There are 6 candidates seeking election to 3 seats on the Piedmont City Council. Voters can vote for up to 3 of the candidates. The election is on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The candidates are shown below in alphabetical order with their ballot statements copied beside their photographs.

Senate Bill 9 (SB9) can be a Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) Game Changer for Piedmont.

How so and are actions possible now?

The ADU  [Accessory Dwelling Unit] discussion in the Civic Discussion Forum has much of the insight needed to help implement the opportunity of ADUs in Piedmont with respect to political support needed to develop ADUs in Piedmont and help guide the ADU discussion to help save the downtown “look and feel” of Piedmont in general. Here are a few observations that hopefully adds to the expertise here.

First, Piedmont is essentially implementing the ministerial RHNA housing allocation without a revised Master Plan. The community knows that the math allocations do not add up to the values shared for our collective sense of “Piedmont”.  We also know that fellow community members such as teachers, police, community staff cannot afford to live in our city limits. We also know we need more time to articulate a new Master Plan that implements both Piedmont’s values we share, while increasing the supply of affordable housing we need.

Second, our Piedmont housing element acknowledges, “The 2008 General Plan Update is the first major Plan revision in 12 years. It looks ahead to a horizon year of 2025. Most of the work on the Plan update was completed over a 15-month period between April 2007 and July 2008.”; long before anyone had dreamed of RHNA or the need for affordable housing in Piedmont.

Question: Can Piedmont comply with RHNA and timing while committing to the time commitment needed to articulate a new Master Plan with a diverse community, without abandoning value, purpose and civic sense of place of Piedmont?

Let’s look at the RHNA math more closely.

•       The RHNA estimate is generally based on the average number of ADU building permits issued each year, “multiplied by eight (because there are eight years in a housing element cycle)”.
•       If numbers were low in 2019 but were high in 2020, 2021, and 2022, a given city jurisdiction could potentially use 2020-2022 as the baseline.
•       “A slightly larger number may be warranted if a robust, funded, and clear plan to increase production has been put in place.”

Again, the RHNA formula allows Piedmont to multiply our ADU units by a factor of 8 if these permits and the intentions and performance are real.

Suggested Goal for discussion:
How can Piedmont develop ADUs at the rate of 70 ADUs per year, beginning in 2022, for eight years.  But let’s also look at how we achieve the outcome of permitting 250 ADU units in less time and less money than the City’s spend on consulting fees to explain the RHNA math to its citizens.

Proposal for Discussion:
Piedmont’s permitting process is highly unusual. Most cities accept filed permits and terminate them after a very short period of time, say 18 months. However, Piedmont’s permits stay actively open indefinitely and pass on from respective homeowner to homeowner, until built or revised. Permits do not expire in Piedmont.

This unique process can be used to Piedmont’s advantage. This may help demonstrate and meet long-term goals for Piedmont’s ADU permitting count; and show immediate proof to the RHNA that Piedmont’s volume of ADUs complies with Piedmont’s RHNA quota. This approach could demonstrate policy results and buy time for a better Piedmont Master Plan.

If the City of Piedmont combines Piedmont’s unique permitting and permit process with a new “surged effort” to help the City enable low cost access for anyone who is considering building an ADU in the next 10 years, Piedmont can “hit its numbers.”  The City needs a new operations model with a concerted, coordinated, significant, programmatic design, budgeting and mass permitting of high quality ADUs.

Is the trade worth the hassle?  Is the needed change to the City Planning Operations and focus worth the reward to save us from knee jerk “numbers game” and buy Piedmont the time needed for a new Master Plan? Can we do a better job at coordinating the look and feel of Piedmont’s future?

The New RHNA Math may be possible if the City of Piedmont and its Planning Department creates a programmatic approach to design, permitting in a massive coordinated effort to plan and permit ADU’s within Piedmont.  Can the City help guide or retain a prepaid pool of consulting architects and builders to provide easy, low cost planning access to anyone in Piedmont who wants to build an ADU in Piedmont in the next 10 years, without penalty for changing plans?

These systems exist in other venues – is it worth the trade of the hassle here in Piedmont for the results?

If Piedmont homeowners take the time and also have access to simple resources to help develop their respective ADUs, even if it takes 10 years to save, plan and build … or sell the opportunity to the next homeowner …  legitimate RHNA permits counts are possible. The housing opportunity is real.

By this new math, Piedmont needs at a peak initiative 20 residents per week to participate in affordable designs and permits approved per week for the next 4 months to reach 250 Permitted ADU permits.

The RHNA math only demands 70 permits to extrapolate Piedmont’s 8-year trend, but Piedmont can do better. On average, the building California City building departments provide comments to completed ADU applications in 10 days. The design standards are already set in Piedmont. Let’s change that to 30 approvals per every 10 days if the applicants are among the Petition of 1,000 signatures of concerned citizens.

