March 13, 2025

To: Citizens of Orinda

Regarding: The Orinda City Council will be considering upzoning the downtown area to allow for approximately 1,000 housing units that are not legally required because they are above the mandated amount of the Housing Element. Allowing the 1,000 units may unfavorably change Orinda forever.

Executive summary:

The City of Orinda has received and will consider certification of the Plan Orinda Revised Final Environmental Impact Report (RFEIR) on March 18, 2025. Orinda Watch (OW) requests that the City not readopt the upzoning in the Downtown Precise Plan DPP) area, except as required by the Housing Element. Also, no upzoning should be approved in an effort to allow an additional buffer. There should be no approvals for upzoning for housing units that exceed the Housing Element. In the past, it was proposed that the City rezone to accommodate the DPP to allow for approximately 1,000 housing which were not legally required because they were in excess of those housing units mandated by the Housing Element. OW requests that those 1,000 units, under no circumstances, be allowed or permitted. The Housing. Element by itself will upzone for an additional 698 units downtown. The discussion for this is shown below in OW’s letter to the City on October 7, 2024, below. If you agree with the position described in this email, would you please give support by:

1) Emailing all the City Council members and staff as follows:

Latika Malkani lmalkani@cityoforinda.org; Brandy Iverson biverson@cityoforinda.org; Darlene Gee dgee@cityoforinda.org;Cara Hoxie choxie@cityoforinda.org; Janet Riley jriley@cityoforinda.org; Linda Smith lsmith@cityoforinda.org; Lashun Cross lcross@cityoforinda.org; Sheri Smith ssmith@cityoforinda.org

Please email support letters ASAP but no later than Monday, Noon, March 17, 2025

2) Speaking your opinion at the City Council meeting:

Tuesday, March 18, 7:00PM, Orinda Library

When you write or speak, please say: “As recommended by Orinda Watch in their letter to the City dated March 12, 2025, Please ask the City to not upzone the Downtown area to allow the 1,000 or any not legally requiredhousing units. Only allow the units as required by the Housing Element”

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Following is Orinda Watch’s letter to the City Council dated October 7, 2024, regarding not readopting the unnecessary (not legally required) 1000 units in the DPP: Please note that the argument to “not upzone” in the downtown area is similar to the “do not readopt the DPP.” Both involve rezoning for housing units that are unnecessary and exceed those legally required by the Housing Element.

Dear City Council Members and Staff,

I write on behalf of Orinda Watch (OW). OW was established in 2013 to help Orinda maintain its local control of governance. Over the years, OW has organized many activities including: town hall meetings, monthly meetings, mailings, email blasts to over 1,000 Orinda citizens, talked to the City Council and staff, and has had booths at the 4th of July events. OW has actively participated in the public process concerning the planning for downtown and has been acknowledged to be a “stakeholder.

A) Background of Housing Element. Within the past few years, the State of California mandated that the City of Orinda through the Housing Element (Regional Housing Needs Allocation-RHNA) rezone to allow an additional 421 to 698 housing units (rounded to 600) in the Downtown Area. However, the city, through the Downtown Precise Plan (DPP), approved a plan to rezone 1,618 housing units (rounded to 1,600) in the Downtown area (including the 600 in the Housing Element). Thus, if the city rezones for the Housing Element and the DPP plan, they would be rezoning for approximately 1,000 more, un-necessary (not legally required), housing units than the Housing Element requires (1,600 less 600).

B) Description of Housing Units. It is estimated that a housing unit would on average contain 2.8 people. (Draft EIR page 2-9). That would be 2,800 people for 1000 units. The building heights, per the Housing Element, if density bonuses are considered, could reach 60’ to 70’ or higher in height. That could create 5 to 6 stories high or more, apartment buildings.

C) Orinda Watch Believes the additional 1,000 unnecessary, not legally required, units should not bepart of current planning for the following reasons.

1) The Orinda Citizens do not want massive amounts of apartments and population added to the downtown area. In 2020 the Orinda Downtown Precise Plan prepared a survey. The residents of Orinda wanted: 59.1% small town feel; 42.1% not too crowded. OW has had many discussions with Orinda Residents and believes they may be ok with possibly 200 or so new housing units but not more. Adding more than 200 units may take away the cities “small town feel” and add to the area being over-crowded.

The Housing Element alone requires 600 units. This could mean approximately 1,680 new residents. OW believes this is much more than what residents want, but the State mandated this, so the city must accommodate.Rezoning to allow the extra 1,000 units (or any not legally required housing) is extremely excessive andwould not consider what the majority of Orinda citizens want.

2) Fire evacuation risk with more housing. Orindan’s for Safe Emergency Evacuation (OSEE) recently sued the city over the Housing Elements EIR. The lawsuit questioned whether the City property evaluated the fire risk of adding additional housing. Obviously reducing the proposed housing numbers in the downtown area from 1,600 to 600 would greatly reduce the fire evacuation risk.

3) Parking Shortages. More housing could cause parking shortages. In 2020 the Orinda Downtown Precise Plan prepared a survey. In that survey, 56.7% (of the citizens wanted) availability of parking. The additional 1,000 units (or any not legally required housing) could have an enormous impact on parking in the downtown area. Possibly 2,800 new citizens in the new apartment units will be looking for a place to park. OW believes there is just enough parking for existing needs and the new apartments could create alarge parking problem. Also, with the new state regulation, AB 2097, the City cannot impose or enforce any minimum parking requirements on residential, commercial, or other development projects within a half mile of BART. Much of the downtown area is within half a mile of BART. Adding new apartments would dramatically decrease the availability of parking downtown.

4) Revitalization. Some City officials have said the citizens of Orinda want revitalization. But what does this mean? When OW asked Orinda citizens what they wanted for revitalization, they stated they would like to see more restaurants and retail stores and possibly an environment where people could spend time together.They would like to see the property owners improve and possibly re-tenant some of their buildings.Again, the Orinda citizens thought adding 200 or so housing units to the downtown area was acceptable, but certainly not the 600 or 1600 proposed.In addition, in 2017 the city hired the Urban Land Institute to consider what was needed for downtown growth management. After extensive public input, the ULI recommended only 240 new housing units for the Village area. OW believes adding 1,000 unnecessary (and not legally required) housing units and thus possibly 2,800 new residents to create revitalization is a bad idea.

a. It adds many people to the downtown area which may create over-crowding and take away from the “small town feel.”

b. It may create major parking problems.

c. It could overload the schools.

d. It may overload our current infrastructure and services including police and fire departments,street repair and public services.Real Estate experts have testified that building apartments in small towns with retail on the ground floorgenerally does not work well. It creates more retail units than are needed. The retail units are expensive and difficult to lease. For example, see 4 and 5 story apartments with retail on the ground floor in Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek near the BART station.

D) Conclusion. For the above reasons, OW strongly believes the City of Orinda should not upzone the Downtown toallow the 1,000 or any unnecessary (not legally required) housing units and continue with just the 600housing units in the Housing Element.

Sincerely,

Rusty Snow, Orinda Watch