City Council Okays Second Unit Ordinance, Endorses Transportation Tax

The Piedmont City Council Monday night clipped through an agenda that was heavy on dealings with other governmental agencies and short on brand-new items.

Council members gave unanimous approval to the first reading of a new ordinance that makes changes to rules governing second units ("inlaw apartments") and the rental of rooms within a home. The ordinance needs a second vote at the next council meeting to become final. It's essentially the program after four public hearings on the issue.

City Planner Kate Black noted that more Piedmont residents are interested in adding second units to their homes than in previous years. She said reasons for the shift include:

• Two-career households that want separate quarters for a live-in au pair.

• Piedmont residents who have additional homes elsewhere and want a caretaker on their property here in their absence.

• Older residents who want to "age in place," sometimes moving into a smaller second unit themselves while their children or renters occupy the main house. Black noted that Piedmont has a higher than average number of older residents.

• Extended families, including those with adult children who remain at, or return to, the family home after finishing their college educations.

• Families who need extra income, often single parents who want to stay in Piedmont after a divorce.

They also gave 5-0 approval to a master contract with the Alameda County Transportation Committee and to an extension of the county-wide half-cent sales tax that helps fund transit programs. A committee representative said the ACTC's new plan includes restoration of some AC Transit bus services that have been cut in recent years, although not necessarily service in or near Piedmont.

After the evening's longest discussion, the council also agreed that city planning staff should continue to ask Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) staff to modify .

Black said a new draft Housing Element rpoduced by ABAG now calls for Piedmont to add 80 new housing units, while another ABAG document pegs the number at 60.

"We're coming to the end of our bag of tricks" in finding ways to add housing in a built-out city, Black said.

Council members focused especially on an ABAG/MTC projection of 490 new jobs within Piedmont in future years. With only two large employers (the city itself and the Piedmont Unified School District) and a handful of banks and retail businesses, that's unrealistic, council members emphasized.

Even growth in the number of home-based businesses wouldn't help, they noted, because home businesses don't "count" in the regional plan.

City Manager Geoffrey Grote said Piedmont isn't alone in its frustration.

"None of the numbers for any cities work," he said.

Bob McBain, newly elected to the city council in February, asked what happens if the city doesn't meet the regional expectations.

That could potentially leave the city vulnerable to lawsuits from advocacy groups, Black said.

She also said that state lawmakers have introduced legislation in the past that would impose fines on cities that fail to meet projections. While that legislation has failed so far, there is still some interest in it in Sacramento, she said.

The agenda and detailed background reports for the meeting items are available on the City of Piedmont website.

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