Board of Supervisors Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Transportation Planning Committee. This is Monday, August 3rd. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish our quorum?

Supervisor Miley? Supervisor Howell?

Present. Thank you very much. I recognize and welcome and thank members of the public who are both in the room and online. Your participation in the public process is appreciated. And if you would like to speak to an item, please fill out a speaker card. If you are participating online, you may do so as well through Zoom. Supervisor Miley, we have two items. I'd like to take the second one. Well, we have three public comment, two informational items here. like to take the second one first because we have members of the public in the audience i've asked staff if that would be okay with them and they said yes would that be agreeable to you all right thank you very much seeing that we'll proceed with the second item item number two an informational item the tri-valley multi-use event center land transfer and i'll just say i don't know if we have any staff words to say before we get into it i have met with this organization on numerous occasions i'm excited to see their presentation today to put it on the record i'll welcome the applicants to make a presentation which i think we also have paper copies of their powerpoint slides but now would be the time for the um I said applicant, but you're not really applying for anything, but you're the presenters, today's presenters to come up and make your presentation. After which we'll have public comment and deliberation by our board members.

Good morning, supervisors. Oh, I can stand back a little further from this. My name is Tracy Farhad, and I'm the president and CEO of Visit Tri-Valley. And with me today for our presentation is Dan Fenton with JLL Hospitality Advisors. He's the managing director. And then I also have in the audience with me our VP of sales and sports. That's Todd Dibbs. Our board member, Mr. Bill Wheeler. And then I know we have a few folks watching online. We're very excited to be able to present this to you today. And we have a few asks. But let me just introduce and bring up to the podium, Mr. Dan Fenton.

