DISCUSSION
General Plan Amendment:
The proposed amendment includes updates to certain sections in the body of the Housing Element. The revisions address HCD’s comments and requests, primarily, to:
- Provide additional and/or updated data related to topics such as homelessness and housing development trends;
- Developing a comprehensive criteria to demonstrate development feasibility of nonvacant lower income sites;
- Providing additional exhibits and maps;
- Identifying the City’s prior Housing Element accomplishments; and
- Listing new and/or strengthened meaningful actions in certain Housing Element programs.
Detailed summaries of the proposed updates are provided in Attachment 5 of the Planning Commission Staff Report, dated September 21, 2023, in Table A, titled “Responses to HCD Comments Matrix”.
Revision to Housing Element Sites Inventory:
The Housing Element’s Sites Inventory identifies sites that demonstrate feasibility to be redeveloped with residential units during the planning period. Because Garden Grove is an entirely built out city with very limited vacant land available, a large majority of the properties identified in the Sites Inventory are underutilized nonvacant sites. HCD Staff requested additional analysis, specifically for lower-income sites, demonstrating that existing uses on nonvacant sites would not be an impediment to residential development and are likely to discontinue during the planning period.
To demonstrate the suitability of nonvacant sites for lower-income, a robust set of criteria called, “Criteria for Selecting Sites to Meet the Lower-Income RHNA”, was created. The suitability criteria considers several qualifying factors such as:
- Developer interest to redevelop the site with housing;
- Vacant lots;
- Building and/or land value with property improvement value that is less than half of the land value;
- The year the structure was built;
- Low existing floor area ratio (“FAR”);
- Existing leases set to expire;
- Deteriorating building conditions, and
- High tenant vacancy.
After applying the new criteria to the full list of sites inventory properties (which includes over 2,000 properties), the list was re-reviewed to determine necessary revisions and updates to the Sites Inventory, which consisted of: The addition of fifteen (15) properties to the Sites Inventory; the removal of certain properties from the Sites Inventory to address typographical issues and to reflect current development conditions; and the re-designation of the RHNA income category of a number of existing sites. The updates to the Sites Inventory address HCD’s request for additional analysis of nonvacant sites for lower-income households and also ensures the City’s total RHNA accommodates the housing needs for all income levels.
In conjunction with the updates to the Sites Inventory, an amendment to the City’s General Plan Land Use Map is proposed to modify the General Plan Land Use Designation of a Sites Inventory property, located at 13621 Harbor Boulevard, from Industrial (I) to International West Mixed Use (IW). The abutting property to the east is already included in the Sites Inventory. Both properties, which are under the same ownership, are connected and function as a single integrated development. When the Adopted Housing Element was approved in 2021, the rear portion of this development was mistakenly not included in the Sites Inventory. The intent of the proposed General Plan Amendment is to rectify this error by facilitating the property’s inclusion into the Sites Inventory, and to establish the International West designation to allow residential development.
Zoning Map Amendment:
The proposed Zoning Map Amendment will revise the City’s Official Zoning Map to implement, and ensure consistency with, the proposed updates to the Housing Element. The City’s Official Zoning Map will be revised to cover one (1) property with the International West Mixed Use Overlay and cover ten (10) properties with the Industrial/Residential Mixed Use 1 Overlay. The purpose of the Mixed Use Overlay zone is to allow for residential and mixed-use development in addition to uses regulated by the underlying zoning.
The proposed Zoning Map Amendment will also clarify sites intended to be included in the International West Mixed Use Overlay and the Industrial/Residential Mixed Use 1 Overlay, pursuant to Ordinance No. 2925. As attachments to Ordinance 2925, Exhibits A through E, which includes maps and a list of parcels, purport to show the properties included in the Mixed Use Overlay Zones. Upon further review, Staff discovered a clerical discrepancy involving fifteen (15) properties that were shown on the Exhibit A and C maps as being included in the overlays, but were inadvertently not listed in Exhibit E. The proposed Zoning amendment will correct this clerical discrepancy by including these properties in Exhibit E listing all of the parcels to which the Mixed Use Overlay (MU) Zone is intended to apply.
CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT (CEQA):
On November 9, 2021, the City Council certified a comprehensive programmatic Environmental Impact Report (or EIR) for the Focused General Plan Update and Zoning Amendments, which included approval of the currently adopted Housing Element. The EIR analyzed the potential programmatic environmental impacts of adding 19,251 potential housing units. The proposed revised Housing Element, which HCD has indicated meets the requirements of State law, calls for 19,239 units, which is less than what was previously analyzed in the EIR. The proposed revised Housing Element and Zoning Map Amendments are within the scope of the EIR, and would not result in any new significant impacts or a substantial increase in the severity of any previously identified significant impacts. Accordingly, City staff believes no further CEQA analysis is required.