There has been a lot of good discussion of housing in Portola Valley, both related to our intrinsic needs, and more-urgently the requirements that the state has placed on our town to create new, and affordable, housing.
The problem is over-constrained, our town staff is over-worked, and the committee of 14 volunteers who signed up to help us thread the needle have tried to do their best.
As far as I know:
* Our town’s Ad-hoc Housing Element Committee is a group of volunteers who have no legislative or executive power at all.
* They have been given the incredibly-hard task of finding sites for around 300 potential housing units (253 + 20% buffer) while keeping everyone happy.
* The estimate is that about 120 of those could happen organically as ADUs (based on past experience), leaving us with 180.
* We (us, as in the town) hired a consultant to help identify plausible sites for the remainder.
* They came up with 7 options (A-G) that are all a matter of public record (and have been) and were discussed.
* Most of the options didn’t provide big numbers, so the committee was looking at a couple that did (lot splits & higher-density residential zoning in 4 areas — Alpine from Ladera up, Glen Oaks, Nathorst, and “Village Square”)
* One reason for that is that the State has thrown us a curveball that about 1/4 of our new units have to be quite a bit below market rate (meaning that a family with a 70K income has to afford them) [Side note about what that means for market rate]
* Reasonably, the committee was planning to suggest those recommendations as a proposal to the town government, since there were few other options.
* Because this was an ad-hoc committee of volunteers with no actual power, they didn’t have a legal requirement to, nor think of, noticing those with directly affected parcels, or those with nearby parcels. Which obviously has gotten quite a few people quite mad.
* Even if the committee voted on the recommendations, they would only be just that. An idea to be presented to the Town Council and residents for open hearings and official votes.
Once the proposal was floated, and before it even came up for a non-binding vote, a couple (few) flies appeared in the ointment:
* The re-zoning to R-3 of Nathorst and Village Square might be a business-threatening issue for some of our local businesses. That’s tricky, but so far is being handled pretty-rationally, including our businesses working to have a voice in our housing decisions.
* There has been some gnashing of teeth over the state not wanting all BMR housing in the same place, but since 4 different areas have been identified, I haven’t seen why that is an issue.
* The state, apparently, wants towns to target un-developed areas (from what I gather). That throws a curve ball into the mix. Frankly, we have an amazing Attorney in Cara Silver, and our town has a solid knowledge of what is needed in Sacramento. So I don’t believe we will ever submit a plan that isn’t likely to be approved. So if we need to find new sites, we need to find new sites.
In short, I’m sure there will be many changes, no matter what. But I credit the ad-hoc Committee for doing some mostly-thankless work trying to solve a hard problem.
Ultimately, no town body with actual authority has proposed any zoning changes, there have been a large number of public meetings, will have many more when actual changes are proposed, and we have a hard problem to solve in a really-compressed timeline given to us by the state.
I’m hoping we can focus on the situation and our options, because we have a strong history as a town of doing the right thing. More importantly, I hope we can support each other as a community. — Dave Cardinal