City Council - Regular Meeting

We're, just waiting for the clock to run down. It's 04:59, at least according to my iPad. They're always correct. Right?

Right. I feel like iPads are pretty correct.

And, Tony, did we hear from Tony, Laura?

No. Nothing. I don't know where my phones even are.

Where did I just put them?

Because it'd be around.

Oh, that's I meant

to go find out and put the other one away instead.

That's very good. Nope.

I'll bring it up.

If you watch the clock, it goes more slowly.

It's so

The message is, hi. No. It was fun last night.

Okay. No. I need her original one. No. I need her original one. I gotta get

Alright. It is 05:00 by my iPad. So good evening, everyone. Today is Tuesday, 05/19/2026, And I'm going to call the City of Alameda City Council meeting to order. We are about to go into a special closed session. But we will start with the roll call. Madam Clerk Laura Weisiger, would you please call the roll?

Yes. Council members Bohler. Here.

Jensen. Here. Pryor. Here. Mayor Ezzy Ashcroft.

I'm

here. For president and hopefully council member Jayson will be here momentarily.

Alright. Oh, thank you. Speaking of Ridge, yeah. We're just going through the role council member. I'd count him as present. Okay. Madam Clerk, would you please introduce our closed session Yes. Oh, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment on closed session?

We have none.

All right. With that, going once, going twice, no public comment on closed session? Because it could be in person or remote. Okay.

Then we will close public comment on the closed session and only closed session items. So then let's move on

to item three. We're about to adjourn to closed session to consider a couple of items. Madam Clerk, would you introduce those items, please?

3A is conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to government code section five hundred forty nine thousand five and sixty nine A. The court case name is the city of Alameda versus Greenway Golf Associates Inc. Court is Alameda County Superior Court. Case number is 22CV011964. Three b is public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code five thousand four and ninety five seven. The position evaluated is the city attorney and city clerk.

All right. Thank you for that. So if I could have all staff and, of course, the council who are involved in item 3A to please join us in 391 behind the chambers and to members of the public who may be watching we expect to be back before you at 07:00 this same evening so we'll see you soon thank you okay Are we ready in the balcony? All right, the balcony is always ready. Thank you, balcony.

We are beginning the meeting, so if everyone would please take their seats. Good evening everyone and welcome to the City Council meeting for the City Of Alameda. Today is Tuesday, 05/19/2026. The council has just come back from closed session.

Actually

We've recessed.

Sorry. Yes. We're here now, but we've just recessed our closed session. We will be going back to closed session after we complete the regular session. So, Madam Clerk, in that case, you don't do the announcement at this point because there's no announcement. So, we will move on to the special joint meeting of the City Council and successor agency to the Community Improvement Commission, once known as the Redevelopment Agency. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Vice Mayor Pryor, would you lead us in the foot?

Sure. Thank you. Rise If you are able. Oh, sorry. Oh. Alright. Ready to begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Vice Mayor Pryor. Madam Clerk, would actually, yes, would you call the roll, please?

Council members Boulder.

Here.

DeSoc. Here. Jensen.

Here. Pryor.

Here. Mayor Eze Ashcroft.

I am also here.

Five present.

All right thank you. We have the consent calendar these are routine items that can be approved by one motion unless is a council member wants to remove it. Again, is just for the successor agency. And, don't we ask for public comment on the successor agency?

Yes, and there is none.

No, no,

no, just on the consent calendar. There's no other public comment section.

Oh, there's not. All right. Well, so what I do need, though, is a motion to to accept the investment transactions report. Actually, let's let the city clerk please introduce item 2A, if Great. You

It's a recommendation to accept the investment transaction report for the quarter ending 03/31/2026.

Thank you. Okay. So, counsel, do I have a motion unless someone wants to pull this. Do I have a motion to approve and a second?

Move approval.

Okay, I heard moved approval by councilmember Bowler, seconded by councilmember Jensen. Any council discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by stating aye. Aye. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. So, we will then adjourn the successor, the joint meeting of the City Council and the successor agency. And I will call to order the regular city council meeting. Roll call, Madam Clerk.

Roll call has been noted. Five present.

Thank you. And do we have any agenda changes this evening? We do not. Okay, so then we also don't have any proclamations or special orders of the day. So, we will go into oral communications and these are non agenda items over which the council has jurisdiction and speakers may address the council for a total of fifteen minutes now. If we run out of time, there's another opportunity at the end of the regular agenda. Madam Clerk, do we have speakers under oral communication?

We do. And they will get two minutes each. I will call three at a time so they can move along quickly. Oh, you want

to read your part first?

Yeah, I will read my little rules of the road. These are just rules of conduct for city council meetings. I just remind people that this is a business meeting. This is not theater. It's not a sporting event. We are here to do the city's business. And, therefore, we don't applaud. We don't boo, cheer, jeer, do the wave. We just listen respectfully to people who are speaking. When it's your turn to speak, come on up to the podium.

I always say make the microphone yours about the level where your mouth is. And, when the timer, when the clerk says your time is up, please stop speaking, or before that even. But, again, we don't applaud, we don't boo, cheer, jeer, do the wave. And, we don't do those things, A, because it's a business meeting, but B, and maybe it's even A, for many people public speaking is one of the most stressful things they can do. And, if they were to see someone being booed or laughed at when they're speaking, someone might decide not to get up and speak at all.

And that would be a shame because this is democracy in action. You have your allocated time to share your views in public like this at a council meeting. We also have young people present. We have some today. And we want to set that good civic example that's not always present everywhere we look these days.

But here in Alameda, we try to do things the courteous way. And so, just treat people the way you would like to be treated and we'll have a great productive meeting. Because, again, we want this to be a safe place for you to speak and to be listened to. If you have a sign to hold, that is certainly your First Amendment right. I only ask that if you're sitting anywhere but the very last row, don't hold it over your head where you would block the view of someone behind you because everybody wants to see.

Again, that's just treat people the way you would like to be treated. And then, I have to read this language just in case I need it, and I'm sure I won't. But, California Penal Code Section four zero three states that it is a criminal offense for any person to, without authority of law, willfully disturb or break up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character 100 other than an assembly or meeting referred to in Penal Code Section three zero two or Elections Code Section 18,040. First violations will receive a warning and continued violations will require additional action which could include police intervention. And there, I am done reading the rules of the road, so let's call our first speaker.

Okay. It's Maria Henderson HENDERSON: followed by Rick Lewis and Alexandra Tisada.

Welcome, Speaker Henderson.

MARIA Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. Maria Henderson with AC Transit. I'm here to share an important update about our bus service. On Wednesday, June 10 at 5PM, the AC Transit Board will receive a report on potential service reductions due to ongoing budget challenges. While the state loan has stabilized next fiscal year for us, are we facing a $200,000,000 deficit over the next four years. Without new sustainable funding,

we

may need to reduce service by more than 16% and also reduce up to 300 jobs. No final decisions have been made, and no specific routes have been selected. All of our bus lines are under review. If additional funding is not secured, any service changes would likely begin in June 2027. We remain committed to preserving service and being transparent about our fiscal challenges.

An open house will be held before the June 10 board meeting at our headquarters in Downtown Oakland, 1600 Franklin Street. And the community can learn more there and provide feedback on this contingency service plan. I'll share additional details in the coming weeks and look forward to working with you all to share this news with the community. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

Rick Lewis, Ben Alexander Tsisada, and Teresa Zigahera.

Welcome, speakers Lewis.

RICHARD Hello. Thank you for hurrying me. So I've lived in Bay Farm, Alameda, for thirty two years. And I'm an environmentalist and conservationist. And I'm the person who discovered the bald eagle nest Carrika Park.

And so I'm here today really just to say I wanted to make a note that Carrika Park and Greenway Golf have been incredibly supportive of our birding activities. I'm not a golfer. I've lived by the golf course for many years. And I support any organization, management, administration, etcetera, etcetera, that supports biodiversity, conservation, and environmental concerns. So I've been published many times in Audubon and Ducks Unlimited and Bay Nature, which is a local magazine.

I belong to many, many organizations. And so that's really all I wanted to say is that when we first approached Carrika Park, we were very hesitant about whether or not they would accept what we were intending to do. And that was to open up the park for other visitors other than golf. And so the management team there has been very supportive of being inclusive and allowing us to do the birding activities. And we've taken hundreds of people on bird walks through Carrika Park.

Now, having lived across the street from the golf course for many years and being a birder, I used to look out off of my porch and see birds. But I didn't realize how many birds were there. So even though it's not a wild place, it is an open space. And my point is that their acceptance, their support has really made it easy for us to walk the golf course and conduct bird walks. And so really appreciate that. And that's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much for hearing me.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

Alexandra Sisada, then Theresa Zukera, then Corinne Kirschbaum.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Alexandra. And I'm here today not only as a community member, but as a woman of color and a small business owner who has personally experienced the impact Carriacca had on this community. I operated a small commissary kitchen in Oakland called Corner.

It was a space built to help immigrant entrepreneurs, local food vendors, and help them grow and create opportunities for themselves and for their families. A lot of people in our community have talent and drive, but they don't always get access or opportunities. That was something we deeply cared about changing. When we started working with Corica, it became more than just catering. They welcomed local businesses like ours into the space and gave us opportunities to participate in events and community programs.

But what meant the most to us were the summer camps. We were proud to donate food and support programs that gave kids a safe space and a positive environment during the summer. A lot of families rely on programs like these, especially in communities where safe spaces and mentorship matter so much. These camps give young people structure, confidence, discipline, and a sense of belonging. Seeing kids outside active, learning golf, building friendships, and being surrounded by positive role models was something that truly mattered to us.

A lot of organizations talk about supporting community, but Carica actually invested in local people. They created opportunities for small businesses, welcomed diverse communities, and supported programs that positively impacted local families and youth. I'm here because I've seen that impact firsthand, and I believe it deserves to be recognized.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker?

Theresa Zankara, then Corinne Kirshbaum.

Welcome, Speaker Zankara.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. I'm here this evening to express my strong support of Greenway Golf. My son discovered and developed his love of golf thanks to the youth initiatives at Greenway. But more importantly, it was because of volunteering at Greenway that he learned he could give back to others through the sport that he loves.

Over the past four years, he has volunteered in Carrika summer camps, multiple Veterans Day tournaments, and even a tournament to benefit the victims of the LA fires. He and his friends were on the course for nearly twelve hours playing over 70 holes of golf in order to raise money for youth who had lost their golf equipment and facilities in the fires. He came home inspired to do more, and I could not have been prouder of that group of young people. We should all be proud to have our young people engaged in this way and grateful to Greenway for creating a vibrant recreational space that promotes youth leadership, civic engagement, compassion, and inclusivity. They have enriched our entire city with exciting and diverse offerings that bring people together across generations and backgrounds.

