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By Steve Levy
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved ...
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved downtown in 2006 and enjoy being able to walk to activities. I do not drive and being downtown where I work and close to the CalTrain station and downtown amenities makes my life more independent. I have worked all my life as an economist focusing on the California economy. My work centers around two main activities. The first is helping regional planning agencies such as ABAG understand their long-term growth outlook. I do this for several regional planning agencies in northern, southern and central coast California. My other main activity is studying workforce trends and policy implications both as a professional and as a volunteer member of the NOVA (Silicon Valley) and state workforce boards. The title of the blog is Invest and Innovate and that is what I believe is the imperative for our local area, region, state and nation. That includes investing in people, in infrastructure and in making our communities great places to live and work. I served on the recent Palo Alto Infrastructure Commission. I also believe that our local and state economy benefits from being a welcoming community, which mostly we are a leader in, for people of all religions, sexual preferences and places of birth.
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Housing Element Update
Uploaded: Feb 8, 2023
The state Housing and Community Development (HCD) agency has assigned a reviewer
for the Palo Alto draft Housing Element (HE). The reviewer has until the end of March to submit a review letter.
Council approved a draft HE in mid November 2022, which triggered a 30 day public comment period after which staff had 10 days to respond. Staff forwarded the draft HE to HCD at the end of the year including a summary of public comments and their response.
Prior to the November approval by council of the draft HE, staff worked with council, the PTC and the Housing Element Working Group during 2022. Some potential sites were removed during the year and others added. Staff continually worked to identify constraints and develop programs to address the RHNA and HE goals.
I do not know what the HCD review letter will say but HCD letters to other cities regularly have asked for more and detailed economic feasibility information with regard to sites, more specificity in delineating programs and generally have expressed concerns about the commitment to being proactive with respect to fair housing goals.
I expect Palo Alto could receive similar comments.
The review letter will begin a process of back and forth with HCD and the staff and with the staff, PTC, council and the public. According to what I know from other jurisdictions and from our Planning Director, that will probably take more than one round over several months. Right now meetings are planned through June with the PTC and council, which would be the earliest to submit a compliant HE.
Whether or not our HE is compliant is determined by HCD not by me or staff or posters on the Weekly online or our council.
I believe HCD and our staff have a good relationship and that HCD wants to work collaboratively to get a compliant HE and avoid serious penalties and possible lawsuits.
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