Woodside council certifies EIR and adopts housing element after hours of public comment on wildfire risk and infrastructure

The Woodside Town Council on July 23 certified a program-level Environmental Impact Report and adopted the town's Cycle 6 housing element, including an HCD-recommended change to the town's ADU program, after more than four hours of presentations and public comment.

Town Manager Kevin introduced the meeting's housing-package items, telling the council it must adopt the housing element, support rezoning actions on four sites and certify an EIR in order to pursue HCD certification. "The council tonight is considering adoption of the town's housing element as part of its general plan, and the most critical implementing actions of that plan, the rezoning of four pieces of land to multifamily," Kevin said during his opening remarks.

Why it matters: the housing element is subject to state review and the town is past the statutory deadline; HCD has signaled that the town needs not only a draft housing element but the associated rezonings to avoid enforcement actions. The EIR is programmatic (not project-level), which means future development on the rezoned sites will require separate project-specific environmental review and public hearings.

The EIR team summarized its findings: the program-level EIR includes mitigation measures that reduce many impacts to less-than-significant, but it identifies significant and unavoidable impacts for greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). "Even after…