Planning Board - Regular Meeting

all right good evening everyone it is tuesday may 26 7 p.m we're going to begin uh alameda's planning board meeting for tonight um board member wang would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance Great. Thank you. And the first agenda item is roll call.

Yes. Good evening. Board Member Hom. Here. Board Member Hsu. Here. Board Member Ariza.

Present.

Board Member Wang. Here. Board Member Saheba. Present. And President Cisneros.

Here.

Great. We have a quorum. Board Member Ruiz is absent.

OK. Thank you. Noted. The next agenda item are agenda changes. Do we have anything from staff or the board?

No.

Seeing none, OK. We'll go ahead and move on to non-agenda public comments. Anyone in the audience may speak on an item that's not already listed in tonight's agenda for three minutes. Do we have any speakers?

We do. It doesn't appear we have any online. We have a non-agenda public comment from Zach Thayer.

okay great and i'm so sorry i forgot to do my little pre-claimers as you're making your way up um i just want to remind folks both here in the room and online that to please listen respectfully to those who are speaking and letting the planning board conduct our business we have legislation for example pina code Penal Code Section 403, that says it's criminal offense to disturb when there is any disruption. So just a quick reminder about that, and thank you. You may begin your public comment.

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Thank you so much. Do we have any other public speakers?

It does not appear we have any other non-agendized public comment.

We'll go ahead and close that item, agenda. Item four is consent calendar. We have a few different items. I was thinking we go through each one, see if there's any discussion, open up for public comment, and then move on to the next one. That sounds good to everyone? Okay. Do we have any abstentions for 4A before? No. Okay. Any discussions?

I just have a question. So 4A is for a project that is fully complete, including all of its obligations to the city. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So I noticed in the development agreement that the term is sort of set as indefinite and that until terminated, basically. So is there any, I guess the question that I had was what value we continue to get out of annual reports if the project's completed.

Right. So this is the final report. It's the final one. Okay. Yeah. We had to issue the certificate of completion, I believe, or compliance completion, I think. And so that happened since the last review. And that's when we all agreed that everything had been done and there was no more action on the DA. So this is the last review.

Okay. Got it. That was my only question. Yeah.

Great. Any other comments or questions from the board on 4A? If not, we'll open it up for public comment. No comments?

Does not appear to be any.

OK. Do we have a motion on 4A? Sure.

I'll offer a motion to approve the full consent calendar for A, B, C, and D.

Oh, okay. Yeah, we want to do all of them. All right.

Oh, excuse me. You want to do one at a time?

I would suggest just doing one motion at the end. I think you can go through each item, but then just do one motion at the end.

Okay. All right. That sounds good. We'll do the motion at the end. So we have a motion, and then we can just hold it. For all four? Yeah.

Oh, okay. For all through D. Okay.

Do we have any questions or comments on 4B? Okay. None and 4c the reshape Be none for D draft meeting minutes on May 11th Being none. Okay. Now we have We could open up for a motion. We have a motion on the table.

Oh I'll restate my motion to approve the full consent calendar. That would be for a BC and D the minutes

Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? And one abstention. Or absence.

Absence, yes. The motion carries.

All right. And that will close agenda item four. Next we have agenda item 5A, which is to review a master plan agreement for the Clement Avenue project. Do we have a presentation?

We do.

Great.

