Clean and Green Commission - Regular Meeting

This is a different setup.

Okay. We're still waiting for that colleague Goldstein, but we do want to start the meeting. Okay. So the meeting starts. It is 05:03. Roll call, please.

Council member Wilson is. Council member Lynch?

Present. Julie Zermaiden?

Here.

Thank you.

This is the time where everybody gets to introduce themselves. Then we'll start with you, young lady, who you are and what do you sell.

Yeah. Hi.

I'm Melanie Chavez. I'm the sustainability fellow with.

I'm Okay. A water resources planner in the water resources.

Hi, everyone. I'm Daisy.

I'm the recycling education representative for.

Hi. I'm Elise. I'm also a recycling education representative for Waste Management.

And former. Right. And former City Hill.

Okay. See that.

I'm Emily Carion, mother of intern Chloe Carion.

I'm Chloe Carion. I'm a junior at Impact Academy, and I'm interning at my.

You skipped once.

I'm Renee. I'm Chloe's sister. Great. Howard.

I'm Jeff Crump. I'm Hayward's salt waste program manager.

I'm Linda. I'm the senior secretary.

I'm Alex Aneri. I'm public works director.

I'm Elisa Wilfon, water pollution control administrator for water source control program.

I'm Morel Vargas, sustainability specialist of City of Hayward Public Works.

Eric Pearson, environmental services manager.

And Mary Thomas, assistant city manager.

So that takes us to approval the minutes of twenty dash zero two six, the minutes of 11/10/2025.

I will move.

And I will second. Great. All those in favor, please reply. Aye. Aye. The minutes have been approved. Okay. Reports and action items. So number two is ACT 26 dash zero one, building performance standards model ordinance. Oh, public comments. My apologies. Any public comments? Maybe that's why I skipped it. There was no one. Okay. Alright. Item number two.

I'm just going to introduce the item. This is building performance standards that we present existing buildings, not the new ones, but the existing buildings

to meet certain requirements related to energy usage, even even water conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, and so on. If you don't do anything about existing buildings, you know, they can last for a hundred years without change. So this is focused on existing buildings, and, I know that, Eric might want to say a few words and introduce, more.

Yeah. I'll just say this is one of the key strategies identified in our climate action plan to help meet our long term greenhouse gas emission goals. And, yes, Mariel Varghese, our sustainability specialist, will make the presentation.

Alright. Good evening, Council Sustainability Committee. I'm Morrell Vargas, sustainability specialist. Oh, thank you. And I'll be providing an overview of building performance standards or VPS, staff recommendations on next steps, and ask CSC to provide feedback on staff's recommendations.

Since 2016, a b eight zero two, building energy benchmarking program, has required buildings over 50,000 square feet to report annual energy use through the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager to the California Energy Commission. This is known as benchmarking and allows building owners to track and compare energy performance over time. SB 48, known as Building Energy Performance Strategy Report, builds on this by directing the state to develop a building energy performance strategy, which may inform future statewide building performance standards. A draft strategy is expected this year with the report being presented to the state legislator by mid to late twenty twenty six, and a possible BPS framework starting in 2030. While the state's forthcoming BPS program will focus on larger commercial and multifamily buildings, many energy and emissions intensive buildings fall below the 50,000 square foot threshold and would remain unregulated.

Mhmm. As a result, cities across California are exploring local BPS ordinances to complement these state actions, address cap gaps in coverage, and apply lessons learned from other US jurisdictions that have already implemented BPS programs. Approximately 50 local jurisdictions already have benchmarking ordinances, including four in the Bay Area. Those being San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley, and Brisbane. And 13 local jurisdictions have adopted building performance standards in The United States, with four of them being in California.

Those being Chula Vista, San Jose, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood. Buildings account for a significant portion of Hayward's community wide emissions, with 13% of Hayward's emissions coming from nonresidential buildings. Larger buildings represent a disproportionate share of emissions. For example, there are about 900 buildings that are 20,000 square feet and above, which accounts for about a third of the total non residential buildings in Hayward, but constitutes 69% of the emissions from nonresidential. This concentration makes large buildings an effective policy focus to reduce Hayward's emissions and meet the city's 2030 and 2045 cap goals.

This is already reflected in Hayward's climate action plan under these building electrification actions listed which direct staff to develop a benchmarking and BPS policy or something similar. To work towards meeting these actions, staff joined the US Green Building Council's CalBPS peer learning collaborative, where approximately 50 local jurisdictions share ideas and create alignment to accelerate and streamline the path to building decarbonization in California. The collaborative recently released a model BPS ordinance that incorporates technical assistance from building professionals and jurisdictions across the country that have adopted BPS policies, as well as the priorities of California jurisdictions involved in the collaborative. The Cal BPS model ordinance provides a framework for establishing a BPS that improves the energy and emissions performance of its existing buildings over time. Staff has reviewed the model ordinance and explored what that could look like for Hayward if the city were to adopt the BPS.

