Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramos, and members of the City Council,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Item 4.9: Approve a Support position for Senate Bill 457 (Becker): Housing Element Compliance / Housing Accountability Act
Livable Mountain View encourages the City Council to support legislation which, as stated in the staff report, ”prevents the misuse of the builder’s remedy while continuing to provide strong incentives for cities to develop and adopt compliant Housing Elements on a timely basis.” We agree with staff that the purpose of the builder’s remedy should be to “encourage compliance with housing law, not circumvent local planning.” SB 457 helps to do this by setting a Housing Element compliance date not hindered by the time taken by the state to review what will be deemed a compliant Housing Element proposal and by requiring all builder’s remedy applications be complete upon initial submission.
The reaction of the residents at the Tyrella builder’s remedy project public hearing on April 8 illustrates the outrage the public can feel when the builder’s remedy policy goes wrong. We do wish to recognize that the Council wisely insisted in following the staff recommendation to set a limit on the time the developer has to break ground on his project. A key intent of the builder’s remedy is to provide urgently needed housing in a timely fashion. By supporting SB457, the Council can take further steps to prevent the negative, unintended consequence of the builder’s remedy.
Thank you in advance for taking into account our views on this important matter.
Robert Cox, Louise Katz, Diane Gazzano, Peter Spitzer, Muriel Sivyer-Lee, Lorraine Wormald, Leslie Friedman, Natalie Solomon, Li Zhang, Hala Alshahwany, Jerry Steach, and Nancy Stuhr
For the Steering Committee of Livable Mountain View