Good afternoon, planning board members. Tristan here from planning, here with an item before you that is a master plan amendment to the Alameda Marina master plan project. This is a larger housing development in the northern shoreline, multi-phased. Several phases have already been completed. In fact, the first phase, the launch, is constructed and occupied. The second phase, the townhomes construction, just east thereof, is maybe about halfway constructed. There remain some units that are either pulling building permits or preparing to do so. And then third and final phase of this project is right in the middle. That's the foundry, sometimes referred to as the Rat B building. An additional 259 rental units. It's previously got its approvals for design review, density bonus, all sorts of good entitlements that it needed to acquire. And recently, as I'm sure the planning board recalls, the city began the process of amending its requirements related to affordable housing. Sorry, just a little bit more background here regarding the existing approvals. So recent amendments to the city's inclusionary housing ordinance have changed the proportions of units needed to comply with our inclusionary housing expectations. These amendments went to the city council just last week for a first reading, which was warmly received. And the ask from the developer is to comply with the new requirements of the inclusionary housing ordinance as it relates to the number of deed restricted affordable units required by reducing the overall number of deed restricted affordable housing units. from 218 to 259 and in doing so complying with our new ordinance which is expected to go to City Council again next month for potentially approval approval the Amendment to the master plan would be predicated on the condition that, of course, the proposed amendments to the inclusionary housing ordinance would be approved by city council and take effect 30 days after their second reading prior to the sort of finalization of this. However, in the interest of moving the project forward in a timely manner and keeping the sort of momentum that they've built going, we were hoping to get the master plan amendment approved now and sort of condition it based on the action by City Council for their second reading of the proposed ordinance amendment it's covered all in the finally IR that was approved for the general plan as well as the a specific Alameda Marina EIR. And at this time, we're expecting that the project is able to move forward this summer, hopefully, with the changes to the affordable housing agreement. Just a little bit of breakdown of The rental requirements, as we've amended them in that ordinance or proposed to amend them in that ordinance, you may recall during your time that there are actually sort of a couple of different options given to developers in the new framework so that they can opt for whatever range of affordable housing sort of buckets to put their units into that works. And so, of course, The specific change for this project relates only to that third and final phase, the foundry, RAP B, and would only modify the affordable housing units related to that phase. So obviously, the constructed phases or the phases that are currently under construction would not be modified as a result of this master plan amendment. And so with that, just in the interest of keeping things relatively brief, I'm going to end my presentation. But we do have the developer here. If you have specific questions about our development timeline and how the project's going, they may be able to answer those questions a little bit better than I can. And certainly, if you have other questions about staff's expectations around the timing of the inclusionary housing ordinance amendment adoption, happy to answer any of those questions as well. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. And just to clarify, the project applicant doesn't have a presentation. They're just available for questions.

The applicant can provide some aerial imagery and some context, but I don't think their expectation was to give a presentation at this time.

Great. Thank you. All right. I'll bring it back to the board for any clarifying questions. Yes, Board Member Wang.

I think I saw in the draft ordinance that the project is looking to break ground July 1st. I'm wondering if either you or the applicant can speak to the status of building permits or Anything necessary in the lead up to breaking ground July 1st?

Sure. So I'll leave any practical concerns to the developer. But I can tell you that we have received their application for a building permit. The fees have been paid on that application. Review has been completed for at least two rounds. If I'm not mistaken, they're on their third. Typically, these kinds of projects will have a number of rounds of review related to their building department comments. Building code is not a simple thing. These documents tend to be over 100 pages long. Oftentimes, there are sort of a little bit of back and forth there. Assuming they're able to address all of those concerns, that would be sort of the last hurdle they need to complete before building permit issuance.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

And I don't know if you'd like further context from the developer on that.

If there's more context, I'd love it.

Good evening, planning board members, Sean Murphy, Pacific Development. I was going to use the three minutes to talk about the project, happen to answer questions as this board would like. But to address planning board member Andy Wang's question, specifically, yes, the public works site permit has been ready to issue. So that portion of it for all the grading and site work is complete and ready with Sara Lee. We're actually in our fourth and final review of plan check comments with the building department and fire. So expecting that in June. And the intent is with city council's unanimous approval last Tuesday, hoping to get the endorsement here for the master plan amendment. It's absolutely for our intent to start construction in July.

Thank you.

And I'll speak briefly during the three minutes, if that's OK.

Do we have any other clarifying questions? Board Member Holmes?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, staff, for presentation. My question is actually related to the building permit. I see condition number four requires an affordable housing plan. And it looks like the affordable units need to be identified as part of the final building plans, showing the location, type, and size. So has the building plans been revised to show the location of these 21 units?

Presumably, no. I don't think they would revise those plans without the approval of the master plan amendment first. So presumably, they'll need to identify those.

So they haven't submitted a preliminary plan for staff review? Not for the building permit, no. OK. OK. But they'll be submitting it like after the council, if the council approves? Yes.

If this board were to approve it and council were to approve the ordinance amendment, then we would expect them, as part of that amendment to their affordable housing plan, to submit to us essentially a site plan that identifies the location of those units based on their deep restricted affordability.

And is that review of the distribution of the units done at a staff level? It is. OK. Just wondering where that's doing.

Any other questions?

Yes, Vice President Ariza. I just want to understand the current requirement versus the proposed requirement. Can you just walk me through that?

