Friend of CHOA,
Happy New Year!! Hope you had a good Christmas, and a good beginning of the new year. The new year brings a time for new efforts. You will hear more of new efforts from CHOA. And of course, we will continue with ongoing efforts. 2024 is a pivotal year for housing in Arcadia.
Below are the updates in this newsletter:
- Rezoning vote coming to City Council tentatively on Tuesday, February 6th.
- Organizing to meet with Ctiy Councilmembers from Districts 4 and 5 on the Housing Element in February.
- Point-in-time Homeless Count in Arcadia, Tuesday, January 23rd, at 8pm.
We encourage you to continue to pray, speak, and act for housing in Arcadia. From Scripture, we read that God created this earth and land (Genesis 1), and cares for those who are vulnerable (Isaiah 1). Each of us makes an impact. Bless you for your efforts.
Lastly, CHOA is looking for more team members. If you are interested or know of others who may like to join the team, respond to this email, and let us know. The larger the team, the more we can do.
Peace,
–Mike Veerman
CHOA Team Lead
Rezoning vote before City Council tentatively on Feb. 6th
Tentatively, the vote for Rezoning — for more density housing in key areas around Arcadia — is coming to City Council on Tuesday, February 6th. This is coming soon! This is so huge!
Rezoning is needed to allow residential units where only commercial buildings are currently allowed. This is better land use. With the Rezone, we can have both, commercial and residential in the same location. Commercial can be on the bottom, and multiple floors of residential units above the 1st floor. This is a mixed-use development approach. This Rezoning plan also allows for increased density in some areas, allowing up to 80 dwelling units per acre in some areas.
To be clear, the plan is NOT to increase density where single-family homes are currently located. CHOA thinks this plan makes so much sense, for Arcadia, and for our future needs for housing region-wide.
This Rezoning vote is the 1st of 2 key votes coming before City Council in 2024. So appreciate how our city is communicating all the details. To learn more about the rezoning, to see the maps of the affected areas, and skim the 82-page document, see the city link below. There is so much good information there.
Link to City of Arcadia’s Housing web page
If you have not already reached out to your City Council member, this is the time!! And if you have, you may want to send a follow-up email. (See further below for the emails of each City Councilmember.)
And if you want to come to make a public comment at the Feb. 6th (7pm) City Council meeting, that will be so great. One way or another, our City Council needs to hear from the people of faith.
Rezoning allows us to build more housing, and that includes affordable housing as well. We are talking about 1,000+ affordable housing units in Arcadia in the next 7 years.
Meet City Councilmembers from Districts 4 and 5 in February
2024 is the year when the matter for rezoning (mentioned above) and inclusionary ordinance will come before City Council for a vote. This is all part of the Housing Element. It is critical we let the City Council know our perspectives of wanting these measures to be passed.
CHOA thinks our efforts are making a constructive impact. We think we have 3 votes from City Council; we like an additional 4th vote to keep our city together, unified, and peaceful through this large change we will all go through together. Young people…working families…our elderly…need housing they can afford…starting in Arcadia. We are talking about folks who are working, have income, but cannot find a place they can afford.
CHOA will continue to meet with our City Councilmembers from Districts 4 and 5, in February. If you like to join us to meet in these February gatherings, please contact us at the link below, or just respond to this email. We will let you know when and where we are meeting.
http://choaarcadia.org/contact-us/
We list our City Councilmembers below, for you to easily email them. They do listen to us. Further below, there is a very short and clear video from Vox, on why housing is so hard to purchase; and why we need more housing, and housing that folks can afford (“affordable housing”). Found that helpful; you may as well.
District 2
Councilmember Sharon Kwan
skwan1@ArcadiaCA.gov
Month to meet: October
This Vox video explains so well why buying a home is so difficult right now. Thought you find this helpful as well.
Point in Time Homeless Count in Arcadia
Join others on Tuesday, January 23rd, from 8pm to 10pm, for the Point In Time Homeless Count. Everyone gathers at the Arcadia Community Center – 365 Campus Drive. You can come with a team of 2-3 (preferable from your family unit…reducing the spread of COVID). You count from you car, looking for folks that are unhoused, in specific regions assigned to you. One person is the driver, another is the navigator, and the 3rd person is the counter…using the counting app on your smart phone. (If you hve a 2-person team, the 2nd person does both the navigation and the counting.) You do not need to approach folks that are unhoused; you stay in your car. To register and get training, review the link below.
Why make the effort to get the homeless count correct? The PIT Count is the annual census that counts our neighbors experiencing unsheltered homelessness. The PIT Count helps communities plan services and programs to appropriately address local needs, measure progress in decreasing homelessness, and identify strengths and gaps in a community’s current homelessness assistance system.
Arcadia has seen a rise and high number of people that are unhoused over the last 4 years, see the charts on the side. For a bit more information, see the link below, from the City of Arcadia’s website:
