Housing Element Draft Chapter 1

Located in Marin County approximately ten miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, the City of Belvedere has a unique physical setting. Surrounded by water in nearly every direction, it is flanked by Richardson Bay to the west and north, Belvedere Cove and Raccoon Straits to the south, and the Town of Tiburon to the east. The city has a total area of 2.42 square miles, containing 0.54 square miles of land and 1.89 square miles of water. (Source: City of Belvedere)

In addition to being surrounded by water, Belvedere has an interior lagoon and two land “bridges” which connect the largest portion of the city to the rest of the Tiburon Peninsula. Belvedere is, in fact, three distinct neighborhoods. The first neighborhood is Belvedere Island, which has the largest land area and is most varied in terms of topography and landforms. Belvedere Lagoon forms the second, flatter portion of the city which surrounds the interior waterway. The third neighborhood is formed on Corinthian Island, which shares a border with the Town of Tiburon to the east. Smaller, distinct neighborhoods are associated with streets and blocks, such as San Rafael Avenue and West Shore Road.

Because of these distinctive neighborhoods and geographic considerations, Belvedere faces unique challenges when it comes to planning for the future of the community while respecting and protecting its existing fabric.

Housing affordability in Marin County and in the Bay Area as a whole has become an increasingly important issue. Belvedere’s housing conditions are reflective of many area-wide and even nation-wide trends. Over the past several decades, housing costs have skyrocketed out of proportion to many people’s ability to pay, with increasing construction and land costs contributing to the rise in housing prices, and in the Bay Area in particular, he high demand for housing pushing prices even higher. As Belvedere looks towards the future, increasing the range and diversity of housing options is an integral component to its long-term success.

This 2023-2031 Housing Element represents the City of Belvedere's intent to plan for the housing needs of the Belvedere community while also meeting the State's housing goals as set forth in Article 10.6 of the California Government Code. The California State Legislature has identified the attainment of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every Californian as the State's major housing goal. The Belvedere Housing Element represents a sincere and creative effort to meet local and regional housing needs within the constraints of a fully established built-out community, limited land availability, and extraordinarily high costs of land and housing.

Pursuant to State law, the Housing Element must be updated periodically according to statutory deadlines. This 6th Cycle Housing Element covers the planning period 2023 through 2031 and replaces the City's 5th Cycle Housing Element that covered the period 2015 through 2023.

Per State Housing Element law, the document must be periodically updated to:

• Outline the community’s housing production objectives consistent with State and regional growth projections;
• Describe goals, policies and implementation strategies to achieve local housing objectives;
• Examine the local need for housing with a focus on special needs populations;
• Identify adequate sites for the production of housing serving various income levels;
• Analyze potential constraints to new housing production;
• Evaluate the Housing Element for consistency with other General Plan elements; and
• Evaluate Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

The 6th Cycle Housing Element update comes at a critical time because the State of California is experiencing a housing crisis, and as is the case for all jurisdictions in California, Belvedere must play its part in meeting the growing demand for housing. In the coming 20-year period, Marin County is projected to add 169,700 jobs, which represents a 15 percent increase. These changes will increase demand for housing across all income levels, and if the region can’t identify ways to significantly increase housing production, it risks worsening the burden for existing lower-income households, many of whom don’t have the luxury or skill set to move to new a job center but that are nonetheless faced with unsustainable increases in housing cost.

If the region become less competitive in attracting high-skilled workers and increasingly unaffordable to lower-income workers and seniors, then social and economic segregation will worsen, only exacerbating historic patterns of housing discrimination, racial bias, and segregation. This potentiality has become so acute in recent years that the California Legislature addressed the issue with new legislation in 2018. SB 686 requires all state and local agencies to explicitly address, combat, and relieve disparities resulting from past patterns of housing segregation to foster more inclusive communities. This is commonly referred to as Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing, or AFFH (more on this below).

In 2018, Assembly Bill 686 (AB 686), signed in 2018, established an independent state mandate to AFFH. AB 686 extends requirements for federal grantees and contractors to “affirmatively further fair housing,” including requirements in the Federal Fair Housing Act, to public agencies in California. AFFH is defined specifically as taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity by replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns; transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity; and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.

