Not physical chairs, but people who chair the meeting. And once a chair arrives to chair the meeting, hopefully in the next five minutes, we'll begin. We have a vice chair because our chair is stuck in traffic. And we'll be here in about ten minutes. We can start. I'll take it. Madam Vice Chair, since it's a study session, a quorum is not required. So, Madam Vice Chair, take it away. When you're ready. Good evening everyone. Thank you. And welcome to our special meeting. Study session today. My name is Lisa Bickford. I'm the vice chair of the Planning commission. I already said welcome. Please remember to turn off your cell phones. And if you could, please, when you're speaking, pull the mic close to you so that it can be transcribed properly. I'd like to do roll call this evening. I'll start with the Planning Commission. The chair, Rosario is not here yet. Hopefully he will be here with us shortly. Commissioner. Barocio here. Commissioner Vandal here. Welcome. Commissioner Cantrell. Commissioner Cowell, Commissioner Kasey here. Commissioner Escobar here. Commissioner Nguyen here. Commissioner. Oliverio, I thought I saw him and. Commissioner. Yeah. Thank you. I'd like to also check in the Housing Commission members. Chair Navarro is apparently not here yet. Commissioner Buckholtz here. Commissioner Cordella, you're saying that right? Yes. Commissioner Ezra. Commissioner Finn here. Mr. Huang, Commissioner Jasinski. Commissioner mock here. Commissioner Moore. Commissioner. Maud. Commissioner. Yes, yes. Sorry. It says here on my piece of paper. I apologize, Commissioner Salazar. Commissioner Spearman and Commissioner Carlos Medrano here. Thank you very much. Did you note that Commissioner Mock was here because I didn't. Did you hear your commissioner? Thank you. Okay, so we are calling. This special meeting and study session order. Do we need to do the pledge here? We have no flag. Okay. All right. So we're here for the housing element. Annual progress report and Housing Catalyst team work plan. The presentation on the 2025 Housing Element Annual progress Report and Housing Catalyst Team Work Plan. This annual report provides updated information on the progress on the six cycle Housing Element, housing production towards our regional housing needs, allocation and progress on the programs outlined in chapter three of the Housing Element. And who am I handing off to. Here? Vice chair? Thank you, thank you. Let me share my screen here. Jared Ferguson, principal Planner with the Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement, and I will be presenting tonight with Sarah Fields, deputy director of the Housing Department. So as you noted, this is a joint session of both commissions. So this is the first time we're trying this. Typically we have brought this item kind of individually to both commissions. So we thought this year we would try having this joint meeting and as a as a new way to sort of inform both commissions and have a discussion. So we will be talking to you tonight, as noted about our Housing Catalyst team work plan, our progress report on our on our six cycle housing element. Okay, so just for some some background, some of you may be aware, but I know there are new members, I think on both commissions. So our Housing Catalyst team dates back to 2018, as the city started to really put a focus on our housing crisis and start to think about how we could be more proactive and really work collaboratively across across city departments on the complex policy issues of housing. And so we formed this this team, which is composed of staff from planning, building and code enforcement, our housing department, our Department of our Office of Economic Development, Cultural Affairs, Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, as well as our other key staff members in the City Manager's office and others. And really to kind of collaborate and work on the complex issues in the city. And so that was started in our last housing element cycle. And so as we started to prepare six cycle housing element, we wanted to continue that work. And really that that synergy that we had formed through that team. And so we built in a lot of elements of our previous housing crisis work plan into the new housing element six cycle housing element. And so when the housing element was adopted by city council in June of 2023, we also established and created the first Housing Catalyst team work plan. As part of that, it was really meant to sort of highlight the key work that we were doing for the housing element and other housing items as a way to show what's being worked on actively or what we're about to start. Housing element itself stretches eight years, really. What's in the next year and the current year? What we're working on. So we had adopted housing element in June of 2023. We looked to January of 2024 certification from the state of our six cycle housing element. And so the last two years, we've had these annual status reports on Housing Catalyst work plan to both both commissions, as well as the City Council's Committee on Economic Development. And then it follows in March with a report on our Housing Element progress report. And then that progress report is due every April 1st to the state HCD. So to kind of take you through where we're at in terms of our regional housing needs allocation progress, and this is really tracking kind of the actual housing production in our housing element arena cycle, our six cycle. So it's tracked by calendar year. So as a reminder, there are eight years in in the planning cycle in the six cycle. So this spans from 2023 to 2031. So we're in the third year now. And so units are tracked when building permits are issued. So that's typically when construction starts on new housing units. And when we kind of get credit against what our goals are. So we're assigned a goal over that eight year period, a total number of units. The city was assigned 62,200 over that period, broken into these four categories very low income, low income, moderate income and above moderate income housing. So this is looking at the calendar year goal. So the bar is in orange are the kind of the one eighth total of that 62,000 number. What we should ideally be achieving in one year to achieve the total eight year goal. And then the bars in blue are the numbers, the actual numbers we saw in the last calendar year produced in terms of number of units permitted. So you can see there how our performance was something to note. So the very low and low income, those are the restricted units. The affordable units that are restricted moderate above moderate are non- restricted units. Kind of given where the rents were and the methodology given to us by the state, a lot of the units that are market rate units were able to be counted in the moderate income category this year. So that's why you see that blue bar pretty significant through some of the programs we talked about have been successful in seeing some some projects move forward in the last calendar year. Obviously not. Not where ideally we want to be, but continue to try to do everything we can to try to make progress. And so next slide here. This shows our overall progress. So from 2023 until the present. So the three year progress again the orange bars are sort of the overall goal. So you can see the 62,200 number there in the 200 and the total allocation and then the blue bars there. What we've actually performed in the six cycle. So just kind of comparing ourselves to other large jurisdictions across the state, taking a look at 2023 and 2024, since we don't have their 2025 data yet, but looking at how progress has been made across the state. No city is performing, you know, kind of where they should be or where the expectations were, even accounting for where various cities are at in their arena. Progress. Since the six cycle starts at different times