Rancho Palos Verdes OKs state-mandated housing plan two years late

Rancho Palos Verdes has approved a new draft of its state-required housing plan, more than two years after the city blew its deadline.

The upscale South Bay city approved a plan to build 647 homes by 2029, despite pushback from residents concerned about density, traffic and local control, the Torrance Daily Breeze reported. 

The deadline to get the “housing element” plan approved by state regulators was Oct. 15, 2021. Each city and county is required every eight years to create the blueprint to rezone for a specific housing goal. 

The failure to get its plan certified leaves Rancho Palos Verdes open to the builder’s remedy, a legal loophole in state housing law that allows developers to bypass local zoning with projects that meet affordable housing thresholds.

Builders have triggered the remedy in cities from Redondo Beach to the Bay Area that have failed to certify their housing plans.

Rancho Palos Verdes has grappled with its required update requiring more low-to-moderate housing for some time, according to the Breeze.

“Most California cities have struggled mightily in this particular round of the housing element,” Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Pro Tem Eric Alegria told a room packed full of constituents.

“I hear a lot of passion from our speakers, understandably,” he said. “We are all passionate about our homes — (and) we can all agree that housing is needed, in general. (But) I also agree that promoting housing alone does not solve homelessness as a singular tactic.” 

For elected officials and residents alike, the major concern was having to plan for apartments in an upscale city of mostly single-family homes.

Mayor John Cruikshank expressed sympathy with many in the audience.

“The onslaught of Sacramento continues and there’s not much we can do about this until we change Sacramento,” Cruikshank said. Rancho Palos Verdes, he added, is “about low density; we are about single-family homes.”

“We’re all frustrated by this process and all five of us up here get that.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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