Thank you. Thanks, Tracy. Thank you, supervisors, for the opportunity. We wanted to take a moment today to do two things. One, just a couple of minutes on a little background related to the project, related to this multi-use venue. And I know we've had the opportunity with both supervisors to have some time to brief you as to where we are in the process. But let's go to our first slide here. Just to do a, make sure I'm clicking the right, of course. It's always nice if you click the right arrow. There we go. So just a quick reminder here, and again, a lot of us know this, but sort of the history of how this venue really came to life and how we began the discussions. This came out of a year-long process of really looking at where there were opportunities in our region to take advantage of demand that we were seeing as part of the process that we went through as part of our strategic planning process. And if you notice, there were three areas that surfaced in that process where we saw opportunity. The first one on the left, and this is an important one. Sometimes we don't spend enough time here. But if you look at the one on the left, we have talked to tournament organizers, both youth and amateur tournament organizers, across a myriad of different indoor sports and gotten a huge sense from them. of the interest in a venue like this that can provide the type of flexibility and and if you will breadth that you see here in terms of its size this sizing is specifically tied to what those organizers need to be able to put on the regional tournaments that really will make a big part of the impact that you're going to see on the next slide related to the venue but One of the things we thought was important in the visioning here was to make sure that this venue had multi-use capabilities. So in doing so, we also took a look at the entertainment landscape. And if you look at the middle column here, this venue is designed so it can also convert into a competitive entertainment and performing arts venue that can seat somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 attendees. We have met with members of the, if you will, broader entertainment community about that size of venue and got a lot of strong feedback about the need for this size venue in our region. Again, the kind of quality that we're talking about, we're going to actually show you at the end a couple of renderings, current renderings. And on the right, we spent time talking to the corporate community in the valley. met with a lot of companies that all of us know, met with a lot of people within those companies that bring meetings, that bring things to our area. And again, a lot of interest in the ability of this venue to be able to also accommodate their needs. So the reason why we show you these three quadrants or these three pieces is these are the areas of focus that the initial design and visioning around the venue is designed to deliver. And one of the things that's important in the multi-use space is to make sure we can do each one of these with quality. so that they can essentially compete in each one of these spaces with the particular users that would be there. So this is a big part of how what has driven the financial pro forma, which you'll see in the staff memo, we've talked a lot about that pro forma, that we feel is positive. One of the other features that is important in any kind of public assembly venue is to try to create a pro forma where we are confident that the venue will not need ongoing subsidy as you sometimes hear about when it comes to public assembly venues. So part of the goal with the multi-use aspect and part of what you'll see in the staff memo is a breakdown of the pro forma that shows the fact that we believe this will always be a very positive financial performing venue for the region. If you go to the next slide, definitely operator error here. So, okay. If, oops, see, go back one. If you go to the next slide, a couple of things that are, did I just do that? Is that me? One more back. Yeah. Sorry. One more back. Hold on. Other way. One more back. Sorry about this. What you're gonna see in a second here, it's also when you're in the handout, we also looked at the economic impact of the venue. And there's a couple of key stats that you'll see here that we think are important when it comes to the economic impact. One is the incremental overnight stays that will be generated from this venue. This is an important piece because the nature of a venue like this and the kind of work that we've done with the tournament organizers and other decision makers really has demonstrated that there are roughly 60,000 incremental hotel rooms or hotel room night stays on an annual basis that would be generated because of this venue. One of the things that's important about that statistic is these are new to the region. So these are overnight stays that couldn't occur today because essentially we don't have a facility that can house the types of events that we're talking about. The second one you'll see here is the number of annual attendees. So about 320,000 attendees over the course of a year, based on our projections, will basically utilize, enjoy the venue. Remember the three uses that we talked about, whether it's youth sports tournaments, entertainment, or corporate meetings. Those are kind of what make up the 318,000 plus. The other piece is job creation. So if you look at the right-hand side, obviously there's a lot of jobs that are created in the construction phase, but this is also ongoing permanent jobs that are created because of the the size of the venue, the nature of the operation. And then if you look at the upper left-hand quadrant here, this sort of compares, takes all of that and says how much annual economic impact. And the way we define economic impact is direct spending. So this is how many dollars those 318,500 attendees will put into our economy, whether it's through retail, dining, other activities that they will do. So this is a key snapshot of the incremental value of what the venue will do. The reason why this slide is also important is because it speaks to part of the financing structure. of this that you'll see in the staff memo about how we have sort of proposed the approach to funding the venue. And part of it has to do with its impact, not only in direct spending, but also its impact on property value. So we believe that if you are a landowner in close proximity of this venue, you will be positively impacted by the venue being in place. The second thing it speaks to is the businesses that are also, if you will, in close proximity or in a certain proximity of the venue. We also believe that those businesses will be positively impacted. And you'll see in the staff memo that we are beginning a process of reaching out. to those businesses to talk about engagement. And we'll get to this in a second in terms of the financing plan. So this data is not only important just for purposes of information, but to really see how it's going to impact not only our economy, but some of the key business partners and community partners that will be part of, or if you will, will be part of the success of the venue. If you go to the next slide. Okay, so if you look at this, the question is, we did a very thorough, if you will, work in the region around looking at different sites. So we looked at several sites in the area and really came to the site that you see here as being the one that we think, based on both transportation, location, even walkability in terms of things that are around the site or are proposed to be around the site, is how we determined that the site on Martinelli Way slash Arnold Road in Dublin was really the, if you will, the preferred site. And I think both supervisors, you know this, and the staff know that that actually is currently under, if you will, surplus land authority is the current ownership of the site. And you will see in a second what some of the requests or one of the requests that we are making today in terms of being able to continue to move our process forward. can also see that currently we are here today to talk about what we think are some innovative thinking around how to engage the site in the project which we'll get to in a second and also just wanted you to know that this is the site this is the area that we're focused on and we'll go ahead and go to the next slide so today if you if you look at the staff memo there are basically five different specific areas that we want to discuss today and talk about happy to of course get feedback both supervisors in terms of questions but the first one has to do with the land acquisition process and we have talked through a lot of potential models as it relates to how the land could be secured we use the word secured in quotes for purposes of developing the venue And we've come upon an approach of proposing through a lot of input from a lot of especially a lot of the leadership at the county level of having a 99 year ground lease as a way to secure the land for purposes of developing the venue. And if you think about both private or public involvement, we think 99 years is the right length. So as we think about final financing approaches, that's going to give us the ability with both private and public investors, if you will, in this to really have enough span of time for this to work. We also think if you look at the staff memo, one of the things it does is it also essentially is a part of how the county invests, if you will, in this project, because the land has value. And so when we think about the final financing plan and having this 99 year ground lease, we think it gives us a efficient way to secure the land, also recognizing a roughly 20 plus million dollar value of county investment in the project. So this is one of the requests we're making today is really having the committee give us the guidance to continue the process of investigating this with their support of this just conceptually while we get into some of the details that are going to be needed in terms of moving this through the actual surplus land acts and other things that are going to be needed. So that's one key piece of today in terms of what we are asking for. The second piece is as you go through this process, there are steps along the way where you need to end up with funding to try to do some additional due diligence that will bring some key answers to the table. So we're making a request for $350,000 in reimbursable seed capital. So the reason why reimbursable is important is any of the funding that goes into the project today will be reimbursed out of the proceeds of the final financing plan. But a couple of key things, and you're gonna see this in a second in the staff memo details this, what we're trying to accomplish with the $350,000 is a couple of things. One, digging into the site deeper from a civil perspective and from a viability standpoint, right? We also believe that there may be opportunities on the site with some additional design work to think about more than just the venue as an asset on the site. So the potential to actually have the ability for even some private development on the site based on being able to work together on parking and a couple of other opportunities. So we really have asked for these dollars to be able to do some additional work validating the site, validating what's possible, really making sure that there aren't any other sort of civil issues on the site are part of what we're talking about. Obviously, what we would do is report back. to this committee and other key stakeholders about the findings that have come from that as it relates to continuing to move the process forward. But we think this is a critical junction. The other big piece of the 350,000 is we have order of magnitude costs right now for the development. This will give us some funding to work with some of our design partners on really getting into the cost even further. So we will have another round of understanding what are the development costs of the project. That has been a key point of discussion over the course of the last year of working through this. So that's the second area of request. The third area is one of the financing mechanisms that we have proposed and worked with others on is the development of a tax increment financing district, and specifically looking at that increment that would be delivered from the project. So the purpose of the project coming in is how it increases land value and then being able to partner with the county on the portion of that increment that the county would receive as part of our financing plan. It is important to note that this is still a shared piece here. So there still is revenue that would go to the county outside of what we were proposing. But we are proposing a share of the proceeds, if you will, or the increment that would be generated from the district to be supported by the county. So that is the third area of request today. And if you go to the next slide. The fourth area is we have done a lot of work conferred with a lot of people on what's the right governance, and I really should say ownership model as it relates to the venue. And one of the things that we have come upon is the ability to develop a JPA. And so the request today is to give us guidance to continue to look at the county being a participant in that JPA. One of the things I think is important here, because I know a lot of us have had experiences in JPAs, is we are doing a lot of research on how do you mitigate, if you will, kind of risk when it comes to participation. One of the things we've talked about are things like very significant reserve strategies, ways to really create opportunities for collateralization that also mitigates risk to participants. So when we think about JPAs and we think about other JPAs that have occurred in our county, You know, I think we've all learned from some of those. And so how do we create this in a way where it creates the autonomy that we want and the nimbleness that we want from an ownership perspective, but also works very closely with members in terms of their roles in the JPA and how we can make sure that membership is also supported by ways to, again, I'm going to use the term mitigate risk as part of participation. In the staff memo, you'll see a little bit more detail here. We do not yet have finalization on who all the members would be. What we're asking for today from the county perspective is essentially to say continue on this process and based on a suitable outcome, the county's interest in being a member of the JPA. The next area that we want to bring up today and get hopefully some guidance on and some positive, if you will, requests from the county here is if you look at the finance outline that is in the staff memo, you'll see one of the lines in that is a essentially new or enhanced tourism improvement district. And one of the unique features of what we are proposing is a tourism improvement district that is more than just hotels. So it also includes the retail industry and other sort of related industries in this. So really what we are asking for today is support for this conceptually so that we can go out and spend time confirming the interests of our regional business community in their participation.

