Council Beats The Clock; Approves Appeal of Huge New Housing Mandate By State Authority

With just hours remaining, the Pasadena City Council voted 7-1 on Monday to appeal nearly impossible housing goals mandated by the Southern California Association of Government (SCAG).

As part of its appeal, the city will ask for a reduction of 2,047 housing units in its allocation.

Vice Mayor Tyron Hampton voted against the appeal.

According to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the city must build 9,409 housing units before 2029, including 2,379 very-low-income units, 1,659 low-income units, 1,562 moderate-income units, and 3,449 above-moderate-income units.

The city’s appeal is based on the methodology used to determine Pasadena’s allocation and changed circumstances regarding the housing needs of a private university.

Planning Director David Reyes said he had spoken to planning directors in several other communities.

“Our appeal is unique to Pasadena,” Reyes said. “It is realistic and it will require SCAG to do some thinking before they reject it out of hand.”

If the city is not successful in its appeal, they may have to continue the fight in court.

“The step beyond final determination through an appeal would be litigation or legislation,” said City Attorney Michele Beal Bagneris.

The number of units is determined through the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process. HCD determines the share of the state’s housing need for each region based on population projections and SCAG allocates each local jurisdiction its share of the regional housing need.

“We do have an obligation to produce more housing,” said Mayor Terry Tornek. “The problem we have is many communities have been unwilling to participate in that production. The reward we are getting is having their lack of production applied to us.”

According to the City Council and other cities across L.A. County, the numbers are impossible to achieve.

“My constituents strongly support this appeal,” said Councilmember Steve Madison when he moved a motion to pass the appeal.

“We continue to have migration to California from other places and our quality of life is mandated to suffer. Places as special as Pasadena should not have to continue to subdivide and build up higher and higher.”

The appeal claims:

• The methodology was applied in a manner that results in an inequitable distribution of housing throughout the region, inadequately accounts for past practices of certain cities in the San Gabriel Valley to meet existing housing demand, and fails to recognize Pasadena’s past and ongoing substantial efforts to produce housing, affordable housing in particular.

• Application of the methodology results in the redistribution of RHNA units from disadvantaged communities throughout Los Angeles County to cities in the San Gabriel Valley in a manner that runs counter to three key objectives of the RHNA and SCAG’s Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy to achieve jobs/housing balance, to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and to attain greenhouse gas reduction targets established by the state.

• And the local change in circumstances due to local changed circumstances needing to be accounted for in the RHNA process. Specifically, since April 30 (the date established by SCAG for provision of data from SCAG jurisdictions).

Winning an appeal is extremely unlikely. Appeals cannot be granted based on a local jurisdiction’s existing zoning ordinance and land-use restrictions, local ordinances, policies, voter-approved measures or standards limiting residential development, prior underproduction of housing in a jurisdiction from the previous regional housing need allocation.

“The likelihood of success on the merits is zero,” said Councilman John Kennedy. “In all honesty, this administrative action that we take tonight is not going to change the system. Does it need to be changed? I believe it does.”

Several other cities, including West Hollywood, have also announced their plans to appeal their allotments.

But even if a city is successful in appealing the numbers, the numbers removed from the city successful in the appeal would be added to another city’s allocation, which means Pasadena’s already-excessive allocation could increase.

Pasadena has the zoning laws in place to plan for meeting the projected benchmark. But Senate Bill 35, which became law in 2018, allows developers to skip parts of the city’s development process and overrides zoning laws depending on how far jurisdictions fall short in their RHNA numbers.

Pasadena has never hit its RHNA numbers. And, so far, the city has not faced any punishment.

In the last cycle, the city only hit the threshold for the above-moderate threshold of housing units, which was 561.

“SCAG failed to determine the city of Pasadena’s share of the regional housing need in accordance with the information described in the Final RHNA Methodology established and approved by SCAG, and in a manner that does not further and does undermine three of the five objectives of the RHNA process,” according to an agenda staff report.

Following the conclusion of the filing period, all jurisdictions will be notified by SCAG of all appeals filed. Per state law, jurisdictions and HCD will have 45 days to comment on filed appeals. Within 30 days of the end of the appeal comment period, SCAG must conduct public hearings to hear all filed appeals.

The hearing body will be the RHNA subcommittee, which will be known as the RHNA Appeals Board. All decisions made by the appeals board will be considered final and not reviewed by any other SCAG committee or the regional council.

“These arguments, detailed in the RHNA appeals form, warrant the reduction in Pasadena’s RHNA by 2,047 units, resulting in a total RHNA of 7,362 units,” according to the agenda staff report. This request will be stated on the appeal form required by SCAG.”