Meeting yields no decision on Saratoga’s Housing Element

After almost six hours of debate and public remark, Saratoga Metropolis Council was unable to finalize an inventory of proposed growth websites for its Housing Ingredient requirement at its digital assembly Wednesday night.

The handfuls of residents who spoke through the assembly condemned the state’s housing necessities and council’s proposal of high-density housing developments, particularly across the metropolis’s Gateway space.

All California cities are required by state legislation to replace their Housing Ingredient each eight years to plan for future housing developments. The state calculated Saratoga must plan for more than 1,700 new housing units to be constructed between 2023 and 2031.

Mayor Tina Walia mentioned at a particular assembly final week that the Housing Ingredient is the “largest problem the town of Saratoga has confronted since its incorporation.”

Council agreed to finalize its housing websites by the tip of the week to permit sufficient time to conduct its Environmental Impression Report, and known as an extra particular assembly for Thursday, Jan. 20, to complete their dialogue.

“As Saratoga’s mayor, I guarantee the neighborhood that the town council continues to be actively listening and has not but reached any conclusions,” Walia mentioned. “Whereas planning for this unprecedented variety of houses is a problem, I’m optimistic that collectively we will discover the perfect resolution for Saratoga.”

Wednesday’s assembly got here after a number of months of neighborhood outreach and planning. Council held a particular assembly Jan. 10 that lasted seven hours and heard greater than 130 public commenters, a number of of whom spoke out in opposition to the excessive focus of proposed models on Saratoga and Cox avenues. Metropolis workers got here up with an alternate proposal that shifted models amongst housing alternative websites with out including new websites.

That shifting included rising the proposed housing models on the Gateway web site to 389, accounting for 19% of all of the proposed housing models.

Xiongfei Chen, a Gateway resident, mentioned at Wednesday’s assembly that he’s “strongly in opposition to” the present proposal.

“Like the opposite residents, I’m asking for extra transparency and equity of the entire course of, particularly within the Gateway space,” he instructed the council. “We have already got a number of townhouses, which suggests the density on this space is already greater than different areas in Saratoga. It is not sensible so as to add extra.”

Greater than 50% of the proposed housing websites sit above Freeway 85. Employees mentioned a big slice of the south and west portion of city weren’t chosen for growth as a result of they fall within the Wildland City Interface space, which is a high-risk hearth zone.

Arguing that the proposed variety of websites is disproportionately excessive within the north a part of the town, Karthik Ramamurthy instructed the council, “The allocation of the websites is clearly not equitable, and there was no indication that the suggestions of the residents of Saratoga has been integrated into the planning of the websites. I request the town council members to think about the suggestions that each one the residents are right here and have an equal, equitable distribution.”

On the Jan. 10 assembly, one councilmember mentioned the city should allow more time for the general public to supply enter on the proposed housing websites.

“What’s the rush? The Housing Ingredient Certification deadline is January 2023,” Rishi Kumar wrote to council after final week’s assembly. “I requested for a Housing Ingredient delay to return to the drafting board, as a substitute of the town council vote that’s being pushed for in January.”