3.32.010 Purpose.
The City Council finds and determines that to provide sufficient affordable housing to achieve the City’s goal of providing a full range of affordable housing options to residents of the City, in accordance with the standards established in the General Plan Housing Element and other applicable plans and regulations, development projects identified in Larkspur Municipal Code Section 3.32.040 shall pay a commercial linkage fee to assist with the production of new affordable housing in the City to meet the needs of worker households employed by uses created by development projects subject to the fee. Consistent with the City Council’s findings and determinations, the purposes of this chapter include the following:
A. Encourage the development and availability of housing affordable to a broad range of households with varying income levels within the City as mandated by state law, California Government Code Section 65580 and following.
B. Offset the demand for affordable housing that is created by new development and mitigate environmental and other impacts that accompany new commercial development by protecting the economic diversity of the City’s housing stock; reducing traffic, transit and related air quality impacts by allowing more residents to live near their workplace; promoting jobs/housing balance; and reducing the demands placed on transportation infrastructure in the region.
C. Promote the City’s policy to provide an adequate number of affordable housing units to the City’s housing stock in proportion to the existing or projected need in the community, as identified by the housing element.
D. Support the housing element goal of assisting in the development of new housing that is affordable at all income levels and the policies and actions that support this goal.
E. Encourage the production of the very low-, low-, and moderate-income units planned for in the housing element of the General Plan. (Ord. 1065 § 5 (Exh. A), 2023)