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Home My WebLink AboutStaff Report 2606-6432CITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL Special Meeting Monday, June 15, 2026 Council Chambers & Hybrid 5:30 PM Agenda Item 23.SECOND READING and Adoption of Temporary Ordinances Implementing Senate Bill (SB) 79, and Introduction and Adoption of Interim Urgency Ordinances Excluding Certain Historic Resource Sites and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Eligible Sites from Government Code Section 65912.157 and Authorizing Corresponding Zoning Map Updates. CEQA Status: Exempt Under Government Code Section 65912.160(c)(2). Supplemental Report Added, Public Comment a. SECOND READING and Adoption of Temporary Ordinances Implementing SB 79 (Staff Recommendations 1 & 2) b. Introduction and Adoption of Interim Urgency Ordinances Excluding Certain Historic Resource Sites from Government Code Section 65912.157 (Staff Recommendation 3) c. Introduction and Adoption of Interim Urgency Ordinances Excluding Certain Transit- Oriented Development (TOD) Eligible Sites from Government Code Section 65912.157 (Staff Recommendation 4) CITY COUNCIL Staff Report From: City Manager Report Type: CONSENT CALENDAR Lead Department: Planning and Development Services Meeting Date: June 15, 2026 Report #: 2606-6432 TITLE SECOND READING and Adoption of Temporary Ordinances Implementing Senate Bill (SB) 79, and Introduction and Adoption of Interim Urgency Ordinances Excluding Certain Historic Resource Sites and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Eligible Sites from Government Code Section 65912.157 and Authorizing Corresponding Zoning Map Updates. CEQA Status: Exempt Under Government Code Section 65912.160(c)(2). RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the City Council: 1. Conduct second reading and adopt the temporary ordinance excluding historic resources designated on the City’s local register as of January 1, 2025, from development standards otherwise applicable under SB 79, through one year following adoption of the City’s 7th Cycle housing Element; 2. Conduct second reading and adopt the temporary ordinance establishing development standards for all TOD-eligible parcels subject to SB 79 at 50 percent of the otherwise allowable development capacity authorized under State law, and simultaneously exempting those properties from default SB 79 standards through one year following adoption of the City’s 7th Cycle Housing Element; 3. Introduce and adopt an interim urgency ordinance excluding historic resources designated as of January 1, 2025, from the development standards otherwise applicable under SB 79 and authorize corresponding zoning map updates; and 4. Introduce and adopt an interim urgency ordinance establishing interim TOD Combining District development standards for TOD-eligible parcels subject to SB 79 at 50 percent of the otherwise allowable development capacity authorized under State law, exempting those properties from default SB 79 standards, and authorizing corresponding zoning map updates. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BACKGROUND The ordinance establishes interim development standards including: A maximum FAR of 1.75:1 for sites within one-quarter mile of a transit stop; A maximum FAR of 1.5:1 for sites between one-quarter mile and one-half mile of a transit stop; A maximum FAR of 2.25:1 for sites adjacent (within 200 feet) of a transit stop; Minimum setbacks consisting of 10-foot front and rear setbacks and four-foot side setbacks unless otherwise prescribed by the underlying zone; and Daylight plane standards beginning at a height of 16 feet and extending at a 45-degree angle when the subject property is adjacent to low-density residential zoning districts. 1, ordinances adopted through the standard process are generally subject to a 30-day referendum period and would not become effective until July 16, 2026. SB 79 comes into effect on July 1, 2026, resulting in a gap during which the City would lack locally adopted implementing measures if urgency ordinances were not adopted. Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 2.04 and Government Code Section 65858 independently authorize the City Council to adopt emergency/interim urgency ordinances necessary to preserve the public peace, health, or safety, and to address current and immediate threats to the public health, safety, and welfare, respectively. Staff therefore prepared companion urgency ordinances to ensure continuity of local implementation measures during the period between SB 79’s effective date and the effective date of the temporary ordinances. The urgency ordinance contains findings that implementation of the default SB 79 standards without interim local regulations would create increased demands on public infrastructure, transportation systems, and bicycle and pedestrian circulation facilities in a manner for which the City cannot adequately plan at this time. Similar findings are included in the version of the temporary ordinance presented here for second reading. If the City Council adopts the temporary and interim urgency ordinances, staff will: 1 Council Staff Report and Supplemental Memo (June 1, 2026), available at: https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=18727 Submit the adopted ordinances to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) as required by SB 79; Update the City’s zoning maps to identify excluded historic resource sites and TOD Combining District sites; Over the next six to twelve months, prepare implementing ordinances to codify the temporary ordinance while exploring opportunities to accelerate housing production on California Avenue and adjacent areas on El Camino Real; and Continue work related to the Downtown Housing Plan, engaging the SB 79 / Downtown Housing Plan Ad Hoc as appropriate on related next steps. Staff will continue monitoring guidance issued by HCD and any future amendments to SB 79 currently under consideration by the California Legislature. FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT The adoption of the temporary and interim urgency ordinances would not result in additional fiscal impacts beyond existing staff resources currently allocated to SB 79 implementation and the Downtown Housing Plan work program. Preparation of permanent implementing ordinances and any future TOD Alternative Plan may require additional consultant support and future appropriations, which staff would return to the City Council to request as appropriate. STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT The City Council previously considered the implementation approaches during publicly noticed hearings and through discussions with the SB 79 / Downtown Housing Plan Ad Hoc Committee. The urgency ordinances are intended to implement the policy direction previously provided by the City Council and maintain continuity in local implementation measures pending adoption of permanent ordinances and future community engagement processes. Staff will continue outreach and engagement efforts associated with the Downtown Housing Plan and future permanent zoning ordinance amendments. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW The actions recommended in this report are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code Section 65912.160(c)(2) because they involve ordinances that make the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 by implementing Government Code Section 65912.161(b) and by amending the zoning map to indicate sites that are not subject to Government Code Section 65912.157. ATTACHMENTS APPROVED BY: ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160194_20260604_ay16 Ordinance No. _____ Temporary Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties Designated as Local Historic Resources Pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 16.49 and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160194_20260604_ay16 the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones, including projects that would result in the loss of historic resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC section 18.80.090, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure to preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory as of January 1, 2025 are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. SECTION 3. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. SECTION 4. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 5. The Council finds that the Ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2), because it makes the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 by implementing Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b) and amending the zoning map to indicate which sites are and are not subject to Government Code section 65912.157. // // // ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160194_20260604_ay16 SECTION 6. This Ordinance shall be effective on the 31st day following its adoption and shall expire on July 1, 2027 unless extended or superseded. INTRODUCED: PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160195_20260604_ay16 Ordinance No. _____ Temporary Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adding Section 18.14.070 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Create the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District and Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties that Permit Density and Floor Area Ratio at No Less Than 50% of the Standards in the Government Code and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160195_20260604_ay16 G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones that the City has not already identified as being suitable locations for higher-density development, allow densities that would create unanticipated strain on public infrastructure and cause additional points of conflict between vehicles and bicycles or pedestrians in the affected areas. Existing infrastructure, including but not limited to water supply for fire suppression, stormwater management to reduce flooding, and wastewater mains will require significant increases in capacity to serve high density development in the TOD zones that may not be fully funded by proposed development under current standards. The rezoning and exclusion actions set forth in this ordinance would reduce these impacts for a temporary period, during which the City may plan for increased demands on infrastructure and transportation resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC section 18.80.090, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure to preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Section 18.14.070 (Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District) of Chapter 18.14 (Housing Incentives) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code is hereby added to read: 18.14.070 Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District (a) Purpose. The purpose of the TOD Combining District is to implement Senate Bill 79 (2025), California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162. For purposes of this section, definitions in California Government Code section 65912.156 shall apply. (b) Applicability. The TOD Combining District shall apply to all sites within a TOD zone, except: (1) sites owned by the City of Palo Alto and (2) sites excluded by ordinance from the effect of Government Code section 65912.157 because they were designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory as of January 1, 2025. (c) Development Standards. Transit-oriented housing development projects may elect to utilize the following development standards in-lieu of the standards set forth in the underlying district. Except as provided herein, the standards in the underlying district shall apply: (1) For sites within ¼ mile of a TOD stop, unless the underlying district is more permissive: ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160195_20260604_ay16 Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio 1.75:1 Minimum setbacks (feet) Front and rear 10 Side 4 Daylight Plane for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) Initial height: 16 feet, measured at the property line Slope: 45 degrees Maximum density None Minimum density Greater of: 30 du/ac or 5 units Maximum site coverage 70% (2) For sites further than ¼ mile but within ½ mile of a TOD stop, unless the underlying district is more permissive: Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio 1.5:1 Minimum setbacks (feet) Front and rear 10 Side 4 Daylight Plane for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) Initial height: 16 feet, measured at the property line Slope: 45 degrees Maximum density None Minimum density Greater of: 30 du/ac or 5 units Maximum site coverage 70% (3) For sites adjacent to a TOD stop, Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio shall be the greater of 2.25 or the FAR provided in the underlying zone. SECTION 3. Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites subject to the TOD Combining District are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. SECTION 4. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 4 0160195_20260604_ay16 SECTION 5. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 6. The Council finds that the Ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2), because it makes the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 as set forth in Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), and by amending the zoning map to indicate which sites are and are not subject to Government Code section 65912.157. SECTION 7. This Ordinance shall be effective on the 31st day following its adoption and shall expire on July 1, 2027 unless extended or superseded. INTRODUCED: PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160196_20260604_ay16 Ordinance No. _____ Interim Urgency Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties Designated as Local Historic Resources Pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 16.49 and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160196_20260604_ay16 the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones, including projects that would result in the loss of historic resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC sections 18.80.090 and 2.04.270, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure and an emergency measure to prevent the loss of historic resources listed in the Palo Alto Historic Inventory and thereby preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. J. Additionally, for the reasons provided herein, the City Council finds and declares that the potential loss of historic resources in TOD zones presents a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, or welfare that would be realized by approval of projects under the standards set forth in Government Code section 65912.157. There are no pending project applications that would be impacted by this ordinance and this ordinance would not have the effect of denying any approvals needed for the development of projects containing multifamily housing. Accordingly, this ordinance is necessary as an interim, urgency measure pursuant to Government Code section 65858 to protect the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory as of January 1, 2025 are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. SECTION 3. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. SECTION 4. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160196_20260604_ay16 SECTION 5. The Council finds that the Ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2), because it makes the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 by implementing Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b) and amending the zoning map to indicate which sites are and are not subject to Government Code section 65912.157. SECTION 6. This Ordinance shall be effective upon adoption by a four-fifths vote of City Council members present and shall expire 45 days thereafter unless extended. INTRODUCED and ADOPTED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160197_20260604_ay16 Ordinance No. _____ Interim Urgency Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adding Section 18.14.070 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Create the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District and Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties that Permit Density and Floor Area Ratio at No Less Than 50% of the Standards in the Government Code and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160197_20260604_ay16 G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones that the City has not already identified as being suitable locations for higher-density development, allow densities that would create unanticipated strain on public infrastructure and cause additional points of conflict between vehicles and bicycles or pedestrians in the affected areas. Existing infrastructure, including but not limited to water supply for fire suppression, stormwater management to reduce flooding, and wastewater mains will require significant increases in capacity to serve high density development in the TOD zones that may not be fully funded by proposed development under current standards. The rezoning and exclusion actions set forth in this ordinance would reduce these impacts for a temporary period, during which the City may plan for increased demands on infrastructure and transportation resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC sections 18.80.090 and 2.04.270, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure and emergency measure to preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. J. Additionally, the City Council finds and declares that the impacts described above present a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, or welfare that would be realized by approval of projects under the standards set forth in Government Code section 65912.157. There are no pending project applications that would be impacted by this ordinance and this ordinance would not have the effect of denying any approvals needed for the development of projects containing multifamily housing. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth above, this ordinance is necessary as an interim, urgency measure pursuant to Government Code section 65858 to protect the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Section 18.14.070 (Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District) of Chapter 18.14 (Housing Incentives) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code is hereby added to read: 18.14.070 Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District (a) Purpose. The purpose of the TOD Combining District is to implement Senate Bill 79 (2025), California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162. For purposes of this section, definitions in California Government Code section 65912.156 shall apply. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160197_20260604_ay16 (b) Applicability. The TOD Combining District shall apply to all sites within a TOD zone, except: (1) sites owned by the City of Palo Alto and (2) sites excluded by ordinance from the effect of Government Code section 65912.157 because they were designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory as of January 1, 2025. (c) Development Standards. Transit-oriented housing development projects may elect to utilize the following development standards in-lieu of the standards set forth in the underlying district. Except as provided herein, the standards in the underlying district shall apply: (1) For sites within ¼ mile of a TOD stop, unless the underlying district is more permissive: Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio 1.75:1 Minimum setbacks (feet) Front and rear 10 Side 4 Daylight Plane for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) Initial height: 16 feet, measured at the property line Slope: 45 degrees Maximum density None Minimum density Greater of: 30 du/ac or 5 units Maximum site coverage 70% (2) For sites further than ¼ mile but within ½ mile of a TOD stop, unless the underlying district is more permissive: Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio 1.5:1 Minimum setbacks (feet) Front and rear 10 Side 4 Daylight Plane for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) Initial height: 16 feet, measured at the property line Slope: 45 degrees Maximum density None Minimum density Greater of: 30 du/ac or 5 units Maximum site coverage 70% ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 4 0160197_20260604_ay16 (3) For sites adjacent to a TOD stop, Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio shall be the greater of 2.25 or the FAR provided in the underlying zone. SECTION 3. Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites subject to the TOD Combining District are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. SECTION 4. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. SECTION 5. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 6. The Council finds that the Ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2), because it makes the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 as set forth in Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), and by amending the zoning map to indicate which sites are and are not subject to Government Code section 65912.157. // // // // // // // // // // ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 5 0160197_20260604_ay16 SECTION 7. This Ordinance shall be effective upon adoption by a four-fifths vote of City Council members present and shall expire 45 days thereafter unless extended. INTRODUCED and ADOPTED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services Item No. 23. Page 1 of 2 1 0 1 6 5 City Council Supplemental Report From: Jonathan Lait, Planning and Development Services Director Meeting Date: June 15, 2026 Item Number: 23 Report #:2606-6465 TITLE SECOND READING and Adoption of Temporary Ordinances Implementing Senate Bill (SB) 79, and Introduction and Adoption of Interim Urgency Ordinances Excluding Certain Historic Resource Sites and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Eligible Sites from Government Code Section 65912.157 and Authorizing Corresponding Zoning Map Updates. CEQA Status: Exempt Under Government Code Section 65912.160(c)(2). RECOMMENDATION This supplemental report transmits updated versions of attachments B and D for Council consideration. ANALYSIS This report transmits updated versions of attachments B and D, which incorporate an additional clarifying provision in the proposed Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District regulations. This revision is intended to confirm that property may develop at the density and residential floor area required under state law. While staff believe the proposed standards are sufficient, the compressed timeline for development of the ordinance did not permit an exhaustive review of standards otherwise applicable in the underlying zoning or analysis of unusual site configurations. To address the potential for unanticipated conflicts between the density and floor area required for the TOD Combining District and other applicable standards, staff have added the following clarifying language to proposed Section 18.14.070, subd. (a): ”(a) The purpose of the TOD Combining District is to implement Senate Bill 79 (2025), California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162. For purposes of this section, definitions in California Government Code section 65912.156 shall apply. It is the intention of the City Council that the TOD Combining District permit development in accordance with the development Item No. 23. Page 2 of 2 1 0 1 6 5 standards set forth herein. Therefore, to the extent standards contained elsewhere in this Title 18 necessarily preclude development of the densities and residential floor areas required for a site within the TOD Combining District to qualify under Government Code section 65912.161, subd. (b)(1)(A), such standards shall be applied to allow for development on that site of the densities and residential floor areas set forth in subdivision (c).” This provision would permit the Director of Planning and Development Services, in consultation with the City Attorney, to respond to unanticipated situations without requiring immediate legislative action or jeopardizing the validity of the ordinance more broadly. Pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code section 2.04.270, subd. (c), because this amendment retains the general scope and original intention of the temporary ordinance introduced on June 1, 2026, a new first reading would not be required. ATTACHMENTS Supplemental Attachment A: Temporary Ordinance for SB 79 50 Percent Option (Attachment B) Supplemental Attachment B: Interim Urgency Ordinance for SB 79 50 Percent Option (Attachment D) APPROVED BY: Jonathan Lait, Planning and Development Services Director ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 2 Ordinance No. _____ Temporary Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adding Section 18.14.070 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Create the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District and Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties that Permit Density and Floor Area Ratio at No Less Than 50% of the Standards in the Government Code and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 2 G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones that the City has not already identified as being suitable locations for higher-density development, allow densities that would create unanticipated strain on public infrastructure and cause additional points of conflict between vehicles and bicycles or pedestrians in the affected areas. Existing infrastructure, including but not limited to water supply for fire suppression, stormwater management to reduce flooding, and wastewater mains will require significant increases in capacity to serve high density development in the TOD zones that may not be fully funded by proposed development under current standards. The rezoning and exclusion actions set forth in this ordinance would reduce these impacts for a temporary period, during which the City may plan for increased demands on infrastructure and transportation resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC section 18.80.090, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure to preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Section 18.14.070 (Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District) of Chapter 18.14 (Housing Incentives) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code is hereby added to read: 18.14.070 Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District (a) Purpose. (b) Applicability. The TOD Combining District shall apply to all sites within a TOD zone, except: (1) sites owned by the City of Palo Alto and (2) sites excluded by ordinance from the effect of Government Code section 65912.157 because they were designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory as of January 1, 2025. It is the intention of the City Council that the TOD Combining District permit development in accordance with the development standards set forth herein. Therefore, to the extent standards contained elsewhere in this Title 18 necessarily preclude development of the densities and residential floor areas required for a site within the TOD Combining District to qualify under Government Code section 65912.161, subd. (b)(1)(A), such standards shall be applied to allow for development on that site of the densities and residential floor areas set forth in subdivision (c). ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 2 (c) Development Standards. Transit-oriented housing development projects may elect to utilize the following development standards in-lieu of the standards set forth in the underlying district. Except as provided herein, the standards in the underlying district shall apply: for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites subject to the TOD Combining District are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 4 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 2 Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 5 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 2 SECTION 7. This Ordinance shall be effective on the 31st day following its adoption and shall expire on July 1, 2027 unless extended or superseded. INTRODUCED: PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 1 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 3 Ordinance No. _____ Interim Urgency Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adding Section 18.14.070 to the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Create the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District and Excluding from the Effect of Government Code Section 65912.157 Those Properties that Permit Density and Floor Area Ratio at No Less Than 50% of the Standards in the Government Code and Amending the Zoning Map (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.08.040) The Council of the City of Palo Alto ORDAINS as follows: SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations. The City Council finds and declares as follows: A. On October 10, 2025, the Governor of the State of California signed Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), which adopted California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162 and requires local agencies, effective July 1, 2026, to permit high density residential development in designated transit-oriented development (TOD) zones within one-half mile of certain TOD stops. B. There are three TOD zones in Palo Alto, centered on the Palo Alto, California Avenue, and San Antonio Road Caltrain stations. C. California Government Code section 65912.157 sets forth residential development standards that apply to housing development projects within TOD zones, such as a height of 75 feet, density of 120 dwelling units per acre, and floor area ratio of 3.5 for projects within one-quarter mile of a Caltrain station. D. Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), permits local agencies to exclude certain properties from compliance with Government Code section 65912.157 by adopting an ordinance implementing SB 79, including: a. A site that permits density and residential floor area ratio at no less than 50 percent of the standards specified under Government Code section 65912.157. b. Sites with a historic resource designated as of January 1, 2025, on a local register. E. The City Council desire to adopt an ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, excluding sites designated as local historic resources on the Palo Alto Historic Resources Inventory pursuant to Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Chapter 16.49. F. SB 79 charges the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with promulgating regulations relating to the bill by July 1, 2026. SB 79 further chargers metropolitan planning organizations with creating maps of TOD stops and zones in accordance with HCD guidance. ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 2 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 3 G. HCD issued a set of “advisory clarifications on definitions for Metropolitan Planning Organizations” on March 23, 2026. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the metropolitan planning organization for the San Francisco Bay Area, released preliminary draft maps on April 8, 2026. H. Due to the short time between the issuance of guidance from HCD and MTC and the July 1, 2026 effective date of Government Code section 65912.157, there is insufficient time for the amendments to the zoning map proposed in this ordinance to be presented for review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. I. The City Council finds and declares that the implementation of Government Code section 65912.157 on July 1, 2026 will create significant incentive for redevelopment of properties in the TOD zones that the City has not already identified as being suitable locations for higher-density development, allow densities that would create unanticipated strain on public infrastructure and cause additional points of conflict between vehicles and bicycles or pedestrians in the affected areas. Existing infrastructure, including but not limited to water supply for fire suppression, stormwater management to reduce flooding, and wastewater mains will require significant increases in capacity to serve high density development in the TOD zones that may not be fully funded by proposed development under current standards. The rezoning and exclusion actions set forth in this ordinance would reduce these impacts for a temporary period, during which the City may plan for increased demands on infrastructure and transportation resources. Accordingly, pursuant to PAMC sections 18.80.090 and 2.04.270, the City Council adopts this ordinance as a temporary measure and emergency measure to preserve the public health, safety, or welfare. J. Additionally, the City Council finds and declares that the impacts described above present a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, or welfare that would be realized by approval of projects under the standards set forth in Government Code section 65912.157. There are no pending project applications that would be impacted by this ordinance and this ordinance would not have the effect of denying any approvals needed for the development of projects containing multifamily housing. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth above, this ordinance is necessary as an interim, urgency measure pursuant to Government Code section 65858 to protect the public health, safety, or welfare. SECTION 2. Section 18.14.070 (Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District) of Chapter 18.14 (Housing Incentives) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code is hereby added to read: 18.14.070 Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Combining District (a) Purpose. The purpose of the TOD Combining District is to implement Senate Bill 79 (2025), California Government Code sections 65912.155 through 65912.162. For purposes of this section, definitions in California Government Code section 65912.156 shall apply. It is the ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 3 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 3 intention of the City Council that the TOD Combining District permit development in accordance with the development standards set forth herein. Therefore, to the extent standards contained elsewhere in this Title 18 necessarily preclude development of the densities and residential floor areas required for a site within the TOD Combining District to qualify under Government Code section 65912.161, subd. (b)(1)(A), such standards shall be applied to allow for development on that site of the densities and residential floor areas set forth in subdivision (c). for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) for lot lines abutting a low density residential district (RE, R1, NV-R1, R2, NV-R2, RMD) ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 4 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 3 Maximum density None Minimum density Greater of: 30 du/ac or 5 units Maximum site coverage 70% (3) For sites adjacent to a TOD stop, Maximum Residential Floor Area Ratio shall be the greater of 2.25 or the FAR provided in the underlying zone. SECTION 3. Pursuant to Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b)(1), sites subject to the TOD Combining District are hereby temporarily excluded from the application of Government Code section 65912.157. These sites shall be excluded until one year following the adoption of the City’s seventh cycle Housing Element. SECTION 4. The Director of Planning and Development Services is hereby authorized and directed to update Section 18.08.040 (the Zoning Map) of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to indicate which sites within the TOD zones are and are not covered by Government Code section 65912.157, including sites excluded pursuant to this Ordinance. SECTION 5. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 6. The Council finds that the Ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2), because it makes the City’s zoning code consistent with the provisions of SB 79 as set forth in Government Code section 65912.161, subdivision (b), and by amending the zoning map to indicate which sites are and are not subject to Government Code section 65912.157. // // // // // // // ***NOT YET APPROVED*** 5 0160153_kb2_20240829_ay 1 1 9 5 3 SECTION 7. This Ordinance shall be effective upon adoption by a four-fifths vote of City Council members present and shall expire 45 days thereafter unless extended. INTRODUCED and ADOPTED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning and Development Services From:sharon c To:Council, City; Council, City Subject:SB 79 Half Size Option + Targeted Upzoning Date:Monday, June 15, 2026 11:54:31 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear City Council Members, I am writing to thank you for approving last week's half-size ordinance re: SB79, and ask that you please approve it again at tonight's council meeting. Without this, full SB 79 becomes effective in two weeks with no local control whatsoever. Secondly, I ask that you review targeted areas to upzone such as the California Avenue business district and other commercial corridors within the city where high density housing makes sense. Please do not put established residential neighborhoods like Evergreen Park, Downtown and San Antonio at risk for upzoning - established neighborhoods designed for low density housing should maintain the characteristics that enable them to function well. Instead, create new neighborhoods with proper infrastructure to support high density living. The combination of half-size option plus targeted upzoning is not just good planning policy — it is also a good compliance strategy with regard to HCD. The city cannot wait till the next deadline. 1) Approve the half-size option to maintain local control. 2) Be proactive and work on the targeted upzoning in order to be in compliance with HCD. thank you, Palo Alto resident This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report From:Fred Balin To:Council, City Subject:CC 6/15/26: #23 Temp Ordinnances: Reaffirm Date:Monday, June 15, 2026 11:40:17 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Council members, Thank you for your late-night diligence on this item at your June 1 meeting and for staff’s clarifications in the interim, delineated in its supplemental report. The result is a positive solution, a good compromise among competing perspectives. Reaffirm, without hesitation, tomorrow (Monday) night your unanimous approval of this timely package of temporary and interim ordinances. Thank you, Fred Balin 2385 Columbia Street Palo Alto, CA 94306 From:Jack Farrell To:Council, City; Clerk, City Subject:Public Comment on 6/15 Council meeting, Item 23 Date:Monday, June 15, 2026 6:25:31 AM Attachments:June 15 Palo Alto SB 79 Urgency Ordinance.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Good morning, Please find attached YIMBY Law's letter of comment for Item 23 of Palo Alto's June 1st City Council meeting. Sincerely, Jack Farrell he/him Research Attorney 267-218-1147 Check out everything we achieved in 2025! YIMBY Law 2261 Market Street STE 10416 San Francisco, CA 94114 hello@yimbylaw.org 6/15/2026 Palo Alto City Council 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 Re: SB 79 Compliance, Agenda Item 23 To the City Council of Palo Alto, YIMBY L aw is a 501(c)3 non-proﬁt corporation, whose mission is to increase the accessibility and affordability of housing in California. YIMBY Law sues municipalities when they fail to comply with state housing laws, including the Housing Element L aw. Should the City fail to follow the law, YIMBY Law is prepared to ﬁle suit to ensure that the law is enforced. Under the false pretense of an “emergency”, this Council is contemplating illegal urgency ordinances that would immediately susp end SB 79’s transit-oriented development standards from going into effect in Palo Alto. This “emergency” is nothing more than SB 79 going into effect on July 1 and is self-made, as the Council has continued consideration of the items twice this year without any opportunity for public comment. Now that time has run out, the staff are recommending urgency ordinances that are clearly out of compliance with state and even the City’s own law. The City Council should reject the staff ’s recommendation to adopt the urgency ordinances and instead follow the law and use the normal legislative process to consider the ordinances. This will give Palo Alto’s residents the appropriate time to consider and comment on these ordinances, including whether blanket suspension of SB 79 makes sense for the City, as it works towards meeting its state-mandated housing production goals. An urgency ordinances is only allowable where it: contains legislative ﬁndings that there is a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, or welfare, and that the approval of additional subdivisions, use p ermits, variances, building permits, or any other applicable entitlement for use which is required in order to comply with a zoning ordinance would result in that threat to public health, safety, or welfare. In addition, any interim ordinance adopted pursuant to this section that has the effect of denying approvals needed for the development of projects with a signiﬁcant component of multifamily housing may not be extended except upon written ﬁndings adopted by the legislative body, supported by substantial evidence on the record… CA Gov Code § 65858(c), emphasis added. The urgency ﬁndings contained in the draft ordinances are so sparse and without evidence as to be utterly meaningless. The threat is unnamed, uncertain, and inappropriate to justify obstruction of a state housing law addressing the statewide housing crisis. Stating vaguely that projects that might endanger historic resources or “result in increased demands on public infrastructure” poses no certain threat to public safety. The “threat” cannot be certain or immediate when you don’t know what the threat is, can identify no local regulations that it violates, and will last for an uncertain period. PMC 2.04.270, the only referenced section of local regulation, also calls for speciﬁc explanations of the threat to “the public peace, health or safety.” The draft ordinances identify no speciﬁc threat to the public peace, health, or safety for a reason: there is none. It’s pure speculation to say that historic resources will be impacted at all. Sp eculating that a project might use SB 79 does not present an immediate threat sufﬁcient to authorize an emergency ordinance, according to state law and Palo Alto’s own regulations. Notably if there were actually projects in process, the law grants stricter protections against denying them. Because the draft urgency ordinances would pre-emptively deny all such projects within the affected areas, the protections are likely triggered automatically. California Courts have already weighed against this kind of blatant obstruction. The ﬁndings for urgency ordinances, especially where they would preclude multifamily housing, must cite “speciﬁc signiﬁcant, quantiﬁable, direct, and unavoidable impact upon the public health or safety that would result from continued development approvals, and objective, written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions on which that impact is based”. Hoffman St., LLC v. City of W. Hollywood, 179 Cal. App. 4th 754, 771 (2009) (internal citations omitted). Speciﬁcally for the Hoffman case, a blatant ﬁnding that affordable housing created a current and immediate threat was rightly dismissed as insufﬁcient justiﬁcation for an urgency ordinance. The