REPORT TO PLANNING COMMISSION
SUBJECT
Title
Forward Recommendation to City Council to Adopt a Resolution to Amend the General Plan by Adopting the 2023-2031 Housing Element and Adopt a Negative Declaration for the 2023-2031 Housing Element
Report
BACKGROUND
The Housing Element is part of Sunnyvale's General Plan and identifies the policies, programs, and sites to meet the housing needs of the City's current and future residents. Housing elements are written and adopted by local governments however, housing elements are the only portion of a city's General Plan that must be certified by the State (Department of Housing and Community Development - HCD). HCD reviews and certifies that each jurisdiction's Housing Element meets all the requirements of State law (Government Code Sections 65580-65589.8). Under current state laws, housing elements are updated every eight years to coincide with an eight-year planning period.
Since August 2021, staff and the City's consultant team, Ascent Environmental, have worked to update the City's Housing Element for the Sixth Cycle 2023-2031 planning period. This process has included extensive community engagement, multiple revisions, and meetings with HCD staff. The community engagement process involved meetings with residents, housing advocacy groups, residential developers and an online survey, with several outreach events offering Spanish and Mandarin translation. A list of community engagement events is shown below in Table 1. In addition to the direct work on the Housing Element, the document also incorporates several of the City's long-term planning initiatives such as the Moffett Park Specific Plan (MPSP), El Camino Real Specific Plan (ECRSP), and Lawrence Station Area Plan (LSAP), which have dramatically expanded housing capacity across the City.
Table 1: Community Engagement and Public Hearings
Based on feedback from the community, City Council, and HCD comments, the City staff has prepared four public drafts of the H...
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