Coral Blossom affordable housing project appeal unanimously denied by Elk Grove Planning Commission
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2024/08/coral-blossom-affordable-housing.html
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| The Elk Grove Planning Commission deliberates an appeal during their August 1 meeting. | |
With scant deliberation, the Elk Grove Planning Commission denied an appeal of a recent zoning administrator decision allowing design variances for a supportive services apartment complex that was approved using California's Senate Bill 35 streamlined process to hasten affordable housing projects.
The 81-unit apartment complex known as Coral Blossom is located at 8484 Elk Grove Florin Road on the city's north side. Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen selected the District 3 city council location following Elk Grove's tentative settlement of a fair housing lawsuit against the city by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
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The project was initially located in Elk Grove's Old Town special planning area but was moved after the city rejected it in July 2022. Singh-Allen and her city council rejected the project known as Oak Rose after a handful of Old Town residents applied pressure and made several since-rebuked claims about the future residents of that facility.
A group of residents living near the Coral Blossom project appealed. Elizabeth Marshall argued for a reversal of the zoning administrator's decision.
In a scathing rebuke of Mayor Singh-Allen and the decision to move the project after succumbing to pressure from the Old Town group, Ms. Marshall said the city penalized their neighborhood.
Read more about Ms. Marshall's comments here.
Along with Marshall, several other nearby residents spoke during public comment in opposition to the project and in favor of reversing the zoning administrator. One person in favor of the project was Nicole Restmeyer of the Sacramento Housing Alliance, who said Elk Grove has a dire need for supportive affordable housing.
"We have twenty-six hundred units of extremely low-income and low-income affordable housing that we need to build here, in Elk Grove, particularly over the next RHINA cycle," she said. "This project is additional units that we will be getting and we need. We need to really help our neighbors."
During their short deliberations, the planning commissioners referenced the tenets of Senate Bill 35. They attempted to assign blame for the costly situation the city was placed in by the denial of the Oak Rose project.
Commissioner Sandra Poole claimed she examined Senate Bill 35 and found nothing that would allow the project's rejection, much less the design variances.
"I did not hear anything that would indicate that the standards weren't properly applied," Ms. Poole said. "We are bound by state law."
Attempting to deflect blame on the costly imbroglio was Commissioner Oscar O'Con. As Mayor Singh-Allen and her city council members have, O'Con blamed state legislators.
"We need to go to Sacramento and talk to them," he said. "It is not only locally that comes from Sacramento; it's really forced onto any city to make the spaces for these types of living."
He added, "There is nothing that the city can do."
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