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Planning Commission Special Meeting Minutes March 25, 2010 Agenda No. 1 D-03 Page 16 of 20 • Affordable housing conservation • Special needs populations • Elimination of housing constraints • Fair housing Among 60 or so policies contained in the Housing Element Update Draft, Mr. Miller called attention to: • Continuing the focus on mixed income transit-oriented development • Supporting new market rate rental apartments and condominiums in the TOD area to meet workforce housing needs • Maintaining City policy to preserve industrial land for industry (i.e., no conversions to housing) • Encouraging continued rehabilitation of market rate rental apartments as affordable units • Avoiding potential displacement of renters in units with expiring subsidies by developing the necessary strategies • Recognizing second units (e.g., in-law apartments), mobile homes and manufactured homes as an important resource for low- and moderate-income residents and seniors What Mr. Miller said is probably the most important part of the updated document is the five=year action program. Without going through all 80 of the actions contained in the Housing Element Update, he highlighted the following: • Revisit San Leandro's Inclusionary Zoning ordinance to enhance its flexibility. • Amend zoning to allow emergency shelters by right (without a conditional use permit) in IL (Light Industrial) Districts (primarily around Alvarado and Williams Streets, west of the downtown BART station); State law requires provision for emergency shelter supported housing and transitional housing without a use permit. • Increase mixed use zoning on Washington Street (between downtown and San Leandro Boulevard) and the northern part of MacArthur Boulevard (from the Oakland border to Dutton Avenue); the General Plan already identifies those corridors as mixed use, but the zoning remains commercial, which has relatively low density and floor area ratios (FAR). • Proceed with TOD planning at Bayfair, similar to what was done around the downtown BART station. • Update condo conversion rules; increase fees to align more closely with other cities in the area. • Consider adjustments to long-term affordability requirements; for instance, perhaps introducing a sliding scale governing terms of rental rehabilitation. • Develop homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing strategy based on federal program enacted in 2009. • Address issues of densities in the north area (currently about half the permitted densities in the south area, along East 14th Street) and FARs with appropriate Zoning Code amendments. Since the Planning Commission considered the Housing Element Update Draft that Mr. Miller presented in February 2009, the document has been strengthened and revised to incorporate public comments, specific input from Urban Habitat, Congregations Organized for Renewal (COR) and HCD, which provided its comments on the draft it received in June. Several of HCD's requirements centered more attention to extremely low income (ELI) households (i.e., those with less than 30% of the area-wide median income). These included quantifying the ELI needs, setting targets and committing funding. HCD also wanted San