This is a important part of the overall financing plan.

The good news here is there are other examples in the state where this expansion of tourism improvement districts beyond hotels have gone on. And so there's precedent here as well as we think there's an ability to assess and understand the interest of the business community within our region. And the last one really is just, and I just want to publicly, you know, Supervisor Haber, I want to publicly actually thank both of you because we've had a chance to talk to both of you. And it's just to really ask for that ongoing support and the ongoing interest in a project like this has a lot of complexities to it. You know, it is obviously a public-private significant project for the region. And the continued support to keep the due diligence process moving if you will, because you can see that we are still at a relatively early stage. We think we have some important things that have been, if you will, developed in terms of how to ultimately, if you will, finance the project and sort of continue its movement. But we still have a lot to do in terms of gaining collaborative support and making sure that we have a strong coalition. And we just want to continue to publicly thank the county for really helping us think this through. So let me just go to a couple other points here and then we'll stop and ask for questions. We'll go to the next slide here. Well, just a couple of things. We'll just do this quickly. These are just examples of other tourism business improvement districts that have expanded beyond hotels. So we'll go to the next slide. And then we'll go one more, I think, here. Yeah, one more. OK, we just wanted to remind you of this. And remember that at this stage, it's interesting. We talk about improving our development costs. This is at this point really an image. And this image was generated from people in our early stages that said to us, if we're going to develop something, let's do something where we as a community can be proud. whatever the outcome is architecturally and sort of whatever the look and feel is. So not necessarily get caught up in this exact design, but the reason we are asking for the additional funding is to take this imaging and go further with, again, the true costs of development. What are the implications? of this kind of architecture on a venue like this. So this really will get us further along in terms of thinking of what the final venue may look like or feel like and what those sort of options are together. And if you go to the next slide, what you can see here is this is a depiction of the multi-use piece. So you can see in this rendering when we ask our partners to help us with visualization, you can see with each one of these that the goal is quality. so that we can deliver, if you look at the left-hand side, that we can deliver for the youth sports world in a quality way. If you look at the upper right-hand side, that's a corporate general session, if you will. So again, if you look at that, you can see that that interior design and all of that's critical to be able to deliver for that audience. And then if you look at the lower right, that's a performance, that's the building converted into a performance venue. And we would, as part of continuing through with each one of these with designers, continue to refine each one of those experiences so we know they can compete in terms of who the decision makers are in those areas. So I'll stop there. Again, just want to publicly thank everybody who has been involved to get us this far. And there's a lot of people that everybody here knows that has been part of giving us input to get to here. And we continue to look forward to working with everyone that is really part of the greater, if you want to call it a consortium, both public and private entities that will ultimately be involved in this and have been involved with us so far. So supervisors, I'll stop there and answer questions. Thank you.

What I'll do is I'll ask if there's any public comment, any members of the public, either in person or online. We'll take public comment, and then we'll ask questions of our staff and maybe even invite you back up for questions and answers. But the clerk will now call any members of the public, either in person or online, who would like to weigh in.

Bill Whelan.

Welcome. Good morning, Chair and members of the Transportation and Planning Committee. My name is Bill Wheeler, founder and CEO of Black Tie Transportation, located in Pleasanton. For 40 years, we have provided professional transportation for corporations, governments, schools, and major events across the Bay Area. We employ 60 people down from 110 before COVID with nearly 10 million in annual sales. Event and group travel are essential to our recovery and for the regional visitor economy. I am here today to speak as a board member of Visit Tri-Valley. I also serve as Pleasanton Chamber Board and chair its Economic Development and Government Affairs Committee. I sit on the Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association and Alameda County Fair Association and Foundation Boards. I have spent my career advancing regional economic development. This is not a theoretical situation. I see it working today. Today, in all of this week, Black Tie is transporting the international little league teams from SFO to Tri-Valley hotels, games, and restaurants. Evening events, while their families add room nights and local spending. The good guys' car and event visitors create the same ripple effect. hotel restaurants, transportation providers, employees in cities and taxpayers all benefit. Since 2018 and even through the pandemic, the Tri-Valley has attracted more than 133,000 sports and entertainment attendees. Over 41,000 hotel room nights without the centralized facility. Yet we lose an estimated 40% of high impact events we cannot accommodate. A multi-use center lets us expand this proven model regionally, projected at more than 120 million annually and 500 jobs. Just as important, the county's risk is limited. The county retains land through the 99 year lease. The $350,000 in pre-development funding is reimbursable and with the first bond issuance. The JPA protects agency general funds while ongoing support comes from visitor revenue, TIF and TID operations and naming rights. Not a new resident tax or ongoing general fund subsidy. Timing matters. Tournament organizers book two or three years ahead. Every delay risks another booking cycle and millions in regional spending. Moving now keeps the opportunity within reach. Visit Tri-Valley has proven again and again.

Have we received, if you could wrap up, we received, rather exceeded our time allowed for speakers to wrap up.

To lead the regional strategy while an experienced professional operator manages the facility. And now it knows how to turn events into room nights and regional spending. On behalf of Black Tie, our employees, our clients, and your constituents and Visit Tri-Valley, we support Visit Tri-Valley Multi-Use Center. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker.

Caller, you're on the line. You have two minutes. Unmute your microphone. Caller, you're on the line. You have two minutes. Joe?

