Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Recording? No? Say anything. I'm gonna go ahead

and call this meeting to order. Welcome to the Alameda County Planning Commission hearing for Monday, 02/02/2026. Can we have the roll call, please?

Commissioner commissioner Nielsen's excused. Commissioner Rocha?

Here.

Commissioner Silva? Here. Commissioner Zeiss?

Present.

Vice chair Kelly? Present. Chair Crawford?

Here.

We have

a quorum.

K. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Allegiant. Hey. Announcements by the chair.

I I do have an announcement after asking county staff to see if they could adjust our microphones. They've actually been unleashed, and you can bring your microphone as close to you as you want. All the wiring's right here. Nothing stuck underneath anymore. So we should we should all be able to speak into the microphone. If the red light's not on, it's not hearing you, and neither are the people out in the audience. So, success on that front. Next item is open forum. I do have one speaker card for open forum. Kelly Abreu.

People are always asking why is it that our government bodies like this planning commission, why are you making such bad incredibly bad judgments? Why are you making such poor decisions? It's because you don't get feedback. It's because you think that you can just, decide what however you want, how whatever whichever way the political wind is blowing. When when somebody brings in a circus of of a carnival of people, with some bogus claims asking for government public right of way, you say, oh, yeah.

That's great. Then when you hear from the planner, mister Rodrigo Ordunya, when he tells you that, oh, we need to to get coordination with the city of Fremont before we give away this public right of way, you say, oh, no. Nobody's using that. Nobody no bikes, no pedestrians. It's it's not a recreational use for the last hundred years or fifty years or however long it's been. You say, hey. Let's just approve it. Let's send it to the board of supervisors. And then when they approve it, you don't get any feedback. Well, here's your feedback.

Says the Mercury News Mercury News, and this is from one week ago. And that's a picture of the people trying to walk on the road or on the trail, and that's a picture of the degraded slopes. Remember the degraded slopes, the horrible conditions of the road shoulders with the steep drop offs? Remember all that? You can see that right there. By the way, that's on the Fremont, city of Fremont side of the road. Why is this on the on the front page of the newspaper? Why is this on the front page of the newspaper? It's because of your poor decision making, because the city of Fremont said, no. We don't wanna give away our public right of way.

We've got people walking on the road and biking on the road, and you are sitting here. You created this through your your decisions and your judgments. It I have never had the opportunity to to do this to any public, agents. I've been going

to public meetings for a while. I've never had this opportunity. No, you know, major newspaper, the largest, one of the one or one of the of the two largest newspapers in the in the Bay Area covering your mistakes. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Thank you.

K. I don't see any other speakers. I don't see any attendees at all, actually. So we're gonna move on to committee reports of which we don't have any. Item eight is approval of the minutes, 01/05/2026.

We have any changes to the meet, minutes? If not, can we get a motion to approve?

So move.

Second.

A motion from commissioner Silva, second from commissioner Hernandez. Roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Hernandez?

Aye.

Commissioner Nielsen excused. Commissioner Rocha?

Aye.

Commissioner Silva?

Aye.

Commissioner Zeiss?

Yes.

Vice chair Kelly?

Yes.

And chair Crawford? Aye. Alright. Motion carries.

Okay. Moving on to item nine, consent calendar. We have no items on the consent calendar. Item or moving on to the regular calendar 10 a, which is twenty twenty four twenty twenty five environmental justice element implementation status report. Can we have the staff report on this item, please?

Yes. Good evening, commissioners. Ali Ebers with the planning department. Let me just, share my screen. Give me one second.

Here we go. Alright. So I am here with, the first annual implementation status report for the environmental justice element. So this is covering a period from August 2024 to September 2025. Steph's recommendation is that your commission hear our presentation, take public testimony, and provide comments on the draft implementation status report.

Those comments, concerns, and priorities that you share will be transmitted to the board of supervisors with the final report, which we anticipate delivering to them in March. Just a bit of a review about the e j element. This is a general plan element that was adopted by the board in August 2024. It was developed by the community development agency planning department in partnership with Alameda County Health and in deep collaboration with other county agencies, service providers in the area, the Eden Area Communities Collaborative, and residents from throughout the area. The EJ element covers an eight year period.

It's it coincides with the the same period as the housing element, so something you'd be familiar with. And it begins in 2024 and outlines policies and programs that are designed to improve health and equity in the, what we call the EJ priority communities, which include Ashland, Cherryland, Hayward Acres, San Lorenzo, and Southwestern Castro Valley, and those are pictured here on the next slide. During the process of developing the EJ element, stakeholders, county staff, agencies that are not county agencies, and and residents called for active implementation. It was really important, and we heard over and over again that folks did not wanna see this document sitting on a shelf. They wanted to see it actively implemented.

And to support that priority, the EJ element's implementation framework is guided by principles of accountability, transparency, equity, and collaboration. And the EJ element builds in several implementation strategies, including identifying about 30 catalyzing actions, which are actions that, if implemented, when implemented, will help catalyze some of the other actions in the EJ element, a commitment to translating the e j element into Spanish, the development of a staff technical advisory committee for interagency coordination, ongoing staff participation in the Eden Area Communities Collaborative, which is a local group of area service providers and county staff, and a commitment to annual reporting. So that brings me to this presentation presentation, which is about our annual report. So the purpose of the annual report, it fulfills the first annual implementation reporting commitment that we've made in the e j element. We will be delivering it to advisory bodies and to the board of supervisors, and this provides an opportunity for the public to weigh in on our progress and on future priorities.

It includes updates from all of the county agencies that have act actions in the EJ element, and I'll I'll go over that list shortly. It documents accomplishments. It documents challenges, and it discusses some of the changing priorities and assesses our progress. It also establishes a baseline for future tracking across that eight year time, implementation time frame that I mentioned. So this next slide shows, the agencies that have contributed to to this report.

So I just wanna note that we had a tabulation error, and we sent you a an edited version of this page in particular. And there the there's a similar page itself, which we'll edit for the final version. So CDA is the lead on 59 lead or colead on 59 of the EJ Elements actions. AC Health is the leader colead for 32 actions, public works for 23 actions, and the board offices themselves are leader co lead for 18 actions. So those four I don't wanna say departments, but those four together make up a a large number of the actions in the EJ element.

We also have the social services agency, the sheriff's office, libraries, DESAL and All In Eats, probation, the arts commission, the county administrator's office, the general services agency, and the workforce development board that are all represented both in the EJ element and in this report. So there are 162 actions total in the EJ element. And for each of these actions, the report summarizes the progress that's been made. It identifies who which agency is responsible and which agency reported, and it assigns an implementation status. This is sort of a, you know, a a simple way to to sort of visually look at the at the status of each action and get a sense of how we're doing.

So blue represents implemented. Green is significant progress made. Yellow means that we have we've begun, we're making progress, or there's been progress made on an alternative action. And red is not yet started. And then there's another category, which is ongoing. So an ongoing action is an action that is part of an agency's everyday work. So part of its the the sort of foundational work that that agency does. So 58 of the total 162 actions are actually ongoing. So they are part of the county or the agency's core function. So what this chart does is shows those remaining 104 discrete actions.

Of those, about 10% are implemented. I'll say it now. So 9.6% are implemented. 7.7% show significant progress. 56.7% are in progress, and 26%, have not yet been started.

This breaks down the implementation status by goal area. So there are seven goal areas within the EJ element focusing on things ranging from reducing air pollution to promoting access to healthy food, promoting civic engagement, etcetera. So you can get a sense of how, how these are distributed across those areas as well. And there is no no area within no no goal area within the EG element where no progress has been made. So put put the other way, progress is being made in all of these areas.

So for the actions that have not yet been started, I did wanna talk a little bit about why that might be. So the responses that we received, was that this was often due to a practical barrier or because it would involve a separate effort that was not yet clearly funded or staffed, or because policy and program priorities may have gone a different direction in response to changing circumstances or changing community needs. On these next few slides, I'm gonna go through some implementation highlights. It is a long report, so I'm just gonna pull out, I think it's, like, ten to to show you some of the things that are happening around the unincorporated communities. So action 3.6 e focuses on on encouraging multiuse connector trails in the priority communities, and this one is currently in progress.

So the public works agency, the flood control district, and through the flood control district is partnering with HARD to develop the San Lorenzo Creekway Trail, which will be a multiuse trail connecting Castro Valley to San Lorenzo. At the time that we received this report, which as I mentioned, you know, this covers a time period through September 2025, funding for the project had been confirmed, and HARD and the Public Works Agency were working on an MOU for project implementation and a request for proposals for professional design services, which was scheduled to be released in the fall. So the next so this is turning to some items that involve code enforcement. These actions, e j 4.2 b and 4.2 c, have both been implemented. So the CDA code enforcement team developed an online complaint form that is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

They also developed an interface with, a public portal, Mainstar, that allows residents to check the status of their cases, and these tools help to improve transparency and, access to to these resources for the community. So next, we have a catalyzing action that addresses lead poisoning prevention and the expansion of the lead poisoning prevention joint powers authority, which is currently in progress. The county healthy homes department, under the guidance of the board and that, the lead poisoning prevention, JPA, is exploring a potential ballot or funding mechanism ballot measure or fund funding mechanism to adjust, the assessment for pre nineteen seventy eight dwelling units. And this folk this effort focuses on financial sustainability and expanding services for participating jurisdictions specifically to include the unincorporated area. And in 2025, there was a an RFP issued to conduct a campaign analysis, feasibility studies, and to inform a polling strategy for that potential ballot measure.

So next in our highlights, there's been significant progress made in improving access to healthy food through action 5.1 d. This involves, all in Alameda County requesting that the board approve a mini grant program to support up to five neighborhood stores that are committed to offering healthier food and beverage options. These grants support infrastructure improvements, foster local partnerships, and engage community members in healthy eating activities. The grant awards were capped at $25,000, and the application window was open through 10/10/2025. Action 5.6 a, which is another catalyzing action, has been implemented.