based upon what region of the state you're in, kind of looking at our regional peers, San Francisco and Oakland, we are somewhat ahead of those, but those cities within our region are still behind other regions of the city in terms of of volume of performance. So getting into some of the actual policy work items, our Housing Catalyst work plan, highlighting some work items that we've completed in the last calendar year. And so just to orient you on how these are referenced as well, the letter and number in parentheses, you see here that's referring to the letter and number of the program in in the housing element. So item P11 was allowing additional types of housing or SB9 type housing and other areas where SB9 didn't allow that type of housing. So in historic areas and in R-2 zoning, that's what the emphasis of this work was on. And then another work item, P42. And this was making some zoning ordinance changes around group homes for seven or more in single family neighborhoods. Kind of a very technical one, but important program in our housing element. These were both completed in January. So just a month ago, the final approval by city council was done and zoning changes did go through planning commission as well. So you heard this earlier, I think in December or November. And then additionally P15, our moderate income housing strategy was adopted by the City Council Community Economic Development Committee in May of last year. So getting into some highlights about what work we worked on last year and continue to work on this year, obviously a big emphasis, as many of you are well aware, for for planning around housing Element and Housing Catalyst work plan is our General Plan for your review, and the goals of that are really to advance key policy programs in our six cycle housing element and to prepare ourselves for anticipating the seventh cycle housing element, and that work that'll have to be completed by January of 2031. That new Housing element document. So some of the big work items contained in the six cycle housing element that are part of our Housing Catalyst work plan, our P35, our small multifamily housing program. So this is looking at allowing potentially 4 to 10 units in lower density areas of the city that do not currently allow that type of housing. And additionally, P40 evaluating urban village planning process. So this is looking at ways to streamline our urban village planning process to potentially unlock more sites for housing that don't currently allow it. And as the Task Force and Planning Commission is aware, these are items that we have discussed or we'll be discussing for for small multifamily. In fact, this will be the topic of our discussion at the next task force meeting next Wednesday. So these are all programs that we're actively working on through this four year review process that are embedded in our housing element, that are kind of crucial to to the policies and strategies we commit in housing Element. And the General Plan task force is started meeting in last or last October, and we'll complete that work by June of 2026. So going into some of the more specific programs, when the state approved our housing element in January of 2024, you know, there's 130g and strategies in that. But in the letter that they certified our housing element, they specified some specific programs that they would be monitoring for compliance, as we did our annual progress reports. And so this is a list of those programs that were named explicitly in that letter. So the first two are city infill housing Approval Ordinance or P7. That was completed I think December before last. And that provides a new streamlined approval pathway for housing in urban village growth areas. And we actually had our first project entitled through that process last year. So that item is complete, our housing Balance report I for was one that they mentioned that was completed previously before. This is around providing additional affordable housing tools for North San José, kind of beyond what we've already done there in terms of the overlays where we allow new sites to allow for mixed income housing projects and low income housing. We've done some evaluation of this, and I think our, our, our conclusion at this point is that based on kind of the factors, it doesn't really make sense or that other tools would not be successful in sort of spurring more affordable housing present environment, but something that we want to continue to evaluate based upon annual cost of development report P9 is around encouraging affordable housing production in the Diridon station area. That continues to be an ongoing effort through through various programs and policies. We talked about our small multifamily housing program. That was one that they specifically identified and mentioned. And then also, as I just talked about our evaluation of our urban village planning process, and the last one, P41 is somewhat technical, but important is revising our planning permit conditions to make sure that they comply fully with the state law around objectivity. And so we anticipate completing that by the fall of this year. That will be coming through through Planning Commission as well, since it will involve changes to the zoning ordinance. And I will pass it to Sarah now to. So good evening, commissioners. My name is Sarah Fields. Thank you. Jared, I serve as one of three deputy directors of the Housing Department and work with our Housing and Community Development Commission. So continue forward. This is a look at market conditions and frankly, the need for incentive programs because of those conditions. So this is probably obvious to most of you. But just to level set, the housing market remains very high priced and competitive. Recently we have seen moderate. And I want to stress the word moderate price softening. After several years of rapid growth. That being said, affordability challenges persist amid high baseline prices and continued limited inventory, of course, which we're trying to increase inventory through this process, but nonetheless limited inventory continues, which is in part due to the high cost of development you all are invited to review. We did a cost of development, cost of development, I should say, study session with City Council in December of last year. That really dives into some of the challenges there. All that being said, there are two programs that have just been extended by our city council as of January 27th. Both of these programs are intended to encourage development. Despite these challenges, through the lowering, reducing, I should say, or elimination of certain fees and taxes for development, multifamily Housing Incentive Program targets particular areas across the entirety of the city, and the Downtown residential Incentive Program is the name of obviously implies it's focused on the downtown and also now includes in addition to new construction also includes the conversion of office buildings into housing. If any of you have looked outside in our downtown lately and noticed the scaffolding on the Bank of Italy building, that is our prime example of an office to housing conversion. So next, this is a fairly useful but complicated. So I'll walk you through it. Graph of the housing continuum across the city of San José. To orient a little bit. The blue is for the city service area around neighborhood services and education. And the orange is around community and economic development within that service area. So on the far right you see home ownership, sort of the high end of the housing continuum, and then sort of working your way towards the left, subsidized homeownership and then market rate rental units and rent stabilized units from the apartment rent ordinance units, then rent stabilized and restricted. So deed restricted, and then you get into permanent supportive housing units. Then you see kind of within