Yes, thank you. Do you hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you very much. Joe Calabrigo interim city manager city of Pleasanton, thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee this morning. Just now had an opportunity to to read the memo and wanted to comment just briefly because, as we move forward with this thing. with this project, there seems to be an increasing focus on Dublin and Pleasanton in particular. The proposed JPA includes the use of tax increment financing, which if I'm reading it correctly, potentially would capture about $1.6 million a year from the city of Pleasanton as part of the financing. You may be aware that the city is currently operating at a structural budget deficit. And so at this point, financing for a $365 million events center that would be operated by a private entity is not something that is a priority for the city. Our city council has never had an opportunity to discuss or support or endorse this plan. So I just wanted to weigh in, let you know that the city is currently focused on a TOT increase that will be on the ballot here in November to help address the structural deficit that we're currently dealing with. That's where the focus is. And we will continue to follow this project, this effort, as it continues to move forward.

Caller, you're on the line. You have two minutes, Kelly.

Good morning. President and members of the board, my name is Kelly, and I'm not a resident of the Tri-Valley, but I am a resident of Alameda County, and I want to, and though I live outside the Tri-Valley, I'm concerned as a taxpayer out here. about the general county revenue contribution or tax contribution. The County General Fund could be asked to pay into this. And also just as a quick aside, I'd like to thank the taxpayers of Dublin and Pleasanton for their generous contribution of a total of combined $3 million a year taken out of their city funds and put into this project. Also, on the capital cost of this, this is a very high-end facility. If you look at the capital cost of other projects, $300 million or $360 million is just a really luxurious facility. You're going to have the very finest, the very finest of concert hall amenities and quality acoustics, everything. And the county is being asked to give up $20 million worth of real estate. put that in for 100 years, and a lot of the money might be coming from a $10 million a year diversion from the county general fund in the form of that tax increment finance district. That looks like something that the Board of Supervisors and taxpayers of Alameda County should be looking at very carefully. So I'm also concerned about how this treats Danville. The packet names Danville as a jurisdiction that's going to be paying in taxes, but is not getting full representation on the political joint powers authority. So, yeah. And, you know, also, you might think about giving everybody equal time. Thank you.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have two minutes. Yay. I like special events. Very special. And I like special events. And I think this event is fun. Yay. I'm a dad. Yay. We need more special events. People in Dublin and Pleasanton can eat my poopy. And this is the gift box to win from Howard Stern's asphalt. Yay!

Caller, you're on the line. You have two minutes. Jim?

Yeah, hi. My name is Jim McDonald. I own two restaurants in Pleasanton. I'm an employee just slightly under 50 people. I'm a former board member of Visit Tri-Valley and served for a number of years as Board Chair, it can certainly attest to the quality of the organization. You have Tracy and Todd there in the room with you, but just outstanding work. I think if any organization can get this done, this is the one that can do it. I'm really excited about the multi-use aspect of this. The fact that we can support youth sports events, entertainment and corporate events, I think is amazing and will bring in a broad range of people to the region and extra spend. And certainly I expect as a small business owner to benefit from that. and have people coming to visit my restaurants. I think many other small businesses will similarly benefit. So I think this would be an amazing asset to the region, but also be a big economic benefit to small business owners like myself. So thank you for the time and appreciate your support of this initiative. So thank you.

We have no additional speakers for item two.

Thank you very much. I would like to, I think staff is looking for direction on this presentation and the request of staff is to refer this to the surplus authority ad hoc committee for deeper consideration. Is that right?

Correct. Sandy Rivera, Community Development Agency Director. There's a number of things. I appreciate the presentation, the vision that these folks have, but there's a lot of information that they provided with regard to taxing increment. It involves surplus property lands as well as the JPA. So there's a number of things that we need to review, and we'd like to spend the staff time and then bring it to the surplus property ad hoc itself.

So process would be staff would work with the presenters to understand more deeply and to verify and validate the items presented today to digest and absorb that, understand it, and then present it to the ad hoc committee.

True, but we also have to have discussions with council, with our other county departments to evaluate what they're presenting here.

Sure. And would you then also talk with, we had, for example, the interim city manager of Pleasant. Would you talk with other agencies like the city of Pleasanton and the city of Dublin and the other entities involved?

I don't know that we'd get that far yet, but we tend to do that in our network. But as it relates to the impact on the county is what we would initially start with.

Okay. I guess it's a project that includes all of us. So to the extent you come to the ad hoc committee, it would, you would have our skin in the game, so to speak, our, but also our I would hope you would validate the entire project so we can understand it. And then from that standpoint, the surplus lands ad hoc committee could then refer it to the full board for further discussion and or approval.

To the surplus property authority, which is the full board.

to the surplus property authority, which is the full board. Would that then have to go to the full board, I guess? Layers of layers of presentations. We'll figure that out.

Oh, in terms of what were the next steps, right? Depending upon what the outcomes are of those meetings.

Sure. Everything dependent on the outcome of the meetings at each step along the way. Understand. Well, and then just so I'm clear, it comes to us to give that direction. Thus far, you've had somewhat limited discussion with the presenters?

Correct.

Okay. Some, but not enough to know everything?

Exactly.