As a longtime public servant myself, I am very familiar with government requirements and processes. I know that contracting issues are fairly inevitable. I also know there is always a choice and many options in how lease and contract disputes are resolved if we place priority on keeping contractors who make our city a better place. As a resident, I respectfully request that you use your energies and resources to resolve any disputes and contract agreements and move forward in a manner that preserves Greenway Golf and all the valuable assets it brings our city. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker,

Corinne Kirschbaum.

Welcome, speaker Kirschbaum.

We all know why I'm here. Tonight, I'm asking one simple question. What data did this city rely on, and where did it come from? Because the documents do not line up. In 2018, the city's own homelessness report identified major gaps, lack of coordination, lack of local service access, lack of shelter options, and the need for documented outreach, case management, and accountability.

Then came the Road Home, a five year plan promising measurable goals, coordination, data, annual review, and real outcomes. However, people who are actually listed on the road home to make sure that those goals are worked on have never even read the five year plan. They don't even know what the five year plan was. But they have goals they need to work on. Then came 2024 progress report, which that was only done because I asked for it.

We had a city council member sit there looking at that progress report saying, wow, This is great. We should see this every year. Well, I hate to tell you, but you were supposed to see one every year. In fact, you were supposed to see one every six months, and you saw one progress report in five years. Now we have a new action plan, more staff reports, more approvals, more contracts, more public money, and still the same basic problem. We're starting at from the very, very beginning. Oh, look. We have a case manager. You don't even know what a case manager is. Where are the records proving the work was done?

Where are the monthly reports? Where are the financial reports? Where are the outreach logs? Where are the evaluations? Where are the meeting minutes documenting these so called oral reports? Where are the contracts amendments authorizing written reports to be verbal Zoom updates?

Your time is up. Thank you. And our next speaker. That was

our last speaker.

Okay, that was our last speaker. So with that we will close public comment and we will move on to our All right, so we have right. Take just a moment for the door to close. All right. All right.

Okay. So with that, we will close item four, oral communications. And we will move on to item five, which is the consent calendar. These are routine items approved by one motion unless council members remove items for discussion and removed items will be called after our regular agenda items are completed and council members may speak for up to I see a hand up. Did you mean to take out a speaker slip for oral communication?

Yes and yes. Okay, we some people might be attending a council meeting for the first time. So I'm going to exercise a little extra latitude. Is there anyone in this room that still wants to make comments about Greenway Golf? If there is, raise your hand so I can see who you are. Okay, just this one person that is going once, going twice. Come on up. We're going to we're going to yeah, why don't you come on up and speak and then go see Ms. Rosalina afterwards and she'll get the speaker slip. We'll do it in a reverse order.

So, come on up. Come on up to the microphone And you saw how it was done before, so just tell us what you'd like to tell us. Make that microphone the right height for you. Okay. Thank you so much. Hi.

Hi. So my name is Sofia Tejeda. I didn't prepare a speech, but I was first introduced to Corica Park two years ago through Cal State East Bay. I was a college athlete. And I'm originally from Mexico, so Corica Park opened me with open arms. I always felt welcomed there. I've never felt like I didn't belong there. And then I got an opportunity to be part of the camps. I was a coach. And later on, I'm currently an intern doing data analysis for them.

So I'm the one in charge of looking at all the data that all our programs are gathering. And honestly, all the impact that these people are making to these kids' lives is amazing. Coming from Mexico, I wish I had that opportunity to be able to enjoy free gold. My parents are here right now with me. They grind it to get me to where I am right now. Thank you, parents. But this is about Greenway. And this place is just an amazing place where we give so many opportunities to kids to come, not only learn about golf, but learn tools that they are going to keep for the rest of their lives. Because we not only care about golf part, we also care about their development, how they develop as kids. Not only them, also the coaches.

Because I was a coach myself, so I got to experience all of the tools that Greenway gave us from workshops on how to do our resumes, on just caring about our own well-being. So I'm asking for all of you guys to take a look at all the work that is being done there, because it's meaningful. And it's just like some of the things that we need more nowadays. Thank you.

Thank you. And you'll see Ms. Rosalina and she'll get your speakers up. Thank you so much. Okay, with that, we once again officially close oral communication, non agenda items. So, we were on the consent calendar, were we not, Madam Clerk? Okay. So, what I'm looking for, first of all, are there any items on the consent calendar that council wants to pull? Councilmember Bowler.

I just have a recusal for 5D, if I may.

All right. 5D playground equipment at Leigh Decker Park?

Yeah, my home that I own is within a thousand feet of Leigh Decker Park, so I'm just going to recuse myself on that one.

Okay. Did you consult with the city attorney's office?

Yeah, did.

Okay. All right. That's fine. Any other, that's not even a pull you're just recusing so you won't vote on that one. Any items the council wants to pull? Any council questions about any consent calendar items? Okay. Madam Clerk, do you have any public speakers on any consent calendar items?

No, we don't.

Okay. We will close public close public speakers comment on the consent calendar. Any comments that council wants to make on the consent calendar? Council member Daesong?

I'll be voting no on five gs,

which five is the gs is fiscal year budget. With that, I'm looking for a motion to approve and a second with the caveat that council member Boulder is not going to vote on five d as in dog and council member Dave Saig is registering a no vote on five gs. Who's going to make that motion and second it? So moved. Vice Mayor Pryor, a move, seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

All those in favor signify by stating aye. Aye. That motion passes with all the qualifications we previously stated. So now we move on to item 6A with apologies to the Public Works Department because we kept you out late and then bumped you at the last meeting. So welcome, come on up and go ahead and introduce yourself and we're looking forward to the presentation. Hi.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor and members of the council. My name is Ricardo De La Torre, parking manager with the Public Works Department. So tonight, council is considering the introduction of an ordinance that makes two changes to the municipal code related to parking. The first is a housekeeping update to remove an outdated reference to a city employee parking lot that no longer exists. The second establishes authority for the city manager or their designee to set and modify the hours of operation for the Civic Center parking structure.

So tonight, I'll cover a brief background on the Civic Center parking structure and what's driving this request, walk through two components of the proposed ordinance, touch on next steps if the ordinance is introduced tonight, and then close with staff's recommendation. So as you may know, the Civic Center parking structure is one of the main parking facilities serving Downtown Alameda. It provides parking to the general public as well as city employees working here at City Hall and at nearby facilities. Over time, the facility experienced repeated vandalism during the overnight hours, particularly in and around the elevator, which caused ongoing disruptions to service. So to address this, City Council approved funding for security enhancements and other improvements to that structure, including the ability to close the facility overnight.

Those improvements are now underway and we will soon be ready to close the facility overnight. If you haven't taken note already, as pictured in this slide, The facility is absolutely beautiful inside and out. It is now painted aesthetically improved all over. So the ordinance before you tonight would vest the authority to set and modify the operating hours with the city manager or their designee, giving the city the legal foundation it needs to manage and enforce those hours going forward. So to inform the decision around these hours of operations, staff took several steps.

First, we surveyed garage users. More than five fifty responses were received. Most responses respondents rather indicated a preference for closing at midnight and reopening at six a. M. We also looked at what comparable cities are doing. Staff reviewed parking structures in Berkeley, San Leandro and Emeryville, including Oakland. These facilities generally close overnight with most closing at midnight. Finally, staff conducted late night parking occupancy counts over a three week period at the Civic Center structure and surrounding downtown locations. Data was collected between ten p. M.

And two a. M. On both weekends and weekdays. The results showed that the Civic Center structure was operating at an occupancy of approximately 3% during those hours while the surrounding downtown area within a five block radius had over 70% vacancy. Taken together, the data supports closing the facility overnight in consistency with the survey results with those survey results and what comparable cities do, the hours we do plan to implement are midnight to six a.

M. So this ordinance has two components. The first, again, is a housekeeping amendment to section twelve-2.3 of the municipal code which currently references 2216 Lincoln Avenue as a city employee parking lot. That lot no longer exists and that site, rather, has since been redeveloped. It is housing.

This change simply removes that outdated reference. The second component repeals and replaces Section twelve-4.12 of the Municipal Code to formally establish the city manager their authority to set and modify the hours of operation for the civic center parking structure. Some of these key provisions include authorizing again the city manager or their designee to establish and modify hours as needed to support public safety, maintenance and efficient operations requires that the hours of operation be posted on-site establishes that it is unlawful to park or leave a vehicle in the facility outside of the posted hours unless authorized and provides that vehicles left outside of the posted hours are subject to citation or other enforcement action. If council introduces the ordinance this evening, the next step would be final passage on June 2. If adopted, the ordinance would take effect thirty days after that second reading on 07/03/2026.

Following the effective date, staff will align any changes to operating hours with the completion of the Civic Center parking structure improvements. And before any new hours go into effect, staff will of course conduct outreach and educate the community to ensure that garage users know what is, you know, so that they can rather be aware of this change. Staff's recommending approving the first reading of the ordinance amending the Alameda Municipal Code by amending Section twelve-2.3, Location of Article I, Parking Lots of Chapter 12 designated parking and by repealing and replacing current Section twelve-4.12 reserved of Article I parking lots of Chapter 12 designated parking in its entirety to authorize the city manager or their designee to establish and modify hours of operation for the Civic Center parking structure. Happy to answer any questions.

Nice job on the report, Mr. De La Torre. Thank you. Okay, counsel, do we have any clarifying questions about the report before we go to public comment? Madam Clerk, do we have public comment? And one on this one. Any clarifying questions? Vice Mayor Pryor.

Hi. So this seems very thorough and very reasonable. I do have a question, though. So because it is in a downtown area and if there are people who decide to leave their car because they've had too much to drink, they walk home or hire a car to get home. I know how often this happens, But I guess I have been in my 20s once.

I have done this once. I do not drink and drive. I never have. So I just wouldn't want somebody to be like, oh, no, I'm going to drive because I don't want my car. Anyway, so that's the only thing. Just because it is a downhill area, there are quite a few bars.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Pryor, for the question. So staff anticipated that this could happen. Speaking from experience, it is not a good feeling when you go to retrieve your vehicle and it's locked up. What staff anticipate doing is making it very clear with posted signage that the hours of operation are this and that the facility will be physically closed after hours. And if a vehicle is left in the facility, they will be able to retrieve it in the morning.

Okay. No, I meant that as you intentionally leave it so that you're not drinking and driving. So I guess I was saying, so the odds that that person would get a citation are slim. I guess that's yeah.

