Summarization of our position:
Why did the Los Gatos Community Alliance have to resort to a Referendum to slow down the reckless development of the Town by four members of the Town Council? This has been a confusing issue for some people, so here is the data and opinion behind our Referendum.
There seems to be confusion between the numbers of households to be planned under the General Plan. Briefly, the General Plan (GP) is the “constitution” of the Town for the next 20 years (2020 to 2040) for future growth and development. The General Plan is used by the Town Council, Planning Commission, and Town staff to make decisions with direct or indirect land use implications. Our GP is made up of 9 elements, 8 of which are required by law. Due to limited time, I’ll go into the 3 that are causing confusion currently.
- Land Use
- Community Development
- Housing Element
By a citizens vote of over 3000 citizens, gathered in 3 weeks we put the Land Use and Community Development Elements in suspension until the citizens get to vote on it 11/5/24. We did that by using the referendum process. That process has been around since 10/11/1911. The Referendum is a power reserved to the voters that allows the voters, by petition, to demand the reconsideration and repeal of any legislative action of the City Council.
The number of housing units that LG is to plan for in the 6th cycle (2023-2031) is 1993 plus a 15-25% buffer. That is our RHNA number for which the Town was to develop and have certified a Housing Element plan by 1/31/23. The Town missed that date and the next date of 5/31/23. The Town is now shooting for 1/31/24. We are currently waiting for the Housing and Community Development Dept. to rule on the Town’s latest submission for a Certified Housing Element.
It’s important for you to know there are two sets of numbers, ie, 12,736 units which would require rezoning of over 880 acres and the RHNA number of1993 plus buffer). These RHNA requirements only require ~116 acres of rezoining. They are housing units and the RHNA numbers are a part of the General Plan. What we disagree with is that 4 Councilmembers decided that the rest of us wanted a 12,736 housing unit upzoned.
The 2040 General Plan (2020-2040) had been conceived by the state to plan for the Los Gatos future housing numbers. The 2020 General Plan (2010-2020) was our previous general plan time period. Town’s can plan for growth, but Town’s don’t build. That is done by individuals and developers. The Town can influence development through policies and zoning.
Our process started with the General Plan Advisory Committee.
In June of 2022, then Mayor Rennie, Vice-Mayor Ristow and Councilmember Sayoc passed Resolution No. 2022-047, that upzoned the town by more than 800 acres, or roughly more than 12,700 units. Councilmember Moore, elected in 2022, is totally on board with the upzoned numbers. For reference, the town currently has ~ 13,000 living units, so they have nearly doubled the size of the Town through upzoning.
After sending many written reasons why the Town should not be massively upzoned and then we were denied meetings with the Vice-Mayor and Mayor, the Los Gatos Community Alliance created a petition to referend the Housing Element and the Community Design element. In three weeks, over 3300 Los Gatos residents signed the petition. We only needed ~2200 to suspend the two elements until the voters have a chance to cast a ballot in November, 2024. The Town residents are angry with the 3 members of this Council and made it loud and clear that if the Council won’t listen, we’ll use our legal right to referendum their vote.
Background: A Housing Element (HE) should reflect the plan for local jurisdictions to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community. The Housing Element is one of nine elements that make up the General Plan, but it is particularly important as that is where the Town has to plan for the housing units that we are assigned to plan for over the next 8 years. The number is assigned to us by ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) In the next 8 years, we are to plan for 1993 plus a buffer of at least 15%.
At its core a Housing Element is an opportunity to have a community conversation about how to address local housing challenges and find solutions. The Housing Element is an important part of the Los Gatos General Plan (GP), which serves as the blueprint for how the Town will grow and address changing needs for development.
In the early 2040 version of the General Plan, the Planning Commission originally planned to upzone over 3000 acres. Upzoning is a tool used to increase the density of housing per acre. The “Catch 22” of upzoning is that once upzoned, the Council cannot downzone. Our protests of this mammoth increase, with the help of many of you, pressured the Town to reduce the acreage from 3000 acres to just over 800 acres. The 800 acres were still much too high in our view and the view of at least 3000 Los Gatos residents who want this to go to a vote in 2024. If you have read the Council’s adopted 2040 Housing Element, you will see that only ~116 acres are actually needed to reach the 1993 residential units required by the HCD. (More on that later as things continue to change)
The Council has adopted ~80+ acres in the HE but left the General Plan upzoning at more than 12,700 living units (~800 acres). But, what if things change? 250,000 residents have left the bay area from 2020 to 2022. Unemployment is up. Housing values have decreased by 12% in the last year. Climate change is happening much faster than predicted and progressing at an unsustainable rates that will require more changes. What if the predictions are wrong? By adopting the 1993 living units, plus the buffer, the Town has the opportunity to make corrective zoning action each time they reach a plateau. We think upzoning by over 12,700 living units is foolhardy and reckless planning.