this framework here, these are really all of the different kinds of shelter and supportive units that are for people experiencing homelessness within our city. And then we see certain elements that are city focused and certain elements that are that are county provided. So see interim housing units that are temporary, then board and care. That's county congregate shelter. That's also county safe sleeping and safe parking sites. And then the motel based programs, all within that sort of section around homeless services within the city and the county. And then to the left of that, we see this would be an unsheltered homelessness encampment. Resolution. Individuals living in vehicles, outreach, and then at the far left, sort of its own other section, which is preservation of Units and prevention of homelessness. From the start. So we're back to the sort of interesting numbering and lettering system of our housing element. So these are the key areas around preservation and anti- displacement. First, preservation and development building. So really working to to make sure that city staff and contracted neighborhood organizations and community organizations are able to really serve the needs around development and preservation. Preservation from keeping people in their homes to making sure that naturally occurring, affordable and do restricted affordable units are remaining safe to inhabit and live in. And that gets us to our next bullet point. Preservation. Preservation Nofa the notice of funding availability. So funding unit preservation to make sure that that those units stay habitable, which is also leads us to a more specific program, which is the Soft Story program. On January 27th. It was a big day. It was housing day at the City council. Our council approved $1.6 million for an initial soft story investment, and we recently also got a congressional earmark of another $2 million from Congressmember Liccardo for Soft Story. So Soft Story is essentially a small multifamily buildings that have what look like carports on their first floor. Those need retrofitting to withstand earthquakes prior to the building code changes in the early 1990s, these were not built to withstand earthquakes. Now they are. But most of the buildings in question here were built in the in the 1960s and 1970s. So they do require this retrofitting. And that's something we're trying to address more and more eviction prevention activities through our rent stabilization program. We offer a variety of education and services both to landlords and tenants around eviction prevention, as well as going to court when a lawful eviction is going through the legal process. We've established the Tenant Preference Ordinance and which which helps to select tenants for for new construction with a local preference, a local preference defined by council, district. So just the three newly added items to to reference the inclusionary housing ordinance was updated by the City Council again on January 27th. There was several amendments, several changes made to the inclusionary housing ordinance, but just to briefly orient the inclusionary housing is the inclusion of deed restricted affordable housing within market rate development. It generally includes about 15%. There's a of different ways to get towards compliance. I think the last time I asked staff, it was 12 or 13 different pathways to compliance. So I'm not going to get into each one. But generally it's it's building on site. There's an option to build off site or to pay in lieu fees, but it's really our strong preference to get the units built and to get them built on site. So we've tried to encourage that in in the new ordinance. Second was the Mobile Home Rent Ordinance. It came before council on January 27th. There was an adoption of state laws to the acceptance, of course, of state laws and the alignment of the Mobile Home Ordinance with state law and the direction for staff to return towards the end of this calendar year. After extensive community outreach with program updates on the Mobile Home Rent ordinance. So stay tuned for that. And then third and lastly, linking land to capital. So there are currently just under 32,000 units that are entitled in City of San José. And we have done a feasibility analysis on those units and determined roughly a third of them are are financially feasible at this time. And that's based again on the cost of development study that was done in December and looking for further analysis there. So there'll be more information around looking at feasibility and really what's possible to get built at this time. And so you'll be able to see that report in the coming months. I see a question why don't we take questions when I conclude, unless it was a specific question about this slide. There's two more slides. So very good okay. So next steps in. Let's see exactly in just under a month from today the city Council will be hearing these items. And on an ongoing matter of course is the updates to the Housing Catalyst Team work plan, which you can find on the dashboard that planning, building and code enforcement keeps on their website. And I believe with that we can take questions. Okay. Is this okay? Thank you. Two questions, but they're really the same question on slide eight, we talk about the affordable housing tool, which is based on the annual Cost of development survey. Yeah. I'm just wondering how useful are you finding that that study for housing development? I would defer. To housing as well. But I think we find it very useful to sort of have kind of an overall temperature check of where kind of the status of the market is, understand what things might move or not move if we make any policy changes versus what's kind of outside our control, that we don't have influence on. So in this case, on this program, it kind of contemplates looking at could we have a modified density bonus program to encourage more affordable development? But where we're kind of the existing condition is more density isn't going to help projects pencil out. So it's not going to be a tool that's effective right now. So in that sense, it's helpful in forming this policy work. And then at a global perspective helps us sort of tailor to figure out are there changes we could make that could help move, you know, to anticipate, try to create more housing production? Okay. Because how. Many two acre rectangular lots exist in district six in north San José? I'm sorry. Yeah. There's not many in North San José. So how is that useful? Well. You can't study every scenario, you know, in a hypothetical scenario that exists. So why pick that scenario? Well, I think there are I mean, I. Think it it's hard to represent every model. I mean, you could you could see a lot of four acres. Is it ten acres? I think you have to you have to pick some models. And I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption that you'd have a site of two acres to develop on. But we don't. In North San José. I mean, yeah, we got a big city. You know, I understand what you're saying. It's hard to, you know, you can. Yeah, it's hard to look at that many prototypes and try to limit the number. And I didn't see a lot. Of usefulness, to be quite honest with you. That may just be me. I don't know, but it just it doesn't. It didn't seem to represent most of San José. And for that reason alone, I don't know how useful that can be in making some pretty important decisions. The same question actually goes to the land linkage entitlement and feasibility analysis. If you're using that report for feasibility analysis as some some sort of linchpin, I'm just not sure how accurate you're going to get anything out of that. I don't know, it's I think it's a big question. So I guess. Commissioner Cottrell, can you sort of explain a little bit more about what you don't think is working in terms of the cost of development study? Well, I