The Orinda City Council took important steps to approve amendments to the Orinda Housing Element at a special meeting on Sept. 30. The actions were based upon recommendations by the city planning commission, paving the way for compliance with a controversial Sacramento directive that mandates cities to earmark pre-approved zoning for increased housing development.
There are four housing element-related measures now pending before the City Council: two ordinances and two resolutions, which were introduced at the September meeting. No action was taken on the resolutions.
Ordinances require two meetings for passage – one to introduce and one to adopt. The resolutions that would complete the process are expected to be adopted along with the ordinances at meeting slated for Dec. 2, according to City Manager Linda Smith.
These measures will rezone parts of the city to allow developers to apply to Orinda to build more multifamily housing to meet the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) guidelines, which must be approved by the City Council before a deadline in early 2026.
The City Council actions should assure that Orinda will avoid the so-called “Builder’s Remedy,” which would have allowed developers to bypass Orinda’s zoning regulations and attempts to mitigate fire dangers and transportation issues.
Without the amendments, the city would lose much of its oversight over future development, wreaking havoc with critical city planning functions. That next step should help assure that Orinda meets the state-mandated deadline.
Orinda Planning Commissioner Kevin Schmidt is on record explaining at an August meeting that the amendments provide an opportunity to gain more control over the process than what the city held under the previous version of the plan. Nonetheless, there has been opposition in recent months to different aspects of that plan.
Once the resolutions are adopted, developers must step forward and invest in projects for any housing to be built.
Headwinds continue to plague new housing construction, such as high interest rates, rising material costs and labor constraints due to immigration enforcement trends, to name a few. Construction of new multifamily housing in California dropped a whopping 26% from 2023 to 2024, according to United States Census data.