Yeah, so I think you were present for a recent look at this ordinance amendment that we brought before the planning board for the recommendation of city council. And I think the clearest way to remember is the table that we had looked at that showed the breakdowns of affordable housing units by what type of affordability level they were at. based on rental and ownership units. And so if you recall, the new ordinance amendments basically provide different pathways for compliance that break down that affordability a little bit differently. So a project might say, hey, we're going to provide more very low income units, but fewer low and moderate income units. Whereas another project might say, actually, it makes more sense for us to do sort of an equal distribution of each. And so the intent of those amendments was to focus the inclusionary housing ordinance on creating requirements that developers can realistically meet, and also emphasizing the importance of those very low deed restricted units that are sort of critically affordable for populations that might not otherwise be able to afford this type of housing. and also because the moderate deed-restricted income units had historically gone vacant for long durations of time and did not sort of achieve the outcome that we would expect with deed-restricted affordable units. So that's sort of the thinking behind those changes.

Right, but for what it pertains to this project, I guess what I'm looking at in the slide We are changing from what's the current requirement to what is the proposed requirement?

Yes, that is what will happen as a result of the ordinance amendment that was recommended by the planning board to the city council for approval, and that the city council did the first reading of last week unanimously approving. So those requirements are, this is sort of the practical effect of those requirements changing.

Okay, thank you. And just to add to that, the current is 15%, reflective of the current 50%. Yes. And then the proposed is what's been recommended. Yeah. We'll be, hopefully, I guess, it sounds like, approved by the City Council in the upcoming June meeting with a final reading. Okay. Great. Great questions. Any other questions? Looking around, seeing none. I was just curious, and I apologize if I missed it when you were describing the timelines and things, but where is phase two exactly? What's the timeline for that being completed?

The timeline or the geographic location? I'm sorry.

The timeline. You said it's, like, in the middle of construction, the phase two?

So phase two is the townhomes portion. It's actually being developed by a separate developer. Oh, okay. And I would say roughly half, if I'm not mistaken, they're starting on building 22. And so I would say, you know... They've probably got something like maybe 40 or so units constructed. And because these are townhome units, it's a little bit more diffuse. And as far as we're aware, conversations with the developer there, Risewell Homes, has indicated that they intend to continue pulling building permits through this summer. So we expect them to progress a pretty good clip.

OK. Thank you. And then I am curious, what happens if the city council, I don't know, were to make some kind of big amendment to the final reading? It just means that this project would stall, I guess. Yeah, okay.

I mean, I suppose there could be flexibility. They would really depend on what exactly they were trying to do. But the intent would be to do this master plan amendment approval conditionally based on the information that we have and are expecting to make it through city council.

All right. Those are all my questions. And yeah, with that, I guess we could open up for public comment.

Our first speaker is Sean Murphy.

Good evening again, planning board member. Sean Murphy. So I just want to appreciate all the hard work that this planning board has done over the past year to study the important inclusionary housing ordinance revision. Last week, city council unanimous approval is an acknowledgment of the critical shortage of housing that we have on the island, and it sets forth a path to build more housing. Every project is different, and optionality is critical, which was outlined in that table, so that each project can navigate how best to deliver housing to the island. We delivered the launch project in 2023, consists of 368 units. And we are here to move forward with the foundry project, which is the last component of the master plan, which totals 260 units. We secured all the entitlements and then that final stage of the fourth round of plan check for the building department. Foundry is not your typical project, typical infill. This project is development of significant bay trail improvements, environmental remediation, both fee simple and tide land, deep soil stabilization, sea level rise protection, adjacent commercial parking lot to support the maritime core, and important public open space. We plan to build the project utilizing option three, which is the equivalency of an 8% very low, which is 50% AMI. And that will deliver 21 very low income units to the island, which are in critical need today. The master plan amendment is to adopt the inclusionary ordinance and apply it to this master plan. And that amended master plan will therefore include 44 very low income units, 19 low income units, and 32 moderate units in its totality for the master plan. But what it most importantly does is allows the foundry project to move forward. There is urgency from our point of view, because as we all read the newspaper, inflation keeps rising, construction costs keep rising. Delaying of this project will only do one thing, render it infeasible. We are truly shovel-ready, and we are committed to building the important housing project, and we appreciate the city's and the staff's partnership to build Foundry. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other public comments?