prospect of slightly less wealthy people b eing able to afford living in Palo Alto is not the threat you think it is. At least not as far as the law is concerned. SB 79’s passage followed a string of reforms at the state level to address a systemic, ongoing shortage of housing across the state. YIMBY Law has sued to enforce many of those reforms, and remains very well prepared to continue that work. Any section of the alternatives before you which institute urgency ordinances without substantial evidence to the immediacy they sp eak to must be discarded. We urge you to follow the law and adopt an alternative plan or allow SB 79 to come into effect as intended, within the City. Sincerely, Sonja Trauss Executive Director YIMBY L aw From:Robert Phillips To:Council, City Subject:SB79 Item Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 7:20:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ! Dear Palo Alto City Council Members: On second reading, please vote to approve the measure on SB79 that you voted for on June 1. Thank you, Bob Robert Phillips Rolewisphillips@gmail.com This message could be suspicious Similar name as someone in your company. This is a personal email address. This is their first email to you. Mark Safe Report From:Annette Ross To:Council, City Cc:Annette Ross Subject:Urgency Ordinance Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 6:42:32 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. First, thank you for your June 1st vote to adopt an ordinance to modify SB79, allowing Palo Alto to implement the 50 percent limits until 2032. Second, the purpose of this communication is to urge you to pass the Urgency Ordinance at the second reading on Monday, June 15 (or at a later date if the second reading gets moved for some reason). Annette Ross Palo Alto From:Fred Balin To:Council, City Subject:CC 6/15/26: #23 Temp Ordinnances: Reaffirm Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 6:07:17 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Council members, Thank you for your late-night diligence on this item at your June 1 meeting and for staff’s clarifications in the interim, delineated in its supplemental report. The result is a positive solution, a good compromise among competing perspectives. Reaffirm, without hesitation, tomorrow (Monday) night your unanimous approval of this timely package of temporary and interim ordinances. Thank you, Fred Balin 2385 Columbia Street Palo Alto, CA 94306 From:doria s To:Council, City Subject:Item 23, on Consent Calendar Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 5:45:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Palo Alto City Council Members, Thank you for your hard work on June first in coming to "yes" unanimously (with two recusals) on the best way to comply with SB79. Please vote the same way tomorrow evening on the second reading! Enjoy your well earned hiatus. Best regards, Doria Doria Summa (650) 867-7544 Mobile From:Magic To:Council, City Subject:Thank you for your action in response to SB79 Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 5:45:36 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ! Dear Councilmembers, Thank you for voting last week to take a considered approach to meeting the mandates of SB79. The quantity and type of building allowed under this measure will have substantial repercussions for the lives of current and future Palo Altans and for those beyond our borders. In a world of growing volatility and complexity, these are becoming ever more difficult to accurately foresee. I appreciate your recognizing this with your commitment to careful analysis and planning. While I trust the good intentions of many who advocate stridently for housing, I’ve yet to see compelling evidence that bowing to the sweeping permissions of SB79 will yield benefits equal to those of the more discriminating alternative you’ve embraced. In the absence of such evidence advocacy is worthless in formulating sound policy. We find incontrovertible evidence for this in the tube wells of Bangladesh—ardently advocated by many to prevent diarrheal diseases that often ended in infant death—which produced what the World Health Organization calls "the largest mass poisoning in history." Thank you again for your caution as you determine the future of our community and its impacts on the world beyond, and thank you for considering these views. With appreciation, David Schrom This message could be suspicious The sender's email address couldn't be verified. Mark Safe Report From:Tina Peak To:Council, City Subject:Support the 50% SB79 Ordinance Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 4:56:18 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear City Council, Please support the 50% ordinance. We need to stop the incessant growth of the city. Every new building and resident adds more pollution and destruction of the environment. There are already 68,000 people living here in Palo Alto. We have inadequate roads, urban parks and recreational space and need to add to the electrical grid to plan for the future. Continued population growth worsens these issues and allows no time to work on solutions to our problems. Please serve the community and vote for less construction by supporting the 50% SB79 ordinance. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Regards, Tina Peak This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report From:Nancy Traube To:Council, City Subject:SB 79 Half-Sized Buidings Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 3:31:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i I want to thank the city council members who voted for the half-size buildings in Evergreen Park Neighborhood. I know we need more housing, however, a six story building next to my house or on the block is not reasonable. I have spent 30+ years paying for my house in this wonderful neighborhood and hope you will continue to vote for no more than 3 story buildings in the single family home area. Thank you, Nancy Traube This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report From:Ann Balin To:Council, City Subject:Adopt Urgency Ordinance SB79 Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 3:30:49 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor Veenker, Vice Mayor Stone and Council Members, Thank you for your conviction on June 1st in passing urgency ordinance SB79. I urge you to approve item number 23 on the consent calendar June 15th. In doing so you will show Palo Altans that you are undeterred by obstacles not in our town’s best interest. Please continue your careful stewardship in supporting a thoughtful process to better serve residents, renters, home owners and businesses. Respectfully, Ann Lafargue Balin From:Scott O"Neil To:Council, City Cc:Lait, Jonathan Subject:SB-79 Comment, Item#23 Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 2:16:16 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Councilmembers and City Staff, I want to call your attention to my Op-Ed in Palo Alto Weekly on 6/12/2026. In it, I argue the case generally that the city is on-track to a mistake that denies the city much-needed housing, in contradiction of the values our shared history embodies. That letter was written in my individual capacity, as is this one. In this letter, I want to elaborate on the Op-Ed by focusing in detail on the vulnerabilities I see in the ordinances. I hope the city chooses to change course and modestly narrow the applicability of the ordinances. Their justification improves immensely if the city merely excludes the handful of applicable streets where the city is already planning for housing. That is a small change, and making it could avert a great deal of expense and headache. Pedestrian Safety The ordinance discusses pedestrian collisions with bikes and vehicles as the reason for the urgency ordinance for the 50% threshold change. This is thin because: Not all streets in the SB-79 area even allow vehicles. Ramona and California Avenue do not. Urgency is speculative, not ripe. If an urgency ordinance is actually ever needed, it would be in the context of an actual project. Right now the cities concerns are speculative and hypothetical, and therefore nonurgent. Projects take years from proposal to building, even with streamlining. This creates plenty of time for appropriate bike and pedestrian improvements. This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast Urgency ordinances are much faster than building projects. Fewer than three months elapsed between availability of the transit maps on April 8 2026 (when the city says it became possible to act on this issue) and the urgency ordinance appearing on consent on June 15 2026. The Housing Accountability Act allows denial of projects with clear safety impacts. The city can deny projects with clear safety impacts, whether or not SB-79 goes into full effect. Indeed, the city could be using safety impacts -if they existed- to deny the 10+ projects comprising thousands of units that came in within a short window via the Builder’s Remedy. To date, the city has never made any such assertion, most notably including in the case of the Mollie Stone’s towers which the city approved with guidance from staff that the project could not be denied. The city is already considering banning bikes on California Avenue. This policy change being in the pipeline further undermines the urgency justification. The city is already planning comparable density in the El Camino Focus Area. This is another area where the urgency justification is fatally flawed. The inclusion of areas that obviously have no need for urgent action creates risk. Even if the city’s health and safety arguments were valid somewhere, they could not use that to make obviously unrelated policy changes in this urgency ordinance, such as adjusting library funding. Similarly, Palo Alto cannot use potential for pedestrian and vehicle conflicts to motivate an urgency ordinance including California Avenue or Ramona. This not only invite lawsuits in specific locations, it may create severability risk. Map and HCD Guidance Availability The argument that the city only had since April 8 to enact the ordinance creating the urgency is weak: Other maps have existed longer. There has been plenty of information for a policy debate to occur on the record using publicly available maps such as this one, which has been available since at least October 2025. The reason the transit maps blocked the rest of the decision is unclear. If there is a reason a simple geospatial analysis was ever insufficient in the public record, I am not aware of it. It has always been obvious that Palo Alto’s fixed-rail transit stations would qualify for SB-79 based on plain reading of the law, which was designed to apply to Caltrain. There was never any room for MTC or HCD to decide otherwise. “Tier 1 transit-oriented development stop” means a transit-oriented development stop within an urban transit county served by heavy rail transit or very high frequency commuter rail.” §65912.156 (n) Similarly, the HCD guidance cited is discussing factors never in doubt. The applicability of SB-79 to Santa Clara County, Palo Alto’s stops, et cetera was always clear. Accordingly, other cities made decisions much earlier. Mountain View chose its SB-79 strategy in January, for example, despite the complication of added light-rail. More generally, if these maps were actually necessary to choose a path forward on SB-79, we would expect to have seen far more jurisdictions saying so and using urgency ordinances. If Palo Alto has to take this argument before a judge, do they have an answer to why the map availability issue so narrowly effected our fine city without touching our neighbors? Taken together, the justification for urgency seems pretextual. Palo Alto was simply late making a decision that could have been made half a year earlier, which is not a reason for an urgency ordinance. Infrastructure Discussion The infrastructure considerations raised in the June 1 meeting which might otherwise support urgency are in conflict with other city findings. Specifically, the Planning Director reported: What we would want to make sure that we have that SB79 doesn't really give us the time to do is make sure that the infrastructure that would support future development is available to the city. For instance our water resources, how that is fed through the city network and where it is available and how it can support development is something that we need to study to ensure that we have enough water pressure to support development. … if we start seeing more and more of these [taller buildings] it begins to put a strain -it may begin to put a strong- on our fire resources apparatus necessary to provide emergency services to taller buildings... The assistant city attorney confirmed: ...the concerns are basically what Director Lait spoke to which is just the capacity of the City’s infrastructure to serve higher density housing in these areas.” And later added in response to a follow up about the areas planned for high densities specifically: ...while [areas planned for high density] have been designated for higher densities in terms of being suitable locations, in each of these cases, for example the housing projects the city council has seen in the past month, utility staff and public works staff have grappled in each case with being able to handle storm water load and other utility loads that are necessary in each case. These are not the written justification in the ordinance, yet were presented to Council as the reasons for the urgency ordinance. This is what the Council was relying upon in their discussion about the matter of urgency. Notably, while pedestrian collisions are cited in the language of the ordinance, this factor was not even brought up. Adopting the urgency ordinance on that basis is problematic: Contradicting Housing Element on Infrastructure and gross RHNA: The Housing Element and associated EIR found no significant impacts with up to 6,086 new units. The Housing Element explicitly states that Palo Alto’s existing infrastructure is not a barrier to development. We are 3.5 years into the planning cycle and the city is nowhere close to the 6,086 units. Pipeline and RHNA Status: The city has a significant pipeline, but it mostly comprises builder’s remedy units which are not recurring. Almost halfway through the planning cycle the city has been only permitting around a hundred units per year creating an enormous progress gap. Taken together, the city cannot project anywhere close to meeting RHNA, which leaves a great deal of planned capacity the city is simply not on- track to utilize. Contradicting Housing Element on