So the all in eats circular food economy programs, which were originally incubated by the sheriff's office and the deputy sheriff's activities league or DSL, have been transitioned to the Alameda County Community Food Bank, throughout 2024 and '25, and this transition helps to ensure the continuity and sustainability of these programs. Action 6.6 a, another catalyzing action, is a commitment by Alameda County Health to prioritize disaggregating unincorporated area health data, and they've made significant progress on this action. The public health department has implemented disaggregated race and ethnicity data for the unincorporated areas, and they're working toward requiring disaggregated data from their contractors. The there's a health status report that they are, I believe, going to be delivering to the board within the next month or so that features disaggregated data for the unincorporated areas. And I did link to it here if anybody's interested in seeing the full document, and there's a screenshot showing what some of that disaggregation looks like here on the screen.

Action 6.11 a is another commitment from Alameda County Health with the Social Services Agency to work with First Five to perform a child care needs assessment, and this one has also been successfully implemented. First Five released its early care and education needs assessment for the unincorporated area in 2024, and findings from the report are now being applied to the county's child care preschool and early education program plan and budget. Section 7.1 a, which is another catalyzing action, discusses exploring establishment of a central office of unincorporated services, and this item is in progress. In 2025, supervisor Nate Miley dedicated funds to researching and scoping this new role, and the work that his office is now doing will help prepare the county for, for potential consideration of, this new office. Have three more of these to go.

Thanks for your patience. Action 7.1 c is a commitment from the county to, support the ongoing work of the Ashland Cherryland Healthy Communities Collaborative, and there's been significant progress made on this action. So in 2024, that that collaborative received funding for organizational development, and they renamed themselves the Eden Area Communities Collaborative to better reflect, the broader geographic scope, of the work that they do. The Eden Area Communities Collaborative now has bylaws. They hold regular meetings, and they've established subcommittees that are focused on items that are, really deeply involved in, the e j element as well, such as food justice, lead poisoning prevention, community health workers, etcetera.

So that has been a a big step forward for that group this year. And action 7.1 b, another catalyzing action. So this discusses the potential establishment of an unincorporated area youth commission to encourage youth civic engagement and participation in public decision making processes in the unincorporated area. So we have gone through a process throughout 2025 to begin to explore this idea. So county staff from a number of agencies met to discuss implementation in June, and the outcome of those discussions really focused on maximizing participation in existing youth leadership opportunities, expanding them to to make sure that they include unincorporated area youth.

And in July 2025, CDA planning and Alameda County health staff met with the Alameda County Office of Education to talk about their countywide youth advisory board and their interest in recruiting more unincorporated area youth specifically for participation in that in that body. And three unincorporated area youth were appointed to the youth advisory board for 2526, and ACOE has offered ongoing collaboration to engage unincorporated area youth. And to date, just to note, no county lead has been identified for this action specifically. Then finally in our highlights, action 7.4 c, another catalyzing action, is a commitment to pursue, changes to United States Postal Service place names for the unincorporated areas. This action was successfully implemented in March 2025.

Ashland, Cherryland, Hayward Acres, Fairview, Castro Valley, and San Lorenzo are now official USPS mailing address place names for the urban unincorporated areas of Alameda County. And the county to, you know, make sure that this message got across that this change has happened, launched an outreach campaign beginning in April 2025, including billboards to inform the public about the USPS place name changes, and the county continues to work to ensure that major service providers in the area are aware of the changes and are incorporating them, and that includes changes with the DMV that have already been made, PG and E or LOMA, the assessor's office, etcetera. So what is next? It's important to talk about or to think a bit about what it means to be implementing a document like this in our shifting political landscape. So the EJ element was developed at a different time.

It was it was developed between 2021 and 2024, and was it was shaped largely by the goals and priorities of that period. It really focused on things like increasing civic engagement and improving physical and environmental conditions. Since its adoption, the political and social landscapes have, significantly changed, and that includes things like federal immigration enforcement and ICE raids creating widespread fear, economic disruption, and public health challenges for immigrant and refugee communities, federal legislation and state budget changes that are reducing the county's health care funding, and increasing demands on the county's public health system, cuts to safety net programs related to health care and supplemental food access that are putting additional pressure on already vulnerable communities, and cuts to things like climate programming, environmental funding, and DEI programs. So I note this just to say that, as we continue, to fulfill our commitment to implementing the e j element as as county agencies, it's going to be important, for the for our agencies to remain nimble and responsive to the changing needs of the priority communities and to adapt our implementation strategy to this changing landscape. So more about what's next.

Our priority for year two, year two is already underway. We're interested in strengthening the coordination of that interagency technical advisory committee, enhancing our community engagement. We are working on a an EJ Element companion guide. We're also in the process of working on the translation of the EJ element itself into Spanish. We're interested in collaborating with our colleagues at the public health department to update the baseline data, that was in the e j elements.

So it's 2020 baseline data, to see what's happened in the last five years as far as, as health status. And we'd like to refine our reporting tools and, as I mentioned before, balance our the EJ elements long term board adopted goals with emergent needs that are coming up for the the communities. So here's our public meeting schedule. We've presented already to the Eden Area MAC and the Castro Valley MAC. We're with you this evening and presenting to the Unincorporated Services Committee in February.

And with the comments that we receive from the planning commission, we'll produce a final report that'll go to both unincorporated services and then to the board itself with the general plan annual report, which were anticipated to deliver in March. And I did make some notes about the comments from the Macs if you'd like to hear them. Yes. Okay. So Eden Mac, there was interest in making this report easier to navigate to make it searchable and making sure that we're doing outreach to to to let the community know that this report is out there.

There was interest in deeper community involvement in the experience of EJ implementation. How was it for them? Did they value it? So before, during, and after. They were really interested in hearing more from the Hayward Area Recreation and Parks District and the Flood Control District about the status of the San Lorenzo Creekway Trail and noted that ADA accessibility in parks needs to continue to be at the forefront of park planning.

Overall, they were pleased with the direction, and they noted also that this year of implementation really involved some of the low hanging fruit and that the hard stuff is is yet to come, especially with some of the challenges that are facing the county. And let's see. They encouraged more frequent report outs, possibly quarterly rather than annually. They encouraged including partner organizations like HARD in this report out for balance. Some of the public comment encouraged pursuing the youth commission as a stand alone commission for the unincorporated area, noting that there's momentum and support for this in the community.

And there was a lot of discussion also about possible intersections between the goals of the EJ element and a public movement that is ongoing around the future of the SkyWest Golf Course in Hayward. And then moving on to the Castro Valley MAC. They expressed interest in understanding more about the connector trails like the San Lorenzo Creek Creekway Trail just like the the Eden MAC did. They encouraged making the report shorter, being more economical with our words, and making it easier to navigate. They recommended applying benchmarks and timelines to actions wherever they were wherever it was possible to do that.

They were really interested in the intersection between the housing element and the EJ element, and they were interested in seeing that upline updated baseline data that I mentioned between the the original 2020 data in the EJ element and 2025 data to get a picture of how things are are moving, how the the health status in the EJ priority communities is is changing over time. They said overall, great starting point, and next time they wanna start seeing more results. So public comment, talked about making the report easier to navigate. There was interest in in understanding who decides when an action is sufficient, when it's done, and that maybe the TAC needs to work on a standard for when actions are done and who decides. There was excitement about the urban greening planning project, urban forestry planning project, but concern about the timeline.

And there were comments about improving transparency in the public works agency's infrastructure planning process. So just a little download. And then a conclusion. So this is, as I mentioned, the first, the inaugural EJ element implementation status report. So we do have a long way to go, but it does demonstrate that the county is making progress in in going from planning to action, and it demonstrates the county's commitment to fostering equity, health, and environmental resilience.

Most actions are now underway or already embedded into ongoing, county or agency operations, and this reflects the county's success in institutionalizing environmental justice principles across programs and services. This first year also highlighted the the need for us to remain flexible and responsive to external forces that may shape, the daily realities in the EJ priority communities. And finally, under the board's leadership, the county remains committed to EJ implementation to support the ability of every resident of the unincorporated communities to thrive in a healthy, safe, and inclusive environment. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you.

You. Ali, commissioners, comments?

Hey. I'm interested in the San Lorenzo Creekway Trail. The presentation I said said there was updates in the fall. So we're in the New Year, so the latest updates.

Unfortunately, I don't have updates for every one of these actions beyond what we collected. I'm not directly involved in the implementation of that one. So what I would recommend is is that we see if we can invite Hard to come and give an update on that as their project.

I actually I'll I'll be happy to get the contact information of the person at Hard that's working on this. I just probably have a lot of questions, and they have the answers. So, yeah, thanks.

We could have hard come, though. You it no.

I just didn't want the whole commission to have to hear about my pet interest.

Well, I

think if hard came, they might have other things they wanna throw at us. So, Ally, if you wanna let Hard know if they wanna make a presentation at the Planning Commission Yeah. About this or whatever else they want us to know about, they're welcome.

Definitely.

Sure. Hernandez.

A few questions. In terms of the year one implementation regarding the five neighborhood stores, which five have been identified?

I don't know. It's it's so we might have more detail on that in the in some of the information that the reporting agency provided, but the report itself is is relatively high level. So I can dig into the specifics and get those for you, but I don't have that on the at my fingertips.

More interested in which stores and what districts.

Mhmm. And

thank you for your progress in considering translation for the document. I it was noted it would he translated into Spanish and other languages. Have we identified the other top languages in the

So the plan at this point is to to translate the full e j element into Spanish and then that companion guide, and that's actually a recommendation that came from your commission. So it's an exciting one, to to translate that that companion guide into multiple languages. So at this point, it would be Spanish and and Chinese, are the the two languages that I would anticipate, but we're, you know, certainly open to considering more.

Yeah. Sure.

If there there's I can come back if you'll

No. No.

You you have the floor.

I just wanna circle back on actions, e j 7.1 b in terms of the, incorporated youth commission. I have some clarifying questions, if I may. My first question is, can you tell me more or further elaborate on the meeting that you had with the Alameda County Office of Ed in terms of those talks that you had in June? And I get I and I also need clarification regarding the youth advisory board. So what I understand from the update that there's already an existing youth advisory board that ACOE is responsible for facilitating. And so what I understood from the update is that we're looking to partner with them to do more. Is that is that correct, Ally?