AB 686 requires public agencies to:

• Administer their programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing;
• Not take any action that is materially inconsistent with the obligation to affirmatively further fair housing;
• Ensure that the program and actions to achieve the goals and objectives of the Housing Element affirmatively further fair housing; and
• Include an assessment of fair housing in the Housing Element.

The requirement to AFFH is derived from The Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex—and was later amended to include familial status and disability. The 2015 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Rule to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing and California Assembly Bill 686 (2018) mandate that each jurisdiction takes meaningful action to address significant disparities in housing needs and access to opportunity. AB 686 requires that jurisdictions incorporate AFFH into their Housing Elements, which includes inclusive community participation, an assessment of fair housing, a site inventory reflective of AFFH, and the development of goals, policies, and programs to meaningfully address local fair housing issues.

An exhaustive AFFH analysis was prepared by Root Policy Research and is included as an appendix to his housing element (see Appendix A).

Defining Segregation

Segregation is the separation of different demographic groups into different geographic locations or communities, meaning that groups are unevenly distributed across geographic space. Two spatial forms of segregation were studied for Belvedere by UC Merced Urban Policy Lab and ABAG/MTC Staff: neighborhood level segregation within a local jurisdiction and city level segregation between jurisdictions in the Bay Area.

Neighborhood level segregation (within a jurisdiction, or intra-city): Segregation of race and income groups can occur from neighborhood to neighborhood within a city. For example, if a local jurisdiction has a population that is 20 percent Latinx, but some neighborhoods are 80 percent Latinx while others have nearly no Latinx residents, that jurisdiction would have segregated neighborhoods.

City level segregation (between jurisdictions in a region, or inter-city): Race and income divides also occur between jurisdictions in a region. A region could be very diverse with equal numbers of white, Asian, Black, and Latinx residents, but the region could also be highly segregated with each city comprised solely of one racial group.

There are many factors that have contributed to the generation and maintenance of segregation. Historically, racial segregation stemmed from explicit discrimination against people of color, such as restrictive covenants, redlining, and discrimination in mortgage lending. This history includes many overtly discriminatory policies made by federal, state, and local governments (Rothstein, 2017). Segregation patterns are also affected by policies that appear race-neutral, such as land use decisions and the regulation of housing development.

Segregation has resulted in vastly unequal access to public goods such as quality schools, neighborhood services and amenities, parks and playgrounds, clean air and water, and public safety (Trounstine, 2015). This generational lack of access for many communities, particularly people of color and lower income residents, has often resulted in poor life outcomes, including lower educational attainment, higher morbidity rates, and higher mortality rates (Chetty and Hendren, 2018; Ananat, 2011; Burch, 2014; Cutler and Glaeser, 1997; Sampson, 2012; Sharkey, 2013).

Segregation Patterns in the Bay Area

Across the San Francisco Bay Area, white residents and above moderate-income residents are significantly more segregated from other racial and income groups (see Appendix 2). The highest levels of racial segregation occur between the Black and white populations. The analysis completed for this report indicates that the amount of racial segregation both within Bay Area cities and across jurisdictions in the region has decreased since the year 2000. This finding is consistent with recent research from the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, which concluded that “[a]lthough seven of the nine Bay Area counties were more segregated in 2020 than they were in either 1980 or 1990, racial residential segregation in the region appears to have peaked around the year 2000 and has generally declined since.” However, compared to cities in other parts of California, Bay Area jurisdictions have more neighborhood level segregation between residents from different racial groups. Additionally, there is also more racial segregation between Bay Area cities compared to other regions in the state.