Okay. No, I get that. Well, my feedback today, I think, is going to be very consistent with feedback that I've given along the way, which is this is a very exciting project. It is certainly very ambitious. It's worthy of continued discussion, in my opinion. And I say that because I have some questions of staff that I would want to make sure are included in the analysis of this. Because on its surface, some might say you're asking for a bunch of money or value from the county. The land is worth a lot. We don't give up the land, but we give it up for 99 years. The land has been sitting there for at least 30 years, vacant, not generating much of anything. If we did this 30 years ago, we would already be done with the tax increment. Taxes are something, an increment is something that only happens if you generate something. You're not taking away from the general fund, nothing of which you haven't added yet. to the general fund. We've had zero for so many years. For the next 30 years, we could have something that we then make money on in the future after that, because the TID, I think, only lasts for 30 years. So the questions that I have are, and I lived through some of this as mayor of Dublin, but Supervisor Motley, you lived through a lot longer of it. Alameda County has been able to monetize acres and acres and acres of former Camp Parks facility. I don't know how many that is. We've been able to generate millions and millions of dollars, which is now in an Emerald Fund, I think it's 300 and some millions of dollars. I would like to understand that. The funding that comes off of the Emerald Fund generated through partnership of the city of Dublin, goes to create a positive bond rating for the county, reducing our costs of bonding for many other projects The interest from the Emerald Fund funds capital projects in the county. I think at least one of which is the entire debt service of our juvenile hall facility located in San Leandro. And so I would like to understand the requests that were being made of in the totality of the entire partnership over the last 30, 40 years with the city of Dublin, order of magnitude so I'd like to really understand how that has evolved over the years and just how much of a order of magnitude this request is out of that because I think the city of Dublin has been a very good partner allowing for units of housing affordable units of housing sale of surplus lands how many millions millions of dollars of interest to fund other projects. And to me, this could be a good way to give back, to give back something that we don't give back, rather we allow to happen. That said, I am also, I have questions about our involvement. Everyone knows we are getting out of the sports business. We're trying desperately to get out of the professional sports business. the professional sports business where we lease a sports facility, losing millions of dollars every year, millions of dollars every year, dealing with professional sports organizations and sometimes being sued by one another, getting into a lot of different things. This cannot be a repeat of that. And I don't see that it is, but I compare this somewhat to what we've done in other parts of the county on a much smaller basis with much less, I'm hoping we need to validate that. We can't get into a repeat of a mistake. We're not getting back into the professional sports business with this, but we will, we could perhaps participate with a long-term lease and some guidance as a member of a JPA, possibly. And then I'll end with the caller. Very important. Have to get everybody. This plan has a lot of pieces. It's got to work for everyone. And so this is by no means a we're going to do this approval. I can only be one board member, but I am cautiously optimistic as I have been all along. This can be a good thing for the Tri-Valley. It can be a good thing for the region and it can be a good thing for Alameda County. So that's my thoughts on it. And I'd be interested to see what our staff says. And so I'm supportive of referring this to the staff to work on but then for them to bring back to the surplus authority ad hoc subcommittee which would then have to go to the surplus authority full board which is our board so we're still at the beginning we're not at the beginning but we're at we're past the embryonic stage i would say but we're not um we're not fully baked there so that's my thoughts supervisor miley you have um been through these kinds of partnerships and lived through, you had Dublin in your district for many years. You lived through the Emerald Fund and the surplus land history. So I'd love your, I can only give you my thoughts. I'd love your thoughts.

Before I say anything, does staff have any reaction to anything you've heard thus far?

There has been other activity with our ad hoc surplus property authority with regard to property D2. And Eileen Dalton can refresh some supervisor's memory on what the next steps were that we were going to take with regard to D2. And then we have to hear also have some guidance from your committee as it relates to that prior direction from surplus property authority ad hoc committee.

So before I make any comments for staff.

Sure. Happy to address the Surplus Lands Act. The terms get confused. So just a reminder, the property is owned by the county's surplus property authority. And it's a 12 acre site that was previously under contract for a hotel for about half the site. And that project didn't go forward. Previously, the half of the parcel was cleared from the state's Surplus Lands Act. So any property that the county or public agency owns has to be cleared through this process where the obligation is to put it forth. If it's surplus property, you put it forth to be available to potentially affordable housing developers. You're obligated to negotiate in good faith. You're not obligated to sell, but you have to go through the process. And the recommendation that I made that I'm moving forward with, unless I hear otherwise, is to bring an item on the September 15th Board of Supervisors sitting as the surplus property authority, a recommendation to declare that remainder part of D2 as surplus. I would then send out a notice, receive comments back. and engage in negotiation potentially and then come back to the board to discuss the results of that. So I just want to let you know that was the direction that we decided to pursue because it's everything else that we own has been cleared from the Surplus Lands Act except for that seven acre piece of D2. So it's a little complicated because it's half the parcel the recommendation in the memo was to declare the property exempt from the surplus land act potentially and what we're proposing is to just declare it surplus and clear it so that we have the full range of options as the owner when we're done so we have one little step have we ever declared exempt have we ever requested exemption We have four properties where we are pursuing an affordable housing development. So the Broadway properties. We have properties where we haven't. The Lorenzo Theater, we just declared surplus.

What is the process for that? We just request exemption? Does the state have to grant it?

There's a state process where it's a very prescribed process. Everyone has to follow. We have a notification period. We have to mail out notices. It's posted. We get the results and then it's certified by this state and put on a list. And we've done that.

Is there a downside to requesting exemption and seeing what that yields? If nobody has a problem with it, we could just be exempt? Or why not? What would be the downside of just going through that? Timing?

Well, I can let our county council maybe address the differences, but in my mind, if we declare the property surplus and we go through the process, then we're clear to do really anything we want to do. We would be obligated to negotiate with affordable housing developers should they show interest, but they would have to pay fair market value. We're not offering it for no cost.

I could just, if you recall, If we don't go through the process, we could end up in someone suing us like they did relative to the transfer of our rights with the Coliseum way partners.

So just to clarify, if we go through the process of requesting exemption and we receive exemption, would we then be subject to legal liabilities down the road?

Supervisor, the initial step that has to be taken is a determination by your board of what declaration you're going to make. You either declare the property as surplus, and that initiates one process, or you declare it as surplus exempt, and that it has a different path that you go forward with state HCD, who makes the final determination of whether or not your declaration is acceptable and whether you've complied with other processes. For the surplus exempt, there has to be a public use at the end of the day. So you have to be mindful, and as I'm hearing this request, it's asking for a private partnership. And so whether it would qualify as something we would have to evaluate.