don't think it's based on it's based on a unicorn two acre rectangular site with any type of density. It's just not how's the cost of study based on something that rarely exists? Sure. But it does also look at a variety of different scenarios, different building types. No. So you don't even consider it. So you look at residual land value. So whatever. The remainder is is what can be paid for land. So the land value cost isn't factored into that. So only the factor is a two acre rectangular site. Well I. Think the challenge is, is you there assumptions that you have to make when you're doing hypothetical analysis. Because we don't have an actual specific project in their performance, you know, specific details of the project. And absent that, I think you have to make some assumptions. And it's hard to pick a perfect model that's going to model every scenario. So you have to sort of hone in and take what is an average. I completely agree with. You on that point, but pick one that works for the predominant of available properties, which would dictate the density, which would dictate the cost of development. Yeah, well I would I would just. Say to you, I mean, I think what what's also useful to look at is, is what, what's actually occurring to. And so we have the analysis that we've done in the hypothetical situation. And then we have real projects. Right. And you kow, we've seen through our production that there are challenges. Right. We had four projects utilizing our incentive programs that move forward, which in the year before last we had very few market rate, unsubsidized projects move forward. But so that's the market telling us that what our study says is sort of true in terms of what we're seeing actually occur. Right? So in that sense, it is another check on on what what our report says. Right. What's actually occurring and what we're seeing happening in the real market. Okay. All right. I'll accept that. It's useful in some way. I just don't think apples and oranges generally get selected at the same time. And I think that's what we're doing. We're trying to create from a standard that doesn't actually exist. That's that's my belief. Maybe. Do you have a suggestion of a different or better model, because there would need to be a model that we use. And so I'm curious what that model might be. So it's a basket of goods model. And it's looking at multiple configurations and doing analysis on those configurations. And determine by weighting which is most likely in whatever circumstance. I don't think I don't I don't think that study was adequate, to be quite frank with you, because it only shows it illustrates one potential model. If that's what a model is, that's how they modeled it. And it doesn't explore most of the city. That model doesn't apply to most of the city. So I just think it's inadequate. And I don't know how much how many decisions you can make from that. I don't know how sound the thinking is. That's that's my question. I think there's no way to perfectly model a study that's going to show you what every project is going to look like, but but I think looking at hypothetical projects, prototypical projects that aren't, aren't a perfect carbon copy of what we're seeing, but do approximate what we're seeing, I think is reasonable to, to to look at a city, especially a city of San José size and looking at different areas of the city, because it does look at different areas of the city. I think it's as close as we're going to get to a decent picture of what the snapshot is without doing very robust modeling that's centered on specific projects and sites. Okay. Sorry. Could you talk about the cuts in. Federal funding and how it's going to affect the housing programs for the city, as well as our nonprofit partners? Sure. Do you have a specific federal cut in mind or. I'm sorry that I have to ask that. I don't I just, you know, you hear a lot of talk about HUD being cut. And. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's a fair question. The answer sort of broadly is we hear a lot of noise. We get a lot of direction usually then there's some level of litigation and then there's clarification. An example of that is on the homelessness side, HUD had had changed several requirements sort of halfway through the cycle, we saw a change in application, then a rescinding of application. And now we're waiting for more on this side. The the funding stream for our Nofas is through loan repayment. So that doesn't that is not impacted by federal dollars. These are local funds for some of our Community Development Block grant funding. CDBG. There was a delay in receiving those funds and that did have an impact on some of the legal services that that do. Some of our eviction prevention work. Those funds are now in place, and I can't predict the future, but it is possible that that those kinds of delays could happen again. But thus far there have been delays, lawsuits and then the restoration of those funds. You know, I think some of the bigger challenge here, in terms of meeting our arena is about the cost of development and that we're looking to really for decades, we were not building at a pace that was the answer to, to, to, to the housing needs of these communities. And this is a statewide challenge. And so now with these arena numbers, they're very high. And they're trying to make up for those decades of of development not keeping pace. And you know, in Jared's presentation, when we looked at slide number five, you can see that our fellow cities are also having challenges here in keeping pace. And it's useful to remind everyone that cities are not developers. We don't build housing. We create the conditions for housing, and we are trying to create more and better conditions for that development. And I think that's why our number is a hint better than our neighbors. But but still challenged. So the federal piece is not as much of a factor when it comes to development. It is a factor around tax credits, but there's actually quite a bit of bipartisan support around low income housing tax credits. And so we're still seeing that kind of affordable housing, the low and extremely low income support on the federal level. That's great to hear. Thank you. I'd like to ask a couple of questions here. And so when it comes to the affordable housing tool, why was only chosen for this study? I asked that just because I know there's some properties or empty lots. On Monterey, for example. There's also some empty lots in South San José. So we would like to see affordable. Housing in all parts of the city. The reason that there's some emphasis placed on North San José is sort of a historical lack of production in North San José. So historically it's been a predominantly industrial employment area of the city going back to 2007, even a little bit before and into 2010, the city looked at a comprehensive update of planning efforts there and did add capacity for 32,000 units in North San José. A lot of the capacity and some of the initial phases got built in 2012, 2013, 2014, and at that time, there was a goal that 20% of those units should be affordable. But because of the way that policies came out and because of other factors, only three, 200. How many do you know, Ruth? Oh, 8000 was the first, but how many out of the 8000 were affordable? I think it was several hundred. So when we look to increase opportunity for housing in North San José, one of the directives was to look at ways that we could also add more affordable housing to help make up for the deficiencies of in the past, where we didn't meet the goals that we had. Set and follow up, it would be helpful to have a summary or a memo around some of these topics actually with you as you follow through. I feel like this is a little too high level without some of those details for us to fully understand. You know, those implications or the studies that you were