I think staff's practice is to not enforce and issue a citation. Of course, things could change, but we want to make sure that the goers and users of this facility fully understand what those operating hours are. We also plan to incorporate some of this information onto the ticket that the person receives when they pay for parking.

Yeah. And then I guess it's also too I mean, we don't want people leaving their cars there for a week also. I guess that's I was trying to figure out what the or is it more just safety, like having it closed at night, people coming there? Because it's a big empty space, so I'm just trying to

avoid that.

The mayor, if I may?

Yes, Assistant City Manager Waldron.

Thank you. One thing as well is that sometimes we have people camp overnight in the parking garage. So we are also striking a balance because we have had instances where people become kind of entrenched, it's a little bit challenging to get them out. And so we're striking a balance of kind of everything you're talking about. And someone could come get their vehicle in the morning, but also needing to strike they could get a citation if it's left overnight, because we do need to strike a balance of safety and security in the garage overnight. Got it.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other clarifying questions, counsel? Counselor Mogensen.

To follow-up on that, is the citation in the parking garage for leaving your vehicle there when it closes, is that the same as if you left your vehicle on the street or your meter expired? What would be the penalty?

So currently per our master fee schedule, we have a variety of citations that we could issue. I would imagine that the citation that would be issued would be from the municipal code, not a vehicle code violation. Most of our municipal code violations range between $40 and $60 depending on the circumstances and the type of violation. Currently, in what's going to counsel June 2, there is not a citation that says excuse me, that there's no fine with the title or description that says leaving a vehicle in the facility overnight. But we'd make sure that we would use the best municipal code.

Thank you. And then when the facility is closed, is that automatic or is there a staff person that comes in and closes it?

That's a great question. So operationally, we wanted to make sure that we were best prepared. And some of the things that came to staff's mind is we have a facility. Let's say that there's five vehicles left in the facility. It does not make operational sense for these overhead coiling doors to just close automatically.

So we plan to have one of our parking operator arrive at the facility about an hour before closing time. They will flush out the facility. And what that looks like in reality is a human being walking walking through the stairwells and down the drive aisle to ensure that that facility is free of life, if you will, or in vehicles. And then what they will do is they will be able to manually close with a key switch the coiling doors at the stairwells and the drive aisle from the stairwell near the theater.

So there is a potential that vehicles will be locked in overnight. And there's also a potential that there could be people not readily apparent in the vehicles.

Absolutely. And that is the common theme across all agencies. I mean vehicles will get left in whether the driver simply doesn't care or if they're preemptively ensuring that they're driving safely. But yeah, it does happen.

Thank you. It does happen that people are left in the vehicles when the garage is closed overnight? Is that what you're saying?

I cannot speak to that, no. But what I'm referencing is that vehicles could be in the facility after night. So in the event, just operationally, if our parking operator observes what appears to be a person in a vehicle during that closing hour, the parking operator would try to make contact with that person and say, hey, we are shutting down. And if there is any reason that the parking operator feels that they need additional support, then we would rely on some of our other agency staff.

Okay, are you talking about calling the police?

Calling

the We've got three members of APD in the audience. Okay. Absolutely. So you would do everything possible to make sure no one is locked in inadvertently or even intentionally in the garage overnight?

Yes, that is correct. Okay.

Thank you. Council Member Jensen, was there anything further for you? Okay, any clarifying questions? Let's go to public comment. Oh, was there more for you, Assistant

City Manager?

Wanted to add one final comment of appreciation for Mr. Delatorre. There's been quite a bit of collaboration leading up to this with our office parking as well as APD. There has been a lot of conversations of kind of if this, then that. So just for you all to know, those conversations have happened. So both looking at best practices at other cities, as he mentioned, as well as we're in lockstep with our police department.

Yes.

And if I could also give a shout out, if you will, to the Housing and Human Services Department. Peeling back the years prior to COVID, things were much different in the downtown area. And then, cliche, the pandemic happens. The types of behaviors have changed, started to change at the facility just naturally. I think within our region, we've all kind of figured that out.

Ever since the inception of the Housing and Human Services team, I will say as someone that manages that facility, there has been a dramatic decrease in the types of behaviors that we've been observing. Why is that important? Because there's been services from housing and human services staff that have been making their way to that facility and it's been great.

And I'm going to just add on to that, although it's not quite a question. I'll do a Jeopardy question of it. So just this morning, there was a press conference at the county courthouse in Oakland. And it was to announce the results of the twenty twenty six point in time count that some of us helped with in January of this year. It's done every two years.

It's a HUD requirement, Housing and Urban Development in DC. And, I am very pleased to announce that the city Of Alameda's homelessness numbers decreased. And, this is from two years ago, 2024 was the last time we did the count, decreased by 46.8%. And, Assistant City Manager of Woldridge, I think we were the greatest decline in the county. But, when I was helping draft the press release, I didn't want to sound braggy, I so didn't put that in.

And I didn't calculate all, I think so. But what I was going to say is this year, this January and two years ago in January, I was assigned the same census tract. Two years ago in 2024, Chief Joshi, who's back there, we were on his team, three of us. And, in the Civic Center garage, on almost and we go out at five in the morning, but on almost every level in 2024, there were people camped in tents or in their cars or just in sleeping bags. And, we interacted with as many as would talk to us.

And, two years later, there was no one. There was, on the top level, a vehicle that had shades down and so we didn't disturb it. It might have had someone but it might not. And it was like that in the rest of the tract. And so I was telling someone at the press conference today that I actually could sense. I mean, it certainly seemed like we'd made improvements. But even when we were there in 2024, they were doing work. They were cleaning. In public works, there was cleaning and just repairing and things like that. And two years later, it is just so evident.

But, and I'll talk more about this later in council comments. It is because the teams like you're talking about and Assistant City Manager Waldridge oversees them have been providing resources and services and places for people to come indoors and to be housed and be helped. But, the work being done at the Civic Center Garage was, for the Civic Center area, a much better, safer, more humane way to deal with people who need some place to stay. But that was not a good place. So anyway, huge kudos to Public Works and Housing and Human Services for all the good work. Thank you. Okay, now we will go to our public comment.

Mitch Ball.

Welcome, Speaker Ball. And you can go ahead and have a seat, Mr. Dilatory. You.

Hello. I visited the Spring Market on Central right next to the parking garage the weekend before last city council meeting, and it was a lot of fun. The music was great, the food was tasty, and all the little business kids were very adorable. It did take up a small parking lot and some street parking to run this event, but because it was located immediately next to a parking garage, there was still plenty of available parking. For this reason, the city should strongly consider expanding the permanent pedestrian only section of Alameda Avenue and making long term plans for conversion of the parking lot between Alameda Avenue and Central Avenue into a park.

This would support local businesses with more foot traffic, provide more public space for the community to gather, and give high schoolers a safer walking route to Park Street. It is, after all, named Park Street, not Parking Street. Now, despite there being plenty of ample parking at the parking garage, there were still plenty of illegally parked cars getting parking citations at this event. There's an important lesson to learn here. Despite the city spending $9,000,000 to build this parking garage and now over 1,000,000 to renovate it, many people still ignore it to instead park illegally because the problem was never that there wasn't enough parking.

The problem was that there isn't enough immediately available parking immediately next to the destinations peoples want to reach. I've spoken about this before, but I believe it's worth reiterating. This was proven by a study the city conducted in 2014 that showed that the parking garage is often mostly empty despite all adjacent street parking being nearly at full capacity during peak hours. The solution here, as identified by this study and within later resolutions to accept grant funding, is demand based parking, which means increasing the street parking rates until there are parking spots available. Given that we've accepted grant funding for this purpose, and it appears through this ordinance that the parking garage renovations are making good progress, I'm really excited and supportive of the city finally implementing demand based parking and solving a problem that was identified over ten years ago.

Once we do this, we will finally have available parking and parking Webster Street, better utilization of the expensive parking garage, and far less cars endangering cyclists' lives by double parking on bike lanes. All this being said, it is possible that this may cause spillover in some nearby residential streets. So I encourage the city to start looking at implementing residential parking permits. The laws of supply and demand tell us something very important about artificial price fixing. If a good or service is artificially priced lower than its actual market value, the good or service will eventually experience shortages.

This happened with food in Venezuela during the Great Recession, and it's happening with today. Free parking equals unavailable parking. And each step the city takes that acknowledges this fact is a step in solving the single biggest complaint the city faces when it tries to do anything, from building affordable housing, to protecting pedestrians and cyclists, just to letting kids play baseball. The complaint we saw that we can solve that we often seem to see here is, but what if there's not enough parking? Thank you.

Thank you. And that was our only speaker?

Correct.

Okay. We will close public comment on item 6A and we can open it up for council discussion and hopefully a motion and second and a vote to approve this ordinance and move it forward. Who'd like to go or make a motion? We have other items council.

We move staff's recommendation.

Thank you, Councilor Dasek. Thank you, Vice Mayor Pryor. We've had a motion by Councilor Dasek, seconded by Vice Mayor Pryor. All those in favor please signify by stating aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, that motion passed unanimously. Thank you so much to Mr. De La Torre. Good work. And we will move on now to our next item. Madam Clerk, would you introduce Yes. Item 7a,

It's a public hearing to consider introduction of ordinance amending the Alabama municipal code by amending section 30 dash 16 inclusionary housing requirements for residential projects in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act. This action is categorically exempt from environmental review pursuant to sequel guideline section 15,060 one(three).

Welcome. Hi. ABBOEH Hi. Thank you. Good evening, mayor,

vice mayor, and members of the city council. My name is Abby ABBOEH Thornleiman, and I am here tonight in my capacity as interim co director of the Planning, Building, and Transportation Department here with my colleague, Director Emeritus Andrew Thomas, to present on this item. So tonight's staff are presenting the first reading of proposed amendments to municipal code section thirty-sixteen, the inclusionary housing requirements for new development. Inclusionary housing policy requires developers of market rate housing under certain conditions to provide a minimum percentage of housing units that are affordable to households at different lower income levels. This ordinance has not been updated in the city of Alameda since 2004.

And as you may imagine, market conditions have changed a bit in the last twenty two years. Staff are recommending amendments tonight, which I will go over, and are further recommending that staff continue to work on bringing back a policy and necessary studies to potentially allow for developers to pay an in lieu fee, which I'll discuss. The City Council adopted its current housing element in 2022. The state required plan identifies ways in which the city will meet its regional housing needs allocation of producing over 5,300 new housing units over the eight year period of the plan. Meeting this goal would require the city to build six sixty nine new units per year.

