Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It is Monday, June 8th, 7 p.m. It is now time to start the planning board meeting. And before we fully get started, Board Member Sahiba, can you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the

Thank you. All right. And we'll start with roll call.

Okay. Board Member Hom.

Here.

Board Member Hsu. Here. Board Member Ariza.

Here.

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

Here.

And Board Member Ruiz is absent.

Okay, great. And before we move on to agenda changes, I just wanted to share a note with the public that this is a public meeting, so we are conducting business for the City of Alameda, and so therefore, no disruptions, please. There are people listening online, so we want to be respectful for everyone in the room and at home. In accordance to California Penal Code Section 403, it is a criminal offense for any person without authority of law to disturb or break up in an assembly or meeting. And so on and so forth. So let's just be respectful. And with that note, we can move on to agenda item two, which is any agenda changes from staff or the board?

No changes.

Okay, great. Any non-agenda public comments? Someone could speak about a topic that's not on tonight's agenda for three minutes. Do we have any speakers?

Yes, we have one in person. If anyone online would like to speak, please raise your hand. Our first speaker is Rose Hui.

Can you hear me? Yes. Good, thank you. Good evening, Chair and members of the Planning Board. My name is Rose Huey. I am an Alameda resident, a CPA, and a founder of My Mother's House. It is a nonprofit organization exploring an intergenerational housing model that brings together low-income seniors, single mothers, and their children in a supportive community environment. The idea is simple. Many seniors experience loneliness and isolation. Many single mothers struggle with housing stability and support. And children benefit from having caring adults and mentors in their lives. Our vision is to create a community where generations support one another, reducing isolation, strengthening families, and creating a greater sense of belonging. As Alameda continues planning for future housing opportunities, I hope the city will consider innovative housing models that not only provides homes, but also build stronger and more connected communities. This concept can be explained in a minute and 42 seconds, but it has the potential to make a lasting impact on the lives of seniors, families, and children in our community. And I believe this model offers a promising way to address multiple social needs through thoughtful housing design. And I believe Alameda is uniquely positioned to explore creative approaches like this. And I would welcome future opportunities to share research, community feedback, and potential partnerships that could help to bring this vision to life. And thank you very much for your time and for your service to Alameda. And I also have a one-page flyer that provides a brief overview of this concept. And I invite you to take a look if you are interested in learning more. And I also have contact information in the back. So you're welcome to call me or send me an email, and we can always talk more about it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Thank you. And if you want to pass it to staff and they'll make sure the handouts get to us, that would be great. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Do we have any other public speakers?

We have no other speakers.

Non-agenda? You're here for West Midway, right?

Okay.

Okay. All right, we'll go ahead and close agenda item three and move on to the consent calendar, which is to approve the draft meeting minutes for May 26th. Do we have any edits or comments? If not, we could open to public comment. Yes?

Just a minor thing. Steve Buckley's name is misspelled. His last name. Okay. Good catch.

Thank you.

If we could have that revision to the minutes, that would be great. Thank you. If no other comments, do we have any public comments on this? Meeting minutes. If not, we could make a motion.

I move adoption.

Do we have a second?

Second.

OK. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And we have one absent board member, who's also not here today. All right. So that motion passes. We'll close agenda item four and move on to regular agenda items, which is a study session on Main Street neighborhood north area. Do we have a presentation?

Yes, we do. Ms. Nicole Franklin will be our primary presenter tonight.

Great.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Nicole Franklin. I'm a base reuse manager for Alameda Point. I'm here tonight with a colleague to provide you with the preliminary results of the development feasibility analysis that we conducted for the Main Street North area at Alameda Point and get your input on priorities for advancing development in this area. We're here tonight to evaluate the next steps for new residential development north of West Midway and potentially west of Pan Am at Alameda Point. The topics that we're gonna be discussing tonight, we're gonna give a recap of the December 6, 2025 studies session and tour that we conducted at Alameda Point, kind of give you an overview of the feasibility analysis results, and then also have a discussion session with you to kind of make sure we're clear about the planning priorities that this body has for Main Street Neighborhood North. Here is kind of a process timeline. We conducted that preliminary analysis. And now we're in the priority setting phase. Last week, staff went to the Historical Advisory Board and spoke with them about priorities around historical preservation and other considerations. And we're here tonight to speak with you about planning priorities. We'll be meeting with community and then the council to make sure that we're clear about the priorities for redevelopment of this area. And then also, then we'll be fine tuning potentially the feasibility analysis based upon that feedback and then going to council to give them that update and get their decision as to if we move forward with issuing a request for qualifications to bring a developer on to help us unlock development in this area. Now I'm going to kind of give a recap of the December 6, 2025 Main Street Neighborhood North study session and tour. On this slide is the planning context for redevelopment of the Main Street neighborhood north area. It is based upon the 2017 Main Street neighborhood specific plan that put forth the vision that we have on the screen there. And again, that was 10 years ago, and so we wanted to come back to this body and other advisory boards to confirm if 10 years later, are these still our priorities for advancing revitalization of this area? Again, a recap from December. We kind of gave an update on the development that we have undertaken at Alameda Point. We started with the Site A development and moved north. We're currently working and getting started with the West Midway project and doing the horizontal infrastructure for the reshape project. And that's a replacement housing project for some of the residents who live north of Main Street And they'll be relocating into that area. So then we can advance development in Main Street neighborhood north. Here is the area that was included in the feasibility analysis. We call it the study area. Again, the area in the red is just the north portion of Main Street neighborhood north, with the vision and the priorities set forth in the 2017 Main Street neighborhood plan. In that same area you'll see in the white dotted line, that is the area that's currently occupied by the residents who will be relocating south of West Midway into the reshape project. You'll see on both sides of Pan Am in what I call mustard, That is the Naval Air Station Historic District. In the blue, that is area that staff included in the study area to be reviewed for their feasibility for advancing development in that area. So we can look at potentially getting an economy of scale in developing that area. Inside the blue box is a purple area. Those properties are owned by the school district. Mostly everything except building 17 that's owned by the school district in that blue box is not currently zoned for a residential. So the total area is about 70 acres in the study area. In December, we talked extensively about sea level rise and shoreline adaptation in groundwater. And the key point is we talked about site aid development, west midway, and reshape. Those developments largely did not have to deal with the sea level rise issue. But if you can see the area highlighted in yellow on the top right-hand corner, that is the Main Street neighborhood north. plus area, and we would have to consider all the different extraordinary costs associated with sea level rise and shoreline adaptation. And then we'll talk about that more in our presentation later on when David goes to the feasibility. Here, we talked about this in December as well. There are pretty unique challenges in the Main Street neighborhood north area. The property characteristics, we talked about the infrastructure that needs to be replaced. I just mentioned the store line stabilization and other factors, and then the historic district and layout. We also have development financial considerations. In Alameda Point specifically, there is a 25% affordable housing requirement, where the rest of the city is 15%. Also, for Main Street neighborhood north, this will be the first development area that would be subject to the Navy conveyance payment. We were able to advance Site A, West Midway, and of course reshape because it's affordable and was not applicable to those developments. It will come into play when we move forward with development here. Also, there are specific challenges for development west of Pan Am and then also east of Pan Am. And those issues are listed on the slide. And David will get a little bit more into that when he talks about the feasibility analysis. So at the end of that meeting, staff's key takeaway from feedback we received during the study session and the tour is that there was general support for the concept of rezoning the area west of Pan Am to residential, specifically the area what we call the North Shore, which is just west of the Officers Club or the Oak Club. There was understanding that the sea level rise adaptation and the shoreline stabilization and infrastructure work would require significant external funding. There was openness to including the school district properties if we issued a developer RFQ, or a request for qualifications. And then also there was recognition that the feasibility of this area will require trade-offs, because there are many competing project objectives. And so when we get to the discussion section of tonight's meeting, we will want to make sure that you walked away with the same takeaways. And if not, we would like to hear back from you on that as well. So now I'm going to turn it over to David Dozma with Kaiser Marsden. They're our land use economics firm to kind of give you a highlight, an overview of the feasibility analysis results.

