What's a Dwelling Unit?

I attended the November 19th City Council meeting to add my two cents to the discussion about the General Plan update that was on the agenda.  I will get into more about my comments about water supply adequacy and security later.  For now, let's just marvel at the sense of confusion about "dwelling units" that was on display that night by several council members.  The Daily Journal Austin Walsh piece about the meeting didn't quite capture it with this mention 

Though they stopped short of determining a suitable unit-per-acre ratio, some councilmembers shared an interest in reducing the amount of parking required in a development to accommodate more housing development.

Constructing parking can be expensive or consume space which could otherwise be used for housing in a development, and builders often seek reduced parking requirements in projects near transit stations to maximize their unit counts.  “I want to use parking to encourage affordability,” said Councilman Ricardo Ortiz.

Watching the discussion live, it was apparent to me that the basic idea that "dwelling unit" is an inadequate measure of the intensity of use of a piece of property was just starting to dawn on several council members.  That's why they "stopped short".  The General Plan update is moving in the direction of allowing 140 DU/acre in the north end of town--a proposed increase from 120 DU/acre.  Yet when presented with some photos of recent, rack-and-stack developments in Redwood City that hover around 70 DU/acre, there was sort of a stunned look on several faces.  Only then did the discussion move to the mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom units in a development.  I've been espousing using bedrooms/acre for a long time, including at the Anson Apartments and Residences under construction on Carolan Ave.  Now is the time to dump DU/acre and talk about a real metric that will guide planning in the future.  It ain't DU's.

P.S.  Check out this DJ piece about the Millbrae project near the BART station with its 444 DU's for another example of the lack of transparency.

Comments

[Gerald]

A proposed apartment building near me with have studio, 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments. I believe the plans call for 29 front doors. With this there will be something like 33 parking spaces. I asked a city official why they don't calculate parking based on the number of bedrooms and was told "that's not the protocol here presently." My building has 9 units and 18 parking spaces.

[resident]

Is Ortiz nuts? Demand LESS parking so they can build MORE units? That is crazy.

[Joanne]

Where do these council members live?? Are there any large developments being built west of El Camino?? Maybe by Peninsula Hospital but that is the only area I can think of right now??

More bedrooms and less parking means more crowded streets. Would they want this in their own neighborhoods?? That is the question I would like to ask them.

[Laura]

It's there delusion that we aren't going to want cars as we will walk to our non existent mass transit to get to work. Rent a zip car or only have one car per unit. It's happening up and down the Peninsula and neighborhoods within walking distance of the train are feeling the impact.

[Joanne]

Pipe dream! As I drive down 101 in the mornings on my way to Foster City almost every car has just one person in it.