mentioning. But my other question around is when we're thinking about, you know, going back to what Chuck was mentioning, do we have a standard idea of what we're looking at? We're also being creative in the idea of creating different types of housing or affordable housing that look different, that do accommodate the space. I'm sure not all of them just fit one size fits all. Yeah. So the cost of development. Study looked at more, more typical development types. So townhomes, stack flats, podium style, a wrap style and a high rise. It's harder to model those newer types of of affordable or housing types. We have a number of programs kind of looking at ways in which we could be more creative in how we might we might have affordable housing, but it's harder to model in that cost study. But from a policy perspective, there are areas where we're pursuing policies in terms of trying new things. I think the small multifamily proposal program is looking at how how do we do smaller types of multifamily housing in areas in ways we haven't seen in the past. And so I think it's really in all of all of the above type of approach in terms of policy. But from more of that study analysis, we're looking at more, more, more traditional, because that's where we have the data. In order to produce that type of report, you clarify why we're not looking at the acquisition costs. In those analysis. So typically. When, when and this is really modeled off of how folks in real estate would look at new development. First you want to look at all your other costs and land. And that tells you how much you can pay for land. So when you do a residual land study or analysis, the remainder is what you can pay for the land. And that's what you take to negotiate in terms of purchasing property. So it's not that it's not factored in, it's just how you understand feasibility is done within that model. That makes sense. If you already have the model, I'm sure you have the residual off of that model. It gives you a baseline of what you have left over to work with. And then I'm sure looking at proformas myself, that you start comparing and contrasting different models to understand what you can create an average at that point of value that you could pay, that you would want to pay for that line. Because I do know that public money is, you know, it's so there's only a certain amount of cost that you can pay for that. It's not that's the same as a speculative market price. Sorry. Could you clarify your question? That was just my other question is are we looking at models like cooperative housing, like collectively owned options around homeownership, instead of just building rental units? Given the fact that rental units and we all know that affordable housing is not affordable at the end of the day, and so offering the opportunity to actually own instead of just renting this whole cycle has to show for it. When they rent for 20 years. Yeah, that's certainly something that's being explored. I will say, though, it's affordable. Homeownership has been a consistent challenge in terms of, frankly, working with developers to to make that work, generally with affordable projects. When they're they're almost always rental. It's how they pencil, but it's certainly something we would like to look into and explore more. If you all saw earlier today, the Silicon Valley index for this year came out that showed that first time homeownership is down significantly in this area. And, you know, that's that's the market rate. And that's an ongoing challenge that we're seeing in the region. The the South Bay Community Land Trust has has a project with with Housing department, and that's certainly a model that, you know, if that project is successful, that could be further explored. Yeah. And my last question here, more of a statement actually, is I know that New York actually has a department that supports the creation of community owned or collectively owned cooperative housing. And so they offer technical assistance, also offer financial support. So I think that's something that we should explore more. And I'm sure that as a commissioner, I can give you some suggestions and shoot over any reports that can actually support that. But actually just thought of another question. So about SB9 and we think about single family homes in order for us to do that. Is there a study that also included in the study is the conversion of single family homes using SB9. So Jared can tell you what, we have very little participation in SB9. What is the permitting? Its so that's small multifamily program is really looking at ways in which the city could kind of expand upon what SB9 does and what other state law does, such as SB 1123 and allowing, like I said, up to ten units on properties such as single family throughout throughout the city potentially. So it's that sort of is our effort in terms of looking at how we could expand or create policies to sort of continue to see growth in that SB9. But as Sarah's suggesting, you know, the number of units that we've seen from from that so far has been somewhat limited. So SB 1123 is another law that took effect in July, and it allows up to ten units on vacant or uninhabitable single family lots or multifamily lots. And so through some of those changes that that that does create another sort of pathway for folks to develop on single family. But I will remind everyone looking at the cost of development, even with even with a small multifamily, it can be very expensive. You would need the the start up cost to to get there. So we're seeing a few dozen applications, you know, city wide. You know. And that's something that other cities, you know, EPA is actually doing that EPA can do. They're looking at site projects. So that may be something that we can explore some. More. I have a question. Page eight. Last bullet point. It says to. Review revise. Planning permit conditions anticipated by fall 26. Just can you just talk about that? I know you mentioned it earlier, but I'm sure it's a somewhat technical program. In our in our housing element. But there is some language, particularly on permit findings. So the way that state law has evolved, as I'm sure many of you are aware, any of our requirements or findings around housing have to be objective. They can't be subjective in any way. There's some language in our in our zoning ordinance that needs to be to be modified to reflect the objective requirements of state law. And so that's what this program aims to fix. You know, it's not something that we're enforcing because of state law, but we need to sort of clean up in in our zoning ordinance. So that's that's the effect of that program. So it's something we'll be, like I said, talking to planning Commission more about when we kind of bring those changes forward in terms of what the specific details are. But it's just highlighted here because it was an important program that the state highlighted for us to complete. And so we're we're working through that right now. And then do you think the net effect would be it'll speed it up or slow it down or stay the same. It's it's a somewhat neutral program. It's really to make sure that we're complying with the rules and state law. So okay. And then. I got one for Sarah. You briefly mentioned the office to residential conversion. When was that passed. Was that last year I believe it was. January 27th, 2026. It was just added into the downtown residential incentive program. So included within that program now is also the office to residential conversion in the downtown corridor. Okay. So so within the last 45 days, how many applications have we gotten? How's the game going? Okay. So there's, I believe four buildings in the pipeline for the program. And then how many office. Thank you. Okay. I have a question. I will just say sorry to the previous commissioner. If you go and check the memo for this, it gives you the specific buildings and addresses within the program. So if you go to January 27th Council meeting, you'll find the information. One last comment. So beautiful presentation by you both. I think it'd be really useful if we can get these slides beforehand coming into the meeting, because, I. Mean, I check the agenda. I messaged chair today as well. It's kind of, you know, so we can ask a little bit more questions and have a better understanding. If you guys can send that next time perhaps. Yeah, I understand, I hear you. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate the feedback. Yeah. That was I was kind of going along with that. Did you actually send the report and the plan to any of us here? I apologize, I don't know if I missed it or not. Was it actually sent out for us? It's a it's a study session. So it was just a description of kind of what we're talking about today. I think if we if we do this joint format again. So what went to so Monday was the city Council committee meeting. And I think what we can do next time I think we can plan to do is if we do the same staging of Monday and a Wednesday is what we we should have prepared you with, is sending you the report that went to that committee on Monday, that was written to that committee that has more detail and then try to get you the slides earlier. So that was and after this we can share that full memo that was published on the the committee meeting agenda for Monday. But but that's what we should have, should have sent. So yeah, I went online. these letters are. Is that a reference to. References to the specific housing element programs. So if you go in chapter three of our housing element, they're all numbered. And we've carried that number over to our Housing Catalyst work plan as well. But it traces the route back to the housing element itself. Their administrative categories. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Because I was wondering if the housing continuum page we see here, unit preservation, unhoused outreach, encampment resolutions, do we have or is there a report. And can you send us a report. All the dollar amounts tied to this unit preservation encampment resolution? Yeah. Chair Navarro, you can. The city's budget is a public document, and you can look at any fiscal year's operating budget and go to the housing section. I believe for the last year, it was around page 596. Sorry, the the fine feature in the PDF will be your friend, but these are publicly available documents so you can find it's surprisingly easy to read through. I know it's a very long document, but it's it's not too hard to navigate if you're someone who can navigate through a PDF and you can look through all the different items of items of funding for housing department there. And it's break up by these categories. Exactly. They're not going to be word for word, but they will be close. And if you have additional questions after looking at the budget, you're welcome to contact our office okay. Thank you. The easiest way is probably to just use AI and ask the question the document, and then ask the question that you want. Probably. Yeah. I can't guarantee that that will get you an accurate answer But that will give you a quick answer that will be probably close. All right. Thank you. What are what can you explain what cities like San Diego and Sacramento are doing to get up to 20% of their numbers? This is a very important point. So if you look at that slide, what you need to also look at is that San Diego and Sacramento are 50% through the cycle. And we are 25% through the cycle. So that still would put us if we were doing exactly what we've done thus far at about 17%, and they're at 25, and 27% if we're rounding up. So it's a fair point that we're still not doing as well. I would say a few things. One is the cost of development is less there. There's also more available land in both of those cities. Sacramento is doing really quite a lot. I will say typically San José and San Diego are usually quite comparable in terms of size. We're similarly sort of large geographic footprints and a mix of urban and suburban, but still it is. The cost of living is less in San Diego, the cost of labor is less. So that's part of it. But perhaps Jared has some more if you've spoken to these cities lately. It's a variety of factors. Sacramento and San Diego both have their own kind of version of small multifamily that they've already implemented. Sacramento's was in 2024. San Diego has what they call their ADU density bonus program, I believe is the name, but it does a similar approach to looking at how to sort of add more units in single family neighborhoods. So we our programs, we're looking at some of the things that they had done, you know, kind of going before us. So we're trying to emulate some of what they're doing. And, you know, obviously trying to learn from their successes. But some of the challenges, as we're seeing as Sarah alludes to, are somewhat regional that we've seen in the cost of both for when we look at market rate, but also when we look at affordable housing as well. So that was one of the analysis done in the affordable housing portion of the Cost of Development report, looking at how the cost of affordable projects are. And for those we have the actual numbers of those, those those projects, because they submit those numbers directly when they apply for for tax credits. And we can see there that there is a difference in terms of cost. And it does it does have a material impact in terms of what's able to move forward into construction, both for market rate and affordable, is the biggest factor. Labor costs. It's one of the factors, you know, I don't know if it's the largest I don't know what you know. It's materials, it's labor. It's definitely, you know, near the top. I don't know how it would stack precisely, but it's definitely a significant factor. Are the ADU programs in those cities, specifically San Diego, yielding significantly better results than we have here in San José? Well, we. Haven't done it yet, right. So that's trying to get to our small multifamily program and get that done. It's been mixed success. I think the San Diego one, they call it an ADU program, but it's really around adding adding more units. It's kind of a unique one. It's been fairly successful. I don't you know how much it's added to those numbers. It's in Sacramento. I know it's just been since 2024, I think. And this is actually getting into what we'll talk about next Wednesday. I think they've had about 29 applications since they've passed theirs. So it you know, it's still sort of a work in progress for them. But you know it's it's slow. But I think it's it's trying to set the framework again as Sarah alluded to, you know, what we can do as a city is we provide the environment to try to encourage the development. And so everything we can do to try to improve and encourage that environment is what we're trying to do through our policy program. And then Commissioner Pierluigi may know this, but I remember him discussing the the sentiment of the supervisors in San Francisco about how these numbers are exercises in futility. Do you know if cities like San Diego and Sacramento city councils have sentiment? I don't know, I haven't tracked their specific comments. I mean, I think what I can say from conversations at a staff level, you know, I think we're we're all in similar situation where we're kind of doing the best that we can and trying to, you know, stick. I mean, at the end of the day, this is what we've been assigned through the state and what we have an obligation to try to fulfill through our housing element. You know, regardless of some of the realities, we still have to do everything we can to try to achieve it. But as you can see through this chart, even sort of how we compare everyone sort of had a real challenge to sort of achieve what's been