David? Good evening, board members. David Dozma. So the feasibility analysis that we prepared to inform the planning work around Main Street neighborhood north started with three main questions. One is what are the infrastructure needs and costs and how can that infrastructure be delivered? Two, what funding could be generated from sale of the historic homes in order to pay for some of that infrastructure? taking into consideration the rehabilitation costs of those units. And finally, would new development yield a favorable return? And we had a few key inputs to that analysis that we were working from. One is cost estimates that were prepared by CBG engineers, who also prepares your master infrastructure plan. And that's cost estimates for infrastructure. a property needs assessment looking at rehab costs for the historic homes, and a yield analysis that was prepared by a separate consultant, Artemis Seda-Sullivan, and that all fed into the pro forma work that was used to evaluate overall feasibility on a multi-year cash flow basis. So talking about the cost first, the cost estimate came back at $176 million for backbone infrastructure and site improvements based on the scope shown on that map there. That doesn't include some major off-site cost items that are necessary, in particular for development that is west of Pan Am Way to stabilize the shoreline there. It's in the zone of deformation, they call it. construct a levy to protect from that flooding we saw on the prior slide flooding risk we saw on the prior slide and To reconstruct Main Street and in part elevate it to to form part of that flood protection so 240 million in total cost given sort of the big-ticket nature of those costs we wanted to find ways to be efficient, scale back, or defer some costs where possible. One thing that was looked at was rehabbing the infrastructure within the historic district around the Big Whites in place rather than rerouting all the utilities and totally reconstructing. So there was some savings potential there, $12 million. Another was to defer some of that shoreline levy work to a subsequent time and have a portion of that levy and shoreline stabilization work, excuse me, a portion of that flood protection occur through a temporary flood wall that wouldn't be of the permanent structure. And then this is more of a placeholder than anything else, but obviously any outside funding sources or grants would be wonderful if that were possible as well. In terms of the development scenarios that were tested, we wanted to focus on, we wanted to start from a baseline, understanding all the challenges that we've been talking about, start from what we understood to be the most feasible project to begin with. So we want to see if there's a project there in the first place. That was part of the objective. So we looked at a lower density scenario that would be about 600 units on the east side of Pan Am Way, and then a medium density scenario that would also get up to 1,000 units if you include some of the city-owned property that is west of Pan Am Way. Both scenarios are a mix of townhomes and multifamily affordable. And this is the top line finding from the analysis. It looks like feasibility is within reach. Based on these scenarios that we looked at, $1.25 million in revenues average per unit for the market rate units, $1.28 million average per unit in costs. And we're a little bit liberal with the term costs there because we also include a return to the developer in that number. So top line, we're within range of feasibility. One interesting finding is that that medium density scenario we looked at, not quite as strong as the lower density scenario. And one of the drivers there is that we have some fixed costs that go up with unit count. That Navy payment is one of them. Adding more market rate housing means more affordable housing. And then, obviously, the East Bay mud charges, too. But the value and revenues don't go up in that same proportional way. And so that led to this somewhat counterintuitive result that we found. But I don't want to overstate that particular point. Both are sort of within range, except the lower density was a little stronger. So we have this top line finding, yes, feasibility is within range, but I don't want to sort of gloss over or understate the challenges that a developer will face here. There's a lot. It's a very complicated project. It's probably more complicated than either of the two projects that preceded it, Site A and obviously West Midway is not there yet, but it's more complicated than that one too. Just to point out some of those complications, just to emphasize the point, where the infrastructure is today or where it will be with a West Midway project completed is in the southern end of this project. the land at the southern end of the project isn't immediately available for development. So really the nearer term opportunity for development is at the north, but that's not where the infrastructure is, right? So there's a little mismatch there. And then on the west side of Pan Am, That doesn't have sort of this timing consideration that's linked to when reshape is completed and the residents are able to move into that new housing. It doesn't have that timing linkage, but what it does have is the constraint around those major offsite improvements, getting that levy in place. So, that's obviously a big hurdle, too. So, that's sort of not like an easy solution start there first because of that major cost. And so, a third thought that we had and explored through this work is, well, what if some of the existing units, Big White's units, were rehabilitated and sold and make that the initial phase? And what we ran into there is that there just wasn't enough revenue to cover a first infrastructure phase with those units. So yes, top line finding, yeah, a project could make sense. But there's a lot there to work through. And you really, I think, want to have a development partner on board to help you with all that. It's very complicated. It's a real puzzle. And you need somebody to help work through all that with you. So with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Nicole.

Thank you.

Thank you, David. So now I want to talk about planning areas that we would love your input on as we reevaluate the priorities for the Main Street neighborhood north revitalization. First, we want to talk about zoning and height limits. In David's presentation, he talked about densities of between two and four stories. And as you can see on the map here, in the Main Street neighborhood-specific plan, it only allows for two to three stories east of Pan Am. So that is something that we want to get your feedback on, is would you be open to height limits and more density. Also, this part of Alameda Point is close to the Main Street ferry terminal, and so would you be open to additional density and height in that area to interface with the ferry terminal? Also, David talked about, or Mr. Dozmer talked about some of the cost constraints per unit. But if a developer could figure out how to address those cost constraints, would you be open to having more density? So that's a couple questions we would love you to discuss. For this slide, basically it is to your right in the gold area, that's Main Street Neighborhood North. And that is currently zoned for residential. And then everything to the left in the adaptive reuse area, the blue, I can't really see what color that is, that is not zoned for residential. And so would you be open to rezoning an area for residential? Additionally, the area... to the left, as well as the Beehive and the Bunkles. Those are in the historic district. And according to the current Main Street Neighborhood North plan, these properties anything we develop can't exceed the height of the contributing buildings. And that's something we need to kind of consider if we were to put residential in the historic district west of Pan Am. Would you be open to additional densities if a developer presented that option? We also want to talk about parks and circulation. The specific plan, again, was approved nine years ago, almost 10 years ago. And it contemplated this big central gardens and other open space. Since then, we have planned or are moving forward with open space in other areas of Alameda Point. So then we would still need to figure out if it makes sense to still do a big central park this way, specifically thinking of operating costs and maintenance obligations. Would you be open to kind of a decentralized parks or smaller park? Also, considering moving the park or decentralizing the park could also help with the circulation. One of the things we talked about was this area being close to the theory terminal, and then just providing good circulation and access to the theory terminal could be helpful if we moved or reimagined the open space in parks. And then affordable housing, we talked about Alameda Point requires 25% affordable, where the rest of the city is 15% affordable. But in addition to that, the Main Street specific plan also calls for an additional 10% housing serving people earning 120% to 180% So that's in addition to the 25%. And so that's another question we have for you. Would you consider reevaluating that so that we can look at all the different priorities and how to make the project feasible? And then I just want to conclude my presentation just to answer the question why. Why are we trying to move forward with this now? What we've found is we have this plan that's almost 10 years old. This gives us an opportunity to kind of reevaluate the priorities with all of you and the Historical Advisory Board and the Council and give us the time to do that. It also kind of gives us a time to make sure that we figure out this project before the market recovers, quite frankly. And so due to the long lead time, starting work on this property now will help us in the long run as relates to timing the housing market, so to speak. So that's why staff is recommending we kind of move forward with this process now. Again, here are our next steps in terms of our general timeframe. And then so this concludes my presentation. I would like to kind of turn back over to the chair to get your feedback on those questions. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much for the great and informative presentation. I had the pleasure of going in that December study walking tour and don't remember much, so it was a great refresher and thank you. All right, I'll bring it back to the board for any clarifying questions and then we can open it up for public comment before we give some feedback since this is a study session. But do we have any clarifying questions?

Yes board member suit Thank you for the presentation Just one initial question. I had to kick things off is on the the historic House is the the big whites is that I Didn't really look to see this in the plan But are is it are we kind of locked in into how those will be handled like can those be demolished or is that or is the decision on those homes still kind of undecided I

Technically, they're undecided how, but they are core to the historic district. And our plan would be to maintain those homes. And when I say we, if it's we decide to put in the request for a qualification for developer and say, hey, we want to preserve these homes and have them kind of give us a proposal of how to do that. And it may include them. doing infield development like ADUs or subdividing the property. But the key is to kind of keep those historic homes intact.

Very helpful. Thank you.

I'm going to go back and forth. I'm going to try.

Just a quick question. I need a little refresher on what kicked this new set of projects into the payment to the Navy? What's the trigger now that this payment per market rate unit has to be made to the Navy? Sure. If you could just remind us.

I'll give you an overview, and I have, Mr. Josema. Part of the conveyance, or a condition of the conveyance, was that, because it was an economic development job generating conveyance. And so one of the deal points was, once the city developed over 2,011 market rate units, then we would have to pay kind of this fee. And Site A and West Midway, which have market rate development and reshape, is affordable. And so we are underneath that number. At some point during the development of Main Street Neighborhood North, we will hit that 2011 cap, and we would be subject to the fee.

It's just a follow-up question. That's actually built projects, or is it just entitled projects?

It's built, right? Yeah, it's built.

OK. So we'd have to have built 2011, you said, in order to then trigger that. So is there a potential to renegotiate that, or no?

We did recently. Our director, Abby Thorne-Lyman, and Mr. Dozma helped renegotiate that recently, but there could possibly be an opportunity to renegotiate further.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And can I just ask a follow-up on that? Was it, like, lowering the per-unit fee or, like, the number? Sorry.

No, that's good.

So before, I think, late 2025, the agreement was $50,000 a year inflated from 2013 to today based on home price appreciation. So that number was about $100,000 a unit. And what the renegotiation was was to modify that inflator from home prices, which have rocketed up from 2013, despite the recent soft period, to CPI. So that brought that hundred-some-thousand number down to $75,000 if you pay it at occupancy. But we also added the provision that if you pay at conveyance, which is what we're showing in the number up there, then it's 45% of the gross number. So that works out to be about the $34,000 that's shown on the slide. And you don't pay it until you actually reach that 2011 cap. And so we basically have about 250, quote unquote, free units to work with in this area.

Thank you. As further context for that payment, and maybe while I have both of you here to verify, I believe that one of the rationales for the payment was to help offset some of the cleanup costs.

Which will be far more than the Navy will collect for this payment, yeah.

Thank you, that's helpful context Board member home your rain patiently No, actually the question the topic you talked about was kind of the area I was gonna ask about because it really affects the whole discussion of the land use plan and density I know with the cap that the Navy puts on I guess I'm trying to get a sense of I Given the number of units we've already approved or been built, does this represent the build out of the remaining allowable units that's allowed by the Navy in our agreement?

What you're seeing there is a site plan with about 1,000 units. So let's say you start at the bottom, at the south end. What these guys are explaining is you could build the first 200 before we hit the 2,000 number. So we can build 200 more units. This shows 1,000 units. Oh, OK.