Yeah. So I can elaborate a bit if it's helpful. Yeah. So we met with, I think it was back in July or so, several staff from ACOE and described this action, the interest, and wanted to get a sense of what ACOE was already doing in this area. ACOE has a number of staff that are already dedicated to youth development through this countywide youth advisory board.

It is a countywide function, so we were asking a bit sort of, you know, trying to to understand how if youth from the unincorporated areas were to be involved in this, would they have an opportunity to speak specifically to issues that involve the unincorporated area, or would it be, you know, countywide issues only? And what I understood is that there there's, like, a subcommittee structure or an opportunity for youth that participate in that board to to opt into areas of interest. So there may be, you know, interest in decreasing secondhand smoke or, you know, specific areas of interest. And one of the things that that they recommended in this meeting was that there was potential for a a subcommittee that could be focused on the unincorporated areas. So if there were enough youth participating from the unincorporated areas, that that might be one way to have a sort of unincorporated area group or cohort within within that that group.

And we so one one of the takeaways from that meeting, I think they've had some staffing changes since since we had that meeting, so we haven't had as much interaction with them going forward as we'd hoped. But they were interested in working with the county and specifically with AC Health's Center for Healthy Schools and Communities, which is reaches under that that umbrella to to utilize their contacts to reach out to more unincorporated area youth, particularly youth in the Eden area, to make sure that they're aware of the opportunity, to help them with application materials, etcetera. So that was that was the the sort of idea about a way that rather than con creating a new commission, which I I think the board is hesitant to do at this point, maybe has a commitment to not to not do, that we could fit that into an existing structure.

And ACOE confirmed that there's three youth from the from incorporated areas.

The unincorporated area. Yeah.

Know which districts or schools?

They didn't specify, so I don't know that. But I can I can see if I can find out more?

I I I so I I'm thinking I mean, I think it we've made some progress. But I think what I'm looking for is can we land on some kind of benchmark or timeline to further support recruitment? I think it's encouraging to see three use that.

Thank you. Still turning up.

Okay. Sorry. So just to kinda circle back for my I I I I wanna see more. Right? Again, three is encouraging, but there's so much potential in this. And so and and then opportunity for growth. But I think that the partnership with ACOE is encouraging. So, you know, definitely would like to see more of that partnership and and collaboration with them. And I would agree with the max to see sort of the yearly updates, maybe quarterly, if possible, Ali. And and I also if you can tell me more in terms of why accounting lead has not been identified to support this action item.

So there are a number of action items, not too many. We really tried to to work to identify a lead agency in every case that we could. There were a few actions, at the end of the day when the EJ element was adopted where there was no where there was clear interest from the community in making sure that this action was captured, but no clear place for it to to live as far as, you know, seeding it within an agency specifically. So that's why it is currently not labeled. I mean, I think, you know, CDA in some ways is sort of acting as the the lead in seeing, you know, where we can take it and and who might be willing to to to grab it and have it, you know, have it live with them.

So I wish I had a better answer, but it's it's it's going to be part of the process for implementation of those items is identifying a lead, and that'll involve ongoing communications.

Can we solidify a lead by the next update?

Can I can try?

And I just wanna go on record to say that I this is this action item is very special. I'm an educator in the county. And because of that, I I see how important this is. It's a very and and also just creating very intentional opportunities for healthy leadership, for our youth. And they're really I mean, they are the future of our county.

So in a few years, they're gonna be our planning directors. Gonna be our commissioners. They're gonna be our chairs. And so being able to to provide these, again, these very intentional healthy leadership roles and guidance, I think it it's really important and to me and and and I'm sure others here on on the board. And it also speaks to, like, equity inclusion, right, everything that the this report is a I appreciate your work, Ali, and the county's work, and I look forward to the update.

Sure, Silva.

Thank you, Chair Crawford. Alan, reading this. I'm really excited to read about the progress that's being made in this really outstanding work that you're doing and outstanding objectives that have been set that you're pursuing. So this is really good stuff. So nice job. One of the MACs requested more information on the intersection between the housing element and the environmental justice report. What what does that intersection look like?

So I think my colleague is probably gonna speak more about this on the next item. The implementation of the EJ element is identified tell me if I'm misspeaking, is identified as program within the housing element. So they and the the two documents cross reference each other closely, and I think maybe I might let Olivia speak more to that in the do you have more to say on that? Are you going to? Okay. Yeah. So Olivia is gonna talk about that in the next item. Is that is that good for now? Or

There's others Did you ask me, Ali?

Is that does that is that is that a good explanation for now? We'll hand it over to Olivia? Okay.

We'll look forward to hearing from Olivia as always.

Is that okay?

Yeah. With reference to the lead poisoning and lead poisoning page, it states that prevention program program is considering a potential ballot funding mechanism to adjust the CSA assessment for pre 1978 dwelling unit. So a potential valid funding, what what would that be? Are we talking about sales tax increase?

My understanding is it would be a property tax increase. Right now so I don't I don't wanna speak too much on this because it's not not my project. But the way I understand it is at this point, the county is a member of the JPA. However, none of the funds associated with the JPA for lead poisoning prevention measures come to the unincorporated area. So although we have a lot of housing stock that's pre 1978, unincorporated area properties don't pay into the JPA at this point.

They're not assessed. There's no assessment for the unincorporated areas for the JPA. So this would be to to take a look at interest in something like that in the unincorporated area, appetite for something like that, and, you know, what it might take to put a ballot measure together to to create that funding mechanism so that unincorporated area residents and homeowners can benefit from that program.

It sounds like a pretty ambitious process. Regarding the CDA code enforcement, we talk about what's implemented implemented here. There's two of them, and I'm I'm question questioning if the first one is are we talking about main star here? Let me read it if I may. Code enforcement has developed and deployed an online code enforcement complaint form, which is available to the public in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

Then it says code code enforcement has developed and deployed an interface in its public portal, MainStar MainStar, that allows the public to look up the status of code enforcement cases. The code enforcement complaint form that code enforcement has come up with, is that accessible on MainStar?

It's not via MainStar. It's actually on the planning department's main page. So there's a complaint form that is linked through either the planning main page or planning to code enforcement. And it's it's essentially a like a Microsoft forms that is in all three of those languages. You can choose your language, fill out your complaint form or your complaint in that form online and submit it. So it's a it's outside of MainStar, and it's sort of the first intake step. An an item would go from there once it had been, you know, taken in through the the code enforcement system, then it would go into MainStar once it becomes a case.

Why would it not be part of MainStar? Maybe the wrong person to be asking this, but it seems

Yeah. Sorry. I don't know I don't know a ton of the details, but it could be, for example, that a a complaint comes in through through the complaint portal that actually should be going to the sheriff's office. So they would route it to the sheriff's office, or maybe it needs to go to PWA. They would route it to public works, etcetera. So it would become a case at the time that, you know, it was confirmed that it was a case.

K. And one one thank you. One last thing on on the pollution and air quality list of projects. It seems like we're getting no cooperation whatsoever from the Bay Area. What's what's the Bay air Bay Area Air Quality Management District? There's four items here that haven't been started, and they all involve the air district. What's up with that?

So I I don't wanna throw the air district under the bus. I think that this is really on on on our department to initiate these. So we can't tell, you know, we can't tell the air district to do anything. We can't tell anyone who's not. The the board of supervisors is, you know, the the board the body that adopted this document, and so we were really careful to name the leads as county whoever the county agency is that would lead that that effort.

So in this case, if the county lead, I believe, for those items is the is the community development agency, so it would be on us to initiate that process. The air district was involved in the development of these measures, and in my experience, they're, you know, they're interested in cooperation. So we just need to to come up with I think that's one of those issues of staffing capacity and timing on on our side.

I just may express to you that's pretty important, and anything to ramp up the effort would be good. Thank you.

Follow-up on your code enforcement

thing.

Share screen. There we go. So you see on your screen there, that's where you can see So if you press if you go on the planning department's website and you go to code enforcement, then you can go to the complaint section to file a complaint. And then there's a little header there that says map, and you hit the map, and then it gives you this map of these are complaints, code enforcement complaints. You can you can zoom in on them, and looks like there's a little bit of a lag there in doing that.

But and then you click on them, and it tells you over on the right what the complaint is, what the status is. I'm not sure how far these go back, but I didn't I didn't know this. I read this in the in the staff report that they gave us, and I went on-site immediately. I had no idea that code enforcement had actually I think I I heard this mentioned at some point, but so it's it's gotten that far. You can go on there and file your complaint, and you can look around your neighborhood for other complaints. And so I don't know if if it's all on there, but I just thought it would be good to point that out to everybody

Thank you.

Once you asked the question.

Yeah. Thank you.

Did the homework on that. Did you have anything? Okay. I just had two things real quick.

See.

Page 16, action item EJ4Dot2D, which is CDA code enforcement, which is primarily complaint based with limited capacity to conduct proactive inspections. We'll consider the feasibility of expanding its proactive inspection services as resources allow. For any of us that have been active in the county for a long period of time, code enforcement has always been super important, one of the most important issues because it directly affects quality of life for all of us. And and a lot of us have been pushing for proactive code enforcement because right now it's only complaint driven. And literally, you can drive down Castro Valley Boulevard any day.

And if you were a code enforcement inspector, you could just look to the right and look to the left and find, you know, 20 violations if you just tried, which they've refused steadily refused to do for decades. So it's encouraging that this is in here. It's discouraging that they're making it sound like, you know, they need an act of God to do it. They could start doing it tomorrow, and they should have started doing it a couple of decades ago because other jurisdictions, cities, counties do do proactive. They don't just do complaint based.

So wanted to point that out. I I would admit that they definitely need more staffing. They've always needed more staffing because the supervisors are constantly putting more on their plate. And then the other item was on the next page, 17, top of the page, action e j four dash two f. This is in regards to the Baker Tilly report.

