At the Town of Kensington meeting on the Attainable Housing Strategies held on October 15, Councilmember Kate Stewart noted the following with regard to next steps for AHS legislation. [See the recording of the session beginning at approximately 15:25.]
1. Although the Council has been holding listening sessions on the AHS, currently no legislation has been introduced and no legislation is pending before the Council related to its implementation.
2. On October 29, Council staff will present to the Council a summary of the comments received during and following the Council’s six listening sessions. This report will include comments received up until Friday, October 18 at 5:00 PM. Comments submitted after this date will be sent to Councilmembers but will not be in included in the staff summary.
3. A Councilmember would then have to draft legislation related to the AHS. This would likely take the form of one or more zoning text amendments [ZTAs].
4. Once such legislation was drafted, the council would be required to hold a public hearing no sooner than 30 days after the legislation was introduced.
5. The legislation would then be referred to committee [presumably the Planning, Housing, and Parks Committee], which would hold one or more work sessions on the proposed ZTAs.
6. The legislation would then be reported by the PHP committee to the full Council for further action.
The net result, if these steps are adhered to, is that the full Council would not take action on AHS legislation until sometime in December 2024 at the earliest.
It is also important to report that at the Town of Kensington meeting, Councilmember Stewart stated that before the Council moved forward with any legislation, “we will make sure we are hearing from residents, that we would come back and do more [of these types of listening sessions.]”
Parkwood Residents Association 