So does that mean if this plan were the plan, if we want to build this plan, we would have to go back to the Navy and negotiate?

No, it's already negotiated. So if we don't talk to the Navy anymore, we would owe the Navy the $34,000 per market rate unit. Above 200 market rates. So this is 1,000 units here. Remember, 25% are affordable. So it's only 750 market rate. we can build up 250 market rate. But after that, that last 500 market rate are going to be subject to the $34,000 per unit fee. That's on top of all of the other development costs.

I have a question for the economic development person. You outlined I don't know. It's not meant to be a rosy picture, but you were saying that potentially this project could break even, right? Which kind of surprises me, but hey, you know, I'm not. But talking about relative to other projects, you know, and you're talking about townhouse projects, and this is the product. I mean, how does a project like this compare to as far as development costs, all the other costs, infrastructure cost challenges? the additional $35,000 per market rate, all that. How does that compare to the general market of developers that are building similar type projects in other jurisdictions?

I mean, is it comparable? I think it's more challenging. I think it would be fair to say, yeah.

So, you know, so there's a question whether, just because this pencil's out, that if Elber can find another site, that may be much less challenging to develop. But, of course, Alameda's a very attractive community, so I'm not trying to diminish that.

You've got the Oak Club.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. Okay, okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Board Member Wang?

Yeah, so on the historic homes, the concept of selling the historic homes to pay for new infrastructure. So I understood, I think there was a link or a requirement basically to provide new infrastructure in the Beehive neighborhood, which was barrier to new development I forget exactly what the trigger was for the new infrastructure, so I'm trying to understand if I'm trying to understand the order of operations in other words. How does it work to sell? Historic homes that are burdened by a high infrastructure requirement in order to pay for that infrastructure and

So I think how we were sort of conceiving of this is that you There's probably more than one way to do it. But how we were sort of conceiving of it is that the property would be transferred to a master developer, and they would put in the infrastructure and then connect to new utilities, which is a precondition to selling, and then would be able to sell the units after rehabilitating them and putting that new infrastructure in.

Got it. But that master developer would need to do a lot of the stuff in yellow here in order to make it all back, right? They're not just selling the big whites and making it back?

Yes. That phase on its own, just saying what if we do that first, that was quite underwater. Yeah.

Got it. Thank you.

Vice President Arisa? Thank you. I guess my question, I don't know if it's for you or for staff, but what are the prerequisites to get a developer or developers as partners? Is it a matter of having to wait for our framework before we submit an RFQ? Or can we do that before and collaborate with them to determine the right framework?

No, very good question. I do believe that, as Mr. Dozma said, we want to get a developer on board to help us figure out this very complex However, we do want to first do all the work we did during the due diligence so we can understand what problem are we trying to kind of to solve. And then really with that, we've kind of figured out like, hey, there is a feasible project somewhere in there, but before we go and bring a developer on, let's be clear about what we're asking them to do. What are our priorities? Because that's what developers want. They want clarity and certainty. And so we've got to do that step kind of first, and then put a request for qualifications out, seeking a developer who has qualifications to do the things that we're asking. And then in that RFQ, their response, they can talk to us about their experience and how to potentially do certain things. Then we would bring someone on, and then we'll really get into the nuts and bolts of how do we address some of these big challenges that we mentioned throughout the presentation.

OK, I get it. So I guess to go to your questions that you asked us, it seems that a lot of them are kind of pointing towards allowances for more density. Is it because you suspect that allowing more density will then just instantaneously be just more beneficial to the developer or the development itself? Financially, I guess?

I think it's more than just about density. David said, let's be clear when we say density. Let's just talk about number of units. It may be low density, but just a lot more land. So there's sort of a sweet spot. After a certain number of units, there seems to be not necessarily getting more feasible. But it's also things like, how do we reduce costs? Like the question about the parks. I think what's going on in this conversation, as Nicole said, we would want to put out an RFQ that sort of reflects, this is what the city is hoping to achieve here. Let's emphasize the things that are really important to us. Let's maybe de-emphasize things that are not so important to us. I think the other thing that happens, and we've been through this with several prior phases, even after the RFQ, like those first meetings with the developers, they'll be asking Nicole, ALL RIGHT, WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO YOU THINK WE CAN, WE WANT TO MAKE SOME CHANGES TO DO THIS, MAYBE REDUCE THIS PARK SIZE AND MAYBE CHANGE THIS, AND YOU'RE ALSO KIND OF PUTTING NICOLE IN THE POSITION NOW TO SAY, I THINK THAT'S WORTH PROPOSING, OR SHE CAN SAY, MAN, You can propose it, but I can tell you I don't think the planning board is going to be very sympathetic. Or, yeah, no, I think the planning board is going to be open to that. So it's as much about where could we possibly reduce costs? The maintenance of a, you know, I know from 2017 when we drew that big park there, we thought, oh, that'd be nice. And, you know, like the other parks in the neighborhoods, developer builds it, developer maintains it, homeowners pay assessments. to maintain the park. I fully expect that one of the first questions that the developers are going to ask Nicole in those first meetings is, what about that big park? And it's not necessarily about getting more units. It's about just reducing costs. If there's something about the street network that you're looking at now 10 years later and going, hmm, that's odd. How come none of those streets go straight to the ferry terminal? That's something where Nicole can say early on with the developers. This is what we're, you know, hey, if you want to think about a different roadway network, we would, you know, if it makes good sense, we're comfortable recommending it and we think the Planning Board and Council would be receptive. And then just on the historic district, the question about the big whites came up. I mean, I think you're going to have, there's going to be tradeoffs in the historic district. I mean, all those homes on the west of Pan Am. I mean, that's building a modern neighborhood inside historic district. That is going to be an impact on the historic district, even though there are not necessarily any historic buildings being torn down. We just have to be prepared, I think, for those conversations. I don't see any scenario in the future where, when you're at the end of the approval process, we're not going to the Historic Advisory Board and saying, OK, well, these are the compromises that we need to make to make this project go. And whether it's those units over there or whether it's, hey, we can't save every big white. The developer comes in and says, look, I can, I mean, who knows? The first three blocks of that beehive work and aren't too expensive. But the last block of beehive is really kind of, too much? Or the little bungalows, the little one-story bungalows, which are the little blue squares there all in a row. Those are historic bungalows. I mean, there might be something there where a developer says, can we do something about those bungalows? And I think the community and the planning board and the historic advisory board and council just, that's part of what we're trying to get across here. We're all going to have to make some probably tough trade-offs. And I think what Nicole is trying to get on all these slides is just getting a sense from the community and from all of you, what would you be willing to consider? What are other things like, no, no, whatever it is. The beehive. No, I love the beehive.

Please, please.

Whatever. I hope that helps. It's not just about density. I think it's also about reducing costs.

Yeah, and I think I really appreciate the question and the answer and I think I don't know if this resonates but another way maybe to answer it is like and it kind of goes back to that slide like why now like There are some constraints with this original plan ten years ago and like let's revisit it for some flexibility and looking at all those different issue areas which is beyond density like you said like the park so maybe when we get to that part when we get to um the component of providing the feedback it could be helpful where you show those question slides um but i do have some sorry did you have any more questions no thank you thank you i did have some uh questions but i'm gonna just do a quick scan um and yes board member sue

Yeah, just this might be maybe a little too early to ask, but in terms of like conveying the land or leasing the land, how will the developer get site control? Is there some kind of, is it would be a ground lease or would the developer acquire the land from the city?

That would be something that we would need to determine when we're in negotiations. We have deals like with Site A, where we sold them the land. You have the land. Whereas with West Midway and with FreeShape, we still own the land. So they're out there putting horizontal infrastructure. And I'm like a project manager out there, because I still own the land on behalf of all of you. And so there's trade-offs and benefits of both models. Then like you said, the ground lease. So we need to figure out what instrument and framework we use. And I think that we're kind of not there yet to figure that piece out yet.

Yeah, and then I know in some other, and I think this is more in the redevelopment space where the conveyance of the land is tied to the development of it as well, but do they still do those, or is it more separated now?

Yeah, we still have those. Like back in redevelopment, because I'm a former redevelopment practitioner, there was like land development agreements. We do have disposition and development agreements where like, hey, you've got to do these things, and you have to hit these milestones for X to happen. So it will definitely be good stewards of the city's property and make sure that certain things happen. But I'm going to turn it over to Justice Thomas.

A little more context. I mean, it's all handled through the disposition and development agreement. So all these projects are sort of centered on that agreement with the developer. As Nicole said, different developers have different priorities. So you don't really know until you pick your developer and start those, what they want. As she said, with West Midway and Catullus, they were like, we don't want to own the land right off the bat. We want to know we're going to get it. But we would like to do as much work on the land while you own it, and we don't have to pay taxes as long as possible. And so we had to think through, well, wait a second. I mean, once you start building townhomes, you need to own it. We don't want to be the owner of townhomes. So we worked out a sort of a, you can do infrastructure and you can put in streets. But at that point, once you start going vertical, you have to own it. And you have to start paying taxes on it. But it's all, as Nicole said, and there's trade-offs and all these different things. Basically, the first step, RFQ. Second step is council chooses which developer they like best. Then we enter into what's called an exclusive negotiating agreement, which is usually a year and a half to two years, where they're doing all their due diligence, and Nicole and the team are negotiating that DDA. And then the DDA has to go to council for final approval. And that DDA just lays everything you're asking is all laid out. When are they going to own it? What improvements are they going to do before they own it? How is that all going to work?