It says significant process progress made. 45 of the 51 recommendations in Baker Tilly development services process review report were completed or well underway. I think this is a gross exaggeration of the situation, and I think any of the commissioners that have been working on that would agree with that. The report contains five or six long term structural governance measures whose implementation will require significant community process. I think that's true, but I think it's wholly inaccurate to try to you know, the verbiage has been intentionally chosen here to make it sound like it's mostly done.

It's not even half done in reality. So that's if if you're gonna leave that in there, I'm gonna fight that all the way to the board of soups because it's completely inaccurate. Those are the two comments that I had on it. Andy, I don't see your hand up. We do have one speaker card.

Yeah. I have a comment.

You.

Thank you for the update. You know, it's really heartening to see the progress that is being made as someone who worked on passing s v 1,000, which was the legislation that requires this. I think it's helpful to bear in mind that it's a very long term plan and is supposed to inform the formation of a lot of other plans. I like the effort you made to some or staff made in putting report together to try to categorize progress. It's very hard to give a sense of momentum on hundreds of priorities that are varying levels of degree.

You but the chart is a helpful rubric to kinda see by category what's kinda happening even though some items are far more substantial than other items. I'm not gonna weigh in with some specific comments, so I will probably follow-up with staff with a couple questions. I would just flag an agreement that we should really be prioritizing working with the air district, and there's a couple items I noticed that haven't really had momentum that feel like low hanging fruit to me. One of the last items in the document is the I lost my place in my notes, but the Hayward Airport, you know, that the lead abatement is really important. We're talking about possible funding measure.

We're talking about tons of money needed for existing problems, but we're continuing to allow an incredibly substantial source of voluntary pollution to happen for the unincorporated communities, and that could stop tomorrow. It's as simple as filling up a gas tank with a different type of gas. The Hayward Municipal Airport is one of the only airports in the entire region that still uses leaded gas. That that's not something we see at the other airports. And I when I say it's as easy as filling up a car, it literally is because the planes are getting unleaded gas at all their other airports they connect to in the Bay Area.

So I I anything we can do to move that one along? Because that is a very it's easier to stop a source of pollution from occurring that's affecting our communities down there than it is to go and abate hundreds and thousands of residences that were built with problematic, problematic, pollutants. But, overall, I think it's good to see the progress being made. I do think that you know, not to be critical because I this is a very hard, interagency. There's a lot to this document.

I'm not unaware of the complexity of it, but I do feel like a year end is really a time where lead agencies should have been assigned to all of the the the document. It is a little understandable that that hasn't happened, but it should. And I really don't wanna see the next update where it hasn't even hasn't been assigned. That feels like the kind of thing that, you know, one year end should have happened, and that's hard because when there's not really a lead agency for certain parts of it, assigning lead agencies gets very complicated, but that that needs to happen. Otherwise, those things are just not gonna have the ball moving forward on them even if even if they're waiting for other steps to fall.

But beyond that, I think the update is great. It's good to see the progress that's being made, and I appreciate you know, as I was reading through the entire thing, making some notes that I'll send to staff comments, I really appreciate that a lot of the low hanging fruit was just done. The, a lot of the items that haven't been started are really big. A lot of the items that are done are small. There's nuance in that in both directions, but it really looks like the things by and large that were low hanging fruit have really had a good amount of momentum.

And that's really heartening to see because I think sometimes with these very large documents, they can collect a little bit of dust. And this one certainly hasn't been even if there's still a lot to do. So my appreciation to staff and my hope that we can continue to accelerate some of these. Thank you.

Commissioner Hernandez?

I just wanna echo what, vice chair Kelly said. This is a really, well thought out organized document, so thank you for the staff and the updates. I just have a question regarding action e j 5.1 d. Can you tell me more where it says involve local community members and healthy eating activities? Do we have examples of that, or what does that look like?

So did get to it. Did you say b 5.1?

15 action e j five one point d

like dog. There you go. Okay. Point one b. Sorry. I think I'm not sure if I'm looking at the same one. This is the the Healthy Corner stores? D. Okay. Oh, there we go. That's what I was mishearing. Okay. All in seeking funding and partnerships to support a healthy store conversion mini grant program. Is that

Yes. And then it says part of that is involve local community members in healthy eating activities.

Well, okay. In the report. I see. So let's see. You know, I don't have details on specifically what that means within that. This is this isn't one of the ones that I'm implementing directly, so I can follow-up with you on the specifics of that. Yep.

You again.

Commissioners, anything else? I do have a speaker card. Did you wanna go now? Oh.

I was gonna say, nice presentation. Thank you again.

K. One speaker card, Kelly Abrue.

Public health was a big big thing in this, report, and, it seems like a lot of the public health things are are are not measurable metrics. There's not you know, what is, what is lead lead exposure? Are you going out and and taking statistical samples of the blood of the children to measure their lead exposure? When we talk about the airports that are exposed, I know the people who are fighting against lead use at Livermore Airport, and they're using a lot of lead because Livermore, doesn't have a lot of un you know, the unleaded gas is not commonly used there. They just kinda put it out as a political symbol.

And then the most ease the you know, everyone likes to to run around and and act like we're doing all these things to protect public health, like, you know, fighting ice, ice free zones. This county is full of political symbolism to fight against the the the the, unhealthy bad actions of the higher levels of the federal government. Well, I'll give you one. They just removed they cut the number of childhood vaccines down from 17 to 11, and California doesn't like that. California's gonna stick with the the the American Pediatric Association recommendations.

But, right here in this county, we're our vaccination rates for kindergarten, some of you, may be involved in education, we're we're falling behind Contra Costa and Santa Clara Counties, and we're not measuring. I mean, it's measurable, and the it's not only is it measurable, to see what the vaccination rates are, it's also measurable how it impacts public health later, you know, your exposure to, disease outbreaks and so on. And which groups is it, from? Well, if you're rich, if you're old, if you're whiter, then, you you don't have problems. But if, you know, which the, Asian, white, and black groups have, higher vaccination group rates.

Hispanics and, Native Americans, very low, much lower than those groups. And what are we doing, you know, to to get these vaccination to, to address these the disparities and to fix, Alameda County? Alameda County, last I checked, was ninety five point three percent. The the floor is 95. There's not much space between 9595.3%.

So, you know, here we are. I'm I'm just, you know, a lot of lot of political symbolism, not a lot of, measurables of measurable metrics in terms of what are we talking about. You know? What lead exposure, we're gonna measure how much, we're gonna raise taxes. We'll know exactly down to the penny how the taxes are gonna get raised. But what's the problem? How where is the problem? You know? And who who and how do you measure lead? We don't care about the lead on the wall. We care about or the lead in the airplane tanks. We care about lead exposure to the sensitive receptors. Thank you.

Okay. Just to end on a positive note here, I've seen the county pass a lot of plans over the years. I've never seen the county really go after it like this. I you guys are making a lot of effort in a lot of areas, and I think that should be recognized whether everybody agrees with what those areas should be or whatever. It you know, the report clearly shows you're you're really making a lot of effort here, and that should be commended. So with that, we will move on to the next item, which is item 10 b, 2025 general plan annual report and housing element annual report. Can we have the staff report on this, please?

Okay. Sorry. I can't speak loud enough. Good evening, everybody. Let me just get set up here.

Good evening, everybody. I'm Olivia Ortiz, theythem planner three, and I'm here to share our general plan and housing element annual reports for 2025 with you all. So as with every year, the county is required to report on our general plan implementation as well as our housing element implementation. This is per variety of government codes, including code, section six five four hundred. So I'll talk about the general plan changes, then I will get into the housing element.

So at the county, we have a somewhat unique setup to our general plan. We have the three planning areas, Castro Valley, East County, and the Eden area. And these three area plans cover the majority of the topics that state law requires our general plan to cover, which includes land use, circulation, conservation, open space, safety, and noise. We also have 10 county wide elements in our general plan. You just heard a great update on one of them, and four of them.

The conservation, open space, safety, and noise elements, of course, overlap in topic with, excuse me, with our area plans, but, of course, cover more countywide aspects. And 2024 was the last time one of our elements of the general plan had a major update. As you can see, we are expecting several elements or plans to be ready for adoption again later this year in 2026. We also have many specific plans. Specific plans, of course, establish links between the policies in our general plans, and individual development proposals by providing standards for development within defined areas.

We have been working ever excuse me, for for a number of years now on the Castro Valley Central Business District specific plan updates. It is currently my understanding that that should be ready for adoption by the end of this year. We also are looking forward to updating the San Lorenzo Village specific plan starting this year. That update will be funded by a priority development area grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. I also wanna note on this slide that one of our specific plan amendments we we made this year, a small one, was for the San Lorenzo Village specific plan to allow for the fire department to relocate.

There needed to be a specific plan amendment, but no changes or notable changes to the other ones. Going back to our general plan. Excuse me. We had a few general plan projects in 2025. Notably, we also changed the land use designation for a parcel on Via Real Drive in Castro Valley to support the relocation of a different fire department station.

And in May, the board, adopted the amendments to the East County area plan to promote the development of visitor serving uses supporting the South Livermore Valley area. And these amendments clarify the rules around development, clustering, and also expand the list of visitors serving conditional uses as well as a variety of other things. And, again, we are looking forward to bringing for adoption the safety element update, the community climate action plan, and the open space element amendments later this year. Those were pretty much our general plan projects this past year, overview of them rather. How we can get into the housing elements.

I'll talk about both the housing permit issued numbers and an overview of some of our programs, which unfortunately or fortunately might be a repeat from some things my colleague just said. Two other things that we won't talk about in detail, but I wanna know are included in the reports are, we are required to report on the county's surplus properties. That includes not just properties in unincorporated, but throughout Alameda County, as well as properties that have been added to the historic register, local, federal, state, which this year, we had two in San Lorenzo get added. Those those tables are towards the back of your packet. So looking at our residential units permitted in the calendar year 2025, this table shows our progress on meeting the regional housing needs allocation or RINA.

In 2025, we had a 107 units of housing with permits issued. That's 11 single family homes. They were all detached this year. One duplex consisting of two units and 94 accessory dwelling units. This year, we had no multifamily units or manufactured housing units issued or with permits issued.