Segregation and Land Use

It is difficult to address segregation patterns without an analysis of both historical and existing land use policies that impact segregation patterns. Land use regulations influence what kind of housing is built in a city or neighborhood (Lens and Monkkonen, 2016 Pendall. 2000). These land use regulations in turn impact demographics: they can be used to affect the number of houses in a community, the number of people who live in the community, the wealth of the people who live in the community, and where within the community they reside (Trounstine, 2018). Given disparities in wealth by race and ethnicity, the ability to afford housing in different neighborhoods, as influenced by land use regulations, is highly differentiated across racial and ethnic groups (Bayer, McMillan, and Reuben, 2004).

Segregation in City of Belvedere

The following are highlights of segregation metrics as they apply Belvedere.

The isolation index measures the segregation of a single group, and the dissimilarity index measures segregation between two different groups. The Theil’s H-Index can be used to measure segregation between all racial or income groups across the city at once.

As of 2020, white residents are the most segregated compared to other racial groups in Belvedere, as measured by the isolation index. White residents live in neighborhoods where they are less likely to come into contact with other racial groups.

Among all racial groups, the white population’s isolation index value has changed the most over time, becoming less segregated from other racial groups between 2000 and 2020.

According to the Theil’s H-Index, neighborhood racial segregation in Belvedere increased between 2010 and 2020. Neighborhood income segregation stayed about the same between 2010 and 2015.

Above moderate-income residents are the most segregated compared to other income groups in Belvedere. Above moderate-income residents live in neighborhoods where they are less likely to encounter residents of other income groups.

Among all income groups, the Moderate-income population’s segregation measure has changed the most over time, becoming less segregated from other income groups between 2010 and 2015.

According to the dissimilarity index, segregation between lower-income residents and residents who are not lower-income has not substantively changed between 2010 and 2015. In 2015, the income segregation in Belvedere between lower-income residents and other residents was lower than the average value for Bay Area jurisdictions.

Regional Segregation

The following are highlights of regional segregation metrics as they apply to Belvedere.

Belvedere has a higher share of white residents than other jurisdictions in the Bay Area as a whole, a lower share of Latinx residents, a lower share of Black residents, and a lower share of Asian/Pacific Islander residents.

Regarding income groups, Belvedere has a lower share of very low-income residents than other jurisdictions in the Bay Area as a whole, a lower share of low-income residents, a lower share of moderate-income residents, and a higher share of above moderate-income residents.

This section provides an overview of planning and legislative efforts that provide context for the development of the 6th Cycle Housing Element.

Effectiveness of Previous Housing Element

The 2015 Housing Element identified a Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 16 housing units in Belvedere between 2015 and 2023. The RHNA was divided into the following income categories:

4 units affordable to extremely low- and very low-income households;

3 units affordable to low-income households;

4 units affordable to moderate-income households; and

5 units affordable to above moderate-income households.

Belvedere has had little success in meeting its housing needs. In the last housing element cycle (2015 to 2023), for example, the City built five (5) housing units, which represented 31 percent of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) (16 new housing units). Of the units built, 80 percent (4 units) was affordable to lower- and moderate-income households, and 20 percent (1 unit) was affordable to above moderate-income households. Since 2000, Belvedere has only added 29 housing units out of 1,060 total units in the city—less than three percent of the city’s total housing stock.

All of this indicates that residential growth for low-income households was slower than anticipated, which may be in part due to the COVID pandemic, the cost of land, and the overall lack of support for new affordable housing development in the community. As a result, housing costs continued to increase substantially due to low supply, and affordability became more elusive.

The goals, objectives, policies, and actions in the 2015 Housing Element complied with State Housing Law and provided proper guidance for housing development in the City. In the 2023 Housing Element update, objectives for each of the goals will be modified as appropriate to more specifically respond to the housing environment in Belvedere from 2023 to 2031. Policies will also be modified as needed to respond to current Housing Element Law and existing and anticipated residential development conditions. See Appendix E for a complete review and analysis of Belvedere’s 5th Cycle Housing Element (2015-2023).

New State Laws Affecting Housing

While the City has taken steps throughout the 5th cycle to increase housing production locally, the State passed numerous laws to address California’s housing crisis during the same period. As the State passes new legislation in the remainder of the 5th cycle and during the 6th cycle, the City will continue to amend the Municipal Code; to monitor and evaluate policies and programs designed to meet State requirements; and to proactively implement new policies and programs to help increase housing production citywide.