And at that point, there's also kind of the entitlement process. Like, what is the project? And we'll come back to you. So yes, that's kind of the general framework and process.

Yeah, all these tough questions are handled before signing of the DDA, because the developer needs to know. Are you going to rezone it or not? So that all happens during that ENA period.

And then is the land totally unencumbered by any, are there any Navy restrictions on this? Or is it just totally in fee? Like was there anything the Navy saw this say on, like in terms of like you still can't do this or we need to remediate some portion of some land here?

This property pretty much didn't have any restrictions.

Great. Any other clarifying questions? OK. Seeing none, I had a couple. Do you mind just giving a sentence or two of the recap of the HABs, the Historic Advisory Board's reactions or feedback? Anything worth noting that we should be aware of?

I want to try not to put you, I did have a slide and I think I left it. In general, they were very supportive of advancing development in this area. They wanted to make sure that we didn't take forever to go through this priority setting process. They wanted to make sure that we kind of create a a package to make sure that we kind of preserve big picture, the historic character of the historic district. However, they also felt like we had to be open to not adapt or reuse of historic structures. And that maybe not every contributing structure would would not, would be saved. Like some things may have to be kind of demolished, but they just really wanted to make sure that we just had a really clear description of what elements of the historic district we were trying to preserve, like just be very clear about that. The other point that they made, what I thought was really good was, give me one second here, Give me one second. There was another really good note. They mentioned don't be too restrictive. Try to have menus of options. Like, hey, you could do these kind of things to achieve this priority. Or you can kind of do these kind of things to achieve this. So don't be overly restrictive. restrictive or prescriptive. Big picture concepts like that.

Thank you. That's helpful. And then I remember when we were going through the housing process that we were mindful of not putting too many affordable homes in Alameda Point and I was just wondering Is that maybe one of the reasons why this portion that's not zoned for residential, not residential? I'm just curious, why didn't we consider it as part of the housing element?

Well, a couple reasons why we didn't. It was originally in 2014 when we were doing the original zoning for Alameda that we were deciding what to zone residential and whatnot, and we had all this land that we were ready to zone residential. So we kind of were feeling at that point like, OK, this is a good amount of land to develop for residential over the next 10, 15 years. In terms of the most recent housing element, though, we knew that there was no way we were issuing building permits in this area before 2030. And to count towards that housing element that we did three years ago, that was 2023 to 2030. That was the period. So what was left at Site A was counted. All the West Midway reshape project is in that housing element, but nothing up here. But anything that you approve up here, ultimately, will be very helpful towards your next housing element cycle.

And is it also fair to say that AUSD is maybe now more interested in developing residential on their site? Or not necessarily. Nope, I'm assuming.

I think we're still in discussions with them to find out how they want to move forward with their property.

That's helpful. OK, but that is a property of interest.

That is correct. It's the area in the, the colors are bleeding, but in the purple box, their property on West Red Line, it was already approved for demolition at the transfer from the Navy. And then the property, I call it the Barbell Building, that's Building 17, and that already can be housing, I think, under a conditional use permit. And it is a contributing structure, the Building 17.

Okay. And then, okay, if y'all don't know the answer to this question, but it seems like this isn't, what's the word, like incorporated or part of SB 79, like this building Area like I think yeah, and I was just wondering like what's the reason why like it's maybe it's not it's not as high density or high traffic or and if it were part of SB 79 that would It would be like five stories like the height limits or seven stories

Yeah, I think there's different high limits depending on how far you are from the SB 79 sort of Tier 1 and Tier 2 transit stops, which are primarily rail stops and then high-frequency or high-speed stops. Bus rapid transit. Sorry getting getting tongue-tied there So we have essentially two bus stops on the way to the tube on Webster like getting out of town that will qualify as tier 2 SB 79 stops but other than that the At the moment, you know ferry terminals while in some state laws are considered a major transit stop and they count for some sort of But in terms of SB 79, as it's written today, the ferry terminals are not SB 79 sort of transit stops and there's no bus rapid transit in this area at the moment that that would qualify.

Okay, that's helpful. But yeah, that's helpful also to know that some state laws do consider very high frequency, maybe, transit.

Yeah, I think they qualify as what's called a major transit stop. So for certain, you know, we don't have minimum off-street parking requirements in Alameda. We were ahead of the state on that, but that would be a thing where certain projects wouldn't be, you wouldn't be able to require off-street parking, minimum off-street parking for certain projects because it's near Alameda. major transit stop that the ferry might qualify for but we're kind of you know generally a few years ahead of some of those state laws so so that you know nothing really we're sort of we can go whichever way we want I think here

And thank you. And my last question, I was curious with the, like, if you could show me the APC, the Alameda Point Collaborative Farm, like, where it is. I was just wondering if we were to relocate the Central Park like what other open or green space would be close to them because there's the question is like should we not require the central park and should we also move the farm so i just was wondering what are the green open spaces they would still have access to sure um and again we don't have any um

We haven't had any real discussions yet with APC about that farm area. They have a long-term legally binding agreement on that property. But we would have. You have the historic landscape there. You have other parks at Alameda Point. We're looking at a surf park. We're looking at a paved park. There's going to be parks in the Waterfront Town Center. So there's other open space in other parts of Alameda Park that are currently conceived of and others that are in the planning. Lots of parks and open space.

Just to point out, this drawing here doesn't show the Central Park. Correct. That is in the specific plan. The other thing that came up when we were doing the West Midway project, the traffic engineers were pointing out to us that strange circulation system. They were like, that may be a little bit of a problem later when you get to this I mean, this circulation system you can see is a little more cleaner, a little more straightforward than if you tried to put in that big square central park. I think what staff is saying is we anticipate that a master developer is going to ask us about how important that big park is, because you can see it. With the historic district right there, and then And especially if you end up starting from the south and moving north with your development, once the collaborative is out of that area, that's going to be some prime land for them to develop. So once again, it's just anticipating questions that staff is going to be getting.

Thank you. Okay. Those are all my questions. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And with that, we could move on to public comment. Do we have any speakers in the room or online?

Yeah, we do have one speaker in person. If anyone online would like to speak, please raise your hand now. First speaker is Bobek Parantian.

Did I get that?

Good evening. My name is Babak Parandian. I am a business owner here in Alameda. Been doing business in Alameda for over 20 years. My recent project is Cafe Jolie Petite on Bay Farm. I don't know if anybody's been there, but it's on the corner of Harbor Bay Parkway or North Loop. It's the first container cafe in Alameda. Nobody wanted to go out to Bay Farm to do anything, and I was the risk taker, and it's been great. We've been doing well. My goal tonight is to talk to you and present to you guys of the members about the theater 2700 Saratoga?

The Machon Theater? This is the public comment component for the agenda item, which is...

It's actually in that study area.

Oh, it is? Okay, I'm sorry.

You don't know 2700 Saratoga?

I don't know. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Okay, all right. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Anyway, so I'm working on reviving the theater. and making it a rental space and also building out a full-on restaurant in the post office area with a little bit of retail right there. I don't know if you are familiar with the theater, but it faces City Hall West on the left. And then you have that grassy area in the middle, which we would also utilize to reactivate the French farmer's market that we were doing on Bay Farm in the summer called the Bon Marche. And it would bring lots of people together every weekend to enjoy quality foods and healthy options. We don't have a farmer's market on Sunday in Alameda yet. But anyway, we did do it once a month on Bay Farm in front of the cafe there. It's been great. And we do need more spaces for people to eat and create fun synergies for family and communities. We don't have enough of that. The Elk Lodge, and I know they're opening the theater. It's going to open back up next to the high school. But again, there are not enough places. We have plenty of homes and properties and people coming and going. Even me, as a business owner, I'm almost scratching my head on where to go eat good food. And we're trying to create more of that. So hopefully, with the support of the community and you members here, thank you for your time. But we are going to be working on hopefully getting that going. And we'd love to get your support. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you.

And we have no other speakers.

No. Yeah, thank you so much. All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Any other public comments?

No. By the speakers.

Okay, great. We'll go ahead and close with a comment and bring it back to the board for feedback. And I guess, I don't know, yeah, in terms of process, I don't know if you want to go through each question, like the themes that you, what would be helpful?

If it's helpful to the board, we can just put up those last three slides, which are the three big questions, and you can... Use those as sort of a framework. No, no, the other way. There you go. You passed them.

Back up, back up, back up. Start with the height limits. Go back. 20. There you go. There you go.

