GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN - EXCESS DWELLING UNIT BANK

What is the City's Excess Dwelling Unit Bank and how does it help to monitor the quadrant residential limits, while providing for density bonuses in some circumstances?

Growth Management Control Points and Their Use. Before Proposition E was drafted in 1986, one of the major concerns was how best to link development to the provision of public facilities and also assure that once the facilities were installed subsequent development wouldn't outgrow them. When Proposition E was drafted, it created for each residential general plan designation a "growth management control point" (GMCP) at approximately the mid-point of the associated density range, as follows:

Proposition E contained language that stipulated that the City shall not approve any residential development at a density that exceeds the growth management control point for the applicable density range without making both of two findings. The first finding had to do with assuring that the infrastructure needed for developments with increased density would be both adequate and guaranteed. The second finding reads:

"2. That there have been sufficient developments approved in the quadrant at densities below the control point to cover the units in the project above the control point so the approval will not result in exceeding the quadrant limit."

Excess Dwelling Unit Bank. To assure compliance with this second finding, an accounting system was set up for each quadrant. For example: if the GMCP for a property would allow a total of , say, 100 homes on the property, but the developer chose only to develop 85, then the fifteen "excess" units would be deposited into an "excess dwelling unit bank" for the relevant quadrant. These units would be held on account and later could be withdrawn and applied to another project in the quadrant that wished to (and qualified to) exceed the number of units allowed under its GMCP, provided the first finding could also be made. Four "banks" for excess units were established, one for each quadrant. So long as there were units in the bank, the city would know that development would not exceed the Proposition E limit for that quadrant. Over a number of years many "excess" units were deposited in all four banks as developers "under-utilized" their lands, relative to the allowed densities. Withdrawals were also made for a variety of reasons, but the net change over time was an ever-increasing balance in the banks.

Council Policy 43. On February 6, 1990, the City Council established Council Policy Statement 43 to set out the procedures and policies regarding withdrawals from and the usage of dwelling units from the Excess Dwelling Unit Bank. Amended on December 17, 2002, the current version of Policy Statement 43: reduced the number of accumulated excess dwelling units available citywide from over 6,000 to 2,800; authorized withdrawals from the banks to be utilized in "qualifying" projects anywhere within the city; and established that "qualifying" projects were limited to the following types of development proposals:

1. Housing for lower-income families;
2. Senior housing;
3. Housing located within either of the city's two, official, redevelopment areas;
4. Transit-oriented/"smart growth" developments;
5. Conversions of general plan land use designations from non-residential to residential; and
6. Single-family developments, in infill-areas, under stipulated conditions.

For the full text of Council Policy Statement 43, see the link to the right.