Stormwater: The conflict on stormwater is very specific. The Housing Element says: “"While no significant infrastructure constraints exist citywide, localized constraints are possible depending on a site's proximity to existing utility and service lines and whether additional connections or upgrades to those lines would be necessary. These types of improvements would typically be the responsibility of the property owner/developer." Moreover, the Mollie Stone’s project the attorney was referring to is larger than what SB-79 allows at full density. Funding Offsets: Palo Alto’s development and impact fees are very high, meaning development creates funding for improving safety. Developer Responsibility: The city is largely raising issues that are a developer’s burden to mitigate, according to the Housing Element. Deniability: As stated above, projects which create specific unmitigable public safety issues can be denied even under the Housing Accountability Act. HCD Review Gap It is unclear if the city has submitted this ordinance for review by HCD on the timeline required by law. §65912.160(d)(1)(A) creates a requirement that “At least 14 days prior to adoption of an ordinance pursuant to this section, the local government shall submit a draft ordinance to the department. The staff report says the ordinance will be transmitted to HCD if approved, but if the adoption date is to be second reading on June 15, then the deadline for transmission to HCD would have to have been June 1. The new provision in the supplemental report seems to have been created too recently for this 14-day notice to have occurred. Risks The problems above and the connection to the discussion of the issue on June 1 create numerous risks to the city: The city has been threated with lawsuits by YIMBY Law and CalHDF. These could well prevail, overturning the ordinances. A developer could file an SB-79 compliant project in early July, prepared to assert in court that the ordinance is illegal and SB-79 is the law of the land in Palo Alto without the 50% cut. If HCD believes the ordinances are illegal, they could refer a case to the Attorney General. Finding that infrastructure does not support housing contradicts the Housing Element, which risks HCD determining that the Housing Element needs to be updated and reviewed. See §65585(i)(A)(1). The city’s best path to avoiding the implication that the Housing Element is out of date and newly-discovered constraints to housing exist, is to decide they were always hypothetical and therefor back away from the urgency ordinance. This ordinance falls under HCD’s direct SB-79 direct oversight powers under §65912.160, and HCD might decide it is illegal, either because it was not provided in time or on other merits. Conclusion To speak candidly, I’m not a lawyer, and I doubtful all of my points above are right. However, I have to be wrong on an awful lot of points for this to look sound. The last time I saw something that looked this way was when I was co-leading Palo Alto Forward’s housing element advocacy. HCD did not agree with Palo Alto Forward on everything or even most things, but nor did they need to. So it is here. I’m sure the Council can, in an hours’ discussion and with a modest amendment, arrive at a set of exempted streets that most are comfortable with. If they do, this would save the city potential staff time and expense. They would provide more timely much-needed housing to those who need it, including affordable housing. They would provide California Ave with more much-needed customers and revitalization. They would provide our schools with needed students. They would live up to the spirit behind of our history on affordable housing. Thank you for your consideration. -Scott O’Neil, writing for myself. From:Sally Heaton To:Council, City Subject:Urgency ordinance Date:Sunday, June 14, 2026 2:12:20 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Palo Alto City Council I am writing to support the passage of the Urgency Ordinance, Item 23 on the consent calendar on the agenda for the June 15 council meeting. I fully support your vote of June 1 to pass the Urgency Ordinance, and look forward to your passing of the second reading. Thank you William Heaton 2345 Bowdoin Street Palo Alto Sent from my iPad From:Fred Krefetz To:Council, City Subject:Half-size option for SB 79 Date:Saturday, June 13, 2026 7:13:31 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i I urge you to vote for the half-size option related to SB79. Thank you, Fred Krefetz 225 Emerson St. This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to your company. Mark Safe Report From:efilseth@gmail.com To:Council, City Subject:Support the 50% SB79 Ordinance Date:Saturday, June 13, 2026 5:53:24 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear City Council, Please support the 50% ordinance. There are 68,000 people living here in Palo Alto. To serve them, the City needs the time to plan intelligently where its taller buildings, the infrastructure needed to support them, and mitigation of community impacts make the most sense. Regards, Eric Filseth This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to you. Mark Safe Report From:Firth Griffith To:Council, City Cc:Yuqing Li Subject:Urgency Ordinance on SB79 Date:Saturday, June 13, 2026 5:01:18 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear City Council: I support the passage of the Urgency Ordinance to reduce SB79 by 50% allowing the city to delay full implementation of the law for six years while the city pursues an alternative compliance plan. Thank you. Firth Griffith & Yuqing Li 2149 Yale St. Palo Alto CA 94306 From:Malcolm Slaney To:Council, City Subject:SB 79 Urgency Ordinance Date:Saturday, June 13, 2026 4:20:33 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links. I heartily disagree with SB 79. Housing is important, but the state passed a sledge hammer. I live in College Terrace and large buildings are completely at odds with our small lots and cottages. I understand the Urgency Ordinance that is before the city council on June 15th is a step to slow this process down. Please do all you can to preserve our neighborhoods. - Malcolm Slaney 20 year resident of Yale Street From:Amie Ashton To:Council, City Subject:Support SB 79 Implementation! Date:Saturday, June 13, 2026 1:37:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Honorable Mayor Veenker and City Council, I write against the emergency ordinance and in support of SB 79 implementation. As a downtown resident, I want new neighbors to strengthen our community. New housing units will not create dangerous conditions, per the analysis in our Housing Element (which studied the impacts of and provided mitigation measures for almost 7,000 new housing units). What if SB 79 can actually help with difficult issues we are dealing with as a city, such as: Lack of missing-middle housing South Palo Alto residents complaining of "unit dumping" and the need for a more equitable distribution of units where they belong -- near transit, retail, and job centers Cal Ave, ECR, and University Ave needing more customers spending money where they live Lack of density to support and expand our transit system Our 3:1 jobs housing ratio that means 30,000+ cars driving into our city each day with the associated traffic, and resulting air, noise, and climate pollution Full implementation of SB 79 will mean: More neighbors enjoying all that our amazing downtowns have to offer Additional progress in meeting our RHNA housing goals Support for our "Pro-Housing" designation application with the state Additional tax revenue (from more dollars spent locally to increased property values) to support a strong budget Let's meet our housing, transit, and climate crises head on and study ways to successfully implement SB 79 rather than stop it with a legally dubious emergency ordinance. Thank you, Amie Ashton 236 Middlefield From:Xintian Lin To:Council, City Subject:SB 79 Date:Friday, June 12, 2026 7:10:50 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear Council Members, Thank you for your support of the half-size building proposal for the downtown area. This option will result in fewer traffic and privacy concerns compared to the full-size, six-story alternative. Please continue your efforts to make Palo Alto a better place to live. Sincerely, Xintian Lin This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. This is their first email to you. Mark Safe Report From:SC To:Council, City; Council, City Subject:Vote in Favor of SB 79 Half Size Option Date:Friday, June 12, 2026 5:58:31 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear City Council, Thank you for voting for the SB79 half size option on June 1st. I hope you will vote in favor of this option again at the Monday, June 15th meeting. There is no question Palo Alto needs more housing. Voting for this option will give city planners time to thoughtfully plan and implement infrastructure changes to maintain safe, efficient roads as traffic, parking, pedestrian and bicycle impacts grow across the city. The 10 Builder's Remedy projects already in development throughout Palo Alto will already place significant demands on our city's infrastructure including utilities capacity (ex: gas, electric, water pressure for fire suppression). Thoughtful infrastructure planning will ensure the safety of our bike boulevards and our many neighborhood Designated Safe Routes to School throughout Palo Alto for elementary, middle and high school kiddos. As I understand it, voting in favor of this option doesn't preclude developers invoking the State Density Bonus Law to build above the half-size baseline providing they include sufficient affordable housing units - which is a goal I think we all agree is very important. We need thoughtful planning to grow smart as we welcome our new neighbors. Please vote in favor of the half-size option again at the June 15th meeting. thank you, sharon Resident of Palo Alto This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report From:David Ball To:Council, City Subject:Comply with SB 79--quit messing around Date:Friday, June 12, 2026 5:44:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Esteemed councillors-- There's no urgency that requires us to skirt the requirements of SB 79. It's long past time to plan to comply with SB 79 by upzoning appropriate areas of Palo Alto. Just look at the tiny bit of life that has come back from Zareen's. We need more of that! This is the dullest college town in the entire world--the strip of El Camino that abuts Evergreen park (where I've lived for almost 20 years) is unbelievably moribund. A jacuzzi store and two mattress stores? WTF? Let’s stop treating new housing as a threat and start viewing it as an investment in a sustainable, walkable, and welcoming community. There's no way my kids can afford to live here unless they become bankers. We need more housing options if we want an economically diverse and vibrant community with artists, young people, care workers, etc. Hell, the Grateful Dead started here--can you imagine if we had actual world-changing artists who could afford to live here? Half sizing projects is not a plan but a reaction. And we have had lots of time and still can’t make a plan. Mountain View has done a great job building modern and attractive high-rise buildings along commercial corridors. I'm sure you'll hear from lots of whiny NIMBY types who want to pull up the ladder now that they've got theirs. Or maybe their parents lived here and they've been grandfathered in. But we need more affordable housing, and the state requires it. Do your jobs. DB This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report From:Mary Miller To:Council, City Subject:June 15 city council vote input Date:Friday, June 12, 2026 5:10:41 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Hi, As a Cal Ave area resident I fully support the Palo Alto City Council plan to use an option in SB 79 to allow only half-sized buildings (e.g. three stories instead of six) until at least 2032. Thank you, Mary Miller 2145 Birch St This message needs your attention No employee in your company has ever replied to this person. Mark Safe Report From:Gamelandia Palo Alto To:Council, City Subject:Public Comment on SB 79 Emergency Measures - June 15 2026 meeting Date:Friday, June 12, 2026 3:42:08 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear Mayor and Members of the Palo Alto City Council, I am writing as the owner of Gamelandia, a small independent business on California Avenue. Like many local merchants, our success depends on Palo Alto continuing to grow into a vibrant, walkable community where people can live, work, and spend time. I urge the Council to reject the proposed SB 79 emergency measures and remove Item 23 from the consent calendar for full public discussion. A decision with lasting consequences for the future of our neighborhoods and commercial districts deserves open deliberation. A seven-story mixed-use building along a major commercial corridor served by transit is not a skyscraper. It is housing for families, ground-floor retail space for new businesses, and an opportunity to create the kind of vibrant, walkable neighborhood where people can live, work, shop, and gather. That is exactly the kind of incremental growth that strengthens communities like California Avenue. In my view, these emergency measures are not primarily about thoughtful planning. They are a final attempt to extend a decades-long pattern of resisting and delaying the housing growth our community urgently needs. Rather than confronting the housing challenges that have been growing for decades, this proposal would simply postpone inevitable change until 2032, leaving Palo Alto behind neighboring communities that are adapting to SB 79 without emergency measures and positioning themselves for continued economic growth and vibrancy. Additionally, by reducing project scale while leaving underlying development costs largely unchanged, these measures risk making smaller studio units more economically attractive to developers than one- and two-bedroom units that better serve working families. SB 79 did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the predictable consequence of decades of restrictive local land use policies entrenched across communities like Palo Alto that failed to keep pace with the region's housing needs. As jobs, wealth, and demand for housing grew, opportunities for new multifamily housing did not. Prior City Councils and administrations had repeated opportunities to gradually expand multifamily housing, but too often chose delay, compromise, or inaction. Greater state involvement became increasingly inevitable as