I mean, if you want to start there, we can start there and then go to the zoning question and then to the inclusionary housing and then the, what was the last? Parks. We can structure this any way you like. However, whatever is easiest for all of you. Yeah, yeah. And you're not limited to these four questions. Yeah, yeah. This is your chance to let staff know kind of how you're feeling about this information.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good start, yeah. Yeah, Board Member Wang?

um i'd like to start because i have a kind of a hybrid question comment that doesn't fall into this rubric and it has to do with the process that you've laid out for an rfq for selecting a developer and my thought is is really more of a question i think for for those of you who have done this multiple times and have gone through multiple processes with large plans It seems to me that they're Well, I think it's quite evident that there are a lot of challenging trade-offs to be made with this plan and I wonder about the possibility of creating a little bit more of kind of a competitive marketplace of ideas. And so I guess my question is, is there maybe room for more of a hybrid RFQ, RFP, rather than selecting a developer and then basically being married to that developer right through an ENA and then saying, well, okay, we're going to work on a plan now together. wouldn't this new neighborhood with all of its challenges and interlocking puzzles benefit from maybe a few developers competing with different ideas so that we as a city have the ability to say, well, we like this one. best but we actually like this thing from this other one could you do that thing and we think that you're the best developer but we want you to take all these ideas and we're frankly gonna steal them from these other developers right I just I wonder about having a little bit longer of a dating process where we are not exclusive yet so that we can kind of play the field a little bit

I think the short answer is yes. I'm thinking back to the Site A. And I can't remember, frankly, if we called it an RFQ or an RFP. I mean, it wasn't a full proposal with all the details, obviously, because we hadn't negotiated. But we required site plans. We required – and then we had community meetings. I remember one around town in front of the planning board in the library where we're like – We were like, okay, developers. We kind of ended up with two, I think we're down to three. Put up your drawings. Let the community come and see your plans. Some developers, just like you said, it was very interesting. Some developers were like, nope, this is how we're going to do it. We're going to scrape everything down to the dirt, and then we're going to build all new. Others came along and said, no, we've got some ideas about keeping this weird street network that's in this area that comes from the old Navy base and using this structure, which was very attractive to some of us. And then meanwhile, we were also looking at their numbers and their financials, which we didn't really sort of make a big public deal about that. But we were certainly talking to the council about it and having people like David Dozma go through their numbers. Yeah, I mean, I think there is absolutely that kind of ability to sort of, and then go from one developer and say, look, we really like you, but those ideas over there, like, are you open to picking up, stealing some of those ideas?

Yeah, so it's not just about a developer's qualifications. It's about their ideas.

About their ideas at this site. And I think then that's, once again, I think, It really benefits everybody if staff is able to write whatever you want to call it, RFQ, RFP, whatever you want to call it, slash RFP. Like, here are the challenges. Here are all the things you need to know about before you submit. And we want to see your first draft plan.

Yeah. Super helpful.

Let's see it. Spend some time. Figure it out. With Site A and West Midway, that's also true of West Midway. We were getting plans, proposals from the different developers. How would they develop the site? Where would they start? What buildings would they keep? Which would they get rid of? Now those, once they were selected, some things started to change, but they're also learning as they go. So they learn as they go, then they make a proposal. If they get picked, then they go into some even more serious due diligence. That's when they really start spending money, really figuring things out financially, and then... So things are always changing, but the short answer is yes. I think that's exactly what we should be doing.

Great. And what we call, in my experience, their approach, right? Like how would they go about that also as part of the qualifications? Because you can kind of look at their approach and what they're proposing as it relates to kind of their experience and how it, what they're proposing for this specific site. So that's another really important thing of this process you're talking about is we put this RFQ out there or whatever the solicitation framework is and we kind of ask them their approach. How would you approach these solutions? And then that's why it goes back to it's important for us to have our clear non-negotiable priorities versus things that we can be more flexible on and have a menu of things that we're open to. I think that's really important. Also, balancing it with this is a very challenging site, kind of more so than Site A and West Midway. And so, of course, you want to date around or have a beauty contest, but you want to make sure that you do it in such a way that you get serious people who want to come to the table and submit. and that we're just not doing a brain drain from developers too.

Thank you.

Yes, Board Member Sahiba.

Yeah, thanks for the presentation and the commentary. I think before I get into the specifics here, I think you do raise a good question about ferry terminals and what that means, especially in an island community like we have for Alameda. And if I zoom out for a second, all three of our ferry terminals are not very well connected to neighborhoods. Bay Farm probably comes the closest. I'm biased there. I walked to that ferry terminal from my house. But even when you get there, I know there was that one potential where we were going to have a hotel right there with a restaurant and a bar and a coffee shop and all. And it didn't happen, but there was a vision at some point. And I appreciate that. As the speaker noted, the Jolie container ship installation out on Bay Farm would have been awesome if that was right there on the waterfront right next to the ferry terminal as well as a location. And I think... I'm thinking about the advantages that we have to create development opportunities. And the ferry is a real advantage, I will say. That's unique, right? As soon as you land in San Francisco, you're at the ferry building. And I'm not saying we're going to recreate that kind of experience. the idea of a destination is what this neighborhood has the opportunity to be if we set it up that way and What I think we need to think of and you know, the seaplane lagoons are not connected at all It's sort of connected to new development up there. But again, not when you initially land we've I We've landed everyone into parking in each one of these terminals. Not really a good situation, quite honestly. So now coming specific to this site, when I look at the opportunity of Orion Street, West Essex Drive, and Main Street, and how all three of those could intersect right where the signalized turn is into Main Street. It's very terminal. There's the ability to set up that road network. And maybe it's a turnaround right there that eventually happens. But regardless, I think right now I see in the specific plan and then in some of these diagrams, not a real strong connection to that moment of connecting to the terminal. And if we want to make this enticing for development, for the opportunity of creating this unique experience, then we need to rework this road network to take advantage of it. Orion peeling off and going off to the east is avoiding the ferry terminal and that infrastructure plan that shows how it would be remade. And so I'm concerned about that main street. is probably the worst name for that street, because it's not a main street. It's a perimeter street that's got this ragtag dog park off of it. And a bunch of shipping containers. All sorts of random stuff. And I think that we're not going to rename the street, but it's It is a thoroughfare, essentially. And that's what it is. But if we want to create connections into this neighborhood and then not make this like, of course, part of it's still going to be a commuter ferry. People are going to drive there. But I think it is important to rethink how we make that connection. If we move a park anywhere, it should be at the arrival point when you cross over or something, where those streets intersect, where something can receive you into the neighborhood Because we may be able to try to extend more all the way to the water at some point. But until we get there, at least when we get to Main Street and cross into this neighborhood, I can see, again, Essex and Orion kind of going and intersecting at that. It's almost natural intersection at that point. I would think that if we start looking at that and we start then stepping back and thinking about developmental blocks, and I know that one diagram that you had up had that. But I'll just stay with this height and zoning for a second. Because this diagram also shows that park. And I think there's so much open space out on the Naval base. And I'm not saying it's not important, because we do need the small neighborhood areas. But we need to be super strategic about where that happens to create those moments of orientation. Because it's such a big area that there needs to be nodes that then get developed for each neighborhood that gets created. And then I think if Essex stretches to Main Street, what I like about that is that then it comes into the main central sort of formal area that you have when you continue to go west on Essex, because it turns into the grid, essentially, from the Beehive to the grid. But it needs to get extended, because it just loops back on itself at the moment. So sorry, I'm getting maybe too much into street planning, but I think it's kind of critical. And then what I would just say is that, Going back to the height issue, I think there needs to be flexibility around, again, when creating points of orientation, height typically does that. And if we then allow for Main Street and the zone on that perimeter to then allow for that height, then I think it again marks a spot. It can create energy because there'll be more activity because of density, essentially, where that happens. And so again, it will reinforce that point of orientation, essentially. I'm in favor of looking at Essex, Orion, and Main Street as areas where a hike can happen and where they intersect, essentially. And especially on that perimeter, Main Street is such a wide street, I don't think there's any issues with height along that edge if that was to happen. So that's, I think, maybe part of what this slide was starting to get to. The biggest point I wanted to make is really that This terminal actually gets used on the weekends as well, which is, you know, Bay Farm does and I guess Seaplane Lagoon does, but I don't know how much. Sorry?

Not on the weekends.

Not on the weekends? It doesn't? Yeah. Only Main Street, right? Yeah.

Main Street has got the weekend service, and then it's also essentially mostly midday and then evening service. So Seaplane currently handles the primary commute function, similar to Harbor Bay.

And then it also, you know, I've taken it to the game day service as well to Chase and the ballpark. Because of its ability to be used even on the weekends, it seems natural that the neighborhood can take advantage of that as well. So that would be a really important consideration in my mind is how this network is drawn and how we really start to mine essentially the ferry in a positive way.

Can I add one item? One of the things we spoke or discussed with the Historical Advisory Board last week was kind of the upgrade and change of use or additional uses for the old club. It does require some rehab and ADA improvements. But that is another facility we're looking at, keeping it in the city's control and ownership, but maybe partnering with whatever developer we select to provide kind of uses. Like there's a bar there. There's an upgrade of a commercial kitchen. So there may be a way of using or upgrading that to be a part of that focal point in that destination that you were mentioning.

Yeah, yeah, if that's possible. I think that sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments or feedback on this question on height or density, Vice President Ariza?

I guess kind of to tie it to some of the comments from other board members and to the question of the height, I think I agree with the allowance of more height or more density, either or or both, on Main Street. just because of the size of the street. I think it definitely lends itself to that. Now, to what extent, I don't know if we have to create, are we talking about just the maximum height that we already have in the zoning for residential, or are we talking about something different, new? I'm not sure, but if we were talking about 20 stories, then I would have other caveats. You know what I mean? I think that I also agree with letting the developer propose something, so not necessarily keeping the central gardens or the layout that was done initially, but maybe something based on the existing layout of the streets, just because I kind of do think that there is value in what is there existing. And maybe it's just more about determining that each block or each kind of group of blocks that gets developed into housing does require a certain percentage of open space that is hopefully also public space. So it's semi-public. I don't know, but around my house, there's a park. in a development that I know went through negotiations. And initially, they were going to do it as kind of a private within the townhouses. And it ended up being to the street. And it's a really nice area, which I think it was just great that they ended up doing that. It's great for the neighbors. It's great for everybody. So something like that that can be part of the agreement of developing the smaller sites, because I would imagine there's this gigantic area, but then smaller sites get developed. I think that's kind of what I have to say about the height and the zoning. I think that as far as rezoning the historic or that adaptive reuse that is currently zone adaptive reuse to housing, I don't see why not. But of course, then again, there may be some of those kind of historic locations like the Oak Club or the theater or certain locations that could be just set apart as, well, these ones we want to control in this way. And we definitely want to keep them. And we definitely want them to be, you know, you have to tie into those. I think that's all I have to say for now. Thank you. Thank you.