But unfortunately, due to a lack of construction, the city has only delivered four forty seven units total in the initial two and onetwo years of the cycle. In addition, the housing element lays out programs that the city will implement to help catalyze new housing development. One of these programs was amending the inclusionary housing ordinance to lessen or eliminate the number of moderate income units and increase the number of low and very low income units. Staff commenced work on a new ordinance in 2024, pulling together an ad hoc working group of internal city staff and planning board members to work through the details, and hiring a consultant to evaluate our policy options and conducting in addition, we conducted study sessions with the planning board and the city council in late twenty twenty five. In April, staff brought forward a draft ordinance for the planning board to review.

And the planning board recommended the draft ordinance to the city council with several revisions to ensure that developers had greater clarity and that approved projects would have a way to take advantage of the change in the ordinance. In addition, the planning board recommended that staff return within twelve months with an in lieu fee. The major changes to the ordinance modify the percentage requirements in order to meet the goals of the housing element and decrease the number of moderate income units while increasing low and very low income units. This will address the fact that some income restricted moderate income units in Alameda are remaining vacant because rents are similar to market rate rents for apartments. Currently, the ordinance requires that 15% of units in developments that are delivering more than four units be provided as affordable with 7% moderate, 4% low, and 4% very low.

Staff recommend providing options to offer flexibility for developers, including the options shown on the right of the screen 15% low income, 5% very low and 5% low, or 8% very low, or an economically equivalent option. These options were derived through the analysis conducted by street level advisors, the city's consultant, which demonstrated that though you may see different percentages of units, these all equate to an economically equivalent cost to the developer. The revised ordinance also recommends that the developer be allowed to propose something of an economically equivalent option. And MTC, which has published the transit oriented communities policy, which this is consistent with, has actually published a tool as well so that we can calculate what economically equivalent percentages are. The ordinance currently requires ownership housing to provide income restricted options for projects delivering more than four units at 4% very low, 4% low, and 7% moderate income households.

Staff have found that homeownership is still, despite these income restrictions, often out of the reach of very low income households who cannot afford the down payment requirements of owning a home. However, we have well more than enough demand for moderate and low income households to purchase a home. So staff are recommending modifying this option to focus more greatly on moderate and low income households and less on very low income households within the three options shown on the right of the screen. And as well, we are recommending that the ordinance include the ability for a developer to propose an economically equivalent option just to give as much flexibility as possible. There are a couple of additional critical amendments in the proposed ordinance tonight.

The first is changing the term for the affordability of rental units from fifty nine to ninety nine years. This is a fantastic way to ensure long lasting affordability of these units, which, while simultaneously limiting the impact to developers who are looking at their financial terms for a shorter length of time. And we are finding here in the Bay Area a lot of affordable housing units are reaching the end of their income restricted periods, and we are actually losing affordable housing units throughout the region. The current ordinance discusses clustered development. But in the current ordinance, it states that cluster development is about provision of off-site affordable housing units, where what the city's practice has been in clustering the provision of inclusionary housing units has actually been a dedication of land adjacent to or within the same development as the market rate units.

So in the proposed ordinance language, we've clarified and codified the current city process that we have already been using, cluster development is defined as a developer providing land, dedication, or money within their own development project for a 100% affordable building. This cluster development is a great way to actually leverage outside affordable housing subsidies. So you can actually deliver far more low and very low and even extremely low income units because you're bringing in that outside subsidy. And the developer's provision of land is actually counting as match. And lastly, per the planning board's recommendation, staff have clarified that there is a process for entitled projects that have not yet been built to come and apply for revisions to their inclusionary projects so that we can kick start more housing development in the city.

Additionally, we've established a process for rental projects with vacant moderate units, so that already built projects to apply to convert their vacant moderate units to low income units. So that gives an option to address the vacant moderate income unit situation. There are protections in the proposed draft ordinance to prevent developers from displacing current tenants. The current draft ordinance retains the exemption for projects of four or fewer units and allows projects of five to nine units to pay an in lieu fee instead. We want to acknowledge that the planning board recommendation actually was to increase this exemption for projects with 11 units or fewer, and that is consistent with MPC's transit oriented communities policy.

Staff did not include that in the ordinance, but if that is a change that the council would like to make, staff could recommend that as well, and it is consistent with MPC's transit oriented communities policy. On the in lieu fee, staff recommend pursuing this study in the next twelve months. And we do believe this is a national best practice to have an in lieu fee. And we think that this actually would be a very good practice because it does create a local funding source that the city could actually flexibly use as it wants to achieve its own policies. In conclusion, staff recommend the amendment to the ordinance.

We believe that the amendments tailor our inclusionary requirements to both meet our housing element and align with MTC's transit oriented communities guidelines, which makes us more competitive for funds. The amendments will have immediate benefits by stimulating at least one development project to move forward. And we also would just recommend that we revisit this ordinance more frequently. Let's not treat this ordinance as a static document. Let's come back because the market will continually change. So with that, our recommendation is approval of the first reading, a direction to continue to work on the in lieu fee provisions to come back within twelve months. And if you would like to modify to increase the exemption to 11 or fewer units per planning board recommendation, that is acceptable to staff. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Nice job, Ms. Thorne Lyman. Any clarifying questions before we go to public comment? Vice Mayor Pryor?

Yeah, have a couple. For the rental housing project requirements, I don't know what page it's on, but that's the title of the slide. So there are the three options. I what I heard and I did hear from you, I've heard it just over the past few weeks talking about this ordinance sorry, rental housing that there are people that might fit in the category. And that's why, by the way, I do agree with the review of the ordinance.

But currently, way low income is to find that people that are very, very low income might have access to more funds from different agencies or groups. But people that might qualify or be considered low income don't. Is that correct?

Or

is that typical, I guess? Is that better?

Are you referring to, say, Section VIII vouchers? That would

be an example. I don't want say it was explained to me, but from my understanding of it. That's why I was just asking. So if I were considered low income, this would be really beneficial to me. I guess as we're discussing options, I guess.

So for example, option three is to focus on people that are very low income, and then it would be 8%. There would be 8% available. And so I guess my question is it's kind of a leading question but is it your opinion that choosing option one would statistically benefit more people based on that they're going to have people that are considered low income are going to have less resources, I guess, to supplement their income for housing.

So I guess I should just clarify. And I think we've experienced some confusion over this matter a couple of times. So I just want to make sure everybody in the general public is clear. We're not asking you to choose between the options. You may not say that's what you're saying. The intent is all four of these options are in the ordinance. And what the ordinance language says is the developer may choose and bring forward a package and mix of units in any of these four combinations. The fourth combination, of course, they would have to prove to us that it's economically the same as the others. But we're not asking counsel to choose. Actually written into the ordinance is the provision that the developer can choose among these.

Okay, great.

Thank you. That's critical.

Well, then I think that clarifies my second question also. So I'm good with questions.

I will just throw in that on that point, and yes, that is correct what the ordinance says. At least one of us up here thinks that not just the developers should get to make the decision about the mix, but there should be input from the city. So that's something when we do our discussion we can talk about. Okay, other clarifying questions, counsel? I'll bet you we have public comment, do we, Madam Clerk?

We do.

Let's have our public comment.

Okay, we have four, we'll get three minutes each still. Sean Murphy followed by Tushan Amarasiriwadena and then Zach Thayer.

Welcome, Speaker Murphy.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members. Sean Murphy, Pacific Development. So Pacific Development was part of the Alameda Maria master plan. We delivered that first project, is called Launch three sixty eight Units in 2023. And we're here tonight to endorse what both the planning board and staff are recommending for the inclusion out in the ordinance revision.

So the foundry project, which is truly shovel ready, represents two fifty nine residential units and one work live unit for two sixty units in total. All of those entitlements and building permits are completely approved and ready for that final vertical phase. With this project, it completes that master plan that totals eight zero one units on the Northern Waterfront. Every project is different on this island, and optionality is really important so that we can all navigate how best to deliver housing on the island. Clearly, we have economic conditions ahead of us today that make housing essentially unfeasible.

The foundry project is not a typical project. It sits on the waterfront. It includes the development of significant Bay Trail improvements, sea level rise, environmental remediation, both of fee simple as well as tideland properties, deep soil mixing and stabilization because of its adjacency to the water, and important adjacent commercial parking lots for the Maritime Corps. So those are the elements that make this particular project unique. And again, optionality for solving inclusionary housing ordinance and that requirement is really important so that we can study what is financially feasible.

We plan to develop this project and build this project this summer and start construction immediately utilizing option three, which will provide 21 very low income units to the island. There's a great need today for very low income units. To address one of the questions, yes, Section eight can be used for both low and very low. We have Section eight residents in our launch project today. Foundry is truly shovel ready, and we're committed to building this important project, which will develop two sixty units, 21 of which will be very low.

We appreciate the city's partnership so that we can build more housing on the island. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

Well, we're also going go

to two minutes because we now have five or more speakers because we

have a remote.

And

the next speaker is Tushan Amarasirwarjena, then Zach Thayer, then Theresa Ruiz.

All right. Come on up, Speaker Amarasirwarjena.

Howdy. You for considering this really wonky material. Just watching it moving through planning board and up to here, it's been one of the harder ones to grab one's head around. But I hope you move forward and approve this because I think just at a singular level, it unlocks a large project that happens to be in my neighborhood. The foundry is down on Clement Street, just a couple blocks from where I live.

And I can say that the whole Northern Waterfront project is something that my family has enjoyed, but my whole neighborhood has enjoyed. And more importantly, we have new neighbors that enrich our neighborhood and our schools. In fact, a couple of my kids' friends are some of those new families that moved in. And while we are talking about metrics and numbers on a spreadsheet, I think what we really should also keep in mind is that these are doors that open up for people to live in our community and not in Mountain House and taking two hours to get out here. And so I think it's really important that we move on this.

And I just want to reiterate some things that I mentioned in the letter that I shared earlier today, too. The New York Times had a great editorial yesterday about the housing crisis. And their conclusion was one of the best ways to solve this that we've seen in Raleigh when I went to school or in Austin, Texas is that by building more, it opens the supply to meet the demand.

And I

feel like this we have a very clear link to opening up a project. So yes, thank you so much for your consideration on this. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

Zach Thayer, then Theresa Ruiz, then Corinne Kirschbaum.

All right. Welcome, Speaker Thayer. Is that you, sir, Speaker Thayer? Would you like us to have the next speaker go while you make your way up the aisle? Do you mind, Speaker Ruiz? Come on up. Nice to see you. Hi.

Madame Mayor, members of council, good evening. My name is Theresa Ruiz, and I'm here speaking as a private citizen and not in my capacity as planning board member. I am here in support of the ordinance in front of you. As a private practitioner, I'm a licensed architect practicing in the multifamily space. I see firsthand how inflexibility in local ordinances can put stumbling blocks in to unlock the housing development.

