General Plan for Housing Updated

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council on Tuesday updated the housing element of the city’s General Plan, emphasizing several areas where the city can increase affordable housing to meet state requirements.

Planning Administrator Curtis Williams described the General Plan’s new housing concepts as more realistic than the previous blueprint and said that over the next several years the city will need to encourage developers to build as many as 136 units of affordable housing in the city.

As a way to implement the new housing element, the city acknowledged the need to increase affordable housing for seniors and prospective employees of resorts proposed for the coastline.

Williams said the city will explore programs that will provide for a limited number of moderate-priced units at existing and new senior centers. It will also establish a program to link seniors who want a roommate of a similar age to share living expenses in private residences.

The senior housing proposals would satisfy part of the need for 52 moderate-income units.

Within the next few months, city officials will also research an ordinance that would require employee housing at resort hotels that might be built in the city in the next few years.

Williams said if there is major commercial development, the city will need 84 more units of low and very low income housing to meet state requirements.

“If the development doesn’t materialize, then we don’t need to create the new housing,” Curtis said.

Orange County developer Barry Hon has proposed a 450-room Ritz Carlton in the city, and the Monaghan Co., an Arizona-based company, wants to build a 495-room hotel and 80 homes on the old Marineland site.

Curtis said the state requires that cities review the housing elements of their general plans every five years.