Montclair adopts emergency housing ordinance to meet state deadline, enabling ministerial approvals for affordable projects

Montclair — The City Council voted on April 23 to adopt Emergency Ordinance No. 26-1017-U, a housing facilitation measure intended to satisfy the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and avoid monthly penalties for delinquent housing-element actions. The ordinance takes effect immediately as an urgency measure.

City staff and legal counsel said the ordinance creates a ministerial (staff-level) approval path for residential or mixed-use projects that include at least 20% of units affordable to low-income households. It also sets a 20-dwelling-units-per-acre minimum density for affected corridors and designated "housing opportunity" sites, requires that at least 50% of the first-floor area of mixed-use projects be reserved for residential uses, and allows a narrow height bonus — up to two stories or roughly 25 feet — for projects that provide the 20% affordability set-aside.

The measure reflects HCD guidance that the city must adopt objective standards and processes to accelerate housing production. Housing Director Mikey Fuentes told council members the ordinance relies on objective design standards already used in Montclair’s North downtown specific plan and that the city’s previously certified environmental impact report (EIR) covers the ordinance’s scope.

Not all speakers supported the approach. A property owner who identified a parcel at 5093 Mission Boulevard as family-owned said rezoning and the city’s designation of that parcel as a housing opportunity site would force changes to long-held commercial property and objected to being required to provide housing on the site. The owner said his property had been C3 commercial for decades and asked the council to preserve its commercial status. Staff replied that the site’s current zoning ("neighborhood edge" under the corridors code) already permits both commercial and residential uses and that the location was identified as a potential housing site during the general-plan update; staff also noted an adjacent 54-unit project has received planning approval.

Council debate emphasized the tension between implementing state requirements and protecting local property interests. Council members asked whether the ordinance could be lawfully adopted as an urgency measure and whether the findings (public health, safety, and welfare) were adequately justified. Legal counsel replied that the government code requires a showing that immediate adoption furthers public health, safety or welfare and that the staff-prepared findings support the urgency action.

A motion to adopt Ordinance 26-1017-U and direct staff to progress the ordinance as a non-urgency item for subsequent readings passed by a four-vote majority; the transcript records four "yes" votes and one abstention. After adoption, staff said the ordinance will be taken to the planning commission and returned for regular council readings as a standard (non-urgency) ordinance.

Next steps: staff will publish the ordinance summary within 15 days as required and continue processing design standards and implementation rules with the planning commission. Council members and staff also discussed future opportunities to refine forms and process steps to reduce property-owner confusion and to provide additional outreach to affected property owners.