Board Member Hahn?

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. This is a wonderful opportunity, first of all. You know, being a planner, you know, this is like going back to college or something. Right? And it's funny, I just did this over the weekend for another city. They had a huge shopping center and they wanted to redevelop, so we did a whole charrette. for that. Anyway, I see this as, I know it's not a blank slate, right? But it's an opportunity to kind of pull back and look at the plan 10 years later and say, okay, what has changed? What are the potential? I'm just addressing a zoning question. I don't see zoning questions that specific. To me, it's tied to urban design and a buffer and how it's stepping back and all of that. But I also see it tied to economics, too, very much. And I've kind of alluded to some of the comments is that, to me, I'm being flexible in density, realizing that maybe allowing for higher density might allow us to fund other things, like a really expensive infrastructure, flood control measures. I kind of actually like the concept of an open space network. What can you do to create a character here that's different from the other neighborhood? There's a history of urban architecture here. There's also a large area that's within the 100-year flood plain. Is it really reasonable to try to fill that up six feet and build on it? It gets really expensive. So part of the thinking is, how can we maybe allow higher height, cluster development, minimize the necessary infrastructure needs, and be able to come up with a plan where we maximize amenities that are maybe lower cost. Maybe the streets don't have to be fully blown to sidewalks on both sides, urban style street. Just looking at creative ways to create a different character for this area. I see the open space network as possibly helping define that solution and allowing height to be flexible so that you can use it to incentivize or help create the other amenities or the community benefits in this neighborhood. So that's how I look at height, being flexible. Certainly, I don't think 20-story buildings, but I don't think anyone would propose that, I don't think, maybe 100 years from now. But I know in other developments, you know, allowing, convincing the city council to allow it to go up to 10-story made the difference if the city was going to realize, say, retail space or a major park site. So using height from... urban design, but also from an economic perspective. Flexibility, I think that's been mentioned also. Allow flexibility. This market keeps on changing. The RFP, RFQ process is a wonderful way to see what the ideas are out there in the development community. And I did sit through that. I showed you how old I am. I sat through. I remember when those three plans were presented. It really was an interesting process because the three developers each had very different concepts on what they wanted. And I've been through a process like that in other cities. And you end up kind of learning from the other developers. And then you end up borrowing the best from all of them to come up with an ultimate plan once you select a developer. So I think this is a wonderful opportunity. I think it's a really fun process, and good luck with that. I have other comments too, but I'll talk to them later.

Thank you. Any other feedback or comments? Yes, Board Member Wang.

So my comments on these questions, I think, are going to be a little more general. But I did want to say I really like Board Member Sahiba's comment about connecting to the ferry terminal. It did make me think, you know, I think in principle, you know, it'd be nice to articulate something here that I think possibly is overlooked in a lot of our our new townhome and single-family developments which is that I've noticed a lot of them turn inward and kind of close themselves off from the surrounding neighborhood and from the streets that they face. And I think board members have rightly noticed that the plan here was doing the same thing. And so the opportunity there to question that logic, I think, is a really good one. Realize we're not here to give you comments on plans per se because those plans will come from the development community, but You know since board members ahead by ending his term as a planning board member soon Maybe maybe we'll hear from them at the podium in a couple years presenting a new plan to us In any case I think my My general comment, I think, on these questions is going to be that I think you've all done a really good job of articulating the many constraints that face development in this district, which to me means I think we're going to be facing a lot of really tricky trade-offs. We have a plan that's well envisioned, it makes sense on paper, and inevitably some piece of it, some pieces of it are gonna have to get thrown out. And so I think we're gonna be at a point when development proposals come forward that we have to choose to be very, very pragmatic about what gets built here based on what can be built here because a vision that can't be built doesn't really have any value for us but a vision that can be built does have value so the point that I want to make is that You know, among all the things that we are measuring and balancing here, feasibility to me isn't a factor among them. Feasibility is the prism through which we have to view every question that's on the board here. And so I think appreciating what the historic board said about flexibility and what board member Hom and some other board members have said, flexibility is really important here, not just in the plan, but I think in how we think about how this plan is going to roll out. I think there are, you know, There are probably a few principles that I think would be really interesting to hold on to. I do think this idea that board member Saheba has put forward about connecting to the ferry terminal and connecting to adjacent neighborhoods is something to hold on to, for instance. Other things, I think that we can be much less precious about whether the gardens are that particular square shape or that particular size, whether the height is three stories or four or five. I think we need to weigh all of those things in the context of a particular plan and in the context of particular economics and balance with the rest of the plan it's really hard to say well you know to sit here and say well I really think four is the right number so I think my point would would be let's let's let's stick to the theme of feasibility and flexibility as we as we go forward any other comments before we move on

Okay, sounds good. I think we could go on to the next theme of questions.

Sure. I think we've kind of covered them. Did we go through it all?

Yeah.

It was about the zoning. We talked about... I think you pretty much covered for us.

Yeah, I think you pretty much covered it.

The next slide is about... We kind of talked about open space and circulation. You know, just on this, just as listening to the commissioner speak, I mean, that principle starts with the very first 1996 reuse plan, which was integrate Alameda Point into the rest of the city. And that street network, as you were talking, I'm like, yeah, there's – The Navy had a fence. They were doing just the opposite. And in 1996, when we did the, or I wasn't here, it was just before I got here, that was a big theme. Even in the early 2000s, there were so many people you would talk to, Alameda residents, who were like, we're having a workshop about Alameda Point. And they would say, I've never been out there. Can you go out there? And we're like, yeah, the guard isn't there anymore. The Navy's gone. You can go out there. And looking at that street network, it's like, oh, yeah, that's the Navy's old street network. They weren't interested in connecting to the ferry terminal. Let's go, I think we've, I mean, unless there's anything, I don't mean to rush you, but I think we haven't talked about it.

But yeah, and I did want us to spend a beat on the inclusionary question.

But go ahead, Vice President Orissa and then Board Member Hahn.

On the inclusionary? I'm sorry.

This is just something that I failed to mention and I had thought of. And it's like, how can we create incentives for the developers to propose other models besides three-story townhouses? I mean, there are so many other ways of doing housing. There are flats. How can we encourage them to do other things besides that, besides the three-story townhouses? I'm not sure if the idea of the three-story townhouses is so that you feel like you own some land. or what it is. It seems to be that that's the reason. But at the same time, it's not really. And we have heard several people from the community actually kind of coming to the board and saying, well, can there be other times? Because this is not conducive for my parents to live with me, to have these three stories. It's not conducive for other forms of sharing space. So I don't know if there are ways to encourage them also to propose other models.

I think the most direct answer to that question is yes, and I think the way to do it is in this sort of competitive RFQ, RFP kind of process, articulate that as something the city is going to look very favorably on. Like if you can propose a plan that has a variety of housing types, that's something that, we, the people of Alameda, are going to look very favorably on. And that way, a developer knows if they propose a plan, which they might need to. They might just say, look, I'm sorry. I got to do the three-story townhomes. That's how to get to feasibility. And if all three of them do that, or all five, then, well, all right, we tried. And they're also, we're getting a very clear message that the market just doesn't support those other models. But I think it is important that if it's something that's important to the community, and we've heard that, In the past, you're not the only one who has said that. I mean, it would be a good thing to articulate in that initial offering. Like, we want to see if diversity of housing types is important to us. See what we get.

Yeah. And I know that from an economic standpoint, it might not pencil out for them to do other, maybe smaller scale.

The way that is also played out though, let's say you get to the next step and now you're negotiating. The experiences and the kinds of conversations that we've had with developers when they're working through that, you can keep the conversation going between the city and the developer. We really want to see some, I don't know what it is, some flats. What would it take to do it? They might say, well, I would need to cut something out of my street budget or my park budget or something. Because, you know, I mean, those conversations, those tradeoffs can continue to happen, and especially if the planning board and the city council at that point really also reinforce whatever staff is saying and say, look, we need to see something happen here on this issue. I mean, those conversations continue. The key is the community speaking consistently and throughout the entire process with those same principles, those same messages. So...

And I don't know if that would tie to the design guidelines, but I'm a little bit worried because I have seen other kind of projects that we have approved that are townhouses that end up creating these kind of semi-private streets that go to the parking lots, right? that are very sad. When you go and see these streets, you walk through these neighborhoods that are three-story townhouses that have kind of a main street where you have the main door, and then you keep walking, and then you have this back street that is like three stories with asphalt with nothing in there. But it's a street. So I don't know if it's a matter then, can we then, if they do townhouses, then can we require them to do pavers in these semi-private streets? Or something that makes those streets that are now public better?

Yes, there are ways. And we have done that in the past on certain projects. But it is, back to the feasibility question, it's all part of... ensuring that the project is feasible. So the kinds of conversations Nicole and I have had in the past on these things with development is like... Can I ask a silly question that maybe I should know but I don't?