local governments failed to address the region's growing housing shortage. This message needs your attention This is their first email to you. Mark Safe Report For local businesses, this is not an abstract planning debate. Housing policy is economic policy. We need customers who can live nearby, and we need employees who can afford to work here. As a small business owner, I see talented people forced into long commutes because living anywhere near California Avenue is simply out of reach. More housing and stronger neighborhood business districts are not competing priorities. They are deeply interconnected. The Bay Area has changed dramatically over the last fifty years, and our housing policies must evolve with it. Rather than making one final effort to postpone inevitable change, Palo Alto should embrace the opportunity to shape housing growth in a way that strengthens our neighborhoods, supports local businesses, and builds a more sustainable future for the entire community. Sincerely, Berry Hatfield Owner, Gamelandia -- GAMELANDIA Text Us: 650-382-2528 Find Us: 290 California Ave, Ste A, Palo Alto, CA 94306 W: www.gamelandia.fun E: info@gamelandia.fun From:James Lloyd To:Burt, Patrick; Lauing, Ed; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Stone, Greer; Veenker, Vicki; Council, City Cc:Clerk, City; City Attorney; City Mgr; PlannerOnDuty Subject:public comment re item 23, SB 79 ordinances, for the 6/15/26 Council meeting Date:Thursday, June 11, 2026 3:04:14 PM Attachments:Palo Alto - Joint SB 79 letter - 11 Jun 2026.docx.pdf 7-17-23 Letter Urgency Ordinances and Ministerial Approval of Housing Projects (2).pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Palo Alto City Council, Californians for Homeownership and the California Housing Defense Fund submit the attached comment letter (and referenced communication from the California Attorney General) regarding agenda item 23 for the 6/15/26 Council meeting, the City’s proposed ordinances temporarily exempting the City from the provisions of SB 79. Sincerely, James M. Lloyd Director of Planning and Investigations California Housing Defense Fund james@calhdf.org CalHDF is grant & donation funded Donate today - https://calhdf.org/donate/ Jun 11, 2026 City of Palo Alto 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 By email: Pat.Burt@PaloAlto.gov; Ed.Lauing@PaloAlto.gov; George.Lu@PaloAlto.gov; Julie.LythcottHaims@PaloAlto.gov; Keith.Reckdahl@PaloAlto.gov; Greer.Stone@PaloAlto.gov; Vicki.Veenker@PaloAlto.gov; city.council@PaloAlto.gov Cc: city.clerk@CityofPaloAlto.org; city.attorney@cityofpaloalto.org; CityMgr@cityofpaloalto.org; Planner@CityofPaloAlto.org; Re: SB 79 Ordinances Dear City of Palo Alto, Californians for Homeownership and the California Housing Defense Fund submit this letter in regard to the City’s proposed ordinances temporarily exempting the City from the provisions of SB 79. We appreciate staff taking the time to develop an implementation plan for this landmark law. However, the City may not use urgency or interim ordinances to temporarily exempt the City from SB 79, nor may it implement objective standards that effectively prohibit the density required by state law. Furthermore, the City cannot use SB 79’s California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption to implement its proposal as written. The City is proposing two interim/urgency ordinances to implement SB 79, in addition to temporary ordinances. These ordinances do not comply with state law, as discussed infra. SB 79 is not a sudden emergency requiring an urgency ordinance Per Government Code section 36937, subdivision (b), ordinances will not be effective for 30 days after adoption unless necessary to preserve the public peace, health, or safety of the City and the City Council adopts by a four-fifths majority a declaration of the facts constituting the urgency. The Palo Alto City Charter similarly requires ordinances are not effective “until the commencement of the thirty-first day after the date of its adoption . . .” (Palo Alto City Charter, Appendix A, Section 2.04.330, subd. a.) Zoning ordinances are also required to be referred to the Planning Commission prior to adoption absent any emergency justification. (Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.80.080-18.80.090.) The State Supreme Court has ruled that “the nature of the ordinance itself will . . . be determinative, and where a sudden emergency has arisen, a statement of the nature of the urgency finds proper place to support the declaration.” Ex parte Hoffman (1909) 155 Cal. 114, 120. SB 79 was signed into law in October 2025, giving the City almost nine months before its effective date of July 1, 2026 to enact an ordinance preserving the public health and safety of its residents. This was ample time; had there been an immediate and urgent threat to the public health and safety of residents, the City would have enacted an ordinance more quickly. The City cites “unanticipated strain on public infrastructure and cause additional points of conﬂict between vehicles and bicycles or pedestrians in the effected [sic] areas” to justify the use of an urgency ordinance. The many years that project entitlement and construction requires provides more than adequate time to plan for any potential traffic. Furthermore, the Legislature has already found that, “Building more homes near transit access reduces housing and transportation costs for California families, and promotes environmental sustainability, economic growth, and reduced traffic congestion.” (emphasis added) (Gov. Code, § 65912.155, subd. (c). New development will also bring substantial new revenue to the City that offsets any strain on infrastructure, because underutilized development sites are reassessed at much higher valuations. Similarly, the City is not justified in its reliance on city code section 2.04.270(d), which allows for ordinances to be introduced and adopted at the same meeting as an “emergency measure for preserving the public peace, health or safety …” The City cites the need to preserve historic resources to justify the reliance on this code section. However, debatable concerns about historic preservation do not rise to the level of an emergency regarding public peace, health or safety. The City also cited the need to wait for guidance from the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and also the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). However, there was never any confusion as to what the result was going to be: Palo Alto was going to need to plan for its Caltrain stations to be Tier 1 TOD stations, as required by the plain language of SB 79. Other parts of the state have more complicated implementations of the law, with bus rapid transit, multiple commuter rails using the same station, etc. Palo Alto does not have these complications. Additionally, we would like to draw the City’s attention to the attached July 17, 2023 letter from the California Attorney General regarding the use of urgency ordinances in response to state housing laws. The letter reiterates the requirements from statute and caselaw that the legislative findings must establish a threat to the public health, safety, or welfare that is current and immediate; local jurisdictions must provide evidence documenting the immediacy of the threat to public health, safety, or welfare; and local jurisdictions must make these findings with enough specificity to support an adverse impact. In other words, there is a high bar for the use of urgency ordinances. The letter states specifically that urgency ordinances “must comply with the substantive requirements of state housing laws and cannot be used in an attempt to circumvent substantive legal requirements.” Given the extremely thin findings and complete lack of evidence that the City has presented to justify these urgency ordinances, it is clear that the City has not met the requirements discussed in the Attorney General’s letter. The City therefore may not use urgency ordinances to adopt an SB 79 implementation ordinance. The City’s Use of an Interim Ordinance is Unlawful In addition to adopting its SB 79 ordinance as an urgency ordinance, the City is adopting it as an interim ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 65858 in order to take illegal shortcuts in adopting this ordinance. Section 65858, subdivision (a) provides: Without following the procedures otherwise required prior to the adoption of a zoning ordinance, the legislative body of a county, city, including a charter city, or city and county, to protect the public safety, health, and welfare, may adopt as an urgency measure an interim ordinance prohibiting any uses that may be in conﬂict with a contemplated general plan, specific plan, or zoning proposal that the legislative body, planning commission or the planning department is considering or studying or intends to study within a reasonable time … As discussed supra, just as SB 79 poses no risk to “public peace, health, or safety” it also poses no risk to “public safety, health, and welfare.” In fact, the Legislature has found the contrary to be true. (See Gov. Code, § 65912.155.) Furthermore, the interim ordinances are not being done to prevent a particular type of use from being developed in an area where the City intends to plan for a different type of use, as is required by the law. (Gov. Code § 65858, subdivision (a).) It is not as though the City is seeking to prevent the development of noxious industry in an area where it is planning for residential. Instead, the City is simply resisting a State-mandated level of residential density. Finally, each ordinance states, “... this ordinance would not have the effect of denying any approvals needed for the development of projects containing multifamily housing.” This is simply untrue. There are applicants ready, willing and able to submit applications for multifamily development as soon as SB 79 goes into effect on July 1, 2026. The purpose of these ordinances is transparently to prevent multifamily development and worsen the state’s housing crisis. The City may therefore not use interim ordinances to skip legally required steps in the adoption of an SB 79 implementation ordinance. The City Retains the Power to Prevent Health & Safety Impacts The Housing Accountability Act (HAA) (Gov. Code, § 65589.5) allows the City to deny a proposed housing development project if it “would have a specific, adverse impact upon the public health or safety.” (Id. at subds. (d), (j).) As multifamily housing development projects, SB 79 projects are subject to the HAA. If a situation ever arose that presented a true threat to public health and safety as defined by the HAA, the City could use the power of that statute to lawfully deny a proposed development. Given the backstop provided by the HAA, there is no justification for the City to use interim/urgency ordinances based on supposed health and safety impacts. The Proposed Envelopes Will Not Accommodate the Required Density The City has proposed dramatic envelope controls (in both the urgency/interim ordinances of agenda item 17 and in the temporary ordinances of agenda item 18) on parcels adjacent to lower-density zoning, including a height limit of 16 feet with a sky exposure plane extending at a 45 degree angle from this point. Of note, pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(1) the City must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that its proposed objective standards do not physically preclude the applicable densities. The only evidence the City offers is a sample massing diagram (Slide 17) which shows that on a 60’ x 100’ lot it is possible up to 1.75 FAR with 3 stories. This also demonstrates that on smaller lots this is likely not possible. The City's proposal also does not displace all underlying zoning standards, with the result that projects must contend with a variety of development standards (e.g. lot coverage, offstreet parking, objective design standards, etc.) that will have the effect of reducing density beyond what was shown in the single slide on massing diagram. We are therefore still concerned that the proposed standards will physically preclude the development of the required density. Furthermore, pursuant to Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (d), the California Department of Housing and Community Development must evaluate whether or not the City’s implementation ordinance will physically preclude residential development at the required densities. It is doubtful that the City can produce the required preponderance of the evidence, given the degree to which the proposed (and underlying) objective standards will constrain development, particularly on smaller lots adjacent to lower-density zoning districts. The City’s Proposal is Ineligible for SB 79’s CEQA Exemption The City is proposing to exempt its proposal from CEQA pursuant to SB 79’s CEQA exemption in Government Code section 65912.160, subdivision (c)(2). However, the City’s proposal is ineligible for this exemption. SB 79 provides an exemption from CEQA for cities fully implementing SB 79 or which had permissive enough zoning codes for the Legislature to authorize a temporary delay in SB 79’s effect. The CEQA exemption is not for cities to upzone in order to make themselves eligible for an exemption. Such an upzoning is not an implementing ordinance of SB 79 like an Alternative Plan or codification of the standards in section 65912.157. It is a separate council action being taken to avoid the provisions of SB 79. The Legislature made a policy judgement that compliance with the provisions of section 65912.157 were to be exempt from CEQA. It made no such judgement that an attempt to evade the provisions of section 65912.157 were to be equally exempt from CEQA. The City therefore may not use SB 79’s CEQA exemption for its proposal and must otherwise comply with the provisions of CEQA. ⧫ ⧫ ⧫ For these reasons, we urge the Council to reject the urgency/interim ordinances; to direct city staff to restart the ordinance adoption process; and to comply with CEQA. Sincerely, Matthew Gelfand Dylan Casey Californians for CalHDF Homeownership \ July 17, 2023 To: All Cities and Counties in California Dear Colleagues: In recent years, the Legislature has passed several laws responding to California’s housing crisis by mandating that local governments ministerially approve proposed housing developments under certain circumstances. Such laws include (but are not limited to) Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) (Gov. Code §§ 65852.21, 66411.7), which took effect January 1, 2022, and addresses lot splits and duplexes in single-family zoned neighborhoods, and