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The Danville Town Council is set to consider approving its long-discussed Housing Element Update and associated amendments to the General Plan in a special meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 17)
The current Housing Element is at the end of its eight-year cycle, with local municipalities required to finalize updates to this portion of their General Plan by the end of January, or face penalties that include fees and the loss of local control over some new developments.
“This public hearing marks the start of the final phase in a long and complex process
prescribed by State law and involves three levels of government — state, regional and local,” chief of planning David Crompton said in a staff report.
The pending Housing Element update, which marks the town’s sixth since its incorporation in 1992, carries additional weight this year, with the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) requirements putting stress on limited space in the town and necessitating rezoning of some existing sites, according to Crompton’s report.
“While Danville’s RHNA assignment is 2,241 units, the Town does have an existing
inventory of undeveloped residential lands that can accommodate 753 units,” Crompton said. Therefore, taking into consideration the addition of a 15% buffer, the Danville 2023-2031 Housing Element must find sufficient lands to accommodate at least 1,824 net new units across the income categories…”
With the buffer accounted for, this amounts to 2,577 units, with 753 existing units available to moderate and above moderate incomes bringing the total of new required units down to 1,824. Of these, the requirements consist of an additional 350 above moderate income units, 292 moderate income units, 432 low income units, and 750 very low income units.
“Based on a comprehensive analysis of all potential housing sites, the Town has identified sufficient lands — a total of 74 individual parcels — for re-designation to meet the Town’s net new housing unit needs,” Crompton said.
The Housing Element draft on the table for councilmembers at their upcoming meeting was approved unanimously by the Planning Commission on Dec. 13.
The Danville Town Council is set to meet on Tuesday (Jan. 17) at 5 p.m. The agenda is available here.
Danville’s draft does not identify enough sites to meet either the very low or low income RHNA numbers. There are also huge problems with the sites they identified which include a preschool and several office buildings with no plans to redevelop. A developer at Village Shopping Center also says the proposed standards make development infeasible even though they want to build apartments.
I’ve tried reaching out to you several times now to discuss this because I think there are big problems with what Danville is saying to the public and what HCD is going to say. Please read our letter: https://eastbayforeveryone.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022-12-16-danville-second-draft.pdf