Is this feasibility means what? That the developer makes how much profit?

I mean...

I mean, because we talked about this as if it was like some sort of concept that everybody knows. But I would like to know if there is some sort of general agreement on that or it varies.

The way it works out is we negotiate a development agreement with that party. And if they won't sign it, then we don't have an agreement. We don't have anything. And sometimes we require them to share spreadsheets and pro formas with us. And we look at their numbers. I'll be honest with you, like I've always felt. I mean, David is our city's consultant on a lot of these projects, and he will help us look at these pro formas and go, that number seems inflated. But at the end of the day, is that really what? I mean, at the end of the day, it comes down to how badly do you want to get to a deal that both parties can agree to and how much money they're making and exactly how Where their money is, it's pretty hard on the city side to evaluate that.

At the end of the day, the city has to say, we want to go forward.

Is this good enough for us? And that's, at the end of the day, kind of what the council and the planning board and the staff have to kind of come to grips with is, no, it doesn't have everything we want. So we can say no. and hope for somebody else to come along later, we can do that. I mean, that's always an option, because it's not good enough. Or we can, you and the planning board, recommend to the council. It's not everything we wanted, but we do think it's close enough to move forward.

Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, we do have to make compromises.

So we have some data points from your other deals in terms of what the city's been able to negotiate as far as what is a profit level for the developer that allows us to come to terms. And there's a couple different profit elements to take into consideration here. There's like the land development, the sort of developer that does all the infrastructure. Not always the same as the developer does the vertical, as you know this. An 18% to 20% internal rate of return is what the city's come to agreement with on other projects. The most recent West Midway was a 20% internal rate of return. That's what we use in this preliminary feasibility work, is assuming that's kind of the threshold we need to get to. And then as far as the home builder, portion of it, we've made the assumption I think we're right around a 10% return on the sale of the unit is what we sort of built into here. I mean, we haven't broken all those numbers out here as far as what's on the screen, but those are the assumptions that we made.

Thank you.

And then from that, we get something, the city and the community gets. We get new roads and streets and infrastructure and utilities, because right now we have World War II era infrastructure. We get to help. have new housing that goes towards our arena goals. We also know that more housing helps us get more ridership for our ferries and get people off our streets. So we can look at the developer's profit, but we can also figure out not only our priorities for development, but also what is our return. And that's the new infrastructure, that's ridership, new residents paying taxes. So the developer piece having a return, that's definitely the question, but really balancing all the different benefits that we get from getting a developer on board versus not having a developer and then the property kind of could continue to fall into disrepair too. So it's a bunch of different factors that we are evaluating when we talk about moving forward with revitalizing this area.

Thank you.

Great. Board Member Hahn, you had a question?

Oh, no, I had a comment.

Oh, sure, please.

Yeah, I guess my comment was kind of the next category, and it really, really builds on what Board Member Sahiba said, because one of my, probably one of my major areas I was thinking about is kind of the concept of connectivity and internal organization of the site, you know. So when I look at the internal organization of the site, I think the site visit I went on was wonderful. But it's very disoriented because the streets, the way it's layout, there seems to be a need to just re-look at the whole circulation pattern. That would benefit. certainly not married to any of the existing streets there. One question I do have, and maybe this is not possible, but I remember when we looked at the big whites and the beehive streets, and part of my question was, is the historic significance the big whites or the beehive street pattern, or both? So if it's mainly the big whites, what about the idea, it turns out that these homes have to be lifted up and raised on their foundation significant costs. might we think about relocating these big whites to another area of the site? I think about Preservation Park in Oakland, where they relocated the Victorians. Wonderful looking area. So kind of just, yeah, go ahead.

Just to answer your question, the big whites, the buildings themselves, are contributors architecturally. And the street pattern is a contributor under the landscape. cultural landscape historic character so the answer is yes it is historic but you know I kind of just keep coming back to this same idea that there's going to be impacts to the historic district and I think Nicole made that loud and clear to the historic advisory board so it's all about like what's most important and how do we balance these and you heard kind of what their response was and I think What I'm hearing from your other board members is, yeah, we need to be open to those kinds of ideas. I mean, unless there's something we want to just rule out right now, like you can't touch this, fine, let's say it and make sure everybody agrees, planning board, council, everybody, community, or let's be open to ideas.

I mean, the beehive pattern in the street is kind of nice when you look at a Google map, right? But the big whites, to me, in my opinion, are worth preserving and renovating. They have a lot of character, but do they really need to be Kept in the same configuration seems like a use of a lot of valuable land And it really is a constraint if you try to create a new street pattern through the site So that would be something I would say if possible take a look at that so the internal circulation is one thing and then just going on with what members keep us a When I look at the site, I look at Main Street, as you're already saying, it's really cut off from the rest of the shoreline, the rest of the city. Part of me is like, can we re-imagine what Main Street might look like, rather than just a thrill fare? The only time I ever drive there is when I go to the ferry terminal. There's residential on each side. It just doesn't seem very connected. I like the idea, I really support the idea of expanding the study area to include a lot of the properties to the west of Pan Am Way. I think that's great, including the school district site. And maybe is there other areas that might be expanded? One of the thoughts I'm having, you may have an RFP for this specific area, but it seems like doing a larger specific plan that plans out the waterfront area You know, what can that be, you know, that provides a connection to this neighborhood? Because how can you take a finish with that water? You know, realizing that it's also in the 100-year flood plain. I look at, the previous slide was about the old club, you know, when it went out there. And I've been in the old club when it was actually open, but way long time ago. Former boss was an officer, so we went there for dinner when it was still open. Very old school, right? But it seems like that's a wonderful opportunity for a community-based area, maybe some open space, amenities built on it. How can you kind of extend it so it goes to the shoreline? So it kind of really, you built something, and you kind of... get out to the Oakland estuary. You know, it is a naval facility. You know, bring it to the water. So somehow looking at the planning around this site to see how you can better connect it both from a traffic standpoint but from a land use standpoint would be... I know it means more work from a specific plan standpoint, but I think you get a better plan by not just planning insular, but really taking a look at what do we want the surrounding area to be.

Great. Any other feedback or comments? If not, can you go ahead? Yeah, here. I don't know if we touched on this or if any fellow board members wanted to react to this question. or I don't know, just respond to the requirements. So did you want to just recap?

Sure, if you don't mind, Madam President. So basically we talk about how there's a 25% affordable requirement because of the Renewed Hope Settlement Agreement. But in addition to that, The Main Street specific plan also calls for an additional 10% serving 120 to 180% median income. And so that's in addition to, again, the rest of the city is 15%, Alameda Point is 25%, and then this would require an additional 10% for this income level. And we'd love to get the planning board's feedback around going back to the lens and the prism of feasibility, is there a way to reevaluate, or what are your points and comments around that element?

Yeah, and I guess like, you know, the theme I'm picking up here is the need for flexibility. It says here, too, that there is that option to waive the 10% for that more moderate or median income level. So it seems like that's something that the board would, my fellow board members would support in terms of not necessarily requiring that additional 10%, but I'm curious if anyone wants to... or add more context to that. Yes, Vice President Ariza.

I just have a question. So that 120% to 180% median income would fall into the moderate income category?

That's an additional data, right?

Well, I understand that it's additional, but I'm just trying to figure out what that's causing. It's above.

So moderate is everything up to 120%. So the idea of this was.

Oh, above moderate.

And the concept behind this, when this was originally, we discussed this and put it in a specific plan, was that what about that next group of folks who don't qualify as moderate, but they can't afford the $1.3 million three-story townhome. It's a little bit related to your question about housing type diversity. That's what that was about. There was this sense, at least, 10 years ago, OK, we're creating affordable housing for this group, and then we're creating a bunch of market rate housing for everyone else. But we used to call it the missing middle. There's this group of people there who, they don't qualify for that, but they can't afford that. And the way we were thinking about it back then is, and the developers can show us Here is the type of housing. It's not going to be deed restricted, but it will sell or rent at that level. So we think we've met the requirement. But anyway, I'm just, the point is, That's what the concept was 10 years ago? Like, how do we?

Well, I think it's a good concept. But maybe it's more about, I mean, I don't know. I'm just proposing. I don't know. Because we have like a 25%. Is that non-negotiable, the 6% very low income, 10% low income, 9% moderate?

So that was agreed to in a settlement agreement with Renewed Hope. So at this point, unless Renewed Hope wants to renegotiate that settlement agreement, it is non-negotiable. I mean, that's not something the city can do unilaterally.

Yeah, okay.

The other thing to follow up on your question about the above moderate, when the Main Street Neighborhood Plan was adopted, the moderate income meant something substantially different almost than it does today. It's still the same income percentages of median, but the change of demographics and the change of incomes has, I mean, you're now talking 120% AMI, which is in the moderate. I mean, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but a family of four could be making $180,000 a year and be still in that moderate category, whereas when the Main Street Neighborhood Plan was adopted, it was probably much closer to $100,000 or something for a family of four. So you're almost getting it by the change in sort of incomes in the city or in the county than just by – because the dollar values have changed significantly. Obviously inflation is a factor, but there's also been just sort of a rise of wages in Alameda.

Yeah. And I'll just like kind of react where I do wonder if there's more of a carrots versus sticks approach here where we could like how do we encourage these kind of housing types versus like mandating it. So that could be something for us to think about as part of this RFQ process. Yeah, did you?

I mean, you could phrase it as either or. Either a variety of housing or these requirements so that they find a solution.

