ReportWire

Tag: housing element

  • Realtor-Backed Group Challenges City of Orange Housing Plan

    Realtor-Backed Group Challenges City of Orange Housing Plan

    [ad_1]

    The Realtor-backed Californians for Homeownership has challenged a state-approved housing plan from the City of Orange that includes thousands of homes in areas off-limits to residential development.

    The Los Angeles-based nonprofit filed a lawsuit seeking a court order that Orange revise its “housing element” plan, alleging the city included mall parking lots and other parcels with deed restrictions that forbid housing, the Orange County Register reported.

    Californians for Homeownership, backed by the California Association of Realtors, has filed 21 lawsuits challenging local housing plans throughout the state, including Beverly Hills, Fullerton, La Cañada Flintridge, Claremont and La Mirada.

    The prohousing group accused Orange of including nine encumbered parcels in its housing plan without proof that their current uses will end by the end of the decade.

    The sites account for 3,211 of the 3,936 new homes in the city’s eight-year housing blueprint hrough 2029. At least 1,671 of those homes must be affordable for low-income residents.

    “The city’s housing element relies on non-vacant sites to satisfy over 50 percent of the city’s lower-income (housing goals),” the lawsuit states. “The city did not (provide) substantial evidence that (the existing) uses are likely to be discontinued.”

    The lawsuit contends that the city must prove those sites truly can be redeveloped before the current plan expires in October 2029.

    “I don’t know whether these sites are good or bad. What I do know is that the city has not produced the evidence … to demonstrate whether or not (the parcels are) good or bad,” said Matthew Gelfand, an attorney for Californians for Homeownership. “And without that evidence, that housing element is not substantially compliant with state law.”

    State housing officials had raised questions about the Orange plan over deed restrictions on some Orange sites last spring, but approved the plan after city officials provided “additional owner outreach (and) updated analysis,” according to state records reviewed by the Register.

    The sites include parking lots at the Outlets of Orange mall at 20 City Boulevard West, subject to a recorded declaration maintaining them as parking lots through 2047.

    They include parcels at the City Town Center 3743 West Chapman Avenue that a recorded declaration commits to retail for 65 years.

    They also include parcels at the Stadium Promenade and Century Stadium shopping center and cinema at 1701 West Katella Avenue now subject to covenants barring residential use through 2044.

    Orange City Attorney Mike Vigliotta declined to comment about ongoing litigation, as did a spokesman for the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

    Before the state certified the city’s housing plan on Jan. 2, developers filed four applications seeking to build 696 homes under builder’s remedy, a state housing loophole that allows developers to bypass zoning rules in cities that haven’t certified their plans if they contain at least 20 percent affordable housing.

    The builder’s remedy applications include a proposal by Integral Communities to build 209 townhomes and granny flats behind the Village of Orange mall.

    They also include a proposal by Stonefield Development to build 138 apartments in 11 three-story buildings, plus a self-storage building at the “Chapman-Yorba” site along Santiago Creek.

    Milan REI X , an affiliate of Milan Capital Management, pitched a builder’s remedy plan to build 118 townhomes at the Mara Brandman Horse Arena on East Santiago Canyon Boulevard. It also filed a similar application to build 231 houses, townhomes and apartments at the Sully-Miller sand and gravel quarry.

    City planners have pushed back with laundry lists of corrections needed for those projects. In three of those plans, the city still requires developers to get a zoning change and general plan amendment despite the builder’s remedy provision in state housing law.

    The city’s assertion is similar to those struck down by Los Angeles County judges in builder’s remedy cases filed against the cities of Los Angeles and La Cañada Flintridge.

    “Right now, they’re saying that we still need to file a zone change and a general plan amendment,” John Stanek, a partner at Newport Beach-based Integral Communities, told the Register. “My legal team’s preparing a response.”

    — Dana Bartholomew

    Read more

    [ad_2]

    TRD Staff

    Source link

  • Rancho Palos Verdes Approves Housing Plan Two Years Late

    Rancho Palos Verdes Approves Housing Plan Two Years Late

    [ad_1]

    Rancho Palos Verdes has approved a new draft of its state-required housing plan, more than two years after the city blew its deadline.

