HomeMy WebLinkAboutOpposition Letter - AB 1063 (Petrie-Norris) - 07.28.2020
July 28, 2020
The Honorable Cottie Petrie-Norris
Assemblymember, 74th District
State Capitol, Room 4144
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: AB 1063 (Petrie-Norris) – SUPPORT
Dear Assemblymember Petrie-Norris,
On behalf of the City of Cupertino, I am writing to express our support for AB 1063, your measure
that will provide necessary streamlining and flexibility to cities to be able to accelerate housing
production.
The state has taken aggressive steps to promote housing production throughout California. In the
current health pandemic, it is even more important that cities are given flexibility to allow them
to boost housing construction. This bill will take important steps to allow cities to facilitate
housing production and help the state meet the Governor’s goal to create additional housing units
by 2025.
Specifically, AB 1063:
• Expands the ability for cities to count accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as affordable units
towards RHNA requirements by establishing an accepted assumption for estimating
ADU production and affordability levels.
• Increases the 25% cap, to 50%, for local governments to count projects that have been
rehabilitated, converted, or preserved towards their Regional Housing Needs Assessment
(RHNA) figures.
• Presents clear, objective standards for the review and certification of Housing Elements
by providing guidance to local governments in the selection of appropriate sites, while
minimizing local government’s administrative time and cost.
• Require jurisdictions, which have voter-approved growth measures, to submit a draft
Housing Element to the Department of Housing and Community Development by their
statutory deadline. This will ensure penalties for non-compliance will not be considered
until after voters consider a measure to approve housing development needed to satisfy
RHNA but will not delay the process as a draft Housing Element will still be required.
This bill will provide critical clarifying language and establish clear standards that will help cities
as they move forward in identifying viable sites for development. Furthermore, this bill builds
on existing state policy. The legislature updated ADU and junior accessory dwelling unit (JADU)
laws effective January 1, 2020 to clarify and improve various provisions in order to promote the
development of ADUs and JADU’s. This bill will clarify current law to ensure that cities can count
ADU’s towards their housing element compliance. It is important that cities are able to receive
credit for facilitating the development of ADU’s and JADU’s. This is an affordable housing option
that the legislature has focused on establishing.
It is for these reasons that the City of Cupertino is glad to support AB 1063.
Sincerely,
Steven Scharf
Mayor
City of Cupertino
cc: Senator Jim Beall
Assemblymember Evan Low
Assemblymember Marc Berman