In 2019, several bills were signed into law that include requirements for local density bonus programs, the Housing Element, surplus lands, accessory dwelling unit (ADU) streamlining, and removing local barriers to housing production. The City will implement changes required by State law, likely through amendments to the Belvedere Municipal Code. The following is a summary of recent legislation and proposed City activities that will further the City’s efforts to increase housing production during the 6th cycle. Please see the section above for a discussion of AB 686 (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing).

Incentives for Accessory Dwelling Units

AB 68, AB 587, AB 671, AB 881, and SB 13 further incentivize the development of ADUs, through streamlined permits, reduced setback requirements, increased allowable square footage, reduced parking requirements, and reduced fees. The City adopted standards for Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADU) in 2016, which were updated in 2018 and 2020. The City also created a webpage that provides information on State Laws and city regulations and streamlined application processes for developing ADUs and JADUs. Using SB 2 Grant Funding, the City coordinated with the MCPD Housing Working Group to developed an interactive website http://www.adumarin.org, which provides residents and property owners information on designing, financing, and constructing ADUs and JADUs. The program also includes downloadable materials.

Low-Barrier Navigation Centers

AB 101 requires jurisdictions to allow “low-barrier navigation centers” by-right in areas zoned for mixed uses and in nonresidential zones permitting multifamily uses, if the center meets specified requirements.

Surplus Public Land

AB 1255 and AB 1486 seek to identify and prioritize state and local surplus lands available for housing development affordable to lower-income households. In addition, in 2019 Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to identify State owned sites to help address the California housing crisis.

Accelerated Housing Production

AB 2162 and SB 2 address various methods and funding sources that jurisdictions may use to accelerate housing production.

Priority Processing

SB 330 enacts changes to local development policies, permitting, and processes that will be in effect through January 1, 2025. SB 330 places new criteria on the application requirements and processing times for housing developments; prevents localities from decreasing the housing capacity of any site, such as through downzoning or increasing open space requirements, if such a decrease would preclude the jurisdiction from meeting its RHNA housing targets; prevents localities from establishing non-objective standards; and requires that any proposed demolition of housing units be accompanied by a project that would replace or exceed the total number of units demolished. Additionally, any demolished units that were occupied by lower-income households must be replaced with new units affordable to households with those same income levels.

Housing and Public Safety

Finally, in response to SB 379 and other recent state legislation, local jurisdictions must update their safety element to comprehensively address climate adaptation and resilience (SB 379) and SB 1035 (2018) and identify evacuation routes (SB 99 and AB 747). These updates are triggered by the 6th Cycle housing element update. This housing element contains an evaluation of the existing safety element and contains programming actions to update the safety element to satisfy the new state requirements. Also, as sites are identified and analyzed for inclusion in the City’s housing site inventory, special attention will be paid to the risk of wildfire and the need for evacuation routes. In this way, the City will coordinate updates to all three elements (land-use, housing, and safety), so that it can direct future development into areas that avoid or reduce unreasonable risks while also providing needed housing and maintaining other community planning goals.

Disadvantaged Communities

In 2011, the Governor signed SB 244 which requires local governments to make determinations regarding “disadvantaged unincorporated communities,” defined as a community with an annual median income that is less than 80 percent of the statewide annual median household income. The City has determined that there are no unincorporated islands or fringe or legacy communities that qualify as disadvantaged communities inside or near its boundaries.

Consistency with General Plan

The Belvedere City Council adopted Belvedere General Plan 2030 update in 2010. The general plan is a long-range planning document that serves as the “blueprint” for development for local jurisdictions in California. All development-related decisions in the city must be consistent with the General Plan, and if a development proposal is not consistent with the plan, then it must be revised or the plan itself must be amended.

State law requires a community’s general plan to be internally consistent. This means that the housing element, although subject to special requirements and a different schedule of updates, must function as an integral part of the overall general plan, with consistency between it and the other general plan elements. From an overall standpoint, the development projected under this housing element is consistent with the other elements in the City’s current general plan.

