Photograph by Paul Myers

At a recent city study session, consultant Jeff Goldman explains a plan he helped craft to meet Saratoga's housing needs.




Path to housing solutions may include steps to alter zoning

By Oakley Brooks

An emerging plan for Saratoga to meet regional and local affordable housing goals includes significant changes in city zoning and building laws.

But those changes apparently would not conflict with the letter or spirit of the two Measure G referendums passed in recent years by voters intent on preserving the city's physical character.

One component of the plan that emerged in a joint city council-planning commission study session July 18 would allow mixing homes and businesses in the city's commercial zones. The city might also permit developers to add more total units to their residential developments, if a portion of those tracts is reserved for families earning income well under the county average. Also, the city wants to amend its code to legitimize more second, or "in-law," units, whether they are attached to homes or are located behind them.

Officials hope to gain additional affordable housing from the expanding Saratoga Retirement Community and by contributing to regional housing programs such as the Housing Trust of Santa Clara County, which recently received $25,000 from the city of Saratoga.

Regional solutions, ironically, will not help Saratoga meet its share of housing assigned this past spring by the Association of Bay Area Governments, a regional coalition of local governments. Under the association's direction, the city must develop a plan that allows 539 units to be built within the city by 2006 for residents of all incomes.

But involvement in regional housing programs will also strengthen Saratoga's overall plan to meet housing needs, which the city is looking to finalize and send to the state housing department by December 31.

For the state to approve Saratoga's housing plan--known as a housing element--it must meet needs determined both locally and regionally

"Those [regional] solutions will help us get a positive letter from the state," said Jeff Goldman, the city's consultant who drafted the recent plan to meet those housing needs.

After the city turns in its final draft to the state housing department in December, the state will review it and return it to Saratoga for amendments. Following those changes, if the state does not approve Saratoga's housing element, the city would have trouble competing for state and federal housing grants and would be vulnerable to legal complaints about inadequate housing.

A pending state legislature bill threatens to penalize non-compliant cities further by establishing compensation amounts for legal suits against those cities and by withholding state money that flows to those cities.

During the recent housing study session, city officials and citizens were as concerned about potential zoning changes within the city as they were about possible state penalties. Just minutes into Goldman's explanation of potential mixed-use development in commercial areas, City Councilman Evan Baker wondered aloud, "How do we move forward on this and still comply with Measure G?"

The original Measure G, passed in November 1996, required any change in density or use-intensity of a piece of land to be put to a public vote. The conversion of park lands to office buildings, for instance, would require the approval of Saratoga voters.

In November voters passed another Measure G, putting a one-year moratorium on residential development in the city's commercial districts.

City Attorney Richard Taylor assured officials and citizens that the first Measure G did not outlaw residential development in commercial areas. Community Development Director Tom Sullivan followed that comment with a pledge that any residential construction in commercial zones would result in no net loss of business space, which mirrors the intent of the most recent Measure G, set to expire in March 2002.

Citizens began to warm to the idea of putting more housing in commercial districts.

"It takes away the pressure to do hundreds of low-income, high density units," said resident Jeff Schwartz, who led the campaign to pass the first Measure G in 1996. "Maybe there's a silver lining in it for the Village, which has struggled as a retail center. It's never really reached a critical mass of people."

The city still has some wrinkles to work out in its plan. The proposal to approve two dozen or so second units as adequate housing would involve the city inspecting the units for minimum standards, such as sewer lines and parking spaces. Former Planning Commissioner Vic Monia told city officials that a program to approve second units in the early 1980s faltered because people were unwilling to voluntarily come forward and have what had been an illegal unit inspected.

The city is still not sure how it would amend the strict code requirements for second units to encourage residents to have those dwellings recognized as part of the city's affordable housing stock.

"It ain't perfect, so let's keep talking," said Councilwoman Ann Waltonsmith.

The next session for public comment and discussion on the housing element takes place August 22 at the regularly scheduled planning commission meeting.

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