And current ordinance in its current form doesn't work. As we can see, there hasn't been any development. We have vacancies not being able to serve the population that's in need. Is the proposal perfect? No. But is progress towards the right direction. We need to ask ourselves, what is the role of government? Is the government to regulate everything? Or is our role to provide safety nets for the private sector and the market to do its thing, even in difficult economic times, that we can still meet the needs of our residents? And that's what I ask you to consider.

So tonight, I ask you to support this ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, our next speaker.

Is that clear?

And so just for future speakers to keep things moving along, when you hear your name, just be ready to come on up. Hello.

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You can't bid proposal. Tax abatement, 07/2026 changed HR 5,794 versus 5,798 in the state senate based on appraisal models, efficiency standards, and LLP formats. Marriage isn't supposed to be a master limited partnership for a PLC based on oppression duality. If some symbolic application of domiciling isn't that as credit card statement efficiency standards. Bond proposal efficiencies would be wondered.

Fifteen nine three seven one twelve triathylate hexox chloride samples is in Hensley v. The NRDC. A question I wish to propose in view of this. So I call it random view of housing in GV Australia.

You so much and your time is up. Our next speaker Madam Clerk.

Corinne Kirschbaum.

Welcome, Speaker Kirschbaum.

So the issue is no longer whether there were red flags because the city's own records show there were. The city's 02/23/2023 monitoring report of Village of Love says the monitoring period covered 2019 So

I'm going to stop you there, Ms. Kirschbaum. We are now on item 7a, is an ordinance to amend the inclusionary housing requirements.

Okay, so then when do I come back up?

For non agenda items? At the end of the regular calendar.

You can only speak once on our own communications on agenda.

Oh, that's true. That's for people who didn't get a chance to speak during item four. Alright, and our next speaker?

Andy Wang.

Welcome, is he remote? Because I don't see him in the room.

He's remote.

Yeah. Thank you. Welcome, Speaker Wang.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members. My name is Andy Wang. I am a member of the Planning Board, which has participated in multiple deliberations on this ordinance already. I'm speaking again tonight as a private resident who wants to see more housing in the Bay Area, and I want to underscore the importance of this legislation as a small stepping stone to getting there. The inclusionary housing ordinance that you have before you this evening is really, in my view, a modest and sensible update.

Among other things, it removes a problematic moderate income tier for rental units as a requirement for new developments. This moderate tier has been well documented in the Bay Area as one that simply doesn't work. It provides flexibility across a menu of affordable income tiers. Given the many constraints facing developments in the current market, flexibility within a framework defined by the city is an important policy ingredient that could improve feasibility for future projects. It aligns us better with state law.

It aligns us with regional policy benchmarks, which will give the city access to a huge pool of grants. It formalizes a pathway for land dedication and satisfaction of affordable housing requirements. Lastly, it would raise the threshold of applicability should council choose to adopt the recommendation. While the current rules apply to developments five units or more, the proposed ordinance would apply to projects 11 units or more. Removing requirements from smaller projects is intended to support the type of small scale developments sponsored by mom and pop developers known as missing middle housing, an important piece of our housing puzzle.

Passing this ordinance would be a win on multiple policy fronts, including moving the needle on delivering more housing at a time when the city and region have produced vanishingly little. Please vote yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

And that was our last speaker.

That was our last speaker. So with that, we will close public comment. And I'm just going to make a little commercial here, a PSA. We heard from not one but two of our very impressive outstanding talented planning board members. Okay, I appointed both of them, but the full council approved them.

There are currently openings on some of our I mean, of our boards and commissions are important. But, we have openings right now on the Planning Board, Transportation Commission, Social Service Human Relations Board, Historic Advisory Board, Civil Service Board. Go to the city's website and check them out because I know we've got talented residents out there just wanting to serve their community and it's just so impressive listening to the kind of expertise that we have serving us on our boards and commissions. Okay, I will step down from my soapbox. And do we have now we're open for discussion. Council Member Desaub, you're looking at your notes. Do you want to lead off?

Well, thank you very much for bringing this back. We had a spirited discussion last time. And I appreciate the product that we're seeing before us. And to hear that one of the developers with a major project feels confident enough to move ahead because of the changes, I think, speaks volume of the work done by our staff and our executive team. So I just want to express my appreciation and look forward to this because we all know that Alameda as well as the Bay Area, we're all in a housing crisis.

And anything that each of us on the city council can do to alleviate, lessen the difficulty that so many face when it comes to finding affordable housing, I think, is a welcome step. So I certainly join my council member, my colleagues, the mayor in supporting this item.

Thank you. Do you mind reading us? Let's just go down the row. Councilmember Boehler, how about you?

Oh, thank you. Can I start with a question actually? No questions. Yes. Thank you. Slide number eight of 10 talks about possibly going for the exemption being 11 or fewer units rather than four or fewer. And I know you talked about that briefly, but maybe you could just comment a little bit more about that. Know there's very few projects

in Ms.

Thorne Lyman, you'd like to

Yes, Thank you so much.

And are we bringing that slide up, whatever it is? I know what you're talking about.

And then I have another one that's an email too.

I just was opening that one too.

So this was a recommendation by planning board. And just quite frankly, Steph overlooked the recommendation. But part of the reason that we didn't feel that was a huge deal is we don't see projects in the five to eleven unit range in Alameda right now. So I would hope we would. I would hope we would see these smaller that would be amazing to see these smaller unit projects. But they're not a prevalent product type. So I think it would be great to do that change, but it wasn't really a high priority.

And just why? What's the rationale to do that change?

Well, just policy wise, in terms of where the Bay Area's been heading, there's been a lot of dialogue about missing middle housing, which is the smaller housing product type. If you're getting a small building like this, it's more often wood frame, walk up. It's cheaper to build. Sometimes the rents can be cheaper, not always. And so there has been a lot of encouragement to have this kind of smaller product type.

And it also can infill on very small sites, right? And you could have small clustered housing. I mean, lot of Alameda's older rental housing stock actually has this beautiful character of these very eight plexes kind of type building. They just aren't very commonly built. But why not encourage them? Why not remove the inclusionary requirement? You could either choose to exempt them entirely. Right now, as I mentioned, projects in the five to nine unit range in the draft ordinance would pay a fee instead. So you could remove that. So it's really how you all want to handle it.

I don't think you're going to be effectuating a massive sudden construction of the missing middle product type. But why not encourage it? It's something we would love to see more of. Oftentimes, it's very small scale developers, local developers who are doing this kind of stuff, often local to the specific town they're being built in.

And I just want to thank you for all the work that the department's 's done. And Mr. Thomas, too, thank you both to you. And we had a conversation. There's actually under the there's a staff communication from staff that's published under this agenda item.

And it has an email exchange that we had. And I'm just asking the city clerk, this is a paragraph that has some proposed changes to it in bold. And there's also a section that's underlined, which I added later after our email exchange. But basically, it kind of goes back to what Vice Mayor Pryor was saying in that it's a little bit confusing when you first grapple with this. But I think also in terms of legislation, it makes sense to make sure that the purposes are really clear if there's any type of interpretation later.

I think, if I understand it correctly, it's an intent to have really equivalent terms. And so the additional phrase that I added there was rather than representing a reduction in the overall affordable housing obligation. So I don't understand that to be the intent, that we're making a change that would make less affordable housing. In fact, we're just trying to get more affordable housing by having more options to get to the goal. So these sentences that are in bold and then there's a few phrases in bold are what I would propose as an addition or modification of that particular paragraph.

And I don't know if you want to comment on any of this and or the portion that I added with the underline, if you have any thoughts.

Yeah. And I'll ask Mr. Thomas to fill in if I don't say it all. But what I would say is I think this really fits with the spirit of the intent of having different affordability levels and provides a record for posterity for those who didn't get to engage in this dialogue, that we're not letting developers off the hook by choosing options two or three or even four. They are all the same financial contribution.

So it is less units you're getting overall, affordable units, but you are getting the same amount of affordable housing contribution in terms of dollars. And you're serving lower incomes. So I would agree with the recommended change in the sense that it tricky because what we were trying to use, MTC's the phrase economically equivalent is a phrase MTC uses in their transit oriented communities guidelines. That's something that we've pulled directly from what they have recommended that cities do. But it is a phrase that doesn't really impart the fact that by providing fewer units at lower incomes with deeper subsidy, you are in fact making the same financial contribution, and you're serving a household that maybe has more need.

So I don't think it changes the requirements in any way, but it maybe provides a little more context to the ordinance.

Thank you so much. That's all I have right now.

I have a question about that. And then I'd like to have our legal counsel, Cara Silver, weigh in. But I may be reading this differently. But that phrase, rather than representing a reduction in the overall affordable housing obligation, are we referring to the RENA numbers? Because that is our affordable housing obligation and that is a set number.

So, of how we do, we look at equivalency, we don't have the ability to modify our RENA obligations. So, I'm just wondering other than sort of a philosophical view, what does that really add? And then I'm just going to ask Ms. Silver if you would weigh in.

Sure. So the added phrase, I think perhaps instead of obligation, the term requirement could be used. And so I think the intent of that phrase is to say that the requirement of the inclusionary housing requirement in the ordinance can be met in several different ways. The RHNA obligation is obviously a separate issue.

That's an obligation. But is it more is than virtue signaling? Help me understand your reasoning for

including The that. Additional phrase is probably not absolutely necessary. It just puts more of an emphasis on the intent here is the intent of the legislation is to fulfill that requirement right in these different ways. But I was just trying to add a little extra emphasis to it. I don't know if it's absolutely necessary. I don't know if the mayor's comments do. I don't know if you're referring specifically only to the part that's underlined as opposed to anything else. Because everything that's in bold is what I'm thinking would be helpful to add or amend this paragraph. And then the portion that's underlined and also bolded is the part that I added after the exchange by email with staff.

You know me. I tend to think that lesson is more and I like simplicity and directness of language, but that's my opinion. Mr. Thomas, do I see you with something you wanted to add? I'm sensing.

Trying to coach from behind.

Bring it on. We

think that language in general is good. So many people have made the same didn't understand this paragraph. So when talking and emailing with Council Member Boehler, we're like, Okay,

we need to

explain what's going on here a little bit more so people, future staff, developers understand. You get a choice of options, and the public understands. And they're of equal value to us, the city. So that was the intent. I think in terms of Mr.

Bowler's addition, underlined, I think, as the attorney was suggesting, Kara, instead of affordable housing obligation, which does immediately bring to mind the RINA, it's the inclusionary housing requirement that I think you're referring to. Just because one is 8% and the other is 15% doesn't mean the 8% is a reduction in the inclusionary housing obligation. So I mean, from staff's perspective, we're comfortable with it. But the intent here is to be clear. So if there's anything in this language that you think is just adding more confusion, then the purpose of adding the language is it's not working.