If you are attending remotely and you'd like to speak, please raise your hand. I do not see any further public comment.

Okay, great. I'll bring it back to, I'll close public comment and bring it back to the board for, yes.

If I may, I have a question for Sean, if I may. Yeah. It's just regarding the marketing plan for the affordable units. Can you describe what process you go through to market these units and screen the tenants to the degree that you might focus the marketing on existing Alameda residents or workers?

Absolutely. And this is specific to the BMR units, correct?

Yeah, the BMR units. Yeah.

So for those 21 units, and I'll cite the example of the launch project, the property manager that we have there is Graystar Property Management. They partner with Rise Housing, which is an accredited affordable housing screening agency that works on the island to go through both working with, in conjunction, the Alameda Housing Authority, to do both the lottery process, which is critically important, and then the screening and approval process, collecting all of that information. Again, this particular project, once implemented through the inclusion housing ordinance revision and implemented through the master plan amendment, will be 21 very low. So those are folks who are 50% AMI, and they'll have to meet all that criteria. So it is a rigorous process. that both the Alameda Housing Authority and then Rise Housing goes to screen all of those applicants to make sure that they are qualified. And then clearly, the housing will be ready for them to move in.

Okay. Thank you. Is there currently a waiting list already?

There is. Yes. And again, it should be noted that through the year of workshops, I think a total of three workshops from this planning board plus the subcommittee and then workshop at the city council on the approval, there is a large lottery, both for lows and very lows, but really we see critically, you know, the critical need for housing is in the rental, it's the very low. Yet the for sale, which we're not building, it's actually the opposite. Their focus is really the moderate need. So that's why that optionality was really important in that inclusion housing ordinance.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Any other questions or discussion from the board? OK. Seeing none, then do we have a motion?

Other public comment?

We closed public comment.

You did? OK. Yeah.

I can move to approve.

Great. We have a second.

Second.

Oh, go ahead. Yeah. All right, Board Member Homme, I have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? And one absence. And the motion moves. Great. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is a really exciting project and addition to the community and very important for our housing element progress and just very much agree with the sentiments of the But the project applicant said and was able to listen to some of the City Council discussion So really appreciate the leadership of staff and others for helping us inch closer to our housing requirement. So, thank you Moving on Agenda item 5 is closed.

We'll move to staff communications Yes In your packet you had a list of recent actions and And so that includes several zoning administrator items we had two hearing items About a week and a half ago, so we're seeing a little bit of economic activity One on Webster and one on Lincoln Reusing existing vacant buildings, so that's good and then we had a five other staff level approvals related to residential remodels primarily. So we're keeping busy with those as well. Upcoming items that I wanted to mention, we will have the second reading of the inclusionary ordinance at the city council next week. And then, as Tristan mentioned, there will be a 30-day waiting period before that takes effect. And then we're looking forward to keeping you busy in June and July. We've got several items coming with the workshop on the Main Street specific plan area at Alameda Point. something related to ADUs, short-term rentals, and the commercial zoning districts on Park and Webster. So we're using this slight lull in the development cycle to catch up on some other important work.

Great. Thank you for that report. Yeah, implementation of all the policies is really important, so thank you for that. All right, no other comments on agenda item six. First, I guess I should check, do we have any public comment speakers before we close it?

There does not appear to be any public comment.

Okay, great. Then we'll move on to board communications. I did receive an email of some sad news. Christopher Buckley, who's been a prominent figure in the Alameda community, he is a resident city planner, preservationist, tree advocate, musician, and generous civic friend, passed away on May 12, 2026. I know he's been very active in the community and has come to our meetings a lot, and so In case folks didn't see the that news in their inbox. I do encourage you to take a look his funeral will be held on Saturday June 13th in Oakland so just want to share that news and Yeah, it's it's very tragic and sad and much Thoughts and wishes goes out to his family And with that We'll go ahead and close any other Move on to the next agenda item non agenda public comments Those in the room or online could speak for three minutes for anything that wasn't on the agenda tonight you have any speakers Please raise your hand if you wish to speak None online

Mr. Thayer, did you wish to speak on a non-agendized public comment? You've completed your comments? Great. Thank you. No further comments.

OK, great. It's 7.34 PM, and we are adjourned.