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Portola Valley has finished revising its housing plan with hopes this version finally passes muster with state officials.
The plan, published on Dec. 1, is the town’s fourth stab for a compliant housing element after the previous attempts fell short. Portola Valley aims to show the state that the town has strengthened its housing strategies involving accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, and potential development sites, among other issues.
Like many other jurisdictions locally and statewide, Portola Valley has struggled with how to comply with its state Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) requirements for the 2023-31 cycle. The state has mandated Portola Valley plan for 253 new units in its housing element during this current cycle — up considerably from the 64 in the last eight-year period.
Mayor Jeff Aalfs said in an email that the last draft submitted to the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in May was a result of a long, robust public process that sought to satisfy the state’s conditions while trying to preserve the town’s character.
“The May submission reflected the input of a broad swath of our town and involved compromises,” the mayor said. “The new draft was modified to respond to HCD’s comments with as few changes as possible, and I hope to approve and resubmit it in January after another round of commentary.”
In a July letter responding to the May draft, HCD told Portola Valley that while its housing element addressed many concerns the town still needed to come up with revisions that would make the plan comply with the RHNA program.
The new draft does incorporate the changes necessary to bring the Housing Element “into substantial compliance,” town Interim Planning and Building Director Jon Biggs said in a memorandum to Portola Valley leaders and residents.
One of the areas Portola Valley had to revisit pertains to ADUs, which the town identified as a way to increase its housing numbers. The state wanted Portola Valley to have a back-up approach if its ADU growth would turn out slower than projected.
A summary of the changes in the new draft points out that the town would “consider additional efforts to incentivize ADU production and reassess and revise the overall sites strategy” in the event of a potential significant shortfall.
The town would adjust “ADU capacity assumptions with actual permitted units and/or (identify) additional sites for consideration to expand site capacity,” the summary said.
Another key revision applies to The Sequoias retirement community and Christ Church as development sites. HCD told the town that it had to have programs monitoring the effectiveness of housing efforts and improved incentives for affordability at these sites.
To that end, the summary said, the new housing element calls for the town to “work with property owners and maintain annual communication with program members to assess their progress and provide technical assistance.”
If in 2027 the number of units at these sites is not keeping up with projections, the summary said, the town will look for additional incentives to promote housing production there.
The revised plan also addresses HCD’s request for the town to install strong efforts encouraging and facilitating low-income housing development at the Dorothy Ford Park and Open Space site.
The town’s tactics for that include doing outreach with affordable-housing developers, reducing development fees and potentially offering a ground lease at a nominal rate, the summary said.
The town Planning Commission is expected to go over the revamped housing element during its meeting Dec. 20. The Town Council will take it up next before Portola Valley needs to file the updated plan with HCD by the end of January.
View the plan at tinyurl.com/PVhousingrevise.