John Cheney, Lincoln Avenue, Piedmont

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

“Climate action is a demonstrated priority for Piedmont’s City Council.”

The City of Piedmont has been awarded the Institute of Local Government (ILG)’s
Beacon Spotlight Award for Sustainability Best Practices at the Platinum level.  Piedmont’s Platinum Spotlight award was recognized at the League of California Cities
Annual Conference in Long Beach on Thursday September 8, 2022.

The Spotlight Award recognizes sustainability actions that go above and beyond state
mandates, highlighting creative and local solutions for addressing climate sustainability
in ten areas, including energy efficiency and conservation, green building, and waste
reduction.

Piedmont was recognized in the following areas:

• Reach Codes:

• All-Electric Community Pool:

• EV Chargers:

• Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan:

• Climate-Friendly Purchasing:

• Compost Giveaways:

• Community Education:

READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE > 2022-09-12 City Honored for Sustainability Achievements

Piedmonters have called for clearer explanations on what is proposed in the Housing Element.  Helpful explanations would include:

• Specific diagrams of any new and safer roads near schools and in the Morago Canyon Area where housing is proposed, including cost projections for road improvements.
• The state is looking for zoning changes to increase housing density. How is Piedmont proposing to comply with the City Charter and Piedmont voters rights on zoning changes increasing density?
• High density housing in Piedmont is being proposed to a height of 6 stories.  This height is greater than existing buildings in Piedmont.  How does this not change the character of the city and stay in  compliance with Piedmont ordinances and design review standards?
• Currently, a small number of dwelling units are in the Moraga Canyon area. How will services be provided including: transit, pedestrian access, monitoring of low-income and affordable rents, public safety access, etc. –  for the hundreds of new dwelling units proposed? How will the additional workload and costs be covered ?
• The Housing Element once adopted by the City and the Department of Housing and Community Development becomes a “property use right. “ On city and private property, what are city and voter controls over development and costs after the Housing Element has been adopted by the City Council?
• The City is not required to build the housing.  However, the use of City land is essential to meeting the large numbers of dwelling units required of the HE.  What right does the City have to participate in leasing, selling, or assisting in the use of public lands per the State Constitution Article 34 and the City Charter without voter approval of the zoning use changes?
• Commercial developers paired with government money await the opportunity to build in Piedmont as supported locally by influencers in and outside of Piedmont.   What is the schedule to provide  Piedmont voters with their right to vote on the HE zoning changes prior to final adoption?
• Outreach efforts by Piedmont have been clouded and confused by partial information and changes to the proposed HE.  Why isn’t or wasn’t a mailed survey sent to every residence in Piedmont to learn of voters concerns and interests?
• What are the requirements for building high density dwelling units in Piedmont, including: height limits, density, street configurations, utilities, public safety, trees, transit, parks, sewers, water, landslides, fire protection, parking, lighting, open space, etc. ?

Emergency Alerts Began on Sunday, September 4 This Week

On Wednesday, September 7, The California Independent System Operator (ISO) issued an Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) stage 2, effective from 4 to 9pm.

On Tuesday, September 6, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) issued an Energy Emergency Alert (EEA) stage 2 for 4 to 9pm.  As grid conditions worsened, energy supplies were determined to be insufficient to cover demand and reserves, and an EEA stage 3 was declared at 5:17 pm, indicating controlled power outages were imminent.

Planned outages are implemented when all the other emergency tools on hand for  the ISO, utilities and state agencies have been used and supplies are still insufficient to  cover demand.

If needed, ISO could order utilities to begin rotating power outages to maintain stability  of the electric grid. If that occurs, consumers should expect communications – either  phone, text or email – from their utilities notifying them of outage areas and likely  durations.

Rotating power outages, or small-scale, contained, controlled interruptions in power,  can help maintain reliability and avoid cascading blackouts. When the ISO determines  that supplies are not sufficient to meet demand, it can issue an EEA 3, and then if  reserves are exhausted, it would order utilities to begin outages to bring demand back in line with available supplies.   ISO announcement here

Battery Technology Advances Are Needed to Restore Reliable Electric Energy

Massive Battery Capacity is Necessary to Allow Dependence on Solar and Wind Farms and Power a Huge Increase in the Number of Electric Cars

At present batteries require toxic or rare materials including nickel, lithium and cobalt.  Replacing fossil fuels with toxics may not be entirely defensible.  Doug Powell, Solid Power head, reminds us “Batteries are no different than all other science fields – nothing is free.”  Longer driving range requires longer charge time,  but charge time affects cycle life.

Various new developments in battery technology are hyped, only to be discarded a few years later.  A case in point  was lithium-sulfur batteries, which generated excitement in 2010.  Unfortunately, their claimed energy density required huge amounts of electrolytes.

Until battery technology catches up with the multiple needs, Piedmonters and all Californians will have to restrain their use of electricity, especially as sunset approaches, shutting down the stream of solar energy.