Taking a step back, looking at unit counts overall, a 107 units is actually same ballpark as our APRs from the years 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, and it's twice as much, give or take, what we were reporting at the the thick of the pandemic in the calendar years 2020 and 2021. I mentioned this because our APRs for 2023 and 2024, we were reporting, I believe, three hundred and twenty and two hundred and change units for those years respectively. So this is a decrease, but, in fact, there were some significant developments for the county that came online those years. So we're kind of seeing more of a return to previous permit issued numbers. However, the composition of those numbers, pretty different from back in 2016.

Our ADU count numbers permitted has increased pretty significantly since then. The 94 units permitted, this past year in in accessory dwelling units is, in about the same range as the past four years, which is between 80 and a 120. This is a little less on the single family housing than we normally see, though I will say that. And I also want to note on this slide, so all of the single family detached and the duplex units are considered above moderate due to a study that our colleagues at MTC ABAG run. We can assume that about 30% of our accessory dwelling units are considered very low income in affordability, 30% low, 30% moderate income, and just the top 10% above moderate.

So just explaining why the data is spread out that way. And if we go to the bottom of the screen, which I cannot see right now, in total, we've met just about 15% of our regional housing need for this time period, which we are I I feel comfortable saying we're not currently on track to meet our arena. At the same time, at the end of the last RINA period, we had 700 and change units permitted. We already have I think we're we're within 10 units of that, and we're midway through the period. So we're not on track to meet Rina.

We are still producing more housing at this time in the the kind of housing element period than we were at a similar point in the last period. So so I wanna share how the units, excuse me, are geographically laid out. This is pretty similar to last year, which was the first time I provided that information. I'm missing my plea So the duplex was, permitted in San Lorenzo. Our accessory dwelling units are pretty spread out throughout the communities.

55 or a little over half of them were in Castro Valley. 29 ADUs were permitted in the Eden area. That's 12 in Ashland, 13 in San Lorenzo, and four in Cherryland. There were six ADUs permitted in Fairview and four in East County. The 11 single family homes were spread out between Castro Valley, Fairview, and East County.

There was no housing permitted in Hayward Acres this past year. I will say last year, there was only one unit permitted in Hayward Acres, so that's a standard. But, again, like I said, it's pretty consistent with the breakdown from last year in that the majority of housing or the single biggest piece of housing unit numbers was permitted in Castro Valley with a smaller percentage in the Eden area and much smaller numbers in East County and Fairview. Looking at our programs. So the current housing element has seven different goals with 77 programs organized among them.

59 of those programs are in progress, ongoing, or completed. I think maybe we haven't fully explained before. I I haven't done a great job explaining that part of why the housing element has so many programs is because this is as much as it is a way for us to set goals for unincorporated and for our department and other departments to do better, also just a way for us to tell the state what's going on. This is why the environmental justice elements, a whole separate part of the general plan, is also a program in the housing elements because it is helpful for the state to understand these other actions we're taking. And so just to summarize some of the programs that I won't be talking too much about but are in your packet.

There's a handful of programs in the first school that are just about the zoning and land use changes we needed to make to adopt the housing element, and they were enacted in the December 2024 when we when the whole thing was adopted. There are programs about housing services that are managed by our colleagues at the Department of Housing and Community Community Development. Improvements to Mainstar and the existence of the public access map are also programs in our housing element because it's important the state understands that we're communicating those ways, as are the ongoings of the Healthy Homes Department and code enforcement. So, again, just explaining there's a wide variety of things we're trying to get across the state through these programs. But there are a handful I wanted to highlight that I'm excited we're making progress on.

And I picked one from each of our seven goals. So program one c was about facilitating housing at the Bayfair Bart site. Should any development happen at Bayfair Bart, which, of course, is our goal, it's going to require extensive coordination and planning between too many agencies. So this work is just one of the many steps we're taking to coordinate the priority sites technical assistance, PASTA funding, has enabled us to organize a the first of what will be many engagement opportunities. So last year, we organized a meeting, and this January, it was held over at Reach Ashland to start working towards the goals of our partnership with BART.

Program two I is about how county HCD awards the community development block grants in the specifically in the environmental justice priority areas. So as Ali was saying earlier, the Eden area in Southern Castro Valley. This past year, the restaurant incubator at East 14th And 1 64th, as well as a food bank located in Cherryland were both awarded funds, thus meeting our the program's goal. Program three I is a reflection of the Baker Tilly report. So I know we covered that already tonight, but one of the things that I'm was pleased to tell the state we're acting on, that's just I know one of the many goals in the Baker Tilley report, is that District 4 is beginning to look into what the Office of Unincorporated Services could be.

A program for e, which is about farm worker housing. So farm worker housing analysis. This program was written for slash by the Agricultural Advisory Committee with the goal of understanding farm worker housing needs in the county. Previously, we'd reported that they, that they worked with the county extension service to survey agricultural worker housing needs in East County. And this past year, they began researching housing models that could possibly meet those needs.

So making progress. Program five d was the rental inspection pilot. So back in 2024, code enforcement's complaint based rental inspection pilot ended. But this year or we are reporting on behalf of last year that the code enforcement has begun also working with district four to design a proactive rental inspection pilot. So they're working identify funding.

And hopefully, in a future APR, we'll report that the program's begun. Program six j is inclusionary housing, working towards, proposing inclusionary housing ordinance. And as we shared with your commission back in December in 2025, we hired consultants to begin that work, and they have they are working hard in kind of background research, and I think have hosted or reached out to the majority of developers that have kind of worked on projects in the right category in the past several years. So we're we're hosting interviews and starting focus groups right now. And then program seven d is implementing the environmental justice element, and that is why Ally's report was attached to my document as well.

And we won't talk about this one because that was the last item, but implementing it was, again, one of our programs. We're getting towards the end of my presentation. I just wanna note that our request is that your commission review the general plan and housing element in your reports for 2025 and provide any comments to staff, looking for next steps. We plan to take this to the board at their March planning meeting. So if you have requests for changes or comments or clarifications in the report, I do have time to make those changes before, we submit our materials to the board later this month.

And the APR is due to the state on April 1, so we will be well ahead of that deadline. And then at the 2027, we will begin this process all over again. But that's it. Thank you for hearing my short presentation. We're here to answer any questions and take your comments. Thank you.

K. I have a speaker card. We're gonna do that first. Kelly Abreu.

Looking at the RENA numbers and looking at how much has been produced, these numbers are really, really, really anemic, really low. But one thing that you don't see in this report is how the rest of the Bay Area is doing, and they're equally low. So I saw some number where the total barrier production of arena housing units was arena whatever numbers was some number, and it was a low number. And it was so low low that Fremont was supposed to produce a number their their requirement for that year was higher than than all the numbers that we had everything that had been produced in the whole Bay Area. So there's no they had no hope of, of coming anywhere close to that number.

And likewise, with this one, it says that there's, 600 units came in as credit, and that's kind of like when you were born, I guess. You you get the credit or as soon as you enter the the period. And only 100 units were a 107 units were produced. So, we are okay. The way I'm reading this, it says 2024. So that's 2023 and '20. This reflects 2023 and 2024 numbers, which is one quarter, two out of eight years. One quarter the way through, we've got 15% produced. But I'm also reading this that these 600 units of credit, they don't give you credit every year. They gave you credit when you entered this this reporting period.

So this credit is not growing. So if we go along, you know, we got nearly 80% of the of the production is in the form of this credit at birth, apparently, and the credit's probably not growing. So as we go along, if you're producing at the rate of, a 100 units a year for the next, what, six years, you're gonna be producing, what, 600 more units, and you're not gonna get any more credits. And, you've got a arena goal of 4,700, and you're at 700. So you're gonna be at extremely low.

You're no hope of getting anywhere, but, the whole Bay Area is is like this. We've got all this all this stuff going on, you know, programs to blah blah blah. And the Bay Area is, in the last couple of years is not producing prenud numbers. They're they're they got credits and no production hardly going on. And then look at this. What's really amazing to me is is this thing where of the of the production that was there, we we I remember the these reports when they came in and said, oh, yeah. We gotta do this. We're gonna do this. And here's our ADU rules. And everyone said, oh, yeah.

But but it's just that, you know, we're ADU is just a little bonus, a little sprinkle on the top. ADU is, like, 90% of the production now. 90% of the production. ADU is not just a little sprinkle. That's your meat bread and meat and potatoes.

Okay.

Commissioners, Andy, you got your hand up.

Yeah. I just wanted to comment that this was helpful. The chart, you know, I there were I had two questions about the chart. One was the ADU section seemed to indicate that some of the ADUs were affordable, and I am confused about that.

Yeah. That is a fair question. So Alameda County, we, I guess, public works, technically, don't currently literally ask, people when they come in, how much are you charging to rent this? What will that be? However, MTC ABAG, for the second time now in about a five or seven year period, has run a survey of jurisdictions across the Bay Area to understand the jurisdictions that do or can ask applicants, how much are you renting that for?

Are you renting it at all? They recently, as in just this past week, finally shared that study that supports the assumption we've been making since 2021 or 2022 that you can essentially divide ADUs by a thirty thirty thirty ten affordability rule. 30% assumed very low income affordable, 30% low income affordable, 30% moderate, and 10% above moderate. Ideally, we would actually be asking our applicants to provide that information, but that is currently not what we have. And state HCD has allowed the Bay Area all jurisdictions unless they have other data they'd rather use, to rely on this rule.

So that's that's the affordability. It's not deed restricted.

Okay. That's super helpful because that was very surprising to see. I I may come back with more thoughts on that. Just that makes more sense because those are not deemed restricted affordable, and certainly have looked at ADU prices recently and, you know, question the notion that just being smaller means affordable. And then the other thing was the chart, I think, is helpful, and the context on it is helpful.