Assembly Bill 2011 (AB 2011), which takes effect July 1, 2023, and addresses affordable housing permitting on commercial zoned land. Following the enactment of SB 9, some local jurisdictions enacted “urgency zoning ordinances” aiming to restrict or impose additional requirements on projects that were otherwise subject to ministerial approval under SB 9. Interim urgency ordinances provide a procedural tool to quickly respond to an immediate threat to public health, safety, or welfare, and do not circumvent the substantive requirements of state housing laws such as SB 9 or AB 2011. This guidance reminds local jurisdictions of the strict state law requirements that apply to the enactment of urgency ordinances. The Attorney General encourages local jurisdictions to review their existing urgency ordinances for validity, and properly implement California’s housing laws moving forward. Analysis A. Legal Requirements for Urgency Ordinances 1. “Current and Immediate Threat to Public Health, Safety, or Welfare” Under limited emergency circumstances, local jurisdictions may pass urgency zoning ordinances that prohibit projects and land uses that conflict with a city’s planning or zoning. (Gov. Code, § 65858, subds. (a)-(c); see also 216 Sutter Bay Associates v. County of Sutter All Cities and Counties in California July 17, 2023 Page (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 860, 869.)1 An urgency ordinance is initially valid for only 45 days, but can be extended for a total of two years, subject to the requirements discussed below. (§ 65858, subds. (a), (b).) To be valid, urgency ordinances amending zoning regulations must be supported by written legislative findings that “there is a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, or welfare, and that the approval of additional subdivisions, use permits, variances, building permits, or any other applicable entitlement for use which is required in order to comply with a zoning ordinance would result in that threat to public health, safety, or welfare.” (§ 65858, subd. (c).) Failure to make the showings required by Section 65858 renders an urgency ordinance invalid as a matter of law. (California Charter Schools Assn. v. City of Huntington Park (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 362, 365.) Urgency ordinances must be adopted by a four-fifths vote. (§ 65858, subds. (a), (b).) The legislative findings must establish a threat to the public health, safety, or welfare that is current and immediate. (§ 65858, subd. (c); Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation v. Superior Court (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 1410.) Courts have generally found that the immediacy requirement is satisfied in “situations where local agencies were faced with immediate threats of development.” (Id. at p. 1419, citing 216 Sutter Bay Associates v. County of Sutter (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 860; Conway v. City of Imperial Beach (1997) 52 Cal.App.4th 78; Metro Realty v. County of El Dorado (1963) 222 Cal.App.2d 508.) Urgency ordinances are intended to be limited “to situations where an approval of an entitlement of use was imminent.” (Building Industry, supra, 72 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1418–1419; accord California Charter Schools Assn., supra, 35 Cal.App.5th at p. 370; Crown Motors v. City of Redding (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 173, 179–180 [a pending permit application would constitute an immediate threat because, absent an urgency ordinance, the permit at issue would have been approved within 30 days].) Local jurisdictions must provide evidence documenting the immediacy of the threat to public health, safety, or welfare. In California Charter Schools Assn. v. City of Huntington Park, Huntington Park enacted an urgency ordinance that temporarily barred development of new charter schools while the City considered amending its zoning code. (California Charter Schools Assn. v. City of Huntington Park (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 362, 365.) Huntington Park claimed that new charter schools would increase traffic and prevent the development of commercial tax- generating properties, which posed an immediate threat to public health, safety, or welfare. (Id. at p. 366.) As evidence for its claim, Huntington Park proffered “at least five inquiries” it had received requesting charter schools and “several serious sit down discussions” it had conducted with charter school representatives. (Id. at p. 369.) Upon reviewing this evidence, the Court concluded that “mere inquiries, requests, and meetings do not constitute a current and immediate threat within the meaning of [section 65858,] subdivision (c).” (Id. at p. 371.) Local jurisdictions are therefore required to show an actual imminent threat to the public health, safety, or welfare and make specific supportive factual findings. An urgency ordinance that is not supported by a sufficient showing of an immediate threat to public safety, health, or welfare is invalid as a matter of law. (Id. at p. 365.) 1 Statutory references that follow are to the Government Code unless otherwise stated. All Cities and Counties in California July 17, 2023 Page An urgency ordinance’s findings must also document the nature of the threat to public health, safety, or welfare. In 216 Sutter Bay Associates v. County of Sutter, the County justified its urgency ordinance by showing that a proposed amendment to the general plan would create a new 140,000-person community in a county of only 65,000, and that an urgency ordinance was needed to preserve a countywide vote on the proposed amendment. (216 Sutter Bay Associates, supra, 58 Cal.App.4th at p. 864.) The Court of Appeal in Sutter Bay held that the County’s showing that the amendment “could alter—in a radical and fundamental manner—the current way of life for Sutter County residents” satisfied the findings required by Section 65858. (Id. at p. 868.) By contrast, statements about the uncertainty of implementation of a new state housing law or generalized concerns about visual or aesthetic standards are insufficient to support an urgency ordinance. 2. Extension of Urgency Ordinance Beyond Initial 45 Days: “Objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions” An urgency ordinance that “has the effect of denying approvals needed for the development of projects with a significant component of multifamily housing,” defined as one- third of the total square footage of the project, is subject to additional requirements upon its extension. (§ 65858, subds. (c), (h).) Such ordinances may not be extended beyond the initial 45 days except upon written findings adopted by the legislative body, supported by substantial evidence in the record, of a “specific, adverse impact upon the public health and safety,” which is defined as “a significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact based on objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions” existing at the time that the urgency ordinance is adopted. (§ 65858, subd. (c)(1)). The findings must further demonstrate that there is no feasible alternative that would mitigate or avoid the adverse impact “as well or better, with a less burdensome or restrictive effect,” than the urgency ordinance. (§ 65858, subd. (c)(3).) In addition, a city must “issue a written report describing the measures taken to alleviate the condition which led to the adoption of the ordinance” at least ten days before its extension. (§ 65858, subd. (d).) This provision applying to urgency ordinances that would deny multifamily housing development would likely apply to interim ordinances responding to SB 9 and AB 2011. SB 9’s provisions allowing for duplexes would entail multifamily development and AB 2011 is specifically directed to multifamily housing. Local jurisdictions must make these findings with enough specificity to support an adverse impact. In Hoffman Street, LLC. v. City of West Hollywood¸ developer petitioners sought a writ of mandate against West Hollywood for enacting an urgency ordinance that barred petitioners from developing a condominium project. (Hoffman Street, LLC. v. City of West Hollywood (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 754.) West Hollywood’s urgency ordinance, which limited permitting in certain zones to increase density and affordability, was based on the claim that “‘the significant unmet need for smaller affordable housing units [is] posing a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety and welfare.’” (Id. at pp. 760–761.) The Court noted that the requirements for urgency ordinances limiting multifamily development under subsection (c)(1) of section 65858 are “more extensive and more specific than the findings required upon the adoption or extension of any interim ordinance.” (Id. at p. 771.) The Court held that West All Cities and Counties in California July 17, 2023 Page Hollywood’s findings “failed to identify ‘a specific, adverse impact on the public health or safety.” (Id. at p. 772, emphasis added.) West Hollywood’s findings also “failed to identify any ‘written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions’ on which such an impact would be based.” (Ibid., citing § 65858, subd. (c)(1).) Therefore, the findings supporting an urgency ordinance extension that affects multifamily housing must be specifically targeted to the issues arising on particular parcels that create the adverse public health and safety impact. B. Recently Enacted State Housing Laws Limiting Local Discretion Urgency ordinances provide a procedural tool to respond to current and immediate public health and safety threats, but they do not provide an avenue to avoid the substantive application of relevant state law. The passage of laws like SB 9 and AB 2011 does not, in and of itself, pose a current and immediate threat to public health, safety, or welfare. Accordingly, the enactment of such a law generally cannot — standing alone — support an urgency ordinance. As described below, California’s housing laws generally empower local jurisdictions to regulate or deny projects on a case-by-case basis based on specific health or safety grounds, without an urgency ordinance. For example, SB 9 expressly allows local agencies to deny permits upon written objective findings addressing public health and safety and AB 2011 allows jurisdictions to exempt some parcels from its requirements under specified conditions. Urgency ordinances are unsupportable when public health and safety concerns arising from a permit application can be addressed without an urgency ordinance. 1. SB 9 SB 9, which took effect on January 1, 2022, enacted Government Code sections 65852.21 and 66411.7. Together, these sections allow property owners to build duplexes on single-family lots and split single-family lots in two. Importantly, both sections expressly bar SB 9’s application to potentially dangerous areas such as very high fire hazard severity zones, special flood hazard areas, and earthquake fault zones. SB 9 incorporates these safety exemptions from SB 35, another housing law requiring ministerial approval of some housing applications that was passed in 2017. (§§ 65852.21(a)(2), 664117(a)(3)(C) [incorporating the requirements of § 65913.4, subds. (a)(6)(B)-(a)(6)(K)].) a. Section 65852.21 (Duplexes) Government Code section 65852.21 provides that proposed housing projects of two residential units located on a single-family residential zone will be reviewed ministerially, without discretionary review, if they meet specific criteria, such as being located within a city. (§ 65852.21.) Local jurisdictions may impose on such projects objective zoning, subdivision, and design review standards, defined as standards devoid of “personal or subjective judgment by a public official” and that “are uniformly verifiable by reference to an external and uniform benchmark or criterion available and knowable by both the development applicant or proponent and the public official prior to submittal.” (§ 65852.21, subd. (i)(2).) All Cities and Counties in California July 17, 2023 Page Local jurisdictions may deny housing project applications under SB 9 if they make a “written finding, based upon a preponderance of the evidence, that the proposed housing development project would have a specific, adverse impact … upon public health and safety or the physical environment.” (§ 65852.21, subd. (d).) Central to this power to deny is the “specific, adverse impact,” which is defined by Government Code section 65589.5 as “a significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact, based on objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions as they existed on the date the application was deemed completed.” (§ 65589.5, subd. (d)(2), incorporated by reference in § 65852.21.) In light of the fact that section 65852.21 authorizes local jurisdictions to deny individual duplex applications based on findings that the project would have an adverse impact on health and safety or the environment, an urgency ordinance seeking to restrict all such projects across the board cannot be justified. b. Section 66411.7 (Lot Splits) Government Code section 66411.7 requires local jurisdictions to ministerially review requests to split urban single-family lots into two approximately equal parcels, if those lots meet specific requirements. (§ 66411.7.) Lots created in this manner shall be exclusively for residential purposes. (§ 66411.7, subd. (f).) Local jurisdictions may impose objective zoning, subdivision, and design standards on such projects unless such standards “physically preclude[e] the construction of two units on either of the resulting parcels or that would result in a unit size of less than 800 square feet.” (§ 66411.7, subd. (c)(1)(2).) As with duplexes, local jurisdictions may deny requests to split lots when the relevant official makes written objective findings that the lot split would have a specific and adverse impact on public health and safety or the physical environment. (§ 66411.7, subd. (d).) Thus section 66411.7, like section 65589.21, offers local jurisdictions a case-by-case instrument for preserving their public health, safety, and physical environment and there can be no justification for an urgency ordinance with a broad exemption. 