Affordable housing at Napa church 1st local plan under new law expediting review process

A proposal to build 46 affordable workforce apartments on the grounds of Napa’s First United Methodist Church is the first project in Napa County to use a new state law meant to open land for affordable housing development on religious property.

Senate Bill 4 — colloquially known as “Yes in God’s Backyard” — serves to streamline local approvals for affordable housing on land owned by religious or independent higher education institutions meeting certain affordable criteria. It was signed into law as the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands and Higher Education Lands Act by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2023, and took effect in January.

Approvals of the projects under the new law are “by right,” meaning planning departments are required to approve them if they meet a checklist of criteria, according to Ricky Caperton, Napa city planning manager.

Caperton said the main criteria include:

• The development isn’t adjoined to any sites where more than one-third of the square footage is dedicated to industrial use.

• That 100% of the units — aside from manager units — are affordable for lower income households. Additionally, 20% of the units can be dedicated for moderate-income households, and 5% can be used for staff.

Since the law took effect in January, Caperton said he expects few projects seeking to use the law have been submitted so far in the state.

The law is in line with the state’s efforts in recent years to streamline the local approval process for housing developments, as part of an effort to take on the state’s housing crisis.

Caperton said the removal of discretionary review — which includes sending the project before the city’s planning commission or the Napa City Council — speeds up the review process.

A typical project similar to the Methodist Church proposal would take a minimum of four or five months to go before the City Council, depending on the complexity of it and the level of environmental review, Caperton said.

“In this case under SB4, the project could conceivably be reviewed within 30 to 60 days,” he said.

Caperton added that the law specifies maximum timelines for review; and requires the local agency to explain to the applicant any conflicts with planning standards within 60 days.

The Methodist Church proposal — a joint project of the church, Napa Valley Community Housing and Burbank Housing — was in the works long before the law came into effect. It would spread 46 units across a four-story building at Randolph and Fourth streets, and feature one-, two- or three-bedroom apartments.

Plans also include an indoor community gathering place and outdoor play areas for children. About 6,000 square feet of the indoor community space would be shared with the church to support congregation activities and community needs.

Planning departments for Napa County and its five cities confirmed this week that, aside from the Methodist Church proposal, no other applications have been submitted under the new law.

Several planners said they weren’t sure what properties in their jurisdictions were subject to the law, given that local analyses of its applicability had not been carried out.

The potential for that development under the new law is there, though. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley found in a paper published August 2023 that there were over 171,749 acres of potentially developable land in the state under the law — which they described as “nearly five times the size of the city of Oakland.”

Though SB4 allows for by-right approval, the Methodist Church plan was developed, prior to submission to the city, with input sessions from the church’s congregation and the community. That input led to the developers changing up the proposed design of the proposal, as well as adding more parking spaces.

Karen Massey, senior project manager for Burbank, said in an email the company has a history of bringing affordable projects to the community because they “understand the importance of transparent and open communication with the residents and neighbors of the communities we work in.”

“We strive to listen and incorporate feedback into our project designs to ensure our projects are compatible with the neighborhoods they are built in,” she said.

Larry Florin, president and CEO of Burbank, acknowledged space to develop new housing within cities is “always at a premium.” The new law essentially widens that space, he said, and allows religious communities to help solve the affordable housing crisis in their community.

Burbank isn’t working on other projects under the new law, Florin said, but the company has had conversations with other religious organizations interested.

“We think demonstrating through a successful workforce housing project with Napa First United Methodist Church, that we can serve as a template to other organizations on how they can utilize this new law,” Florin said.

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.