Petaluma City Council moves Housing Element forward

Petaluma’s City Council has unanimously approved the latest version of the city’s Housing Element, solidifying a set of policies and programs the city will use to accomplish housing goals through 2031.

But as special projects manager Heather Hines emphasized during the March 20 meeting, even the current draft of the more than 300-page document could still be altered to address the city’s evolving land use and housing needs in the next eight years.

“We’re also not locked in stone,” Hines said.

In accordance with state requirements, Petaluma’s Housing Element was submitted to the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development in October 2022 for its required 90-day review period. In early January, Sacramento housing officials began a dialogue with the city to make sure the document complies with state law.

As part of that back-and-forth, the city noted that – due to state housing officials’ comments that current parking requirements for new housing creates constraints on developing more housing units and on climate goals – it will be removing its 1.5-space-per-unit requirement for small units by December 2023, and replacing it with parking standards based on unit size and “location relative to transit and amenities.”

Council member Mike Healy brought up concerns that the change could create barriers for farm workers, who mostly do not use public transportation to get to their work sites, especially in MidPen’s affordable housing project currently under construction that will designate 18 units for farm worker families.

“Farm workers seem to be the least likely group of folks that are going to ride SMART or public transit to get to work, and I think that just underscores my concern with that project that 0.4 parking places per unit is probably wishful thinking on steroids,” Healy said during the meeting.

He added, “I do think there needs to be some reality checks in what we’re doing around here. I’ll support the Housing Element tonight, (but) I think parts of it are unrealistic.”

City consultants also made modifications to certain program goals in the Housing Element, such as reducing the number of residential units converted from vacant office units from 100 to 40, or roughly five per year. And the city will produce 80, rather than 200, infill units in single-family and lower density neighborhoods for an average of 10 units per year.

The number of housing units that would be created for hospitality or farm workers was also increased from 20 to 50 units.

The latest revisions to the document follow 2019 legislation, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, that created incentives for local governments to maximize housing production. Under the law, Petaluma was assigned to plan for the development of at least 1,910 new housing units in the next eight years.

Those would include at least 499 units in the “very low income” category, 288 “low income” units, 313 “moderate” income units and 810 “above moderate” units.

As of the March 20 City Council vote, the Housing Element will now go into the state’s final, 60-day review period, which left some residents concerned that developers will take advantage of that window to apply for housing projects before the updated goals and policies are officially ratified.

“We have a hole here, a huge hole,” said one commenter at the meeting. “A hole that you can drive an army of developers through.”

A copy of the submitted draft of the Housing Element, along with public commentary and other information, can be found at www.planpetaluma.org/housingelement.

Amelia Parreira is a staff writer for the Argus-Courier. She can be reached at amelia.parreira@arguscourier.com or 707-521-5208.