2. AB 2011 AB 2011 requires ministerial review for affordable housing projects located in commercial zones. Specifically, it provides ministerial approval for two types of projects: (1) projects that provide entirely (100%) affordable multifamily housing and are in an urban infill area that is zoned commercial (§ 65912.114), and (2) projects that provide mixed-income housing, with a certain percentage of affordability, and are located along commercial corridors in urban infill areas (§ 65912.124). Like SB 9, AB 2011 is not applicable in potentially dangerous areas such as very high fire hazard severity zones, special flood hazard areas, and earthquake fault zones. (§§ 65912.111, subd. (e), 65912.121, subd. (g).) Like SB 9, these sections accomplish this by incorporating the requirements of section 65913.4, subdivisions (a)(6)(B) through (a)(6)(K). In addition, AB 2011 provides specific requirements to assess and mitigate environmental hazards. (§§ 65912.113, All Cities and Counties in California July 17, 2023 Page subd. (c), 65912.123, subd. (f).) Also, a local jurisdiction may exempt parcels from AB 2011 if it makes available other replacement parcels for development, at specified densities and subject to other provisions of AB 2011, and makes findings that the replacement results in no net loss of total zoned capacity or zoned capacity for affordable units and affirmatively furthers fair housing. (§§ 65912.114, subd. (i), 65912.124, subd. (i).) AB 2011 delayed operation of its provisions for nine months, which provided local jurisdictions ample opportunity to utilize this exemption before applying AB 2011 to project applications. All these provisions allow jurisdictions to protect public health, safety, and physical environment, provided that they contribute to increasing California’s housing supply and affirmatively further fair housing. A generalized urgency ordinance in response to AB 2011 is unnecessary. C. Conclusion Where state housing laws expressly authorize local governments to deny specific proposed projects based on health and safety concerns, as SB 9 does, or exempt specific properties from its ambit, as AB 2011 does, it is unclear how the high bar for an urgency ordinance can be satisfied. The mere fact that a state law provides for a ministerial — as opposed to discretionary — review process does not, standing alone, establish the type of immediate threat to public health, safety, or welfare required to justify an urgency ordinance. Further, an interim urgency ordinance is a procedural tool to expeditiously adopt local regulations pending a city’s contemplated plan adoption or zoning ordinance. Such an ordinance must comply with the substantive requirements of state housing laws and cannot be used in an attempt to circumvent substantive legal requirements. Local jurisdictions are urged to review any existing urgency ordinances for compliance with the requirements of section 65858, and repeal urgency ordinances that do not comply with these standards. Where needed, jurisdictions are encouraged to use their existing authority under state housing laws to review individual projects on health and safety grounds, rather than enacting overly broad and legally unjustifiable urgency ordinances. If implementation of a ministerial housing approval statute poses an immediate, current, and substantiated public health and safety threat, local legislative bodies must make the requisite written findings to justify an urgency ordinance. Given that such an ordinance likely would impact multifamily housing, findings supporting an extension must also satisfy the heightened standards applicable under Section 65858(c)(1)-(3) of establishing “a significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact based on objective, identified written public health or safety standards, policies, or conditions.” Developers, property owners, and permit applicants are advised that jurisdictions with insufficiently supported urgency ordinances are vulnerable to legal challenge under existing case law. Sincerely, ROB BONTA Attorney General From:Ali Sapirman To:Council, City; Burt, Patrick; Lauing, Ed; Lu, George; Lythcott-Haims, Julie; Reckdahl, Keith; Stone, Greer; Veenker, Vicki Subject:Re: Oppose Ordinances Delaying SB 79 Date:Wednesday, June 10, 2026 1:39:09 PM Attachments:Follow up_ Oppose Ordinances Delaying SB 79 Implementation in Palo Alto.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Dear Mayor and City Council, Please see the attached follow up letter on behalf of The Housing Action Coalition on the Council's decision on how to implement SB 79. -- On Mon, Jun 1, 2026 at 10:53 AM Ali Sapirman <ali@housingactioncoalition.org> wrote: Reupping this letter for tonight's council meeting. On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 12:58 PM Ali Sapirman <ali@housingactioncoalition.org> wrote: Dear Mayor and City Council, Please see the attached letter on behalf of The Housing Action Coalition on the Council's decision on how to implement SB 79. -- Ali Sapirman | Pronouns: They/Them Advocacy & Policy Manager| Housing Action Coalition 555 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94111 Cell: (407) 739-8818 | Email: ali@housingactioncoalition.org To opt out of all HAC emails, respond to this email with "unsubscribe all". -- Ali Sapirman | Pronouns: They/Them Advocacy & Policy Manager| Housing Action Coalition 555 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94111 Cell: (407) 739-8818 | Email: ali@housingactioncoalition.org To opt out of all HAC emails, respond to this email with "unsubscribe all". -- Ali Sapirman | Pronouns: They/Them Advocacy & Policy Manager| Housing Action Coalition 555 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94111 Cell: (407) 739-8818 | Email: ali@housingactioncoalition.org To opt out of all HAC emails, respond to this email with "unsubscribe all". Mayor and Members of the Palo Alto City Council 250 Hamilton Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94301 Re: – Oppose Ordinances Delaying SB 79 Implementation Dear Mayor and Councilmembers, On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, please accept this as a follow-up to our May 4, 2024 letter regarding SB 79 implementation in Palo Alto and a specific response to the Council's discussion at its June 1 meeting, where it ultimately voted up staff-proposed SB 79 suspension ordinances despite almost unanimous opposition in both written and verbal public comment received before and at the meeting. Specifically, we were alarmed that two talking points at the meeting seemed to carry significant weight in leading the Council to support voting up the staff-proposed "interim" ordinance and to bring the "urgency" ordinance forward on June 15. New SB 79 Housing Would Not "Strain" Public Infrastructure The only rationale pointed to by staff, the City Attorney, and council members to support the staff-proposed "urgency" SB 79 ordinance (which requires findings that the ordinance addresses an imminent public health or safety issue) was that the additional housing allowed by SB 79 would "strain" the City's public infrastructure. This is absurd, particularly in the areas of the City (such as California Ave, El Camino Real, the Downtown Housing Plan Assessment Area, etc.) that would have been subject to SB 79 under Councilmember Lythcott-Haim's amendment that the Council voted down. The City's own Housing Element underscores that "as a primarily urban and developed community, Palo Alto is well-served by existing infrastructure systems" and that new housing development will require only "minor upgrades." See Section 3.9 of Housing Element. Further, the City's Housing Element emphasizes that Palo Alto's development impact fees/capacity fees "are among the highest in the region" for new multi-family housing developments. See Introduction of Chapter 4 of the Housing Element. Specifically, the Housing Element notes that Palo Alto currently collects nearly $80,000 per unit in development impact and capacity fee charges. These fees are collected in addition to extensive on- and off-site improvements the City requires new developments to comply with, including robust stormwater control requirements, adjacent roadway improvements, and sewage collection and treatment requirements. See Tables 4-13 through 4-18 of Housing Element, as well as pp. 4-76 through 4-78. We have included with this letter the cited excerpts of the Housing Element for the City Council's reference. Simply put, it is a complete fallacy to say any new housing allowed by SB 79 would put a strain on the City's infrastructure, which is already well-built and for which the City would collect millions in impact fees to improve as new SB 79 housing went under construction. If anything, new housing in Palo Alto will generate funds to further improve and make more resilient an already well-built infrastructure system. As such, the City cannot credibly adopt an "urgency" ordinance suspending SB 79 on the grounds it would "strain" public infrastructure. The City's PHZ Program Is Not a Credible Alternative to SB 79 At multiple points in the June 1 meeting, certain members of the Council labelled Councilmember Lythcott-Haims' proposed amendment to the staff-proposed SB 79 ordinances — which would have allowed SB 79 to go into effect in areas of the City already zoned or planned for higher-density housing — as "spot zoning," but then also argued that the increased density of SB 79 wasn't necessary because developers can always propose to use the City's "PHZ" program. These members of the Council should know that the City's PHZ program is just as much of a spot zoning program, if not more so, than SB 79. The City's PHZ program "allows" developers to propose site-by-site rezoning in exchange for a commitment to build on-site affordable housing. It involves detailed community benefit negotiations between the developer and City, takes years to complete, and provides no upfront certainty to the developer as to whether the City Council will ultimately vote to approve the rezoning. The City's Housing Element characterizes the PHZ program as involving "lengthy legislative processes that have reduced predictability compared to a ministerial application review." See p. 4-22 of the Housing Element. Though SB 79 does not offer outright ministerial review, it affords not only sensible density near transit, but a significantly more predictable path to approval for developers and is exactly the type of program the City's Housing Element purports to support to "convey increased development potential in the City's multi-family and commercial zones." With it clear that new housing would not strain the City's public infrastructure and that the City has no meaningful alternative to offer that would allow for the sensible transit-oriented density and predictable entitlement pathway offered by SB 79, there is no basis for the Council to move forward with the SB 79 urgency ordinance. Further, there is good reason for the Council to revisit its first read decision to vote up the "interim" ordinances without Councilmember Lythcott-Haims' amendments that would allow SB 79 to go into effect in areas of the City already zoned or planned for high-density residential. We hope the Council will take this into consideration at its June 15 meeting. In solidarity, Ali Sapirman Advocacy & Policy Manager Housing Action Coalition From:Leela Hebbar To:Council, City Subject:SB 79 delayed implementation Date:Monday, June 8, 2026 8:31:45 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. Hello, I unfortunately could not make the public comment portion of Monday’s (June 8) city council meeting, so I am writing to share two comments. 1. I ask that you move the SB 79 topic from the consent agenda to the regular agenda. Delaying full implementation of SB 79 without public debate is not transparent. It also prevents the public from hearing the city’s justification for using an urgency ordinance on a significant housing matter. I’d like to hear why it’s been deemed an emergency situation to delay full implementation of SB 79. Moreover, the June 1st meeting covered the topic late in the evening when most residents had left, which raises concerns about whether enough opportunity was given to discuss a significant topic. Irrespective of whether you support delaying SB 79 full implementation or not, this topic deserves to be discussed publicly. 2. I oppose delaying full implementation of SB 79 because it is disproportionately unfair to low-income residents. We need more affordable units sooner. I also think it’s ironic that the council is using an urgency ordinance mechanism, which is designed to protect the public from immediate harm to delay a housing law that was itself designed to accelerate urgently needed affordable housing production. I understand the city’s argument is that delaying SB 79 is a more pressing need than full implementation of SB 79. But affordable housing already has a long construction timeline. Further delay compounds a shortage that disproportionately harms low-income families. I think the need for more affordable housing sooner is the more urgent emergency. Thank you for considering these comments. Leela Hebbar Palo Alto Resident Sent from Gmail Mobile From:Justine Burt To:Council, City Subject:SB 79 discussion Date:Monday, June 8, 2026 6:46:22 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. i Dear Palo Alto City Council, I am writing as a resident of Palo Alto who would like to see more housing built near transit. Building within a half-mile of Caltrain stations and El Camino Real would be the best places to do so as residents of these new developments would not need cars. I encourage you to remove SB 79 from the consent calendar on June 15 to give the public a greater say in how the city implements SB 79. On June 1, the item came up for discussion around10:30pm, which meant many community members did not have a chance to comment on the topic and Council discussion was cut short. With the San Antonio Road Area Plan discussion tonight and other projects, overall I’m pleased to see the City’s progress toward the 2031 Housing Element goal of enabling at least 6,000 new housing units. Thank you, Justine Burt This message needs your attention This is a personal email address. Mark Safe Report From:slevy@ccsce.com To:Council, City Cc:Lait, Jonathan; Armer, Jennifer Subject:Please pull SB 79 item from consent to allow full public particiaption Date:Monday, June 8, 2026 3:24:33 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautiousof opening attachments and clicking on links. ! Dear Mayor Veenker and council members, Please pull the SB79 item from consent so there can be full public participation that has been missing given the delayed meetings and the past 11pm time for public comment in the last meeting. I am not an attorney but do wonder if suppressing/preventing full public participation is a grounds for successful legal challenge. Stephen Levy This message could be suspicious The sender's email address couldn't be verified. Mark Safe Report Powered by Mimecast