Many housing needs can only be addressed on a comprehensive basis in concert with other community concerns such as infill development or mixed-use incentives, for example, which must consider land use, traffic, parking, design and other concerns as well.

Belvedere’s housing element is being updated at this time in conformance with the 2023-2031 update cycle for jurisdictions in the ABAG region. The housing element builds upon the other general plan elements and contains policies to ensure that it is consistent with other elements of the general plan. As portions of the general plan are amended in the future, the plan (including the housing element) will be reviewed to ensure that internal consistency is maintained.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to describe the effort made by the City of Belvedere to engage all economic segments of the community (including residents and/or their representatives) in the development and update of the housing element. This public participation effort also includes formal consultation, pursuant to Government Code §65352.3, with representatives from the Graton Rancheria Native American tribe that are present and active in Marin County. It is also responsive to AB 686 (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing), which requires local jurisdictions, as they update their housing elements, to conduct public outreach to equitably include all stakeholders in the housing element public participation program.

The 6th cycle RHNA numbers are a sea change for all California communities, and the success of the update process hinged in part on a community outreach and engagement program that was robust, inclusive, and meaningful. COVID-19 pandemic did complicate the community outreach efforts, however the pandemic has also catalyzed the development of new digital tools that have brought interactive engagement to a new level. One such tool is an all-in-one digital community engagement platform called Engagement HQ, or Bang the Table (https://www.bangthetable.com/).

Bang the Table

The City of Belvedere partnered with Bang the Table as a cornerstone of its community outreach and engagement program. Using the “Bang the Table” platform, the update team developed an interactive engagement plan that allowed community members to engage on their own time. Components of the interactive engagement plan included:

Website. Blueprint for Belvedere at https://blueprintforbelvedere.com is a dedicated website that provides portal to all of the housing-element-related public engagement activities that are available to members of the public. This includes information on housing element basics, site surveys, an SB-9 survey, and materials from the community workshop;

Ideas. These “virtual post-it notes” were a way for Belvedere community-members to share what inspired them;

Places. Gathered feedback and photos directly on a map with a simple “pin” drop;

Interactive mapping (Balancing Act). Encouraged participation throughout the sites analysis process;

Polls. Questions were posed to get immediate insight with this quick and targeted tool; and

Surveys. Encouraged Belvedere community-members to voice their opinions in a convenient way that also helped City staff understand what areas of the city need more encouragement to participate. Aggregate data also helped the city understand generally who is participating with the outreach tools.

Belvedere’s community engagement program included an initial presentation to the City Council and Planning Commission Retreat (open to the public), a community meeting, in-person open house, a stakeholder focus group, and online/virtual participation opportunities made possible through Bang the Table (described above). Also, as part of this effort, the update team developed a list of organizations that were contacted to participate in the update process, and that list is attached as Appendix F.

Public Participation to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

The Belvedere public participation program was also responsive to AFFH, which requires local jurisdictions to conduct public outreach to equitably include all stakeholders in the housing element public participation program (see the discussion above for more complete information on AFFH.)

Outreach to individuals who may benefit from affordable housing available in Belvedere involved interviews with people who live in the nearby affordable housing development, the Hilarita Apartments in Tiburon, managed by at the EAG Housing. The intention was to learn from resident experience from the perspective of those who have successfully secured affordable housing to impact policy ideas. At the Hilarita, rent is based on 30% of Income and tenant-based vouchers for units that vary in size from 550 to 1,300 square feet. The wait list is currently closed for this housing development. The interview report is available within Appendix F.

Tribal Consultation

This public participation effort also includes formal consultation, pursuant to Government Code §65352.3, with representatives from the Graton Rancheria Native American tribe that are present and active in the Marin County. A meeting took place via Zoom and discussion was led by the tribal representatives, with a primary focus on sites. There were no initial requests to change course with the initial draft. Future meetings may occur as requested prior to a final draft.

Public Review of Draft and Final Housing Element

[to be completed later in the process]