Yeah, I guess I would like staff's thoughts on that. So I would like to understand that before it comes to us as a board. And maybe there's a way in which they're planning to structure, not understanding how that would impact the surplus lands exemption that maybe they would wanna consider a different way to structure so that it allows us to comply with an exemption application. I guess it's six of one, half dozen of the other. They seem like very similar processes. State HCD is involved. We have to, in one sense, solicit bidders, but I see the benefit for us. The benefit for us is using this occasion to have the property surplus and then give us options. Is that right? That's what I'm hearing. Okay. Okay.

I think it gives us the most options because then we're clear of having to do any kind of negotiation with any other public or affordable housing partner. Okay.

If you choose surplus exempt, your options are not as... open and available to you as they are with a regular surplus property approach. And just to clarify, there are a lot of steps to be involved here, starting with the fact that the county does not own the real property. Technically, the surplus property authority is a separate legal entity with its own statutory rules that govern how it uses the property. And then your Emerald Fund has separate rules about how you expend or handle any revenues that they generate. So a lot of steps of, are you moving that property? Is the county going to acquire the property from the SBA? What is that approach going to be? Is the county going to set up a separate JPA? How is that going to be handled? A lot of questions. The first question I have is, is this request coming from Visit Tri-Valley? And what is JLL's relationship to the project? Are they contracted for by Visit Tri-Valley? What is their role altogether? Who are we communicating with? Who are we working with in this project? Who is staff to be discussing?

Okay. I guess we can either ask them to answer that or we could direct staff to figure that out before it comes to the surplus property.

Supervisor Marley, can you get that out on the floor? I do think it's probably... more cautious path to get a surplus because clearly if we don't get a surplus and we go the exemption route, we could go down that route and then it being a challenge legally. somewhere down the road and have a complicate things and make the process even more lengthier. So just my two cents worth. Yeah, I'm neutral on all of this. I do think it's appropriate that it be explored. I'm curious why I came to this committee and didn't go to the surplus property authority to begin with, you know, the JPA committee, because there's a lot here. I mean, there's recommendations. Just seems to be just seems it is. And this is a real estate deal or development deal.

So it is a real estate deal for the surplus property authority. It is not a real estate deal for the county because we do not own the property.

So it's a real estate deal in the surplus property committee. That's not a public committee. right? Yes. Okay. So you'll do your due diligence, your analysis, then you'll come to the committee so we can discuss this kind of confidentially.

Yes. Okay.

Because he has just a lot of questions here. I don't even want to get into the multitude of questions, but I just kind of wanted to get a sense of the process going forward.

So, Supervisor, let me clarify that last comment. It would potentially qualify for a real estate closed session for the Board of Supervisors if you were going to acquire the property as a real estate transaction from the SPA. That is the only instance when it would qualify.

I'm just saying, the Ad Hoc Committee is Supervisor Halbert, myself, County Administrator, right? Okay.

Okay.

Supervisor, thanks for your comments. Staff, anything left on this? With that said, I'll thank the presenters. We'll have staff get in touch with you and bring it to the ad hoc committee at some point in the near future. With that, we will proceed to the first item on our agenda, going back up to item one, an informational item, a regional housing policy update on transit-oriented communities and the One Bay Area grant. we'll have Aaron Tiedemann from the Housing and Community Development as the Housing Community Development Specialist for presentation. Aaron, welcome.

Thank you, board members. Yes, I'm here to present on the TOC policy from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, as well as the One Bay Area Grant. So to start with some background, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission adopted the resolution implementing the TOC policy, the Transit Oriented Communities Policy, in September of 2022. That policy required compliance by all TOC jurisdictions by early 2026 in order to access OBAG IV funds. And I'm going to discuss in more detail what all of that means as we get deeper into the presentation. But we, HCD staff, presented this policy and a background on it to your board's Transportation and Planning Commission in November of 2024. There have been some significant updates to the policy since then, so we wanted to come back and discuss some of those updates. If we can go to the next slide. The transit-oriented community's policy is really based around the Clan Bay Area, which is MTC's sort of founding document to guide housing, climate, equity, and economic development goals around transit and around the nine-county Bay Area that is aiming to promote active transportation, shared mobility, access to major transit stations, and development in transit-rich areas. as well as build partnerships to create an equitable transit oriented community across the Bay Area. So to have sort of the same standards and encourage the development that we want to see across the nine counties. Next slide. And the TOC policy is centered around a couple key areas. The one we are focusing on today is this first one around affordable housing production, preservation, and protection policies. That is the main one that HCD staff interacts with. The TOC policy also covers a couple different areas that are mostly focused around station access in those transit-rich areas, so parking management, station access and circulation, and then zoning density and intensity requirements around commercial offices near those major transit areas. But again, planning and HCD both work on this policy and HCD's main roles around that housing production, preservation and protection area.

Next slide.

Now, the TOC policy, the Transporting Communities Policy, is centered around the designated TOC areas, and these are ones near really high-quality transit stops. In the unincorporated county, we have two such areas that are centered around our two large high-quality BART stations, the Bayfair and Castro Valley BART stations, and that is really the center of TOC policy. So there are some policies under the TOC program that are focused on circulation and really things in a half mile of those stations. And there are some policies that are more broadly focused around any jurisdiction that has a TOC area or TOC station in it. A lot of the housing policies are sort of more broadly around the jurisdiction and planning that has those areas in it, and those are the ones that we're going to focus on today.

Next slide.

Now, as I mentioned at the top, the One Bay Area Grant is a large part of how TOC was envisioned for implementation. Compliance with TOC policies was intended to be a condition for the award of a certain amount of One Bay Area grant funds. And One Bay Area grant funds, or OBAG funds, really provide for transportation infrastructure funding for jurisdictions across the county. Those funds are further split between two main programs in their awards throughout the nine-county Bay Area. The first being the county program that splits that between county transportation agencies and funds local priority projects. Alameda County has received a significant amount of funding under that county program. There's also the regional program, which implements more large-scale initiatives and services and also provides local grants to to complement the county investments. So that is, you know, larger scale things, connecting transit is often a big use for these funds with transit systems that bridge the gap between several different counties, as well as, you know, putting awards in for individual counties and their projects under that regional program.

