Attached is a press release providing anticipated key dates for the City’s Housing Element update in January. Staff expect to bring Piedmont’s 6^th Cycle Housing Element to the Planning Commission for review on January 12, 2023 and to the City Council for adoption on January 30, 2023.

Additionally, staff intend to issue an RFP in late January seeking professional services to lead the preparation of a Moraga Canyon Specific Plan. Once a consultant has been selected, the Specific Plan process is expected to take 18-24 months to complete. The City has created an email list community members can subscribe to for updates about the Specific Plan. Also attached is an informational poster about the Moraga Canyon Specific Plan that we shared with community members at the Housing Element Open House in November.

12.22 Poster+3+Moraga+Canyon+Specific+Plan+Study  Map

Morga 2022-12-20 Housing Element Update Key Dates in January Press Release

City of Piedmont Special City Council Meeting –

Monday, December 19, 2022 6:00 p.m.

Community Hall, 711 Highland Avenue, Piedmont, CA

Reception and Swearing In for New Piedmont Elected Officials

The City of Piedmont invites all community members to a reception celebrating newly elected officials and honoring outgoing Mayor Teddy Gray King following a special meeting of the City Council on Monday, December 19th at 6:00 p.m.

Both the meeting and reception will take place at the Piedmont Community Hall in Main Park (711 Highland Avenue) with the reception commencing immediately after the meeting concludes. Light refreshments will be provided.

Following the Council’s certification of the election results, Mayor Teddy Gray King, who is leaving office after two terms on the City Council, will share farewell remarks. Next, Piedmont’s new Board of Education and City Council members will be sworn in, formally assuming their new offices. The City Council will then elect a Mayor and Vice Mayor.

Everyone is invited to join in this celebration of our democracy!   The City looks forward to seeing many community members in attendance.

This meeting will NOT be broadcast live due to bandwidth limitations at the Community Hall, but will be recorded and available for viewing online and on KCOM-TV afterwards.

> 12.19.2022 council-agenda

> 2022 Certification Documents of Election Results for the General Municipal Election of November 8, 2022

Adding 587 new housing units –

COMMENT PERIOD IS NOW OPEN UNTIL JANUARY 8, 2023 –

Piedmont officials in the notice below provide no mention of the City Charter requirement for voters to approve zoning changes permitting many of the 587 new housing units necessary for an updated Piedmont General Plan.  Zoning code changes are  required to incorporate the pending Housing Element into the General Plan. The City notes  the necessity of “changes to the land use categories” without mentioning the City Charter requirements.

Since the Housing Element was first considered and subsequently approved by the City Council for state consideration, residents have mentioned numerous concerns regarding the addition of the 587 new housing units.  NOW, until January 8, 2023 is the time to inform the City of Piedmont of any environmental or other concerns you may have.  See below for contact address. If you want your concern or interest to be part of the permanent record, note it in your communication and ask that a copy be sent to the Piedmont City Council.

kjackson@piedmont.ca.gov is noted as the primary contact.

Much of the land in Moraga Canyon is unsuitable for development.

Publicly-owned land is designated for low-income housing in the Piedmont Housing Element (HE) because it provides the City with the greatest potential to develop such housing – the City owns the land and can work directly with developers to see that affordable housing gets built on it.  The publicly-owned sites in Piedmont are in Moraga Canyon, swaths of land around Coaches Field and the Corp Yard and all of Blair Park.  Sixty low-income units and 73 above-moderate income units are proposed for >Moraga Canyon.   A > depiction of this area shows that housing types are proposed to be dispersed throughout this canyon area.

Anyone familiar with Moraga Canyon will know instantly how unsuitable much of this land is for development.  The sites east and west of Coaches Field, initially designated for low-income housing, are steep sloped and would require a massing of building to generate the proposed density and parking.  The area to the west is particularly prohibitive for building; the required storm water permit is infeasible and would likely not be granted given the proximity of the site to the adjoining wetlands on cemetery property. As for the other Coaches sites, both are very steep, probably prohibitively so for the construction of low-income housing and would probably eliminate what little public parking is now available at Coaches.  Unfortunately, the feasibility of these sites for housing has never been publicly addressed at the Planning Commission or City Council since the draft was released in April, 2022.

The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) will conduct this feasibility analysis, especially for the low-income sites, and find the draft HE deficient.  This is the direction HCD gave to Atherton regarding the publicly-owned sites in its HE:

“Publicly Owned Sites: The element identifies multiple publicly-owned sites including the Public Facilities and Schools District, the Menlo School, and Cal Water Bear Gulch Reservoir sites. The element must include additional discussion on each of the publicly owned sites identified to accommodate the RHNA. Specifically, the analysis should address general plan designations, allowable densities, support for residential capacity assumptions, existing uses and any known conditions that preclude development in the planning period and the potential schedule for development. If zoning does not currently allow residential uses at appropriate densities, then the element must include programs to rezone sites pursuant to Government Code section 65583.2, subdivisions (h) and (i).”