So we want to try to make it understandable to future users of the ordinance, future councils, future planning board members.

Can I just say

You may?

Yeah, thanks. I don't have a strong feeling about the underlying language. I don't necessarily have an incredibly strong feeling about any of it, but I do think it makes it more clear in general. If other council members don't want to do the portion that's underlined, I don't think that's a problem.

My problem with the underlying portion is it's not quite accurate, the words on the page. I think he meant something, but it means something else. That I do have trouble with. Vice Mayor Poirier.

Yeah. So I'm going to say I definitely support this. At first, was opining, for example I think I talked about this earlier what option would I prefer, option one, two, or three? But one of the speakers made a really good point about that this just provides flexibility that

is going

to help launch this project. It's not perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. There's a huge need. And also, too, just for clarification, just for the community, there are units right now that are considered moderate that are vacant because people tend to not apply for them. It's a lot of work.

And people are like, well, I'll just pay market rate. Generalizing a lot. But the point is, there are vacant units. And we need every possible space. So I really am excited to fill this with low income or very low income and to provide the flexibility for however that looks.

And to Director Lyman's point is sorry, I lost my train of thought. But back to Director Lyman. I do like the suggestion that we revisit this ordinance regularly. I don't think that we're going to this probably could be tweaked or things change. And we might need to change things.

And now I'm going to jump to the housing project requirement. So the way it's currently written, 4% very low, 4% low, and 7% moderate. But there were homes not being I don't know if sold is the right term, but that were because people that might be considered very low or sometimes low were having difficulty coming up with a down payment. But in the meantime, we want people to own homes. It just builds equity and generational wealth, etcetera.

So anything that's going to get us closer to that, I'm in favor of. And then again, to Abby Thornleiman's point, we should definitely revisit this. So overall, I'm very supportive of this. And I do think it's something to consider doing the projects with 11 or fewer units because it might incentivize somebody to build here. And we need every home we can get. So thank you.

And Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you. Actually would like to ask Mr. Thomas some questions. Welcome back. My questions are related to when you were the planning, building, and transportation director in 2022, the regional housing needs assessment was passed. So my question is, why wasn't the ordinance changed when the housing element was redrafted?

This represents a fair amount of work. As you might remember, in 2022, we had a lot of work on our plate. Adopting the housing element required identifying all the sites. There was also, as you may remember, a zoning text amendment that went along with that, which was over 100 pages long. So we had our hands full.

And it's not unusual for a housing element, no matter what city Alameda, cities around California to identify and it's a requirement of the housing element to identify any future actions that are necessary that might help facilitate. So this was one of those actions that, through our public workshops on the housing element, with our planning board hearings, it was identified. We started hearing these issues back then about the moderate, about the very low ownership, the moderate rentals. So we knew we had a problem. We knew it would take some work.

But it wasn't something that three planners could sit around a table for a couple hours and figure out the solution. We knew it would require a fair amount of effort. We're putting this in action.

Thank you. And it sounds like you didn't know what the impact of the ratios of the original ordinance would be when the arena was adopted. And so in your opinion, in your expert opinion, which I know is expert, if the inclusionary ordinance had been updated in 2022, do you think Alameda would be further along now in meeting the RENA targets?

Well, think we might be. I mean, I'll be honest. I mean, I think regional, national economic conditions are the biggest single issue that is slowing housing development. It would have been great to have these amendments done two years ago. Maybe one or two other projects would have moved forward in the meantime. Maybe Alameda Marina would have broken ground a year and a half ago, not this summer. So yes, I wish we had. But better late than never, I guess, is

my GREGORY Well, and I want to ask you one more thing. I do support Councilmember Bowler's language because I want it to be really clear that these are options, but they're not options to eliminate inclusionary housing. The goal is still to have inclusionary units throughout our city. And with regard to that, though, section thirty-16.6 of the ordinance for clustered development, that's the clustered development, I want to appreciate first that it is very extensive. It does kind of especially the last sentence, the proposal locates the affordable housing in a transit rich, high opportunity neighborhood that provides access to jobs, transit schools, and services.

So my concern initially with having a clustered housing option was that perhaps it would be incompatible with inclusionary goals because by distributing low income units in areas that might tend to concentrate it. So can you comment on that, please?

Yeah. As Director Thorne Leinman mentioned, we've done a number of these clustered developments in Alameda. The Del Monte project has the affordable housing clustered in a single building. And not all, but much of the big building is market rate. There are moderates

in that.

Site A, there's the market rate townhome buildings, and then there's the affordable right next door. So with the cluster development we've been doing, all the way back to Bayport twenty years ago was technically a cluster development. We have found that it's worked well in Alameda, as Abby described, a portion of the site is dedicated for the affordable. The land is dedicated in perpetuity to affordable, not ninety nine years, but the land is conveyed to either the housing authority or the nonprofit that provides affordable housing. So there's been a lot of benefits.

What is interesting is in 2004, when we wrote the ordinance, that wasn't on our mind. So for twenty years, we've been doing this type of development without it being codified in our ordinance. So that, I think, is first and foremost the thing that we wanted to update, to really put those requirements and standards into an ordinance. It's gone well in the past, but we want to have it for the future. This also covers, though, the possibility, which has always sort of been in the ordinance for what most of us would refer to as off-site, where the market rate is in one neighborhood and the affordable is in the other neighborhood.

And that is where some of those standards that you read come into play. If you're going to put the affordable in a location that's not where you're building your market rate, it better meet these standards.

I appreciate that. And I also say that in 2004, when the first inclusionary housing ordinance was written, there were clusters because half of Alameda, or more than half of Alameda wasn't available for any expanded housing. Really appreciate this. I also want to appreciate the in lieu fees because that was, I know, a big discussion of the planning board and in our last meeting here to have the in lieu fees right now between five and nine units. Maybe that would change at some point, but give some options at least.

And so I'm just very supportive of all the work that's been done. I know this has been a big project, and I appreciate everyone's contributions, especially the planning board and staff. And it is clear that moderating communities are not adding value to development in Alameda. So hopefully with these changes, we can move forward with some of these important projects.

Thank you, and I'll go last. And just for clarification, we actually aren't discussing in lieu fees this evening, right, because they're going to come back after there's been a fee study. Is that correct?

Yes. It's one of the alternatives.

So that is correct. But I think that there is a question about whether you want to adopt the planning board's recommendation to exempt all projects under 11 units or keep the in lieu fee.

Right, to exempt them from the fees. Yeah, we are making, yes. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And let me just start in no particular order, but because we were talking about the cluster option to perhaps have 100% affordable buildings, all the units.

I think it's really important to acknowledge that there should be no stigma attached to affordable housing. I know that sometimes that term strikes fear in the heart of some. It is irrational. And the quality of housing these days, you can look around the island and be hard pressed to tell which is the affordable and which is the market rate in places like Bayport, which they did combine them, and other examples. So, I think that that flexibility is so important.

If that is the tool that helps that developer build, and this came up in the context of transit oriented communities. And, I'm on MTC and we spent a bit of time on that. So, if we can get folks who are at the affordable income level, also bear in mind that in the Bay Area, the very high cost of living in Bay Area, that's a pretty significant income you'd have to be making anyway. But if we can get them living near transit stops, it just helps them get to their jobs and back faster. It's a benefit for communities.

So, think we should be fine with that. I did want to talk a little bit about the optionality. I think we heard the term to give the developer the choice of which of the categories or combinations of affordability they want to pursue. I do not want to leave that solely in the hands of the developer that they are building in our city. We know better.

I'm also on the Board of Directors of League of California Cities. Local control, we know what is best for our cities. And so, I just want something I think, Mr. Thomas, we were communicating this afternoon. And you mentioned that it could be it doesn't have to be the city manager. It could be with consultation from the planning director. And that might be more appropriate because the planning director is more of a subject matter expert. Do want to come up and talk about what that might look like?

The conversation that we had this afternoon with the mayor was about the three options. And you've heard the argument for giving the developer the choice. And what we tried to create was choices with sort of the philosophy that, from the C's perspective, it doesn't matter which one you pick. They're all equally good for us. So go ahead.

Pick the one that works best for the project. Whatever that issue is, it doesn't really matter to us. You're going to build a project, and you pick one of those, we're good to go. And what we liked about that was also from the developer, when they're first coming in, their first decision to explore the possibility of doing a housing project in Alameda, they can start doing the math on that that day with certainty. They don't have to wait till the final planning board hearing or the final city council meeting to know, uh-oh, what do I need to do?

Like, does it get changed in the process? The issue that was brought to my attention by the mayor and also by others, there might be a scenario where everything works great, but we're getting close to the end of the eight year housing term. So for those of you who remember the housing element details, there's a total number of units. But there's also an obligation within the total number to have a certain number of very low and a certain number of low and a certain so the scenario might be and this is theoretical, but it's possible. Let's say over the course of the next five years, all the developers say, we want to do the low.

We like that option. It works great for us. And we end up getting very few very low units. And we get to near the end. It's year seven of the arena period. And now we're worried, like, are we going to meet our arena or not? We're super close, but we're way low on one category. So the thought was, and we've provided some language, if you want to consider it, where we say these are up to the developer. Developer gets to choose unless the planning director makes a recommendation to the planning board or city council that the city really needs one of the other options. So I think

And Andrew, if I

can for that in purpose.

And it's not just so we can fulfill a formula. It's because that formula was developed to begin with to address the needs that we had for these different housing types. But, I also agree with you that we would do this from the very beginning. We do not want to delay developers. We don't want to come in at the eleventh hour.

But, it makes me very uncomfortable to say, We will give the developer all the cards and they can decide how to play them. Not that long ago, it's a little different situation because it involved a density bonus law. But we had a developer come in and say, yeah, I'm going to exercise my rights under the density bonus and tear down for everyone who's listening from Harbor Bay, it's not happening. But he made a proposal to tear down the whole shopping center, including the grocery store, and build only housing. And so I always want someone from the city. And the planning director would be great. But I do think we need to build that into the ordinance.

And if I may just add Please. The reason we thought we could add it in was sort of the it's your choice, developer, of these three, pick which one you like, and you get to do that unless the planning director makes this kind of recommendation to the city council. In practice, how could that work, given what I just said about the need for certainty? The developer comes in on day one and says, I want to do option one. Mr. Planning Director, are you or Mrs. Planning Director, are you going to have a problem with that? And you have that conversation on day one. Hope, like, today, if somebody came in, we'd be like, no, we don't have a problem. We need all those units.

