Council directs staff to pursue Columbus Parkway rezoning to satisfy housing-element site requirement

Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Suzanne Thorson presented two options to meet Housing Element Program 2.04’s requirement to identify capacity for 75 lower-income units in targeted northwest-area census tracts. Option 1 would rezone a portion of the Hastings Open Space site; staff said that parcel has topographic and biological constraints, likely requires an EIR, and would take roughly 18–24 months with an estimated rezoning cost of about $440,000. Option 2 would upzone a Columbus Parkway parcel already carrying a mixed-use zoning maximum and would require a smaller amendment and limited additional environmental analysis; staff estimated a timeline up to 9 months and project costs around $85,000.

Councilmembers asked technical questions about how Housing and Community Development credits capacity (staff explained the state process treats identified capacity as incremental and a rezoning must add the net 75 units). Staff said the Columbus site had been analyzed in the programmatic EIR for the housing element and would likely need limited supplemental work to support the rezoning. The council voted unanimously to direct staff to focus on the Columbus Parkway rezoning and to return with the necessary findings and a budget amendment to initiate the work.