Next slide.

And as you can see, One Bay Area grant funds for rounds one through three have provided almost $32 million to fund unincorporated county projects. Those have included street and road improvements and preservation projects, corridor improvements, trail improvements, safe and accessible routes improvements, a variety of transportation infrastructure measures. And in total, OBAC has provided over $215 million to transportation projects countywide since 2012. So that $32 million is just our incorporated sector. There has been a lot more money. that has been directed from OBAG towards all of the jurisdictions in the county. In the next round of OBAG funding, OBAG 4, MTC estimates that Alameda County will receive around 70 million. So we're on track to receive a comparable amount as we have through the previous rounds in the next one.

Next slide.

So one of the large changes that has been made that we wanted to update the board on was around how OBAG 4 funding was being allocated relative to OBAG 3. In January of this year, MTC revised their resolution about the allocation of OBAG funding to just move around funds just a little bit. overall about the same amount of funding available for OBAG total for the county. But there is an amount that's essentially been taken away from that overall pot to support regional transit. That's that minus 100 million in that OBAG four proposed chart on the left that you'll see. The rest of that money is divided between that county and regional program that I mentioned. 360 million of it will go towards county programs that will be awarded to county transportation departments. and 360 million will go to the regional program to support larger scale projects. Now within that 360 for regional programs, there's a set aside of 45 million reserved for the TOC set aside, which I will cover in just a second about the TOC changes. And as part of this action, MPC also set aside about 5 million for the North Bay augmentation to support projects in specifically North Bay counties. Next slide. So as I said, there have been a variety of changes in this policy since 2022 when it was originally implemented. They have made largely a lot of tweaks in the admin guidance, the implementation policies, sort of the evaluation framework. MTC has been really building up this program to give information to jurisdictions like the county who are trying to seek compliance. The biggest effort there was really going from the latter half of last year when MTC did a series of workshops and study sessions on the proposed changes to TOC and OBAG that led up to that resolution that I just mentioned in January of this year when they passed the OBAG for funding allocation framework. which itself was in preparation for what they passed in February of this year when they passed the updated TOC framework. And that's the framework that really decides how the set aside from that OBAG funding allocation is awarded. If we can go to the next slide. the largest change was in that February resolution when they changed the TOC requirements. The most significant change is that TOC compliance is no longer needed in order to be eligible for most OBAG 4 funds. So those funds in their totality are not conditioned on TOC policy compliance anymore. Instead, jurisdictions who earn more than 85 points out of the total 100 in the TOC framework will have access to that set aside of TOC funding from the regional allocation of 45 million. And depending on the size of those jurisdictions, they'll be eligible for a different amount of funds if they pass that threshold of 85 points. And that point system is really broken out by a couple of different focuses of density, housing, parking, and station access. So it doesn't really matter how a jurisdiction gets to 85 points there, but if they achieve 85 points across those different categories, then they get access to that TOC funding. That's the largest change. There are a couple others. If we go to the next slide, just to change compliance deadlines and some other things about the policy. So in the initial policy, that submission was due January of this year. With the changes that they were still making at MTC, they moved that submission deadline to be July of next year. With that change, they also are no longer giving credit given for work-in-progress items, so policies that jurisdictions may still be working on. Given that they've moved the deadline out by about a year and a half, there will be no credit for work-in-progress in the new framework. They also changed the standards around local density standards. requirements within a half mile of transit, given the passage of SB 9, which largely made sure that any jurisdiction with the TOC area was already compliant with the goals of the TOC policy here. They essentially gave credit for any area subject to SB 79 zoning as it's already meeting the goals that were originally set out. Finally, in the original policy under the protections program of largely tenant protections, there was no credit given for countywide programs, jurisdictions that were in a county that had those programs. Now, one of those two programs that are required for full points may be a countywide program. So for instance, if a city in the county like Fremont has access to services through the county and the county funds a county wide service that is in the TOC policy, they could receive credit for that in the framework if it meets the funding guidelines for that policy.

Next slide.

Now, staff at HCD and the planning department have been working on TOC policy compliance for some time now. And I wanted to highlight, again, this is focusing on the housing policies, so the policies under those three P's, framework of production, preservation, and protection. Under production, we have planned policies that we have funding from MTC to pursue of inclusionary housing and ministerial approval that the planning department is actively working on now. Under preservation, we have an existing policy with the Eden Land Trust that meets the standards set by the TOC policy. And we have a plan policy for a mobile home park closure ordinance that planning is also working on ACD is supporting. Under protections, we have an existing policy that just cause for evictions ordinance that the board passed meets the standards for TOC production policy. And the plan policy, we are working on anti-harassment and tenant landlord relation ordinance that again has funding to support staff time, bringing that back to your board. Next slide. Now, like I mentioned, there are certain TOC policies in the framework that require a minimum funding commitment to be counted as compliant. HCD has requested Measure W funds to support some of these requirements. The main ones are that production funding for new affordable housing. Basically, the TOC policy requires a $1 million in that annually for four years in the planning period. And the HCD request for that was about the same. Similarly, the preservation funding for community land trusts, the required funding for that annually is about $300,000. HCD requested more than that million to support that work. Next slide. And one back, I think. Yes. And like I mentioned, we have administrative funds from MTC to support a lot of these efforts. They provide planning grants to help those local governments meet those standards. And we have been awarded 2.1 million to support that policy development. The majority of that 1.7 million is administered by MTC on the county's behalf. So largely goes to support some of the plans that we have to do around station access and the intense work that has to be done there. Directly administered is that $400,000 for housing policy development, which covers the items that I had covered on the previous slide of inclusionary zoning, ministerial approval, and anti-harassment. And that work is split between the planning department and HCD. and we are doing it now and are grateful to have that funding support. Next slide. And this is, like I just mentioned, this is the work that we're doing now supported by that MTC policy grant funding, the inclusionary housing ordinance that planning has been working on, the ministerial approval ordinance that streamlines project approval, and that anti-harassment ordinance that I mentioned that will look at tenant protection policies, current state law and tenant needs in the unincorporated county. And I believe with that, we are happy to take questions. Let's go to public comment.