Any other thoughts on this piece? Yes, Board Member Wang.

So I think I'm I can't remember if I've articulated this this thought before but in connection to our conversation with a conversation around inclusionary housing I think something that has occurred to me in connection with the moderate income category you know having you know the Bay Area having gone through a few years of kind of testing this category out is I think that Perhaps the tool of using affordable housing, deed-restricted affordable housing, to serve moderate income, I think, households may be somewhat of a mismatch, which we concluded with rental housing in our last visit to the ordinance. And I think some of that has to do with the fact that you might legislate a certain number tied to a certain household. And in the meantime, the market's changing. So you end up with housing that's legislated to be a particular price point. And it's actually more than what the market is. Or you just have people who are basically competing with the market, because you're at that 100% plus tier, and people who are out there looking, who have the ability more so than your low-income or very low-income households. who have the ability to look at a range of options. It might not be luxury market rate housing. It might not be the fanciest house on the block. But they can make choices. And generally, I think what we're hearing from the market is they're not really in love with doing housing lotteries and extensive, long qualification processes when they could just find an apartment that's like 20 minutes farther away and just put in a deposit and have a house. So we're kind of competing with the real world. We're trying to legislate this outcome. But in the meantime, we're competing with the real world. And it maybe just doesn't work. So I think it's fine for this to sit. in here. I think we again should be open to different proposals and different outcomes. One question I had, so this number up here, the 25%, I think we talked about as part of the inclusionary discussion that it's It basically is not under the purview of the inclusionary ordinance. It's its own thing. You know, the city might be 15%, but this is always going to be 25% as long as we're not renegotiating with Renewed Hope. But to go back to my favorite topic of the citywide in LUFI, which we have not passed, but we are talking about passing in the next year. If the city did have an in lieu fee and we did have market rate housing pushing in lieu funds into a pot, could that pot of money help support reaching 25% within Alameda Point?

Yes, and the reason being, the obligation of the 25% is on the city of Alameda. It's not on, you know, it's not an ordinance that says, hey, Mr. Developer or Mrs. Developer, if you want to build 100 units, 15% have to be inclusionary. This is an obligation that the city of Alameda will ensure that 25% of the units ultimately to Alameda Point. So I think the short answer to your question is yes. If the in lieu fees collected could be used at Alameda Point.

All right, so put another way, an in lieu fee, if we were to pass it, you know, we might not just be talking about an in lieu fee helping to support feasibility of projects citywide. Having an in lieu fee as, you know, feeding into a citywide fund might actually support feasibility in Alameda Point as well. Good. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no other comments, I do feel like I have maybe a contrasting opinion on this item where I do believe pretty strongly that flexibility is key, including on this component. time and again that the 25% alone is very challenging and I think imposing an additional 10% is a laudable goal and I do appreciate that very much for my fellow board members and I do wonder like how we could tackle those housing types in different ways through incentives through like I said, carrots versus sticks. So for me, you know, I would recommend that, and it may be just a different approach than my fellow board members, so, yeah.

I agree with that, by the way. I'm not sure if that came off clearly.

Oh, okay. All right, sorry. You said, like, to keep it as is, and I was like, no.

No, what I meant was, you know, I think that we should revisit that.

OK. Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I think the flexibility, I mean, the fact that we just adopted a lower percentage. I know legally we may not have the flexibility, but to really think about ways do we want to maintain the same level, I mean, it seems now is a really big distance, but at the same time also, you know, we got the housing element, the regional problem of we don't have enough very low, low-income housing units is when we reduce the inclusion requirements, you know, how do we address the acute need for very low and low-income housing in Alameda and the rest of the Bay Area, you know? So I'm kind of torn both ways. But at the same time, realistically, if you want to see development happen, 25% is pretty hefty. And then you throw on top of all the other infrastructure and having to pay the Navy, which should be renegotiated, but all that other stuff. Jeez, how are you going to get development out here? But affordable housing is just one piece of the puzzle.

and then with our updated inclusion i would say we didn't necessarily lower it like we gave options like there's like a dialing option where we could go yeah but yeah yeah yeah but i know you mean but just for the record um okay great i think we um talked this item through so is there any other questions that you or feedback you wanted from us

Just a quick question and then talking about next steps. Is there anything else that we didn't discuss today that you would like for us to kind of consider? Excellent. In terms of next steps, we did get feedback from the Historical Advisory Board. We are going to write up your comments, and there's going to be some community feedback, and then going to the council. Then we'll pull all of that together, in addition to staff's priorities, because we're going to have to shepherd this process through. And then we'll kind of bring that back in some form so we can say, hey, We've got some conflicting things, or this is not clear, or here's this wonderful thing we all created together in terms of priorities and trade-offs and incentives, and then this is what we want to get everybody to nod on. And then we'll then work with our feasibility team to say, OK, based upon what we've come up with in terms of our priorities, do we need to revisit anything in the feasibility framework that we already did? And if the answer to that is no, then we will go to the council, kind of share that information in terms of the priorities, and then the results of the feasibility analysis, and then seek council's approval or direction about whether we move forward with an RFQ.

Great. Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, this was fantastic. And I think we gave you some good direction. I feel like the takeaway here is how to create the conditions for success in this community and really make it more of a community. So yeah, excited to see how this moves forward and how we can be supportive. I also appreciate my fellow board members bringing up the process component. Like I heard of like developers competition for the first time in Vienna. I'm like, oh, we do that, I guess, already. So this is very exciting. So just thank you so much for bringing this to us.

Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your feedback. Yeah, thank you.

That was very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So with that, we're closing agenda item 5A and moving on to staff communications, 6A and 6B.

There were no recent actions. Oh wait, I'm sorry. There were some recent actions on your work. The council approved the second reading of the inclusionary housing ordinance amendments last week, or June. Anyway, very recently. So that's happened. You know, there's a 30-day statute on that decision, but that is going forward. You approved the Alameda Marina adjustment. That is going to city council on June 16th. So, and... the most recent conversations with Alameda Marina are that if they get a thumbs up from council on the amendment, they hope to be, I mean, they're looking July building permit. Like they have a window and they are, I can... Guarantee you they are working very hard to get to that window because they keep pushing us like you're gonna get us to council, right? So We're optimistic that that's gonna go well Anything else Oh upcoming meetings is that what's next? Yeah, um a little out of practice your next meeting is going to be June 22nd and We will be bringing the draft ordinance for the accessory dwelling unit ordinance amendments. I think you've had a workshop with Tristan Swire on that. He has drafted the amendments. So they will be back to you on June 22nd, and you will be in a position to make a recommendation to council at that point if you're ready and satisfied with that. and based on what you hear at the public hearing. So that's moving forward. We will also have a study session on a proposal from the Oakland Roots soccer team. They would like to make some improvements out at the old Raiders facility where they currently train to be able to have their actual games out there. So this is something they're pursuing. It's not their long-term home, but they are looking for a temporary home for the next three, they think it's only three years, but it may be closer to four or five, depending on how fast they can get a permanent stadium built in Oakland. So anyway, that's an interesting project out at the old, over there by the airport. And then that is your last meeting, because right now there is nothing scheduled, of course, in August. Wait, July. No, we don't have anything yet. What do we have, Brian? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, July 13th. Sorry, I'm way out of practice here. The first draft of the short-term rental ordinance is Steve Buckley is working on that. He hopes to have a first draft of that. We're one of the last cities in the Bay Area to sort of deal with the short-term rental issue. So that's coming to you. And we may also have the first draft or sort of a workshop on another set of zoning amendments that we've been working on with the base reuse team is, or the economic development team, commercial zoning. So there's been an effort to look at the commercial zoning for Park Street and Webster Street and really asking our question, is there anything in our zoning that is really kind of an unnecessary regulation that is causing sort of unnecessary obstacles for Essentially new businesses coming to fill vacancies on Park Street and Webster Street. And so we've got some suggestions of things that we might want to loosen up to try to reduce the amount of process and time, money, and risk that a new business needs to kind of go through before they can know whether they can open or not. So we hope to have that ready. That will not be a final decision. Here's our first draft. You'll be hearing from the business community about that first draft. So it should be an interesting conversation. Then we have nothing planned yet for July 27th necessarily, but if we are ready, we'll come back with the community zoning two weeks later, or the commercial zoning. But right now that July 27th meeting is light. We're also not sure if all of you will be here on July 27th. We know that often conflicts with summer vacation plans. Yeah. Okay. And that's all we've got.

Great. Well, thank you. All right, Brian.

Thank you.

Busy summer. Thank you so much. And, yeah, if fellow board members are on vacation, as long as we let staff know ahead of time, that is perfectly fine. So, great. Any public comments on agenda item six? No? Great. Board communications? Anything from my fellow board members? Seeing none. Oh, yes.

Welcome back, Andrew. Full circle moment for you to be here. Almost my last meeting, so it's great to see you. That's all the board communication I had.

It's been fun sitting here after two and a half years. You guys are just as good as you were before. In fact, a little bit better, I would say.

When is your last meeting?

The next one.

The next one. OK. All right. Noted. Great. And you're just filling in, right?

I'm just filling in until you get a new permanent planning director with Abby Thorne Lyman.

The two of us are tag teaming it. Also very wonderful to work with. OK. All right. Thank you for that. Closing agenda item seven. Anyone in the public may speak on an item that wasn't on tonight's meeting agenda for three minutes. Do we have any speakers? Okay, seeing that, we are at 9.14 and we are adjourned.