I'm not exactly sure how I would recommend changing it, but I think it would be interesting or helpful for the public to add like, the RENE goals are for achieving a certain amount of housing production over a certain number of years. I think it would be helpful to add a a way to visualize or a numerical like, percent difference from, like, what the goal would have been for that, like, year, not just the total. Right? If it's 10% a year, then 10% is not. It's, 14 or something.

But that's just really helpful context and appreciate the update. I do also think that not necessarily for adding like, I the member of the public commented something I was also thinking, which is it's not necessarily we shouldn't include, like, the Bay Area average statistics in our tracking numbers because that's not what we're tracking. But I do think when staff comes to the MAC or to the planning commission or to the board, a little bit of context around what the Bay Area numbers are. You know, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Clara would just be helpful to give us context as to where we're falling because we're not gonna hit our arena goals. I just I cannot imagine that most places are gonna hit arena goals.

I think in the last arena cycle, there was, like, one city in the state that hit their arena goals. So it's it's just kinda helpful to see, like, if we're gonna continually be be be behind, we still wanna do things to try to reach the arena goals, which is why they're set. But to understand, like, comparably how we're doing, I think it's a very helpful piece of data, for the community to have. But with that, I just wanted to thank you for the update.

Else? Go ahead. Narochia.

To the report, I did notice a typo. You have Rina credits for 2024.

Saw that as our our public commenter said that. So thank you for catching it. The board will get a better version of the presentation.

And then I think you captured this in your presentation. Just sort of a reminder, if you're tracking this online, the state does have an annual progress report dashboard for all jurisdictions in the state. And when you look at the dashboard, it it talks about, you know, perm, projects that are submitted, entitled, permitted, meaning you've had a building permit issued, and then completed. The numbers we're looking at here are permitted, building permit issued. So these aren't the new units completed in a calendar year.

Ish, they're the the department to be built in that during that calendar year, but they'll be completed when they're completed. You know? So I think it's just I I think understanding what data we're looking at is important. I'm not saying that presentation was misleading. I'm just saying more context is always helpful and maybe even mirroring some of the the presentations of some of the same ways that the the state presents it so that we can do apples to apples and really try to understand as as we look at different datasets that we're really mirroring how they're presented in different levels.

Although I did like kind of the breakdown you had, which is like, is the ADUs. This is a single family. Like, I don't I'm not saying that's bad. That's really good local context for us to understand what's actually being built in our community. And, you know, to be quite frank, there's not a ton of opportunity sites for multifamily unless you're seeing a conversion of an existing shopping center or something. So I think it makes sense that the bulk of our production would be accessory dwelling units. That those are those are certainly what I would expect to see in the context of many of our neighbor. But, otherwise, I I generally appreciate the the data and the information and the update. Thanks.

Hang on this side.

Mister Silva. Commissioner Rocha, thank you for that. I didn't realize that we're talking about units permitted, not constructed, so that's good to know because there'll be a drop off there. I'm quite sure. Thank you for that. So, Olivia, I'm still confused about the intersection between It it it the chart suggests that the environmental justice element relates to urban greening master plan urban greening master plan consultant selection and process. So is the intersection intersection between the environmental justice element and the housing element planting trees?

I I wasn't able to ad lib and stare at my notes for myself at the same time. I think so the literal version of the environmental justice implementation program that is included in our housing element lists out it's very objective based. So it says things like has the first tech meeting and chooses the first thing to do. And I think last year, we said it's probably gonna be the urban greening master plan. So this year, I got to say, and we're doing it.

And our colleague is hiring the consultants. But I think the actual intersection between these plans is more things like, because we were drafting them at the same time, a lot of the concerns that the public had around housing that we heard in the engagement process for the environmental justice element, we tried to reflect in the housing element. So things like our colleagues at HCD, their work on the Just Cause ordinance, they're working on a tenant anti harassment ordinance right now, things like that. Even though those are not said verbatim in the EJ elements, I think people who were involved in the creation of the EJ element several years ago, they would see that as an intersection.

Those aren't those aren't housing element subjects. Those

are housing element subjects. I have a program. I didn't reference it here. I can't tell you which number it is, but it's called something like rental protections.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. Tenant protection. Yeah. One now the housing element that ended in 2023, we didn't meet the goals that had been set for that. Is it an eight year period? I forgot. 08/09?

Eight. Eight. Eight. Yes.

Okay. We didn't meet those goals. I understand.

Correct.

So so is it safe to say that if we I mean, based on that we didn't get fined. I don't believe. The state didn't come down on us with a with penalties. Is that true?

We did not get fined, though the I think our previous inability to complete that RINA meant that our this current period's RINA was raised. I think a lot of jurisdictions experience that, a higher allocation to reflect the lack of construction in previous periods. Not a fine, just changed standards.

How many how many buildings get builders subject to so many variables like interest rates? Correct. Right? And and so on. So I guess what I'm fishing for, and I guess commissioner Rocha could speak to this, but are there can we expect penalties if we don't meet our goal?

I cannot speak for what state HCD does.

No. Okay.

But we've telling them what we're up to and being transparent about it is kind of the the good faith partnership. We'll we'll be sure to tell you if something changes.

I think I think that that approach the state would reward.

I I wanted to just oh, sorry. Not to to my concerns. I wanted to lift your concerns up, commissioner. Maybe in a future report back, you could talk about the penalties because I'm not as well versed in them, but my understanding is the state does do a mid cycle check-in during this arena cycle. And if we are a certain percentage behind our peers on average, we do lose permit and planning authority.

So, basically, it brings back Builders Remedy if you are like, the questions everyone was raising about, like, how are we doing amongst our peers kind of matters in the sense that if we are too far behind our peers, we do lose some local control. And I just I think better understanding that is really key here, for us.

I appreciate that. I do wanna note, to your point, I think it's might be s b four twenty three. I'm gonna get the number wrong. At any rate, there's a oh, we have no. I miss one of the many state laws that you're kind of talking about or implying, the acronym is SMAP, s m a p.

There's a board on the state's website that shows you which jurisdictions are subject to which requirements around, like, if a project has so and so percentage affordable, it's automatically ministerial per current state law. I believe we're at 10% affordable right now based on the previous period. So I we do pay attention to that, and I believe that is one of the things that, in a couple years, will be updated or a year, so when we're at the middle points. And I am sorry that I wasn't able to provide what Livermore or Hayward or some of our other neighbors, how they're reporting. It is February, and it is due in April. And a lot of jurisdictions actually don't bring this information to their planning commissions. They just kind of show up at city council towards the later side, so it's just not available yet.

Commissioner Zeiss.

So the thought in bringing it up, and I just wanna point a fact out is a lot of times the problems we have with industrial areas is there's no land to build versus you have other communities may say next door to you, and you're compared to them by the state. And I think it's unfair sometimes how we're being held to a higher standard, but we don't have the land, but we have a lot of construction in the areas. Versus you go to another county and they have lots of space, but low population, and they're not required to meet the same requirements we are. So it puts a lot of pressure on the county to meet those requirements, and I just think that should be addressed or discussed.

So this credit of 718 units, 611 units from prior years, Page 12 of our staff report has a table on that. And 2023 was 320 units. 2024 was 228 units, and that's double and triple what we seem to have normally. I and just looking at the deed restricted units, I guess there was a lot. Was that it looks like that was a result of the affordable housing bond and some projects coming.

St. Grove and Madrone Terrace, those two projects were the big affordable housing from the past two cycles or past two years. Yes.

That was kind of an anomaly. Because prior to that, we were kinda averaging just about a 100 units or just under over that. I too had the question on the affordable units for the ADUs. I was looking at that, and I'm like, okay. There's no way they're all three of these are 28. That's that must be, like, a fictitious number, which it is. As you explained, it's just, you know, your bag or MTC just change the rules and just use this rule. It doesn't really matter what they are, which it's hard to take them seriously when they come up with stuff like this. But are we checking going forward? Like or is there any

I'm hopeful we can add some type of survey into Mainstar or into this would require the building department essentially working with us on this because they're the ones who make contact mainly or first contact with people putting in for ADU permits. But the reality is you could say one thing. Like, we they have no legal obligation to tell us the truth, or if their plans change, I guess the I'm saying the numbers will always be a little iffy even if we are surveying people, but that is my hope, to to get some coordination around that in the coming year.

I think I'd be more likely to trust what somebody said when they're pulling the permit than some rule a bag just whips out. It doesn't have any meaning whatsoever. So on page 17, it shows table d. It's the bottom item there regards the it's in regards to the MTC TOC at the Castro Valley BART station, and I'm looking at the program implementation details, which is the far right section. 25 Alameda County was awarded funding to work towards compliance with MTC's TOC policy.

Any work towards compliance will continue, contribute to preparation. Castro Valley MAC made it perfectly clear they don't want this at the Castro Valley BART station. They don't want a TOC. They don't want seven story low income housing in Castro Village wiping out our entire retail core. So are you folks just blowing that off and doing whatever you want or what? Because this kinda makes it sound like you're still going full steam ahead to do this in Castro Valley. And I know in a meeting I have with supervisor Miley, he said if if we didn't want it, we didn't have to have it.

We are definitely at an an interesting, kind of conflict because in previous meetings that, when we've brought associate items with the the transit oriented communities work that you're referencing, We've heard direction from the supervisors, including supervisor Miley that he is interested in that. So we are pursuing that because in part of the board's stated interest I'm gathering my thoughts here. The TOC work, we kind of applied for these grants a year almost a year and a half ago now, to complete this work, which will be a lot of the things. I know there's been extensive discussion in the ongoing, business district specific plan. I think there was kind of related discussion just earlier today at the transportation and planning meeting.

Reference that to say that when we started the application process into now, there's been a lot of changes and a lot of further community discussion. So if it doesn't make sense at the end of the day to, pursue and implement any of those things, If that's what the Castro Valley MAC tells us, and that's what you tell us, and that's how the board chooses to act, then that's what will happen. But as it stands right now, we do have funding and, a consultant to start thinking about this work. And the Castro Valley BART parking lots per state law are currently zoned in such a way that they could allow for housing. Technically, there's a state law, although BART hasn't acted on it, that if the BART agency wished to adopt zoning of their own, they could do that, and it would overrule our zoning.