been set right. Just as a time check at 633. We do have two comments from the public. Any other commissioners, anything they'd like to add quickly? Just one quick. I'm happy to go. Whenever I have a couple of clarifying questions. Thank you for the presentation. First question you mentioned that it sounds like SB9 update uptake is pretty low. Are there any strategies that either the city or state level on trying to increase the uptake of SB9? I just want to say like some of the challenge is that for SB9, you have to have the owner living on site to be able to do the lot split. And so while there was initially many developers who were interested in in doing a lot split and developing because of restrictions within the law, it's just it's it's fairly narrow in its application. You know, just to add to that too, I think that's where we're sort of honing in on our program is how we could we could, we could create our own program that tries to maybe take out some of the parts of SB9 that haven't made it successful. You know, obviously trying to make sure that there's a reason some of those policies are there because we want to encourage home ownership and those sorts of things. But to the extent that they're a hindrance to our local program, we could modify it to try to move the needle to where people, you know, maybe there would be higher uptake. So I think there's still the realities of kind of economics and all that. But, you know, trying to position our own program to make it move forward. But there's there's always new state laws. I know there's probably some SB9 modification bills coming this, this session. So, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces and people trying to see it be successful. Thank you. And one more question. So I was reading the website and it it looks like the Housing Catalyst team was developed in 2018. It comprises of different departments at the city level. And that you guys reports every year to commissions and city councils. I'm just curious, has it helped or can you give any examples of how emerging in the coordinating between these departments has actually led to meeting any of the city's goals around housing? I'm just curious kind of what that's what that's looked like over the years. Yeah, sure. I think to where it's been successful is that we've been able to, as we went into this housing element, having that team established and having very clear policy goals in mind. A lot of what was developed through that team effort was put into the housing element. So the concepts around trying to do our own ministerial ordinance, the concepts around trying to do small multifamily, all that was learned through some of that team work and team effort to try to move the needle and move the policy effort forward. So I think the collaboration and unified goal has been helpful in the policy work because it you know, it really involves multiple departments. It's not just us working in silos. It's not just about land use. It's not just about affordable housing financing. It's how do they all play together? How do they work to create that environment, to see housing production happen? Thank you. One last question. Sorry. I know there's some folks waiting online and thank you all for waiting, but I do want to know about the urban village planning. You know, I know that we had a debacle with the Silicon Sage. And what are some of the measures to prevent that reoccurring? So the the urban village evaluation effort is about how we try to streamline the village planning process. So we the General Plan is identified 62 urban villages. To date, we've completed 16. And so thinking through what are some strategies to try to see that process move forward more quickly. And so that's really what that program is about. Because when you have an unplanned village, there's less opportunity for housing until we complete the effort to change the land use in that village to allow for residential use. Otherwise, they're primarily commercial. So in part of the one of the key aspects of the urban village process is talking to the community, working with the community to develop a vision and plan for their area. But it's also one of the contributors to Time, so it's trying to balance those things out to provide opportunity for housing, but still provide a pathway where we can do good planning work in terms of working with the community to see what they want to see happen and occur. And I think it speaks to directly to your comment, but making sure that for development happens, that there's an opportunity to talk with the neighborhood. Yeah. If I can get. An email, we can follow up offline just to make sure that there is some prerequisites and even doing the process for for me to familiarize myself more with that process and just making sure that doesn't happen. Yeah. Definitely happy to send some additional information on the urban, you know, some of what we're talking about in terms of urban. Village work. We have roughly ten minutes left. Commissioner Olivera yeah, lots to say here and don't have the time to do it, but thanks for the presentation. And I think the SB9 adoption, I think is just a matter of time and lower interest rates. I think SB nine was passed at a time where really nothing was getting built, and it just takes a while for people to wake up and see that they can do things differently. And then I would just have the staff, maybe before the next General Plan meeting where we're talking about the next topic, you might want to check in about the city of San Diego, because San Diego Tribune says that after a seven hour meeting, they pulled back a lot of the incentives in the ADU program because they became too controversial in the neighborhood. And as staff is looking to do something, you may want to look at that as a case to say, maybe not that, maybe something different, etc. Yes, I. Think the way that we're and it's something we could talk about on Wednesday too, is kind of what they were looking at, is we sort of kept that in mind in terms of how allows a lot more growth and density through the bonus than I think what we're going to propose. So definitely hear you on that. Always interested in learning from our neighbors across. The state. One quick question, I promise. And then one comment. So the comment is what would be helpful is one to send the document ahead of time. Definitely. Yes. That's understood. And then the second thing would be helpful is, you know, at. Least a footnote or some reference to where to find these. Is there large blocks of information, just the sentence they can't adequately describe what you're really trying to get to? Yeah. It would be great just to have links to those items so we could just get to them quickly if possible. Yeah. No. Understood. Completely. And if we share the report from the committee, it will be it will be more apparent. I where you're coming from. And the last thing is it kind of an interesting question. It's a more up to the moment question. The linkage to capital entitlement feasibility analysis. What would that encompass, and would that have prevented the kind of moral hazard we have right now with the Fe downtown, the building, the Fe? I'm not sure what you mean by moral hazard. Well. The building went into receivership after less than a year of occupancy of occupancy. Seems like some sort. of hazard to me. Well. More on that building in the coming months. But, you know, I think the feasibility study is really looking at, you know, there's tens of thousands of units entitled what that will be entitled through the end of this current calendar year. What's the likelihood of construction of those units based on economic analysis? And are there things the city can do to make those units more feasible? Or, you know, are these really efforts that are outside of the control of the city? We only have so much that we can do. But, you