Piedmont will most certainly receive this same direction in the HCD response letter to its first draft.  The highlighted text suggests fundamental considerations of the canyon sites that should have been presented months ago. Instead, between now and May 2023, as part of the Moraga Canyon Specific Site Plan study, the City will likely conclude that one if not both of the low-income sites at Coaches are not compatible for housing and conclude that Blair Park be used for the 60 low-income units and some fraction of the above-moderate units.

The City should include relocation of the Corporation Yard to Blair Park in the Moraga Canyon Specific Site Plan so as to improve the quality of low-income housing in the canyon.  The Corporation Yard offers the only flat housing site on the north side of Moraga Avenue and, on a square foot basis, provides better sites amenities than Blair Park.  Judging by similar densities staff assigned to the Coaches sites, 60 housing units could be located at the Corporation Yard.

But beyond the housing goal, relocation of the Corporation Yard could dovetail with General Plan goals of building walkable neighborhoods, preserving open space and others as well.    There are broad planning questions that should have been raised well before the site plan analysis but the General Plan has been virtually absent during the HE process.  The HE proposes three uses for the canyon – housing, city operations and recreation.  How best should these be dispersed to achieve General Plan goals?  Housing and recreation on the Coaches side with city operations in Blair Park?    HCD does not care about these goals but our Planning Department and City Council should and, depending how they conduct the Specific Site Plan analysis, could achieve a “win-win” for Piedmont with the HE.

Garrett Keating, Former Member of the Piedmont City Council

Editors’ Note: Opinions expressed are those of the author.

According to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters for the November 8, 2022 Piedmont General Election, the Piedmont Voter statistics are:

8,813  –  Piedmont Registered Voters

6,498 – Piedmont Voters cast a ballot

6,084 – Voted by Mail or by Early Voting

414 – Voted on Election Day

The Piedmont final certified results elected Andersen, Ramsey, and Long to 4 year terms on the Piedmont City Council.

The Piedmont final certified results elected Medhekar and Thomasson to 4 year terms on the Piedmont Board of Education.

On December 8, 2022, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters published the final certified results of the November 8, 2022 Piedmont Election. 

Members, Piedmont City Council –

Andersen, Ramsey, and Long elected to 4 year terms.

Members, Piedmont Board of Education –

Medhekar and Thomasson Elected to 4 year terms.

Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Community Pool Saturday, December 17th, 11 a.m.

Construction is expected to begin in early 2023, and the new pool could open as soon as summer 2024.

The City of Piedmont invites community members to a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Piedmont Community Pool on Saturday, December 17th at 11am. The ceremony will be held on the grounds of the pool site at 777 Magnolia Avenue.

…………………

The Piedmont City Council voted unanimously to award a contract for construction of the new pool to Wickman Development & Construction at their December 5th, 2022 meeting.

Construction is expected to begin in early 2023, and the new pool could open as soon as summer 2024.

“It took the collective effort of hundreds to reach this point, including current and former Councilmembers, City staff, Commission and Committee volunteers, consultants, and most important – the community advocates who have tirelessly pursued the vision for an aquatics facility that truly meets Piedmont’s needs, some of whom have been working towards this goal for over two decades” said City Administrator Sara Lillevand. “I hope many community members will join us on December 17th to celebrate this monumental milestone.”

Originally opened in 1964, Piedmont’s now-shuttered pool had exceeded its useful lifespan and had long lacked adequate space to meet the community’s diverse aquatic athletic and recreational needs. Although there have been several efforts to explore feasibility of a new facility over the years, work on the pool replacement project began in earnest in 2015, with the development of the Aquatics Center Conceptual Master Plan.

This vision drew closer to reality in November 2020 with the passage of Measure UU, which authorized the sale of $19.5 million in general obligation bonds to fund the new facility. A sharp rise in construction costs beginning in 2020 further threatened the project’s feasibility, leaving a gap of more than $2 million between project cost estimates and available funds even after the City Council scaled back the original design to include only essential components.

To close the gap, the City has partnered with the Piedmont Recreational Facilities Organization (PRFO) to raise $2.1 million for the completion of the new community pool as designed. This capital campaign, which began in August 2022, looks to build on the success of previous PRFO fundraising in support of Hampton Park and the Corey Reich Tennis Center.

As of December 5th, 2022, PRFO is nearly halfway to the fundraising goal of $2.1 million. The City of Piedmont and the Piedmont City Council remain grateful to the community for their ongoing support for the new community pool project.

For more information on the project, visit piedmont.ca.gov/newpool.

For information on the PRFO capital campaign, visit prfo.org/piedmont-community-pool.