Caller you're on the line. You have two minutes, Kelly.

Yeah, I'd like to point to OBAG 4 and the upcoming projects, the next round of projects that are going to be benefiting the unincorporated Alameda County These transportation projects, they're very complicated and a lot of things can slip through the cracks. But one of the smallest items that was on the list, in fact, the smallest item, only $300,000. A tiny, tiny item that nobody would notice, but it's really one of the most important. And it comes to us from the legacy of Supervisor Scott Haggerty and the legacy of Supervisor Richard Valle. And that is the Niles Canyon Trail. the Niles Canyon Trail, um, hasn't had a, uh, the, the, uh, the Ciclovia, the, the, um, uh, roll and stroll in a couple of years. And, uh, but, but it still is a very important priority for the people of Sonol, the people of Pleasanton and the people of Fremont. You know, we've had, uh, non-motorized trails since thousands of years ago when the original inhabitants of Alameda County were able to walk from Fremont to Pleasanton. And today, they can't walk from Fremont to Pleasanton. It's illegal. to walk down Niles Canyon Road. And this project will address that inequity. So I'd like to call back to the lessons of Supervisor Scott Haggerty. He taught us that no matter how small, no matter how forgotten, that if you fight, that if we focus on our priorities and if we really, really stay focused committed and stay over the long term, we can accomplish a lot. Thank you.

I have no additional speakers for this item.

Very good. We will close public comment then on this item, bring it back for discussion and deliberation. Supervisor Miley. Sure.

I don't think I have any questions. I do appreciate this informational update by staff. Since I'm on MTC, I was kind of familiar with what took place because it did take a lot of discussion and many meetings to come up with the TOC policy changes because people felt there was too much rigidity in the former TLC policies. And there was quite a lot of back and forth throughout the entire Bay Area region. So I'm just really pleased that once again, TLC compliance is not needed to be eligible for most OBAC IV funds in that we should be able to adhere to that and get the 85 points through the measures that we've got underway. So I don't have anything to say, but I do appreciate this update today by my staff. And I just want to have staff keep us abreast of where we're going so we can continue to get those funds.

Thank you. A question I have is around the TOC policies in Alameda County, the production policies. we show none existing but two planned inclusionary housing minister approval we don't have where are i both of those uh in the pipeline of being discussed are we is it taking a lot i'm going to hand it over to my colleague from planning

Good morning, supervisors. I'm Olivia Ortiz, Planner 3 with the county. We are hoping to be on the early October board planning agenda to give you an update on those projects. We have a lovely consultant team. We're going to the Eden Mac in a week to begin a roadshow, so we will be providing an update soon, but I can answer specific questions if you have them.

Well, one thing that comes to mind around a production policy in place doesn't mean that we don't already support production projects.

100%.

Okay. And I note that under preservation, we have mobile home. And I think mobile home is one that is both preservation or care. The mobile home space is one of both preservation in one sense and production in another sense because, unless I'm mistaken, there is some opportunity, some applicants, some owners would like to convert mobile home to hundreds of units, and others want to keep mobile home as mobile home. They both can exist and creating more units would be production. So I see mobile home space as being possibly both preservation and production. Am I thinking about that rightly or wrongly?

You are not wrong. Actually, I don't know if it's in the most recent version of the administrative guidelines Erin was just walking us through, but at least previous versions had a mobile home-related policy in preservation and in production. A year and a half ago when we were making these decisions, we thought because the mobile home ordinance, sorry, that was already under discussion with the planning commission, the one that's, I guess, will eventually make its way to your board, made more sense to keep in the preservation area.

Yeah, I think so too. No other questions or comments. What's the next step for this? It's just information, so where will this information go?

This is just information for now, but like we were just discussing, there are a variety of policies under this that will be coming to your board or its various committees soon, so you should look forward to those.

Godspeed on the, what do we call it, the show of roadshow, Godspeed on the roadshow. The manga roadshows, thank you. With that, we'll move to our last item, public comment on items, not on today's agenda, but within the purview of this body. Public comment, please.

Kelly, we're on public comment. You have two minutes.

Thank you. Yeah, this OBAG stuff that just happened reminds me of another mandate, a state mandate, a government mandate for the county. And that's the the RENA housing numbers, which is probably tied in very, very closely. very closely with the OBAG. And if you look at the performance of your planning department of Alameda County, and if you look at the performance of every city around, practically every city in the state or in the Bay Area, nobody is producing those RHNA requirements, RHNA housing production requirements, the eight-year cycle. In the last three years out of the eight-year cycle, they've produced on average in the Bay Area, something like 13 or 14%. So they're on track to produce Bay Area-wide about 37%. on target to produce 37% of the goal, which is, in other words, we're falling far, far, far, far short of the goal. And there is no penalty for not meeting the goal. So, you know, a lot of these mandates, there's no teeth behind them. So, you know, we got to take that with a grain of salt. And I'm sure that the longest serving people on staff and on this board are well aware of just how toothless these requirements are and probably know how to play this game very well. And then also, All the items that came up today, it all comes down to the question of who do you represent? Do you represent one particular constituency? Are you working on behalf of a certain geographic sub-region to bring benefits and bring countywide revenues from the 1.6 million people of Alameda County down to one small region, or do you work for the whole county? Thank you.

We have no more speakers for public comment.

Very good. With that said, we are adjourned.