    The upscale South Bay city approved a plan to build 647 homes by 2029, despite pushback from residents concerned about density, traffic and local control, the Torrance Daily Breeze reported. 

    The deadline to get the “housing element” plan approved by state regulators was Oct. 15, 2021. Each city and county is required every eight years to create the blueprint to rezone for a specific housing goal. 

    The failure to get its plan certified leaves Rancho Palos Verdes open to the builder’s remedy, a legal loophole in state housing law that allows developers to bypass local zoning with projects that meet affordable housing thresholds.

    Builders have triggered the remedy in cities from Redondo Beach to the Bay Area that have failed to certify their housing plans.

    Rancho Palos Verdes has grappled with its required update requiring more low-to-moderate housing for some time, according to the Breeze.

    “Most California cities have struggled mightily in this particular round of the housing element,” Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Pro Tem Eric Alegria told a room packed full of constituents.

    “I hear a lot of passion from our speakers, understandably,” he said. “We are all passionate about our homes — (and) we can all agree that housing is needed, in general. (But) I also agree that promoting housing alone does not solve homelessness as a singular tactic.” 

    For elected officials and residents alike, the major concern was having to plan for apartments in an upscale city of mostly single-family homes.

    Mayor John Cruikshank expressed sympathy with many in the audience.

    “The onslaught of Sacramento continues and there’s not much we can do about this until we change Sacramento,” Cruikshank said. Rancho Palos Verdes, he added, is “about low density; we are about single-family homes.”

    “We’re all frustrated by this process and all five of us up here get that.”

    — Dana Bartholomew

    Read more

    [ad_2]

    TRD Staff

    Source link

  • Up to 89% of California Cities and Counties May Miss Deadline to Update Local Housing Plans

    Up to 89% of California Cities and Counties May Miss Deadline to Update Local Housing Plans

    [ad_1]

    Application Deadline for Non-Competitive Grant Is Less than Three Months Away and over 400 Cities and Counties Have Not Begun the Required Application

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Sep 12, 2019


    PASADENA, Calif., September 12, 2019 (Newswire.com)
    –
    “Ending homelessness in California will require all cities and counties to have plans for creating not only affordable housing, but permanent supportive housing,” says the Hub for Urban Initiatives, a nonprofit that helps shape local California housing plans and writes HUD grants for several southern California cities and counties resulting in tens of millions of dollars in funding each year for affordable housing.

    “The state is offering $165 million in non-competitive funding to create those plans, meaning funds are guaranteed if jurisdictions apply and meet grant guidelines. As of today, though, only 58 of California’s 538 cities and counties have completed applications for the all-but-guaranteed funding. Another 72 have begun applications; 408 have not begun at all; and time is running out.”

    According to a map created by the Hub for Urban Initiatives for https://HomelessStrategy.com, more than three-fourths of California continuums of care counted more persons as homeless in 2019 than 2017. 

    Assembly Bill 2162, signed into law last September, states: “Streamlining and expediting the process of approving supportive housing applications will offer housing opportunities in communities with few or no opportunities to exit chronic homelessness.”

    The first step in the process of ending chronic homelessness is for every city and county to have an updated housing element for their general plans.  

    AB 2162 now requires all housing elements to approve permits for permanent supportive housing “by right,” meaning these buildings will be considered a residential use of property and only be subject to the same restrictions that apply to other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone.

    “The more permanent supportive housing, the fewer chronically homeless persons on the streets. Period,” says Joe Coletti, CEO of the Hub for Urban Initiatives, “Land use by right and funding to build are an unprecedented one-two punch California has never had before. Years ago shelters received land use by right but no funding, so nothing happened. Now we have funding to back up the zoning laws and actually build the kind of housing we need to end homelessness for people who have lived on the streets for years, and who are dying on the streets. But cities and counties that do not have an updated housing element in their general plan will not qualify for the funding to build. If they miss this deadline to get help updating their housing plans they will miss this window of opportunity to save lives and transform their towns and counties. It would be tragic.”

    California cities and counties must apply for the grant funding by Nov. 30. 

    To date the only jurisdictions awarded these planning grant funds are the cities of Banning, Folsom, Gonzalez, Long Beach, Monterey, Redlands, San Jacinto, Shasta Lake, and Woodland.

    Source: Hub for Urban Initiatives

    [ad_2]

    Source link