The San Benito Blueprint

1. Before You Begin
2. Project Resubmitted as a Builder’s Remedy Project
3. Builder’s Remedy Allows for Density Reduction of Original Project
4. Documents

Before You Begin

• Preliminary Application – A preliminary application allows for developers to submit a partial application for housing development so that they may “lock in” existing zoning and vested rights to a property. The applicant has 180 days from the submittal of the preliminary application to submit a completed application. This process was created under SB330 which declared a housing crisis in California.
• du/ac – Stands for dwelling unit per acre. A common planning term that typically refers to the number of detached homes allowed on a given acre of land.
• ADU – An ADU (or Accessory Dwelling Unit) is a secondary dwelling unit with complete independent living facilities for one or more persons and generally takes three forms:
  • Detached: The unit is separated from the primary residential structure
  • Attached: The unit is attached to the primary residential structure
  • Repurposed Existing Space: Space (e.g., master bedroom or garage) within the primary residence is converted into an independent living unit
• Builder’s Remedy Refresher

Project Resubmitted as a Builder’s Remedy Project

Roem Development has submitted a revised preliminary application (SB330) for a builder’s remedy project at 851 Sunnyslope Rd. The project, directly behind the Brass Tap and Rite Aide, proposes 62 housing units, 36 single family units without ADU’s and 13 homes with attached ADU’s. The 13 ADU’s would be deed-restricted to low-income making the project 21% affordable. This project is within the City of Hollister.

Builder’s Remedy allows for projects that normally would not comply with local zoning ordinances or general plans to be protected from rejection, subject to no more than 5 public hearings, and to obtain vested rights at the submission of a preliminary application. Preliminary applications can be submitted with or without the Builder’s Remedy provision. As a reminder, Builder’s Remedy only applies to cities without a compliant housing element.

The original project was submitted in 2022 while the revised builder’s remedy projects was submitted on November 15th, 2024. Due to the projects submission date it falls under the previous rules requiring 20% of a given project be dedicated to any of the states affordable income brackets.

Builder’s Remedy Allows for Density Reduction of Original Project

The original project submitted for this location would have included 174 townhouses with 18 dedicated for moderate income. The units would have been between 2-4 bedrooms. This would have put the project at 10% affordable.

The parcel is currently zoned for 25-40 du/ac under neighborhood mixed use which allows for a commercial aspect, however both versions of the project do not include one. The original project was 21 du/ac while the revised project is under 6 du/ac.

The previous project was listed under Hollister’s “Pipeline projects” in their Housing Element draft for how the city was planning on meeting their RHNA targets. The developer has until mid-May to submit the full project and then it enters further planning stages. We will likely learn more from there.

While this is likely not the last project to invoke Builder’s Remedy in our area (nor the first) we can only hope for more multi-family and mixed-use moving forward!

Stay tuned…

Documents

All documents and information were sourced from a public information request with the City of Hollister.