In a split vote, Saratoga’s planning commission recommended that the city council approve new housing development policies that reduce opportunities for public input, drawing pushback from community members and planning commissioners alike.
The 4-3 vote, among other things, approved a new process for the review of construction projects that are larger than 250 square feet. The new review process also applies to the addition or expansion of a second story and the addition of more than 50% of floor area to a building.
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The planning commission’s Jan. 22 decision was in response to state officials’ efforts to encourage new housing. The move came as part of the city’s ongoing efforts to implement its housing element – a recently approved plan for all new housing to be built in the city by 2031. State housing officials have in recent years sought to remove barriers to building housing and encourage local governments to facilitate the development of more housing in response to the region’s growing housing crisis.
Part of that effort has manifested in the controversial “builder’s remedy” – a provision of state law that allows developers to begin building housing projects that may not align with local zoning rules in cities that don’t have an approved housing element. Since Saratoga, along with several other cities in the area, was late to getting its housing element approved, it received over a dozen “builder’s remedy” projects, that have drawn ire from community members who are worried that the new projects will disrupt the city’s rural, small-town feel.
Spokespeople for the consulting firm the city hired to assist with the implementation of these new policies said at the meeting that the idea was to remove subjectivity from the approval process, and instead identify objective standards for new developments to expedite the permitting and approval process.
Planning commissioners solidified their list of objective design standards at the meeting, including limitations on building height and the amount of off-street parking for residential units.
Projects that meet the objective design standards would go straight to city staff for approval. Neighbors would not be notified, and the city’s planning commission would not be involved.
Commissioners largely agreed that they wanted to maintain some sort of notification process for new developments despite the new policy, to ensure that neighbors could at least be in the loop about changes to their neighborhood even if they couldn’t always intervene. They added the qualification that neighbors within 500 feet of the site of a proposed development should be notified of the proposal within 15 days of its submission.
“By taking away all the processes, public hearing plus the commission review, I think we don’t give a chance to our residents to give their views to any new application and project design,” Commissioner Herman Zheng said at the meeting.
Despite his concerns, Zheng voted to recommend approval of the policy changes along with Paul Germeraad, Ping Li and Commission Chair Jonathan Choi. Clinton Brownley, Razi Mohiuddin and Vice Chair Anjali Kausar voted against the recommendation.
About 20 community members spoke against the proposed policy at the planning commission meeting, either in person, via Zoom or in a written public comment.
“We are disgusted with the state forcing additional housing on us,” resident Ray Froess wrote. “Now they want to hide it from us until it’s too late to stop.”
