA number. Sean (city staff) opened the presentation; Anna Radnich, Stantec, and Trevor Masinski, Stantec, described the EIR assumptions; and David Bergman and Monica Sidlick of Lisa Wise Consulting presented the proposed zone and objective design standards.

The EIR is programmatic in scope and includes both program‑level and site‑level assumptions, the consultants said. Trevor Masinski, principal in charge for the EIR, said: “The purpose of the environmental review is to inform, engage, and disclose information to the public,” and that the document tested a range of build‑out assumptions to give the city flexibility across the eight sites. Stantec and Lisa Wise described that the EIR totals roughly 1,800 pages and that it analyzed the proposed project along with reasonably foreseeable pipeline…