Item No. 1_Public Comment_Willowick

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Memo to City of Santa Ana Planning Commission September 15, 2021 Page 12 parks that exceed City requirements, especially within park deficient and environmental justice areas. Establish incentives for coordination between two or more residential project (of any size) to create larger and/or more centralized public park space, such as a housing density bonus for the provision of open space as a public benefit and leveraging of Residential Development fees to partner with developers to create public open space. 9. Clarification of the Open Space Element’s Incentives for Parkland Creation The new draft Open Space Element deletes an implementation action included in the previous 2020 draft (Implementation Action OS-1.16), which indicated that the City should “[d]evelop an incentives program that encourages private development and public agencies to provide park and recreation facilities beyond the minimum requirements.” Similarly, Implementation Action OS-1.7 now calls for the City to “[i]ncentivize the creation of public parks that exceed City requirements, especially within park deficient and environmental justice areas” and to “[e]stablish incentives for coordination between two or more residential projects (of any size) to create larger and/or more centralized public park space, such as exploring housing density bonus options for the provision of open space as a public benefit and leverag[ing] Residential Development fee[s] to partner with developers to create public open space.” The Open Space Element should describe these incentives in greater detail. As suggested by Action OS-1.7, the City could provide a density bonus to development projects that exceed public parkland dedication requirements. This would be similar to the density bonuses provided to projects containing below-market-rate units under Government Code section 65915 (codified in Santa Ana Municipal Code Chapter 41, Article XVI.I). The density bonus could be provided on a sliding scale: development projects which exceed minimum parkland dedication by a greater amount would receive a larger bonus. The size of the maximum density bonus for additional parkland dedication should be no greater than the 25% maximum density bonus for below-market-rate units under the City’s existing density bonus ordinance. Santa Ana Municipal Code § 41- 1604(a). However, development projects which include below-market-rate units and dedicate more parkland than required should be eligible to receive both the parkland density bonus and the affordable housing density bonus. Use of one bonus should not preclude or limit the use of the other. In the previous draft of the Open Space Element, Implementation Action 1.15 suggested a “100 percent reduction of onsite private and public open space requirements” if a development dedicates public park areas that exceed the minimum dedication requirement. 2020 Draft Open Space Element at 16. The City should consider a revised version of this incentive: reductions of onsite open space should reflect the amount by