Since Covid and the adoption of Zoom-like communications, the way the world works has changed dramatically. People have many more options as to where they live while still working for their current employer. With incremental zoning, the Town will not be strapped into potentially poor zoning practices that change will inevitably create.
The Council has told you that the General Plan will be reviewed every 5 years, or at each increment of 1000 houses. The issue with that is it doesn’t matter and would be another waste of time. Once upzoned by more than 12,700 units, they cannot down zone. That’s state law. We could not get Town Manager Prevetti, nor the three mayors, Sayoc, Rennie nor Ristow, to admit to the 12,700 until over 18 months past when we first brought up the discrepancies. By using their own tables, we were able to show the public that they had infact upzoned by >12700 homes. That was either deliberate disceptation, ignorance, arrogance or a combination of all. We showed them; they admitted nothing. It was very frustrating trying to get the Town manager or the mayors to be forthright about the true upzoned numbers of residences. Why is it so hard for them to be forthright? We are all in this together, but who now can believe the three Councilmembers or the Town Manager who could have been forthright at the beginning of the conversation rather than being forced into admitting they were wrong..
What is our referendum?
A referendum is a right given to the citizens going back over 110 years to the citizens of California. It’s a tool to counter what the voters think their governing body has done wrong. Though we elect a governing body, they can occasionally go off the rails and do so by ignoring the electorate. Voters are given a very short window to obtain approximately 10% of the previous elections registered voters to sign a petition.
Our referendum relates to Resolution No. 2022-047, a Resolution of the Town Council Adopting the 2040 General Plan. This referendum suspends the Town Council’s adoption of two of those 9 elements, the Land Use Element and the Community Design Element. These two elements address a broad range of topics related to the physical structure and appearance of the Town’s built environment and establish the image and character of the Town. These two elements serve as the primary policy guidance for ensuring that new land uses are logically organized and developed in a way that is sustainable and enhances Los Gatos’s unique identity.
The full text of the Land Use Element and Community Design Element that are the subject of this referendum can be found at: http://losgatos2040.com/.
What happens now?
Though we have many concerns, primarily most of the 3400 who voted on the Referendum are concerned about the reckless upzoning of the Town. Our concerns fell on the deaf ears of the Council, the Planning Commission and the Town Manager.
- The Council, led by then Mayor Rob Rennie and joined by Vice-Mayor Ristow and Councilmember Sayoc have approved of planning on 3300 homes – 44% more than required by the State. At the same time, they have up zoned the town, adding 12,700 more than the 13,000 we already have; an increase of 88%. That is over 800 acres of land when we only need 80+.
- Such a plan will increase traffic, green house gases, add strain on the water system, add pressure on the school system and potentially crush our town’s financial position.By the way, the last time they did the 5 year forecast, we were going to be $20M in the hole.
The Details:
Following a split vote 3 to 2, the Town Council adopted the 2040 General Plan and certified the underlying Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) that evaluated the development of 3,738 new housing units over the next 20 years and upzoned the Town by 12,736 homes, or over 800 acres. 3 Town Council members have forced through a General Plan that will enable reckless expansion of housing, odious increases in greenhouse gas emissions; traffic congestion with no plan for additional roads (in fact, they have narrowed Los Gatos Blvd and Winchester, two of our major arterials. These three, with Sayoc replaced by Councilmember Rob Moore will exacerbate the already precarious financial position of the Town. The 3 refused to do a financial impact analysis stating there were too many variables.
In 2021 when we had the survey conducted, 60% of those surveyed approved of a referendum.
In watching the Town Council discussion, it became apparent there was more interest in getting the General Plan approved than truly finding common ground. They were a year behind schedule and that put immense pressure on getting the Housing Element passed on time. They have failed that attempt twice and now we have the Builders Remedy facing us with the five story building replacing the post office. Putting the General Plan ahead of the Housing Element was especially troubling because there was no deadline to approve either the General Plan or the FEIR, and there is no requirement for the State to review the General Plan. It made no sense to rush the deliberation process that resulted in the split vote.
