Planning Commission recommends council adopt housing element amendments tied to settlement with Housing Action Coalition

The San Mateo Planning Commission on Jan. 28 voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council adopt amendments to the city’s 2023–31 Housing Element, changes intended to implement a settlement with the Housing Action Coalition and to secure final certification from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

Principal planner Steve Golden told the commission the housing element documents a plan to accommodate San Mateo’s regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) of 7,015 units and includes 53 policies and roughly 150 implementation actions. Golden said recent code and policy changes — including higher administrative approval thresholds for projects, objective design standards, ADU amendments, and other zoning updates — along with pipeline applications, increased realistic capacity estimates and a larger buffer for RHNA.

Golden said the city and the Housing Action Coalition reached a settlement that removed several sites from the sites inventory and permitted recalculating site capacities using higher densities where justified. "We agreed to amend the housing element to remove certain sites from the site's inventory," Golden said. Staff presented a sites inventory that, excluding no-net-loss sites, totals 7,362 opportunity units (about 230% of the remaining RHNA after accounting for pipeline projects and projected ADUs).

The amendments include removing seven specified sites from the inventory, retaining several property-owner-requested sites in the inventory but excluding them from the no-net-loss calculation, and adding new pipeline projects and the former Marriott site on Amfleet Boulevard as a housing opportunity site. Staff explained that HCD responded that the amendments are in substantial compliance pending council adoption and emphasized demonstration of realistic capacity; the staff used a 90% realistic-capacity assumption supported by recent higher-density pipeline proposals.

Commissioners asked about whether the housing element is a "living document," the potential consequences of not meeting RHNA targets, and specific policy changes. Staff and the director said adoption and HCD certification would largely resolve outstanding litigation per the settlement and that the implementation actions would continue. Commissioner Bush asked staff to highlight a proposed change to Policy H1.2 (allowing flexibility on the 20% set-aside for affordable housing during budget deficit conditions); several commissioners suggested staff emphasize that policy change in materials to council.

A commissioner moved to recommend that the council adopt the housing element amendments and find the amendments categorically exempt under the common-sense exemption; after a second, roll call recorded a unanimous 5–0 vote to forward the amendments to the City Council for adoption and HCD certification.