Monterey City Council passes Housing Element, questions remain.

In the face of an affordable housing shortage, the Monterey City Council passed the Housing Element to the city's General Plan in a special meeting on March 23.

In doing so the council also removed five amendments recommended by the Planning Commission that would have required the city to explore options to increase housing stock.

Housing Elements are one of eight state-mandated elements of the General Plan to address present and future housing needs of the city.

In a 4-1 vote, with Councilmember Timothy Barrett dissenting, the City Council directed staff to come back within six months and report on how the city can best address five omitted amendments.

The amendments in question would have required the city to explore the following: allowing secondary units where only single-family homes are zoned; easing the process of converting hotels into residential units; decoupling parking requirements from project that include affordable housing; determining how to enforce a ban on short-term rentals; and studying the impact short-term rentals, like AirBNB, have on the housing market and deciding how best to regulate.

Councilmember Alan Haffa said removing the amendments would give the city more “wiggle room” during the eight-year term in the element. 

“We have the housing crisis. You need to commit yourselves to doing something,” Katherine Thoeni, executive officer at the Coalition of Homeless Service Providers.

She encouraged the council to approve the five additional measures to the housing element, saying, “Be bold, be courageous.”

While the council directed staff to investigate additional measures and report back within six months, the city is under no obligation to act one way or another, says Assistant City Manager Hans Uslar.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Thoeni said outside the council chamber during a recess. “If they’re not required to address these issues they’ll end up doing nothing.”

Yet, most of the two-hour public comment was dedicated to residents giving their opinions on AirBNB, with those for and those against nearly equal.

Some claimed they did not want their single-family neighborhoods to be full of what amount to hotels with people coming and going. Others claimed they would not be able to afford their homes on the Monterey Peninsula without the additional income provided by AirBNB.

“I wouldn't rent my house out on AirBNB if I could afford to live here,” says Kierstyn Bachmann Berlin who also spoke during public comment.

During council discussion, Mayor Clyde Roberson noted there's no specific ban on short-term rentals since the rise of AirBNB. Rather, it’s prohibition stems from a charter amendment passed in the 1980s to block any further development of hotels and motels.

The mayor finished his comments by saying, “[Affordable housing] is not a new topic, we’ve been discussing this since on got on the council in 1981.”