Piedmont’s Emergency Operation Center to be replaced by a new Dispatch Center.

On September 6, 2022, the City Council will consider a contract in the amount of $296,556 for consulting services for design and construction oversight to relocate and renovate the Dispatch Center.  The work is being paid for by funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.  The final cost of the project is estimated at approximately $2,300,000. 

Recently, much discussion has been held in public meetings about the possibility of building dwelling units in conjunction with Police and Fire Department and a City Hall master plan construction.

The Highland-Vista-Magnolia Avenue locations have been noted as potential sites for dwelling units in the proposed Housing Element.  Public comments questioned compounding congestion in the already heavily used Central Piedmont civic area containing 5 schools, the Community Church, Police and Fire emergency facilities, City Hall uses, refurbished tennis courts, Recreation Center, and the soon to be built large new municipal pool complex.

“On October 4, 2021, City Council prioritized the relocation and renovation of the Police Dispatch Center as the highest and best use for American Rescue Plan Act funding. Since that time, staff drafted and issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to engage firms to provide Architecture and Engineering Design Services. COAR Design Group (COAR) was selected from the five proposals received by the May 9, 2022 response deadline. The fee for COAR’s Design Services, which will cover all services extending from conceptual design through construction administration support, is $296,555. For reference, the fees proposed by the five responding firms ranged from $243,000 to $438,000.”

READ THE FULL STAFF REPORT BELOW:

https://piedmont.hosted.civiclive.com/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=18859599

The RFP, photographs, floor plans, and requirements are included in the link above.

Sept. 6 AGENDA  >HERE.

Bring us all together instead of pitting neighborhood against neighborhood.

I sense growing anxiety in the community over the decisions being made of where to accommodate 587 units of new housing.

What would greatly reduce this anxiety, in my opinion, would be to have details of the suggested plans along with their locations, ie, how many stories will there be? what will the buildings look like on the outside?  will they be duplexes, attached condos, high rise apartments buildings?

Yet another way to reduce this anxiety would be to understand that for Piedmont to reach its goals, a compromise needs to be found so that the distribution of new housing will be borne by the whole community not one neighborhood. 

If our goal is to help solve the housing crises, let us be equitable with each other as well as those that need affordable housing.  Please find a mediator to bring us all together instead of pitting neighborhood against neighborhood.

Karen P Harley, Piedmont Resident

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

The following questions were posed to the Piedmont Planning Department regarding the proposed Housing Element:

Article 34 of the state Constitution prohibits the development of a low-income affordable housing project with state or local public financing or assistance unless and until a majority of the voters of the jurisdiction has approved it.

Article 34 of the California Constitution requiring voter approval of proposed development has not been presented to Piedmonters as an important voter law regarding the proposed Housing Element plan.

According to the rule of law, voters have rights regarding zoning and use changes as proposed in the Housing Element.  Workarounds to stop Piedmont citizens from voting defeats the Piedmont rule of law and City Charter.

California Article 34 reinforces the role of Piedmont voters spelled out in the Piedmont City Charter fulfilling the rule of law in Piedmont and throughout the state. 

The council enthusiasm for swift adoption of the new Housing Element did not include a citizen vote in the schedule, ignoring Piedmont ordinances, the Piedmont City Charter and the state Constitution impeding Piedmont voters from voting on the significant zoning changes proposed.  

The Piedmont City Council has a right and responsibility by Piedmont and California laws to devise housing and development proposals in the Piedmont General Plan, including the Housing Element.  The City Council will ask the state to approve the Housing Element plans.  However, most importantly, if the state approves Piedmont’s Housing Element and the Housing Element requires zoning changes and reclassifications per Piedmont laws, as the current Housing Element proposal does, then the zoning changes per Piedmont laws must be approved by Piedmont voters prior to implementation. 

Various workarounds have been presented regarding zoning to avoid seeking approval of Piedmont voters at a general or special election.

If Piedmont voters reject the City Council zoning changes, then the City Council must, according to Piedmont laws, change the Housing Element to adhere to Piedmont laws by gaining Piedmont voter approval of zoning changes. 

In Los Gatos, a ballot measure has been qualified for the ballot to amend their City Council’s approved General Plan and place the matter before voters.  Piedmont has the assumed protection of Piedmont and state laws requiring approval of proposed zoning changes, if the City Council adheres to City and state laws. 

Does the Piedmont City Council trust voters to act on proposed zoning changes per the Piedmont City Charter, Piedmont Zoning Ordinances, and Article 34 of the state Constitution?

Where is an official written legal opinion regarding voter rights on the Piedmont proposed zoning changes and the Housing Element indicating compliance with the Piedmont City Charter, Piedmont Zoning Ordinances, and Article 34 of the state Constitution ?

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READ CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 34 > https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&division=&title=&part=&chapter=&article=XXXIV