City staff say housing-element amendment headed for 7-day public review

Speaker 1, an unidentified city staff member, told the meeting that the city submitted an amendment to its housing element that removes city-owned sites from the project and shifts opportunities to smaller parcels across town. “We worked on amendment to our housing element to remove the city owned sites from the project and to increase the opportunities for housing to be developed throughout the city in little smaller chunks,” Speaker 1 said.

Speaker 1 said the state sent a response letter that at first looked “scary” but required only minor edits after previous meetings with state staff. Staff have completed those edits and are conducting final internal reviews. “It’s likely that next week we’ll start the 7 day public review of the revision,” Speaker 1 said; after the local review finishes, the city will send the amendment back to the state for final review and anticipated sign-off.

The city plans to follow local adoption procedures after state clearance, taking the revision to the Planning Commission and then the City Council for local action before the state’s final sign-off, Speaker 1 said. No formal motion, vote or ordinance was recorded in the briefing.

Clarifying details from the briefing: the city describes the state’s required changes as minor and expects to begin a 7-day local public review “next week”; staff characterized the state sign-off as the final step after local adoption. The transcript records no dates for public hearings or target adoption dates beyond that sequence.