We warned of this possibility over a year ago when we advocated that the General Plan was too important to allow only three people to decide. This was a major concern given the overlapping participation of individuals who served both on the Planning Commission and the Town Council, and served on the General Plan Update Advisory Committee (GPAC). The GPAC was the body that drafted the General Plan. As a result, the checks and balances built into the system were bypassed. This was too much authority invested in too few individuals.
For the past 18 months the LGCA has opposed the reckless “Town-wide” up zoning while fighting hard to find an appropriate path forward by prioritizing the development of permanently affordable housing over expensive market-rate housing. We recognized the importance of preserving the Town’s unique neighborhood character and downtown, as well as the need to integrate the planning for jobs, housing, transportation, and infrastructure into a fiscally sound plan.
These were our guiding principles, and just like an orchestra, all the pieces need to work as one.
These principles have guided us through this entire process. In addition, our advisors have included top land use attorneys to make sure we understood the State’s requirements. In 2021 we engaged the highly respected research firm, EMC, from Oakland, CA, who ran an independent survey of Los Gatos residents to make sure that LGCA understood your concerns before we made any assumptions. We also participated in the general planning process and engaged numerous times with the Council members, offering real solutions that were informed by the guiding principles as well as the laws of the State of California.
So what was approved? The adopted General Plan up-zones nearly the entire Town. High-density residential and mixed-use land are doubled, and medium density residential increases by 80%. These are staggering numbers to us and we think, to you.
Our focus has always been on understanding the amount of development allowed by changes to the zoning law densities. The best way to judge the impact of increasing land use densities is to compare the amount of development allowed by the new General Plan to the amount of development permissible under the old zoning regulations.
The adopted General Plan now allows for the development of more than 12,700 additional housing units. Under the old General Plan fewer than 1,000 units were allowed. The new RHNA allocation requires only 2,292 units for Los Gatos, so creating this excessive amount of “development headroom,” is reckless and makes no sense. That is confirmed by the EMC survey.
The only positive in all of this is that the Council did not change the existing density for low density residential and will cap the density of all parcels in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ). We are pleased with this outcome. However, to be clear this only happened because of Rob Stump’s constant advocacy for limiting development in the VHFHSZ. Neither the GPAC nor the Planning Commission addressed this obvious issue.
So what does this mean? As best we can ascertain – using the Town ‘s unsubstantiated buildout assumptions – it appears the Town’s “projected” units to be built (built is an estimate of development and is different from allowed) will be approximately 3,300 units, which includes 116 units estimated for Hillside development. Any SB 9 and SB 10 units will add to this number.
To frame all of this, the California Department of Finance and the Town’s own consulting firm projected demand of only 1,500 to 1,900 housing units. Against these forecasts the General Plan is “projecting” numbers that are twice the anticipated market demand, and 45% more than the RHNA allocation plus a required 15% buffer. This is clearly unneeded and once again, reckless development.
Making all of this even worse is the fact that the 2040 Land Use Element included in the General Plan is silent when comes to any goals, policies or programs that remotely address how to finance or incentivize the development of affordable housing. Worse still, the Land Use Element conflates affordable housing with the desire to have lower home prices. These are vastly different issues with quite different solutions. As we stated in our guiding principles, we have been focused on prioritizing the development of permanent affordable housing over additional expensive market rate housing.
The GPAC did not perform a financial feasibility study on affordable housing. As a result, the group lacked a detailed understanding of the complexity and challenges of developing affordable housing. The only useful information in this regard came from the joint Town Council/Planning Commission study session that was organized by the LGCA and the town. In this meeting, two Below Market Rate developers who specialize in developing affordable housing discussed in great detail what is required to increase the likelihood of actually developing affordable housing.
Additionally, the Councilmembers Rennie, Sayoc and Ristow, who approved this 2040 General Plan, were the same three members who voted against doing a fiscal impact analysis of the growth embedded in the Plan. Councilmembers Rennie and Sayoc have been in charge of financial decisions that have driven our General Funds balance down from $27.2 in 2017 to $20.8 by June, 2022 – and are now forecast to precipitously drop to more than -$20.3M in the Town’s five year forecast! With this Plan for 3300 planned homes, the Town is projecting a 25% population increase – approximately 8,000 people! Approving such a plan without understanding the likely fiscal impact is, again, reckless.
So where does this leave us? As we have steadfastly maintained, we believe the public needs to make such a consequential decision with your vote.
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