City moves ahead with plans for 587 housing units

City of Piedmont | Planning & Building eNewsletter excerpt

On May 3, the City Council approved a proposal from Lisa Wise Consulting (LWC) to update the Housing Element of the Piedmont General Plan. State requirements have challenged City officials to find sites and policies to promote the construction of 587 new houses and apartments by 2031. 

Costs and next steps

The next Housing Element policy document and associated General Plan amendments are estimated to cost $691,000, with $172,000 earmarked for public engagement and outreach, over the next 18 to 24 months. 

With approval of LWC as the lead housing consultant, the City moves forward with plans to meet the mandates set by the State of California, starting with meetings of the new Piedmont Housing Advisory Committee on May 19 and June 15, 2021. 

Results of Fair Housing Survey to be presented

The May 19 and June 15 Housing Advisory Committee meetings will feature results of the citywide fair housing survey and pinnable map, which closed April 15. LWC will present analysis of Piedmonters’ ideas, design preferences, and understanding of new housing laws, as well as recommendations for guiding principles for new ways to accelerate affordable housing production.

The Piedmont community is invited to attend. The agendas and instructions for participating in the Zoom meetings, which start at 5 pm, will be posted on the city website HERE. The May and June Housing Advisory Committee meetings will be televised live on KCOM-TV, the City’s government TV station, and will be available through streaming video HERE.

For more information and project updates, please visit the City of Piedmont’s web site at piedmont.ca.gov or email pmacdonald@piedmont.ca.gov.

7 thoughts on “City moves ahead with plans for 587 housing units

  1. The State Mandates (Regional Housing Needs Assessments or RHNA) imposed on Piedmont are a cookie-cutter approach to solve the state wide housing shortage. There is little if any concern about retaining the character of unique small cities such as Piedmont; it’s a numbers game. Piedmont can comply with the mandate by creative thinking as it has done to date.

    To comply with RHNA, the City has to create potential for significantly more housing. The challenge is to comply with legal requirements and commensurately retain the character of Piedmont. 95% of Piedmont homes are in Zone A which has an 8,000 lot size minimum for a single home. With about 3,850 homes in Piedmont, there are about 2,620 existing homes in Piedmont on lots smaller than 8,000 square feet (“sf”). There are homes in Piedmont on lots as small as 2,000 and 2,250 sf. There are about 420 existing homes or about 11% of the housing stock, on lots 4,000 sf or less.

    The intrinsic character of Piedmont can be maintained by lowering the minimum buildable lot size to 4,000 sf. Larger lots in Zone A can be subdivided without a cumbersome zoning variance each time and allow many more single family homes. Floor Area Restrictions (FAR) would remain which will limit the size of the homes making them relatively affordable, especially if ADUs are constructed commensurately. Apartment buildings are undesirable and creative solutions can be found.

  2. Those of us who live on streets radiating off of Moraga Blvd can barely get onto Moraga Ave as it is. The traffic on Moraga Ave is awful, especially at certain times of the day.

  3. Orwellian ‘doublethink’ in action. California’s population decreases for the first time ever and the state wants us to increase our housing density by 15%. This will ruin Piedmont.

    • Hi
      My balcony is 5” from my neighbor.s balcony. Piedmont has subdivided properties over and over again. Houses were build on the railroad track etc
      We have an in-law unit but officially a bathroom could not be added according to the city, because there was no parking on the street. Why is the city not asking how many of these units are available, before we build more.
      People are moving out of California.Last year 84.000 Californians moved to Texas alone. I tried to find answers on the web and it looks to me that 130.000 more are moving out of California than moving into the state. Another problem is that we do not have enough water.

      • Have you tried asking to add that bathroom recently? The parking space/ADU addition rules have been substantially softened!

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