So there's also just a limit to what we as a locality are capable of.

I I think that's a separate issue. I'm not talking about, you know, multifamily development in the BART parking lot. I'm talking about the half mile radius

Clear thing.

And going up to a 100 units per acre, which nobody's gonna build because only, you know, funny money with affordable housing units actually is able to build things like that. The market doesn't support anything over 27 units per acre, which is exactly the project that was just built next to the Castro Valley Library. That is the density the private sector can support. Once you get into podium construction and all this, you know, multistory, it's just too expensive. Nobody's doing it.

So we can zone all that, but nobody's ever gonna build it until unless you do a couple of affordable housing projects. So it doesn't make a lot of sense. So it sounds like maybe this needs to go back to the MAC at this point then because I think that the we don't know what the supervisor tells you. You guys have access to the supervisors that the public doesn't have. So all we have to go on is the last meeting that we had.

We're actually meeting with him next week, so this will this will be a topic of that. But it sounds like maybe this needs to go back on the Castle Valley Mac agenda for more input to you guys as to what you're actually gonna do. Because the fear before was you had to give the money back if we didn't they were giving us the money to force us to do this, and if we didn't do it, you had to give the money back. And then that was a problem. But then I think it was the last meeting or meeting before you said they changed the rule on that so you don't have to give the money back anymore.

Makes sense?

Nope. Sorry.

Angela's nodding yes. Is

Yes. That is correct. As you said, or just summarized, if we spend however many thousand dollars with the consultants and it becomes clear that none of this makes sense and it's not going forward adoption, then it's just moot, and nobody's returning any money. We just don't proceed with the project. That's that. But going to the Castro Valley MAC will be the very first thing we do when things actually get going. We're we're moving.

I think what people are trying to figure out is we don't wanna wait till the end when you have it all packaged up. Oh, we have to do this. It's like, should this be occurring at all? Because we wanna retain our downtown. We don't wanna give it up for low income housing.

Understand.

That's pretty simple, you know, sentiment. So it was said earlier, so all of these numbers are based on permits. Are they based on entitlements,

or

are they based on building permits?

Based on building permits. Building permits are essentially what we get RHNA credit for.

The year the building permit is pulled is the year that it's credited? Yes. Okay. And then, you know, you look at all these programs that we have in here, and we've got many, many programs to stifle residential development. I know that the Planning Commission had put forward, you know, ministerial approval for projects that comply with the general plan, the specific plan.

You guys kinda morphed that into only applying to affordable housing units, which was never our intention. So my question is, where is that? Because that was the permit streamlining item that we wanted to see prior to the housing element. Albert decided to stuff it in the out housing element where it languished there for years. Now we're on the other side of that. The only thing we hear about that from you is it's only gonna apply to affordable units, which is a very small percentage of the units that are produced ordinarily or historically. So where where are we at on that? Because that was something that we wanted to see for all housing.

Oh, yes. The, the work of the subcommittee is a program. I wasn't able to provide much of an update for 2025 on it, just because, I guess, based on the I tend to gather the records from what's on what's agendized at all of our various meetings to report back for what was literally accomplished. What I saw was that there was a lot of discussion about the Baker Tilly report this year, which I'm happy to add as one of the things the subcommittee did. I think you're referencing I I it sounds like I muddled in the previous presentation I made the other month.

December. It was December. The proposal for essentially rewarding developments that go above and beyond a theoretical inclusionary zoning requirement with ministerial approval was not meant to replace the ministerial approval proposal that the subcommittee has. I'm sorry. Don't have a update on how that's specifically being handled. I guess I I was under the assumption that you all were working more directly with Albert on that, but I I wanna separate those as we just have a lot of ministerial kind of irons in the fire that we we do need to straighten out when they come to implementation, but approaching it from a variety of ways.

Okay. So and I understand. I understand what you're saying. But what I'm trying to get to is how was work that we did? That was something we wanted to see. That was something that we approved and moved it back to planning staff. It's been literally years now, at least two years. Nothing has happened. We're we we talk about all these things we wanna do to make housing, you know, this and that. It all seems to be about affordable housing, nothing about market rate housing.

And, you know, when you start talking tenant protections and inclusionary zoning, you know, you're stifling production. You're not increasing it. So I guess the simple question is, what are we gonna do to try to increase market rate production in the unincorporated area? Because really, there's nothing in here to do that. And the only thing that we came up with as a commission was that ministerial approval, which would streamline the approval process for projects that already comply with all of our rules.

So they don't really need to go through a year or two years of review if they comply. So I I I, you know, I see what's in this. I read through all this. I see a lot of things to stifle development, which makes no sense to me. But I I'm I'm asking in an open hearing. I'm asking planning staff, you know, where is our proposal to streamline the permit process? And the housing element's done. You know, it's got stuffed in there, delayed for years. We're past that now. We wanna move forward.

So like to see that move forward. So I'm asking what you know, somebody needs to we're we're gonna go through a list here after this, and I think you're gonna see a pattern that's kinda normal where the planning commission exhibits concerns about things that they wanna do and staff just doesn't do anything. And I'll you'll you'll see that from this list that we're gonna look at, but that's that's just that's something that the commission has already stated we we would like to see going forward. Staff needs to be proactive here and come back and with some sort of process to get us there, I think. Commissioners, anything else? Go ahead, commissioner Hernandez.

Program four point e, farm worker housing analysis. You mentioned that there was a research survey on housing for East County, our farm workers. When can we anticipate another update on those that research?

I'm going to call Ally in because this is actually part of her work.

So the the study itself is available, and I can forward it to you if you'd like. And as Olivia mentioned, the next step for UC Cooperative Extension was to start looking models. So, you know, how is this happening in areas, you know, I think they've they've reached as far as, like, Southern California, but in California, how is this happening now? So they do have a presentation that they've delivered to the agricultural advisory committee, and they delivered elsewhere. I can't remember.

Delivered it to staff.

Oh, to staff. That's right. Yeah. So they delivered it to planning staff as well to and not just planning staff. It was planning and HCV staff.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And,

yeah, I don't I think we're in the process of figuring out what next steps would be, but we do have those two documents now that we could share if you're interested.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Sure. Kelly, you have your hand up.

Yeah. I think this has been helpful. I we went down we went down a whole road here. I think what I was trying to respond to was the chair's remarks about the data on the ADU affordability. Yeah.

Even in Berkeley where we have, like, a rep registry and, like, annual registration requirements, we don't have this information. So I I echo with what Mark was saying, what the chair was saying about it would be nice to have more accurate data and potentially, like, what homeowners would anticipate. Because there are there are some people who do know. I mean, there are some people who are like, I'm building an ADU. I'm gonna rent it to some students at Trebeau.

Right? And there are people who rent to a family member. There are people who kinda know. So that might be worthwhile. I just wanted to also, as a point of context, point out that I don't I don't know if any of the cities that have this data, even the ones that have rent registration requirements because the ADUs don't tend to fall under the tenant protection ordinances.

So it's it's a it's an open question. I I do think that when we get to the end of the arena period, it it's gonna be pretty significant, though, because we're seeing so many ADUs constructed. And as a percentage of our total development, it's gonna be pretty big. And I think the default is certainly to use the survey data, but I think that as the chair was saying, like, it may not actually reflect what's happening in our community. And if we can figure out that more accurately, had but I also realized that's a big challenge. So I just wanted to add that context.

So we'll move on to item c, which is commissioner's discussion of future agenda items.

Excuse me, chair. Good evening, everyone. Sorry. I haven't talked tonight. What I wanted to say in regard to this item, I think you just said that you have a list, which is fine. You can provide that to staff and request that they put it on the agenda. But please don't engage in any substantive discussion about your thoughts on the item because it's not agendized for that. Thank you.

I literally wrote the list in this meeting, so there was no way to post it. And I did ask a couple commissioners if there was anything that they wanted to put on the list. Some of the things have been discussed in other like, summer recess was something that commissioner Hernandez had brought up recently. So starting on this and and some of this stuff is just things that we ran into and had discussions on when something else is in front of us, and we thought, oh, hey. You know?

Maybe we should look into this. So so I think the biggest item here is is the change of having conditional use permits come to the planning commission instead of going to the BZA. So we've got a couple projects in Castro Valley recently that are still working their way through the process that are substantial and impactful projects with very complicated CEQA documents and just con even conversations I've had with BZA members. You know, those projects are large enough and impactful enough that they should be coming to the Planning Commission. And the way it's the way, at least especially in the Ag District, the way it's written right now, the CUPs go to the BZA, and the site development reviews go to the Planning Commission on Appeal.

The planning director actually decides on those. But it's just for a very small list of items like, you know, caretaker units and stuff like that. So the idea here would be, you know, that we would have to decide what types CUPs, what site what types of districts do we wanna have all CUPs here? Is there a concern about, you know, the planning commission being inundated? I did just get my my I don't know what it is, a 10 99 or whatever for, you know, what the county paid me for last year.

And according to that, we only had 10 meetings last year out of out of potential 24. So we're not, you know, we're not burning the candle at both ends here in this room. So and I don't think there's that many CUPs that are coming through the BZA anyway. So I think that's something that we could do relatively quickly. I've looked through the zoning ordinance. You know, it would be some verbiage changes in the zoning ordinance. I don't think it's that big a deal. Honestly, I could probably do it myself in a couple hours. So I don't think it's one of these things that staff needs to hire a consultant for or Albert needs to say, oh, yeah. We'll get to it in a year or two.

So I'd I'd like to I'm gonna put that on agenda fairly quickly. And if staff can't generate the paperwork to do it, I'll probably do it myself. So the next item is no parking requirement in Ashland downtown. Specific plan, we had an appeal that came here for, like, a 6,000 square foot building with no parking whatsoever that was heavily impacting, you know, neighboring businesses. The businesses were literally here in this room, you know, practically begging for us to do something about it, which we could not do because it was within a half mile of the BART station.