So we're not in that scenario. Maybe there's some other strange scenario that we're not thinking about. But this kind of little caveat, this little exception, would give the city the ability to go, woah,

I'm sorry. Think it's an important safety net. I would like that in there. And let me just ask you don't go away, Mr. Thomas, come back. In the previous report to the city council, so last year, I guess, there was discussion about the very low income category. And the statement was made that there's less need for that because the housing authority tends to build those units. Is that not correct?

I wasn't here for that conversation, so I'm speaking out of context here. We need very low units. Our housing authority does do a great job of providing them.

But we need more.

Yes.

Okay. I'm fine with that. But speaking of housing authorities, I can't remember if I talked to you about this or not. There's a documentary called Under the Bridge that we're going to try and bring to the Alameda Theater. But it is amazing about what cities like Milwaukee and others have done.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin has the lowest per capita number of homeless individuals in the nation. But among the things that they do in Milwaukee is their housing authority puts folks who are unsheltered, puts their applications at the top of the list whenever Section eight housing becomes available. That's something I'd like us to look at here. So just keep that in mind. And then I also just want to add that not tonight, because it's not within this report, but we do need to do everything we can.

And there's certainly this ordinance addresses that. But we need to do as much as we can to enable ownership opportunities for those first time buyers. You remember what that was like once upon a time, Vice Mayor. And one of the things that a webinar I recently attended suggested was that cities need to revisit their accessory dwelling, their ADU ordinances, to allow the ADU to be sold separately from the main house. Right now, it has to be owned by the owner of the main house. But I think I've heard something might be coming to us soon. Ms. Silber?

It just came to the planning board at the last meeting, so it

will be coming

to the council shortly. Okay,

that sounds great. And so then, and I am fine with removing the in lieu fee requirement for those units that might provide the missing middle. Because, who knows, even though we haven't seen a lot of demand, maybe if that requirement wasn't there, we would. And, yes, echoing my colleagues, huge thanks for all the work that went into it. On the language change, I wouldn't want to see the underlined portion of that.

I couldn't approve that. But if you wanted to excise that, I would be Okay with that. Generally speaking, I'd rather leave drafting to staff because they consult with our boards and their subject matter experts. But I mean, I like the language except that second phrase after the comment is a bit ambiguous just given housing laws.

What about if it said rather than representing a reduction in the inclusionary housing requirement?

I'm not even sure why it has to be spelled out. Think res ipsa loquitur, but the thing speaks for itself. But I also don't want to spend too much time on this, but the phrase after the comma just isn't accurate. So say it again, what you were proposing?

For the underlying portion instead of what you see now, rather than representing a reduction in the inclusionary housing requirement. We can always ask staff to weigh in.

Staff either Ms. Silver, Mr. Shen, or Ms. Thorne Lyman. You all have to do

this professionally. From a legal standpoint, we don't have a problem with that particular edit, as restated.

That was the phrasing we were side barring on that might be a good recommendation, actually, using inclusionary requirement, since this is the inclusionary requirement ordinance.

Okay. All right. That works for me.

I know. That's how I

type. Okay, I could live with that. Indeed, yeah. All right. That's better.

Do we want to put the language you were suggesting here as well? I don't know what the

I wasn't suggesting language. I leave it to staff

I don't to agree with that. I don't think that's necessary. Since staff has brought it, said that they'll be bringing back the ordinance and we have another four years and we're trying to build more housing, I would give more flexibility since it's not to reduce the burden. It's going to maintain the requirements that there be low and very low income housing. And so we allow for, in all of our decisions with regard to housing, we don't have a small box that we put developers in to say you have to build a three story with three bathrooms and two bedrooms.

We have flexibility. We have ordinances to maintain continuity. But we also leave it up to the financer and the developer to make certain decisions. And I think this is a good compromise. And I don't think that we should tie the hands of developers. As Mr. Thomas pointed out, we get this when we have a developer come in and want to break ground and do a project, we should give them this flexibility since we're looking at the big picture right now. So I disagree respectfully with your suggestion, Madam Mayor.

Actually, I don't quite understand what it is you're objecting to.

Okay. Well, I'll move approval of recommendations from staff with Councilmember Bowler's amendment.

Yeah, we just he changed the language and I said I agreed with the changed language. You might have missed that when I said it. I think we're on the same page. Right. Madam Clerk, did you get all those many changes? All right. Did you want to add something?

I wanted just to make one minor but important clarification. We reviewed the MTC's TOC policy guidelines, and it is actually fewer than 11 units, not 11 units or fewer. So it's 10 units can be exempted. The TOC policy, to be consistent, it's

Please make it consistent with the TOC That would be important. Madam Clerk, did you have any questions?

No. I think that's the only language counsel wants to

add to the ordinance. It'll come back at final pass with just that addition. I

trying find was the way it was changed.

That's So

who would like to meet? Oh,

so I apologize.

No, please.

So just to clarify, so you do want to accept the recommendation of the planning board to include the exemption for

The MDT a year or C complaint.

Fewer than 11. Yes. And that would be

in section

30.16.5. Then we would also delete section 30.16.6a which allows an in lieu fee option but since are being exempted we would eliminate that. And then we have Mr. Bullard's language.

Yeah, as amended. Okay.

Is that the motion? I think it was

That's the motion to approve made by?

Council member Jensen, right? She made a motion?

Yes, she did. Yes.

I was just trying to get clarity.

What was 13.6A?

30.16A? 30.16A. It's alternatives and paragraph A is in lieu fees.

So we're deleting that? Yes.

Okay. We're not going to require in lieu fees for 10 or less or fewer But units.

We are maintaining the and it's 16.6. That's what was a little confusing, 16.6. So, we're not going to allow an alternative for in LUFI's, but we will allow our cluster development alternative? Exactly. Thank you. Yes, I'll make that motion. Second.

Alright, we've had a motion by Councilmember Jensen, seconded by Vice Mayor Pryor.

Clarify, sorry,

Just Mayor let me finish my sentence if you would please. I'd like to finish sentences otherwise I'd lose my train of thought. Staff, is there anything we should know before we take a vote? When I see those heads together, I just want to ask. Okay, Councilmember Jenksen, It was

a little confusing. So we're not adding any additional requirements for approval of the options, correct?

That what Mr. Thomas explained about the consultation with the planning director

That isn't in the recommendations. That's not what is being recommended.

So that was not in the motion. But if you want to add that

to I do.

Include that.

Yeah.

Well, you

want to make a substitute? I don't think that's necessary.

I do. I think that there needs to be input from the city in that very respectful, in the very beginning of a project. And so I would just like to add that. And Mr. Thomas, I thought, laid it out very succinctly. And he has decades of experience on this. So I would modify the motion. I'll make that substitute motion. Would you second that?

I'm thinking yes. How is that worded? Come on, Mr. Thomas.

And let's see, we communicated about this earlier.

Would you mind putting up Mr. Bohler's language? Because I think we would insert this. The council

This is about the consultation with the planning director.

Yes. It's there. Okay. So

this is the section that says you get to pick the three options. And then Mr. Boehler's language explains what we're thinking there. So the first sentence reads, inclusionary housing units shall be provided at one of the following ratios as chosen by the developer and approved by the affordable housing plan, then comma, unless the planning director determines that a particular option is essential to the city's efforts to meet its regional housing need or other

oh, policy

are you typing this in? Yes. Oh, Okay. Unless the planning determines that a particular option is essential to the city's efforts to meet its regional housing needs allocation or other policy objective, in which case the planning director may recommend and the approving body may require an option that is different than the developer's requested option. Yes.

Really long. It was much longer than I expected. I thought I was going be able to do it really quick. I know.

That's funny. Sorry.

No, choose.

I think this is I mean

Yeah.

The point is, this is where we say, developer, you get to choose. So if we're going to put in this little exception, this is, I think, probably the right place to put it, although it sounds very wordy.

But this does not establish any requirement unless there is a planning director need That's for

what I was sort of thinking. How do we set this up? So we say developer get to choose. But check with the planning director to make sure there's not some unusual situation where the planning director is going to go to the planning board and say, hey, we don't think you should let the developer have this option.

Thank you. And so if I could ask legal staff, would you expect that this wording would establish that the planning board would have to do a review of every development option to determine if the request is okay or ask the planning director or city council to

Right. Under this particular wording, this decision would be made at a director level. So it would not go to the planning board or the city council.

And this not be this would be different from a, for example, for a planning staff recommendation to adopt and approve an inclusionary housing option in general. So I mean, guess my question is, would each time a developer came in and said, for example, when the foundry starts, oh, well, we're going to want to do it this way, is that going to be a setback? Are they going to be is planning staff going to have to say, well, gee, do we have enough low and moderate and very low units

Just right Tom, maybe you want to clarify that it's just at the end of the RENE cycle when this would kick in. Do you

MARY Yeah, if you want to put it in to start in 2028, that's another option, or 2029.

The only scenario that I can think of where a planning director would want to say, hey, planning board council, I think we should mandate option one, even though the developer wants option three, is this end of Rina cycle where we're very short on a particular kind of affordable housing units.

Now, Didn't Ms. Silver just say the planning director could make that decision? They don't have to go to or you're going to work a director would be working with the developer, right?

Well, yes. But almost all of our projects need planning board or city council approval. There are some all affordable projects that have ministerial review. But I mean, all the projects we've been talking about have to go to Planning Board and Council. So that's why I was thinking, at the end of the day, it's going to be the Planning Board of Council that needs to approve the project. But there might be exceptions where it would just be at the staff level.

Been through a couple housing elements. It is really important to meet your Rina numbers. So that's why I'm suggesting this. But what were you saying, Ms. Silva?

I apologize. As I was answering that question, there were some additional typing. And the additional verbiage said that it goes to the approving body. So it is not accurate to say under the existing language that this is approved at a staff level. It actually, under the language, does go to the approving body, whether it's the Planning Board or Council.

May I be here?

Yes, Councilor Mabolli.

Oh, thank you. I had offered at the beginning to maybe insert the language as I understand it. The more I hear this and I'm looking at it, it seems pretty broad. I know the intent is to be pretty narrow in a very unusual scenario down the line that hopefully we get to where we're that close to the that sounds like a great problem to have. But I've also heard that we have also an intent to revisit this on occasion over time, which takes care of this problem too, right?

Because then the city council, the staff can massage or change it. So I'm actually convinced by Councilmember Jensen it's not, this isn't necessary. I think that Mr. Thomas basically in some ways talks us out of it too. So I don't think this particular language, it just creates too much of a barrier for developers, too much uncertainty and too much process.

