Piedmont leaders are staring down a formidable task in figuring out how the city will accommodate almost 600 new housing units in the next decade as part of a regional housing plan.
And during a community workshop over Zoom Tuesday night, 70 participants talked about and listened to strategies to make those numbers a reality. No one was under the illusion it would be easy, or that anything less than supreme creativity will be needed to overcome major obstacles, including a dearth of “vacant” — unused for any purpose — parcels of land in this small, mostly built-out city.
Andy Madeira, CEO of the Oakland-based East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, told attendees of Tuesday’s “Doing Our Part: Affordable Housing in Piedmont” workshop that, if Piedmont is going to host sizeable multifamily structures, that the city will have to rezone some land now used for public purposes — parks, for instance — for such housing projects. Also, “building up,” apartments over existing commercial spaces or community centers, or even perhaps over the soon-to-be-built aquatic center buildings, should be options to be investigated.
“The possibilities do exist,” Madeira told attendees of Tuesday’s workshop, which was sponsored by the Piedmont Racial Equity Campaign and by the League of Women Voters of Piedmont.
Piedmont is underway with preparations for the sixth Association of Bay Area Governments’ Regional Housing Needs Allocation cycle, which covers 2023 through 2031. Every Bay Area city has been given a mandate for accommodating new housing units, and a number for such units it should plan for. Piedmont’s number is 587 new residences during that time period to add to the region’s housing stock – almost 10 times the number the city was mandated to prepare for in the fifth RHNA cycle, from 2015 through 2022. The city has to present its 2023-2031 plan, it’s “housing element,” by January 2023.
Panelists on Zoom Tuesday night said Piedmont will likely have to depend on a variety of measures to reach that 587 number. Many of them, they said, could depend on local, state and federal subsidies (available through various channels) to help pay for single-family houses to be split into two or more housing units, or for other housing development. Rezoning city-owned land, including parks (Blair Park was specifically mentioned as a potential site) for multifamily housing may well come into play, as well.
But building a housing complex specifically for people who work in Piedmont — city workers or teachers, for instance — and who couldn’t typically afford to live in the city would likely run afoul of state housing laws, Madeira said.
For part of Tuesday’s workshop, participants were broken into small groups, which were tasked with discussing how Piedmont could achieve the magic “587” number. Those in one breakout group found out quickly that options are limited, expensive and potentially time-consuming. Accessory dwelling units, which the city has encouraged as a way to increase housing stock, aren’t always rented out as separate residences. And cities don’t have the power to compel homeowners to rent out those ADUs.
Meeting housing mandates — AND making Piedmont more inclusive
But the Piedmont City Council has been forthright in declaring the importance of making the new housing numbers reality however it can, not only to meet regional housing mandates but to help make this city — long mostly high-income and mostly white — more inclusive racially and socio-economically. Local groups like the Piedmont Racial Equity Campaign have also been at the forefront of that effort, which they acknowledged Tuesday is a separate, if complimentary, mission from the city’s quest to meet the state mandates.
That Piedmont needs to do more to be a more inclusive community was driven home Tuesday night by Madeira, who said he looked up the most current rental units listed on Zillow. Eleven of the 12 rental units listed were going for anywhere from $2,200 to $7,500 a month, beyond the financial reach of most renters even in the “moderate-income” category, which in the Alameda/Contra Costa County area tops out at $115,080 a year.
“There’s more that we can do, and there’s more that we’re obligated to do,” Madeira said.
State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, challenged Tuesday night’s workshop attendees to “get connected” with the housing issue (going to fairhousingelements.org is a good start, she said) and to “speak up,” and tell elected officials like herself about local issues. It’s the local people, she said, who know what the local needs, problems and potential solutions are.
“It means we have to take action, and that we ALL have to take action,” she said.
The next City of Piedmont housing-related event is Thursday, Dec. 2, with Piedmont Housing Element Update Workshop No. 1, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
Images from Sam Richards | Contact Sam Richards at sam.richards4344@gmail.com
Hopefully as part of the Housing Element the city will do an analysis to see how many lots and area are eligible for SB9. Statewide numbers are probably an underestimate.
To Rick Schiller’s point – the newly signed SB9 opens up welcome opportunities for lot splitting and creation of duplexes. However it is only one tool in the toolkit, and won’t be enough. For starters, at the City’s last Housing event, David Bergman from Lisa Wise Consulting was asked about SB9 and said that it’s likely the state will not allow cities like Piedmont to count much of new SB9 capacity towards the RHNA, because the Housing Element requires that cities base their numbers on past production. (For example, we have to base our future estimates of ADU production on past ADU production.) He said it was likely we would be able to count new duplexes and lot splits toward our next Housing Element cycle (2031-39) based on production in the upcoming cycle (2023-31). The second limiting factor is that a UC Berkeley Terner Center study found that the effects of SB9 will actually be smaller than many people anticipate, because only about 5% of lots statewide would feasibly be eligible due to their physical characteristics. Also SB9 has owner occupancy and other requirements that further limit how many people will actually use it. Lastly, the new housing created through SB9 (and more broadly, duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes – if Piedmont chooses to change the zoning to allow these) will mostly be market rate and not help us in the areas that have traditionally been most challenging for the city to meet–the production of housing affordable to low and very-low-income families. To produce a truly diverse and inclusive range of housing, we will need to adopt an “all of the above” strategy that includes SB9, -plexes, ADUs, incentives for redevelopment in our mixed-use and multifamily zones, and new affordable multifamily housing.
Piedmont has a clear path to both be more inclusive and satisfy more than half the total 587 RHNA mandate imposed on the City with the building opportunities afforded by recently enacted SB-9 and commensurately retain the inherent attractive character of Piedmont which is of concern to many residents. We have yet to hear of the implementation of SB-9.