Re: Agenda item 6.2
Dear Mayor Ramos and Members of the City Council,
Mountain View YIMBY recognizes that city staff has the tough work of revising a municipal code that assumes significant local discretion with state law that shortens approval timelines and curtails per-project ambiguity.
We are concerned that the newly-proposed appeals process can delay project approvals past what they are now. While the Permitting Streamlining Act sets a general approval timeline, it does not apply if there is an administrative appeal (GOV 65922(b)). The city code (Sec. 36.56.50) does not set a timeline for deciding appeals nor criteria for their basis, so a project could be indefinitely delayed just by paying the appeal fee. This is against the spirit of streamlining housing approvals.
As the Housing Accountability Act already removes almost all discretion at the council level, we believe that the appeals process does more harm than good, as evidenced by recent Urban Forestry Board meetings involving unsuccessful heritage tree removal appeals on ministerial ADU projects.
If Council were to go ahead with an appeals process, we would like safeguards to prevent abuses including, but not limited to, definite timelines of when appeals are heard, a default deemed-approved status if the appeals timeline is not met, stricter criteria on the basis for appeal, and an appeals fee with full cost recovery for the city given the number of departments and amount of staff time involved.
Staff notes there is further work to convert remaining discretionary provisions to objective standards. In particular, they mention that existing discretion allows case-by-case flexibility in furtherance of City goals, a power lost with a ministerial process. In the followup, staff should recommend whether the relevant standards should be dropped or less prescriptive if the standard is more trouble than it is worth.
We do ask the Council to set a timeline to enact a fully ministerial process to give both applicants and the public clarity and confidence about when that work will be complete, given staff workload and priorities. We recommend a target date like Q4 2026 and note there is a state bill that may impose ministerial approval on a significant number of housing projects starting next year.
We also support the cleanup amendments that bring our zoning code into conformity with existing procedures and various state laws, though there seems to be different tentative map timelines between administrative and non-administrative projects (Sec. 28.20.10(h) vs 28.5.20(e)).
Thank you for your consideration.
David Watson, on behalf of Mountain View YIMBY