You know what? We need to do a motion because I need a few more minutes to close out this vote. I need a motion and a second to give me two more minutes essentially.

So moved. Second.

All right, all those in favor please signify by stating aye. Aye. Okay, you know, good point, Councilmember Bowler, about the more frequent review. So I think this could be looked at almost like a pilot to see how it's working. And then as time goes by, we'll see are we getting the kinds of housing product that we need. And if we find that we aren't, then there's always something that can be done. It's an ordinance. It can be amended. So I think that's fine. So we'll go back.

I will accept the language now that it's been neatened up a bit. And we've already had a motion and the second. This So not the original language.

I mean, Greg's additional without the other addition.

Yes, exactly. Without the misleading Okay, so all those in favor please signify by stating aye. Aye. All right, that was unanimous. Believe the motion passes.

We have now been meeting for almost two hours, so we need to take a break. It is 09:09. We will come back at 09:20 everybody so see you back here at 09:20. Alright, I'm calling the meeting back to order. Is the balcony ready?

Okay, the balcony is ready. Alright, madam clerk, would you please introduce our next item?

7B is a recommendation to receive an informational report on the status of City Of Alameda vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts as mandated by government code section three hundred fifty thousand two and thirty.

Hello and welcome.

Hi, yes. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. My name is Noelle White, Human Resources Director for the City of Alameda. And tonight, be presenting on the status of the City Of Alameda vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts. So a little background.

AB 2,651 was passed into legislation in late twenty twenty four, which amended the government code requiring all public agencies to present annually on the status of their vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts, and then any necessary changes. This amendment to the law also entitled recognize employee units to make a presentation during the public hearing. And that if the vacancy rate of that represented unit exceeded 20%, they could request additional information. Little workforce information. So starting 01/01/2025, we had five ninety eight full time equivalent positions within the city.

That did increase to six zero eight by the end of the calendar year. These positions cover all city departments, as you can see before your screen, providing a variety of services to the city of Alameda and internally as well. 2025 average vacancy rate sat at 10.44%, which by professional standards, that's well within a healthy range, a very slight increase from 2024 but less than a quarter of a percent. Part of this analysis, too, is looking at a breakdown by groups. So the screen before you or the slide before you shows all of our represented units.

We have nine of them. And the vacancy rates for the 2025 calendar year. The only represented unit that did exceed that 20% threshold was the Police Officers Association, APOA for short, at 27.05%. All of these units were contacted. And APOA did request additional information, which will be presented later in this presentation.

And then also, this slide shows our unrepresented units and their corresponding vacancy rates. So a little information on recruitment. So a core function of the Human Resources Department is recruiting, Working with our department partners, looking at their staffing needs, maybe even projecting out so that we can really bridge that gap and minimize disruptions to services and making sure we fill those positions efficiently, thoroughly, and getting high quality individuals. The city, like most public agencies, follows a civil service process when it does its recruitments, which means that we're engaging in a competitive recruitment process. We are utilizing various testing tools to make sure that we are looking for the applicable knowledge, skills, and abilities, and creating a very effective candidate pool from which we hire from.

So we filled a total of 101 vacancies in 2025 through various means, either a new recruitment we engage in that civil service process some promotions we had 30, which is a number I love to see and then existing eligible lists, which means we've completed that competitive process. We have this wonderful pool of candidates. That classification has a vacancy. We can do a pretty quick hire. Average time to hire, eighty five days, which according to our applicant tracking system makes us about fifty days faster than our comparator agencies, which is fantastic.

I'm very proud of that and very proud of the team, particularly because the civil service process can take time. And especially compared to the private sector who can make a hire like that, eighty five days is pretty effective. Retention statistics. So retention or attrition, rather, when someone separates from the agency can happen for a variety of reasons, right? We can have retention triggered by an internal promotion, thus creating that vacancy, right?

We could have voluntary separations because there's a promotional opportunity elsewhere or retirements, that person entering into their next phase of their career, really their life. We have newly budgeted positions. We added nine this year. You can see up there we added the vacancies created by internal promotions, retirements, involuntary separations. Overall, the annual staffing turnover rate sits at 12.4%.

Again, we're still within that healthy range per professional standards. Great, so as I mentioned earlier, APOA was the one represented unit that did exceed that 20% threshold and requested additional information be presented to you tonight. For 2025, the average vacancies within the unit is 21, a slight dip actually from 2024, which that was at '22. Number of applicants for vacant positions was five seventy one for the 2025 calendar year. And you can see the breakdown by recruits, graduates, and laterals.

Laterals meaning that it's an individual from a law enforcement agency within California. They're moving over to us. Number of calendar days to hire, two twenty four days. Now, this is from the time the application is submitted all the way to that conditional offer is made. And it is a pretty lengthy process between going through that competitive process, entering backgrounds, and starting that recruit into the academy.

So as always, we are working collaboratively with our departments and our bargaining partners to address vacancies, especially of that magnitude. Retention was a huge theme for negotiations with APOA, particularly addressing retention of officers between five and ten years. So within that successor agreement, many of those provisions extra benefits really targeted that group. And we're hoping to see the fruits of that collaborative labor between us and the POA. Labor relations always maintaining those positive relationships with the groups.

HR cannot be successful without effective relationships between the department and the bargaining groups. You know, we rely on them heavily to come with us to job fairs. Some of the strategies that we use to really start showing the amazing Alameda culture is with ride alongs, right? Having a candidate sit with a current officer, getting to see a day in their life, and getting to experience what it would be like should they join APD. Another great example of maintaining positive relationships is working with the department on how can we be more efficient, right?

We're taking a look at implementing a program called VETED. One of the most laborious pieces of the background starts with the submission of the personal history form. Vetted allows us to make it more of an electronic user friendly process, alleviate some administrative burden, and hopefully will help speed up that process as well. Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation. Any clarifying questions, counsel?

I have a question.

I will call on Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you. With regard to the discussion and the numbers for APD and APLA, you mentioned that in 2025 there was a vacancy rate of 21 or there were 21 vacancies? That was

the average number of vacancies within the unit, correct. So 21 positions.

And the budgeted number is 88, is that correct?

So to clarify, the budgeted number of 88 is total sworn positions at APD. So when I say total sworn, that includes police officers, police sergeants, which those two classifications are under APOA, as well as and then we have police lieutenants and police captains, which is our police manager. So that's what the 88 encompasses.

What is APOA's budgeted number?

So it's budgeted 65 police officers and 13 sergeants. So if I do my math 78, right? 12 sergeants. Thank you. I'm sorry. So I stand corrected.

So that

would be 7677, excuse me. There we go.

70 So 77 officers, and there was an average vacancy.

So it's 65 police officers and 12 police sergeants.

Okay. Thank you. That was my question.

Okay. Mayor Parr.

On page five,

there are

the vacancy information by labor group. I just have a question for the two for electric utility professionals of Alameda and then also IBEW. Their vacancy rates each are about 14%. Is this similar to what it was the year before? And is this typical?

It did increase from the prior year by a couple percentage points. We did have quite a few individuals leave for a competitor agency. I am happy to report, though, that as of within a span of six months and as of January of those 13 vacant positions, we've filled about 10, So 11 of we're well on our way to addressing that gap. As to whether or not it's normal, Attrition happens for a variety of reasons, right? So to label it as either normal or abnormal is a little hard to really identify.

Now, you do have cycles where, yes, there is an increased amount of turnover, whether it's going to competitor agencies. You have an abnormal amount of retirements, which we saw quite a bit after the pandemic. You know, that can trigger a sudden increase that may seem very abnormal compared to prior years. I got it. Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions? Councilmember Desog?

Thank you. I believe you sent an email with three tables indicating the distribution of filled positions today and positions when there's at 76 positions and the distribution thereof. And then the last column is the 88 sworn officer, should we get there. The thing that caught my eye, and I think this is a positive thing, is it looks like the sergeants are increasing from the current authorized 12 positions to I counted it to 14. So if that's the case, then that's good because that means that hopefully people who are street police officers, when they're ready to go up Oh,

I see. Sorry, not to interrupt you, Councilmember Daesang. So the number of allocated police sergeants is not increasing. It's remaining

at

12. So what you're seeing in the email that was sent earlier is a breakdown of where we plan on being of filling positions within the next month or so and projecting out all the way to December 2026. We are anticipating some potential retirements, particularly at the police sergeant level. There's also some anticipated it's not confirmed, but we do try to anticipate potential resignations and plan for it accordingly. So the breakdown was to show and to illustrate how APD is looking ahead, trying to be proactive, knowing that the onboarding process can be a long time.

And again, trying to not only fill, right, but anticipate those future staffing gaps.

Okay. All right. Well then, if you're not increasing the sergeant positions from 12 to 14, at least you're still staying at 12. So that's good. And I guess the same would hold for captains then because the table that was sent to us is it looks like historically we have two captains, but that if you count the last column, that amounts to 88 positions, that we would have three captains.

And I'm just saying this as a positive thing because you want positions in the middle ranks and the higher middle ranks so that people who are street officers can stay in Alameda because then they could go up in the But let me find out. Is it the same thing then? We are not increasing the police captains from two to three?

That is accurate. The number of allocated positions at police captain is three.

Oh, so it is three?

It is three currently, correct.

Good. Because historically, it's two.

Yes. Historically, it was two. And then I want to say in either 2024, 2025 actually, I think it's 2024 an additional captain classification was added.

And that's good because then the sergeants who want to move up, now they can move up to a new captain position. The thing that does catch my eye, and something that I had mentioned previously, while the focus is certainly on the top line of 88 sworn officers, when you look at the street police officers I'm going to call them police officers on the street historically, as we indicated, the numbers that we're looking at is 65. But I'm counting, again, the three tables that was provided to us. So currently, with regard to police officers on the street, because of the freeze at hiring no more than 76 sworn officers, that translates to, I believe, 53 police officers on the street. That would be the maximum.

I believe that's correct,

yes. So that's 12 less than our historic numbers. So that's still a concern. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Any more clarifying questions? And Madam Clerk, we have any public comment on this item?

Let me double check that. No, we do not.

Okay. So counsel, this is just a recommend and thank you very much, Ms. White, for the report. This is just a recommendation that we receive this informational report. It's now required by state statute. So if there's no further discussion I'm looking for a motion and a second.

So moved.

It's been moved by council member Daysox seconded by Vice Mayor Pryor. All those in favor please signify by stating aye. Aye. All right that motion passes unanimously. Thank you all.

Okay, so Madam Clerk, are you you have to

For 7C.

We'll give you a moment to transition.

Okay. It's adoption of resolution establishing a city council meeting technology disruption policy.

This is where you need your clone.

Yes.