WATSONVILLE — The city of Watsonville is looking to amend its Affordable Housing Ordinance, adopted in 2001, to comply with state laws, clarify some of its requirements and remove outdated sections. Before it heads to the City Council it will go before the Planning Commission in a public hearing Tuesday.
According to a staff report by Housing Manager Carlos Landaverry, Watsonville has had an Affordable Housing Ordinance since 1991, and its current iteration was adopted a decade later to reflect the actual income of Watsonville residents. The current ordinance requires 15 to 20% of new residential projects with seven or more units constructed in the city be made affordable to prospective families with very low, low, median, moderate or above moderate incomes, based on Watsonville’s household median income.
In response to council referrals and state laws governing affordable housing requirements, Landaverry wrote that staff have been working with the City Attorney’s Office on an updated ordinance that not only complies with state law but also makes some elements clearer for project applicants.
“The proposed amendments are designed to be easier to understand, make it easier for applicants to comply, simplify administration and oversight, and increase transparency by consolidating most affordable housing requirements, eliminating conflicting requirements, and standardizing and simplifying certain processes and requirements,” he wrote.
The changes would update Chapter 14-46 of the Watsonville Municipal Code and include codifying a local priority preference for those applying for units, deleting a section on density bonus provisions and moving it to the succeeding chapter, clarifying that the prevailing interest rate is based on the average 30-year fixed interest rate mortgage available on a certain date from local lenders in Santa Cruz County and then offering such loan product to Watsonville residents, deleting the section on projects within the downtown core in light of the council’s 2023 adoption of the Downtown Watsonville Specific Plan which governs these types of projects and clarifying that 10% of the affordability housing requirement for rental projects would go to overflow-income households or recipients of housing choice vouchers or rental subsidies.
Per the Municipal Code, zoning text amendments are reviewed by the Planning Commission in a public hearing, at which point the commission will determine whether or not to recommend the amendments to the council, which will have final say. The commission is also tasked with finding the adoption of the ordinance to not be a project under the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires municipalities to disclose any environmental impacts that may result from a proposed project.
Per the staff report, the action item is not considered a project under CEQA guidelines, so it is considered categorically exempt.
In other business, the commission will consider a one-year entitlement time extension for a proposed industrial warehouse distribution center on Manabe Ow Road, a design review permit for an outdoor sculpture garden at the historic Porter Building — now home to Pajaro Valley Arts, and the 6th Cycle Housing Element implementation.
The commission will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Council Chambers on the top floor of the Watsonville Civic Plaza, 275 Main St., Watsonville.