know, there's a lot that we can do. Is there, you know, are there developed agreements that we can consider? Are there fees or charges that we can reduce or eliminate? Should we be targeting particular geographies? I think all of these are important questions to be asking, and we'll go into that full analysis of of currently entitled units. Would that include. The actual project feasibility in terms of cost of units, number of units, the cost of money? Would it go that deep or would it be? I can't speak to that level of detail because the report is not yet done. Well. Shouldn't you know that before you write the report? So I am not writing the report, so I don't know all the particulars. Sorry. Whoever's writing the report. Yes. Yes, absolutely. All right, I. Appreciate that. We do have a meeting at 7:00. We're going to need to give. This important question, because we're about to subsidize a building that was not well formulated, and it's in its cost per unit in square foot. So that's not on the agenda this evening. Actually. It is because I just put it on. So what I'm saying is that that's important for us because we can't approach a moral hazard of taking city money to bail out a new development. That's a moral hazard. Mr. Cantrell, you know that. That's not we put something on the agenda. I understand, but I want to. Be clear that I'm asking a question, and I understand that maybe you don't want to or can't answer, but don't tell me I don't have a right to ask. I think. We have a quick comment from 1 or 2 of the planning commissioners, but we do need to get to public comment, and we do need to be in the next room in as soon as possible. Point of order. I don't understand. At the Housing Commission, we keep going until all the questions are answered. I've never been to a planning Commission meeting, so I'm not sure how you agendize these, but there seems to be a lot more questions that need to be answered. And you're saying we're going to cut the meeting off before those questions are answered? Is that what you're saying? I can decide. Daniel. Says what the city attorney's office says. There's a planning commission meeting at 7 p.m. and there are folks who are coming to that meeting expecting it to start at seven. I think this was a scheduled study session was going to from 530 to 7. It's unfortunate that there's comments that haven't been received, but you can write an email. You can follow up with folks here, the staff. I will also remind all of the. Commissioners that this item will be coming before the City Council on March 24th, and you're welcome to submit public comment through the City Clerk via email, or to be present at the meeting and make comments. And this is not the last time that the housing element is going to come before. Hopefully there's a joint session. I don't know if you guys have something planned for so. That again, that will go before City Council on March 24th. Both, both Housing Catalyst and the Housing Element annual progress report. And if this were Planning Commission meeting or Housing Commission meeting, obviously we would continue until everybody had the questions, their questions answered. But unfortunately, it's a study session and. I'll remind everyone that study session means there is no formal vote. It's just feedback. But if you have a comment, I had some. Questions and comments. But for expediency sake, since you all need to get out of here and go to another meeting, I would just say the next time we have a joint study session, you will allow us more time so that everybody can get their questions in this. I see other people still here who have questions, but we're running out of time. So if we do have another joint session, please allow us to have more time. Give us a couple hours instead of an hour and a half or an hour. I think that's fair feedback. And like I said at the beginning, this is our first time doing a joint. It wasn't meant to limit, you know, and if this isn't the format that works, we're happy to change as well too. So we definitely hear you understand. We weren't trying to limit commissioners ability to provide us with comments and feedback. So I just we hear you and we understand you have. Two groups of commissioners here and they have lots of questions. So it would seem to me that you would allow more time for the meeting. I didn't plan the meeting. So just going forward I would like to see more time. That's all. Thank you, thank you. I think it's very clear we would like to see more time. It's very clear to me, just looking at people's faces. There are many questions that they would like to ask, but I do want to get to public comment. We only have two speakers. If you would please come up. Microphone. It's right. Here. Lily. Can you hear me? Lily. District three I serve on the senior commission representing district three, and I absolutely am enjoying this tonight because this is contentious. And it should be. I live in affordable housing. I'm just going to tell you real quick a comment with talking with your community. This is how you get the feedback. When I moved in there three and a half years ago, my rent was 1469, which is on here. The market rate is now 1688. That has gone up $200 a month. You are affordable, is not affordable for seniors in San José. I can promise you that you have to move in with a two and a half times your income to afford affordable. Now, when we talk about affordable and we use that word like it's water, it is not affordable. Let's find another word. And so moving people moving into my complex now have to come in with $1,800 a month. They have that's what they're paying their rent. That's starting okay. So when we're talking about community and discussing about what's before, what's after, these are things that you have to take into account. I do not see how living in San José is affordable for anybody. Thank you. Thank you. Is there another comment? All right. Hearing none. I know we have to give ten minutes before the 7:00 meeting and unfortunately we are out of time. Do you have something very quick to say? Commissioner? Okay. I was just going to ask like who questions? Maybe next time we can share time. Right on page ten about subsidized home ownership. When did that begin? And how would a person know about it? Yeah. So so the question was about subsidized home ownership. You know, when such an opportunity exists, how would you find out about it? So through the housing department website you can apply for affordable housing, even when there's ever an opportunity for affordable or subsidized home ownership, there would be income verification area, median income level set. And we can talk about it more at a future Hcdc meeting. And then one other question as far as like the urban village, I lived on San Carlos, 1530 West San Carlos for ten years. It was my first stable housing in my whole life, where I had other eight units, individual units. I found a place right away with a nice landlord, but the rest of the people were not so lucky. One of them passed away last year. Several of them got arrested for mental health issues. One lady moved every year in her 70s and the place is still there. Nothing began. The work hasn't begun. The Anti-displacement assistance was never available to none of these people, and they moved during Covid. So it was just my experience. Okay. Obviously, I'm sorry to hear that. And if anyone is questioning whether they qualify for for for displacement or relocation assistance, they should call the housing department and we'll connect you with our rent stabilization team to to verify eligibility. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. With that, we'll adjourn the study session and prepare for the Planning Commission. Meeting. Which is which is in this room? Yeah. You have another meeting? Okay. Good luck on your neighborhood association. It's not easy, but it's well worth it. And.