They didn't have to have any parking, but the rest of that downtown specific plan area you know, it's in the downtown specific plan that they don't have to have any new parking for new commercial, which doesn't make any sense. And there was some commissioner discussion during that about possibly changing that. So that's another item. I don't know if there's interest in from the commissioners to look into that further. Yeah?

What I am a little concerned at the moment. I I wanna be very careful. It's fine to say that you want staff to put things on the agenda or you're going to put things on the agenda. Mhmm. But gauging interest right now isn't really appropriate about somebody's interest in doing something or not doing something. Putting the item on the agenda is different. So I know that that seems like a small distinction, but it's not under the Brown Act. So I think keeping discussion minimal about anything that you wanna put on the agenda, just that it'll be on a future agenda and leave it at that would be advisable.

So there's no way to gauge the commissioners on whether they want these items on a future agenda? You just throw it on, and then we deal we we ask the question then?

Well, you're you're you're you're saying your opinion first. That's the the issue, and then you're asking if they're interested in it.

One thing I said my opinion on was the CUP issue because there's been a lot of discussion about that recently. On the parking, I don't believe I exhibited a penny. I believe I just stated the case as to what we've, know, what we've seen here and the discussions that we had during those items.

It's appropriate is to just state that you would like an item on the agenda. If other members would also like to see it on the agenda, that's fine, but keeping it just at that, please.

Believe that's what I just did. K. It's clear as mud, honestly. So moving on, we had a discussion about our LUPA. Are you saying you don't want me saying anything about this at all? Just say RLUPA. Is anybody interested? I I'm I'm lost now as far as what it is you want exactly.

I don't want is a poll taken about an interest in a position on something rather just the item itself. So if you're interested in having RLUPA on an upcoming agenda, you know, it's fine for people to say, I'd like to hear more about that on the agenda. But it's not but the distinction is when you're saying, I feel this way about it. Who wants to hear about this on an agenda? That becomes problematic.

So Okay. Don't I don't believe I did that, but that's fine. So our loop, we I am going to elaborate a little bit as far as we did have a discussion. We did have this on our agenda at one time, and we had a discussion about some of the properties out Crow Canyon that, you know, it seemed as though our LUPA was being used to exempt them from the zoning ordinance. So is there interest in bringing our LUPA onto our an agenda for us to discuss what what we wanna do with it, if anything. Everyone's looking at county council view.

Chair, might I suggest I think you have the list in front of us, and we can read. So I'm wondering if we could all just maybe express our interest on it. Think I we sat through these items. Yeah. Go one at a time. We'll start one. Go. I I think I I actually don't know why Alameda County has a board of zoning adjustments. I didn't grow up here, so, you know, I moved here five years ago. I most areas, isn't that just a planning commission?

So I'd maybe just a bag an informational item from staff on this at some point would be useful before the commission makes rec because my understanding, this would be, like, a a recommendation to the board on what we think on this, and the board would actually have to initiate a legislative item to change anything. So it'd really be an informational discussion of us learning from staff why this exists as a structure within this county, and then we can offer feedback during the informational item, and then, the the board can decide to enact legislation or not do anything. I'd be interested in an informational item on that, really. And on the any specific plans, I'm wondering if staff is bringing updates to those plans already. Is there some cadence at which we expect to see that?

I don't know. If if there is a specific plan update, it'd be nice to have it in that context rather than for one component of a specific plan. That would be my preference. If we're just gonna talk about any any one item of any specific plan, I almost think it might not be worth our time just because it's only useful to address specific plans when we actually have a lot of changes to address. And as for the rest of the items, I think, you know, could be certainly worth our time to discuss.

So when you change a specific plan, is it subject to the two per year general plan? Okay. K. So using commissioner Roach's approach here, anybody else?

I like every one of the items. Two of them come up every meeting or have recently the mosaic project and the park dedication ordinance. It'd be wonderful to have that formalized on the agenda. Each one of these, I think, would be is is certainly worthy and important for us to consider.

Being forced to speak. Yes. I actually agree. We, these should all be on future agenda.

K. So the Mosaic project, I'll just clarify that's you know, the CUP is was denied at BCA. It's on appeal. It's going to the Board of Soups, March 5, I believe. And, that's not something that we could bring here because it's a project that's under appeal.

The only way that comes here under the current rules is if, there's a caretaker unit component to it that has a site development review that for some reason the planning director, two months later, has not made a decision on yet. He's leaving it up to the applicant, supposedly, and would have to he would have to make a decision on that. His decision appealed before that could come to us. I just put that on there as a kind of a reminder because we keep asking staff to tell us, you know, what's going on with that, and that's why that's on the list. Commissioner Hernandez had asked about a summer recess.

So and I believe I wasn't here for that meeting. I believe staff said I don't know what staff said, honestly, but that's obviously something we can put on there to discuss. Park dedication ordinance, this was raised at the last meeting. According to the ordinance that has not been complied with by the planning director in the last fifteen years, dictates that he gives the planning commission a report in January of the previous year for the planning commission to make a recommendation to the board of sups. Here we are in February.

This still hasn't occurred, so that's why that's on the list. And the Hayward Airport actually came up tonight, and I did throw that in there because I don't remember the item that was here, but we had we had a little dust up over. Does anybody remember? Do remember what it was? Noise.

The jet noise, and we had a letter from the mayor of Hayward telling us what to do or something, I remember. And I honestly, I had no idea that they still had lead of gasoline at the airports. I mean, to me, that decades after it was removed from vehicles, that makes no sense. So I don't know I don't really know what we could do about that. If there's any sort of county process, I guess that would be, like, an informational item for staff to bring to us, kinda educate us on what is the county's role in the Hayward Airport Since the entirety of San Lorenzo is at the end of its runway and is consuming all its fumes, leaded fumes, and everything else, is there anything that can be done?

And is you know, noise would definitely be a consideration. I understand that this could be a touchy subject for people that have airplanes or whatever, but I don't have an airplane. So you know? And if you if you don't have leaded fuel at other airports, it seems odd that still has that. I guess I can work with staff to see about you know, I'm I'm not saying we gotta get all this on here, you know, but figure out which ones we wanna move first.

My understanding is there is interest in the board of supervisors to move the CUP item, so I think that would be a priority for us to work on first. Anything else?

And the

and the Brown Act training, you're you're all due for your Brown

Act checkup? Thank you. Excellent.

I could do this on February 17, which is a Tuesday meeting, I believe, because Monday is a holiday, Okay. Or the first meeting in March, whatever date that falls on.

How much time do you need for that?

Probably an hour and a half max.

K.

Depends on how many questions you have.

Right. I will put that on that agenda.

K.

Great. You're good. They what you got we know what all the rule changes are now for that?

I'm pretty good. Okay.

Our next item our next meeting, which is the seventeenth, February 17.

It's Did I after the following in March, I may be

Oh, that's fine.

We would definitely want maximum attendance for No. We want training.

Yeah. We want everybody here, actually. So we'll we'll kinda double check to make sure that that's gonna occur. So I so I think that's it on on that. Sure. Sorry, Andy. I can't see you.

No. That's fine. I was just gonna say I think we should hear the items too. But I thought commissioner Rocha's question about why we have a BZA. I think when we have either as its own item or if we have the conversation about the conditional use permits, I think it'll be super helpful, especially with how many new commissioners there are, just to get a staff update or overview, like, ten minutes on the structure of CDA and how it intersects with, like, permitting, zoning, adjustments, us. I don't think that's the max. I don't think that's all clear to folks who haven't served on those different boards, and that would be very helpful context for planning commissioners to have.

And I don't and I don't think that these are things that we're gonna do, you know, in a vacuum. There's these are things that definitely I think we'll we would discuss it first, and then it needs to go on the roadshow because I know there's some of these things are coming from MAC members actually, and have been brought up at the MACs several times. I I I'll give you the short answer on why we have a BZA because we had a zoning administrator, and the hearing room used to be over on Elmhurst over here. It was the 1st Floor, which is the Public Works Building over here where you get building permits. And the I I would go to these I would go to these meetings, and the zoning administrator would stand up and scream at people.

I remember one time there was a guy in there, and he was Russian. He had a serious Russian accent, and the zoning administrator was screaming at him for his accent. And that's just one of the many ridiculous behavioral issues that occurred with this gentleman. He still I think he still works at the county. They put him in a closet somewhere or something.

I don't know. But San Lorenzo I know the San Lorenzo Village Homes Association was really militant about wanting a change, and that's when they came up with the BZA and appointed, you know, the BZA members. And it was a rough road. I would say 90% of the BZA decisions were appealed to the board of sups the first several years, but that's the short answer to how we got there. So staff can elaborate further when we get that on an agenda. Andy, you still have your hand up? Okay. So let's see. Next item, staff comments and correspondence.

Nothing from staff.

K. Chair's report, I don't have anything. Commission announcements. Comments reports, commissioners? Do it for me.

Go ahead. I wanna thank staff for the sound system. This is really wonderful. And encourage you, in fact, beg you to do the same thing at the Castro Valley Library for the max that meet there. This is wonderful.

What's the gentleman's name that was here earlier? Peter. Yeah. He comes in and kinda checks everything before our meetings, and I I I threw this at him last the last meeting. I'm like, is there anything you can do? Because county council keeps telling us to speak into the microphones. We can't get them any closer to us. You literally have to hunch over, you know, to get to these things. And he came in, and he did it himself. And I don't know. He was trying to I don't if he was dealing with IT or who he was dealing with, but it was gonna take them too long. So he he told me today. He goes, yeah. I just kinda came in and did it myself, and I thought that was pretty cool. So

I will say that I could hear everyone very clearly today compared to most of the time.

Yeah. Well, we do need to do something in Casper Valley Library. Right, Mark? Do we

They set those up every time they have a meeting, so that's just a matter of how they're setting those up. But, yeah, it's the same and it's the same microphones as these. But they're, yeah, they're strapping them under the table, they're strapping them too tight. So it's

Secondly, I'd like to thank Marcella for the cookies and the soft drinks and back. That was really a wonderful addition. That's awesome. I I took full advantage. My associates up here have yet to discover the stash, I think.

Sure. So it was on a sugar high still. So so with that, we are adjourned.