Staff is also considering adding water usage to a local BPS and will coordinate closely with our water resources staff to see if and how this can be integrated and leverage with the reporting requirements in the annual urban water use objective. If Hayward were to adopt the PPS starting at 20,000 square feet, it would cover a mix of property types, including apartments, offices, retail, and warehouses. Warehouses represent the largest category numerically, particularly in the 20,000 to 50,000 square foot range. Apartments is also significant category along with offices and retail properties. The model ordinance begins with benchmarking for three to five years to collect energy and positive water data.

After sufficient data collection, performance targets are set. These targets may include site energy use intensity, greenhouse gas intensity, and water performance metrics aligned with the annual urban water usage. Targets are typically structured in five year compliance cycles, gradually increasing in stringent stringency towards a twenty forty five zero emission goal. The model ordinance is is designed with flexibility and clarity in mind. Property owners can meet performance targets directly, submit a custom decarbonization plan, request extended interim target periods if they are an affordable housing property, or use a portfolio averaging if they use multiple buildings, if they own multiple buildings.

The model ordinance includes exemptions. Permanent exemptions often apply to federal state facilities, industrial manufacturing uses, condos, and all electric buildings. Temporary exemptions may apply for buildings being demolished, experiencing financial hardship, or having low occupancy. It's important to note that all property owners would have to request an exemption every year. Based on peer cities with benchmarking and BPS in place, staff anticipates it may require approximately 0.5 FTE to administer a benchmarking program.

Benchmarking typically does not include penalties, so no staff time will be allocated to enforcement. But a later phase of BPS could include non compliance fees, which are often reinvested into technical assistance or support purposes. From conversations with property owners in Hayward who already benchmarked some of their properties, The time commitment for benchmarking will take on average per building in the first year of reporting. Due to the time it takes to add the building characteristics to energy start with full game engine. Time will decrease significantly the next year since some benchmarking data like energy usage can be automatically added through PG and E's portal.

Depending on the final decision of the program and ordinance, property owners could be required to pay an annual filing fee in the range of a 100 to $200. This fee will be used to support city staff time to administer the work. While there may be upfront costs for benchmarking or upgrades, property owners can expect benchmarking and DPS to provide a great number of benefits, including long term utility savings, improved asset value, reduced exposure to future regulatory risk, improved tenant comfort, and building resilience. BPS policies also stimulate demand for skilled local labor and electrification and energy retrofits. Building performance standards offer practical phased approach to reducing emissions from existing buildings while providing flexibility for property owners.

For buildings over 20,000 square feet, a local BPS would complement forthcoming state requirements, addressing meaningful share of global emissions, and create a predictable pathway for efficiency and emission reduction. Staff recommends the following for CSC feedback, And if CSC agrees, it's appropriate to PC with conducting additional engagement with interested parties regarding a possible BPS ordinance, exploring implementation of a first phase that would require benchmarking only for three to five years, Considering benchmarking metrics, including greenhouse gas emission intensity, site energy use intensity, and water benefits aligned with the annual urban water use objective. And after three to five years of benchmarking data collection, staff would evaluate expansion the ordinance to include performance targets and bring bring it to council. Alternatively, the city would wait for the state's building energy performance strategy to be released and revisit local action in the 2026. So this slide lists a few pros and cons for each alternative.

Pros are in green and cons are in red. SAP's recommendation is to move forward with exploring a local benchmarking ordinance. Starting sooner would allow the city to begin collecting energy and water data earlier to better inform BPS policy and performance targets, engage building owners and community stakeholders sooner, and stay aligned with the climate action plan emission reduction timeline. Benchmarking can also help property owners better understand their building performance and identify opportunities for energy and water savings over time. This option would require staff to begin stakeholder engagement and feasibility analysis sooner than the alternative.

While the preferred option would eventually involve program fees for the covered buildings, those fees would not begin until benchmarking ordinance is formally adopted and implemented, which would likely occur no earlier than 2028. The alternative option would allow staff time to review the state's recommendations and any potential guidance related to building performance policies before pursuing local action. It would also delay near term staff commit commitments while the state process moves forward. The trade off is that it would reduce the time available for stakeholder engagement with building owners and delay implementation of this part of the cap. Upon direction from the committee, staff will further investigate a Hayward specific BPS policy and conduct significant outreach to building owners and business associations.

Staff recommends that the committee receive public comment, reviews and comments on the report, and provide direction to staff.

Very good. Thank you. So public comments? Any public comments on this particular item? No? Alright. Questions? K.

There is an online comment.

Oh, okay. One online comment.

Go ahead. Who are you? Gonzales. Go ahead and unmute yourself.

Okay.

Hi. My name is Vincente Gonzales. I'm a sustainability analyst at Eden Housing. We have several properties in Hayward that meet these benchmarking standards. And so our comment is we recommend alignment with state benchmarking in the near term. We'd be happy to submit data we benchmark for the state of California to support the city of Hayward benchmarking energy performance in the city. We also recommend aligning with other local jurisdictions in the Bay Area. Having fractured local policies with different requirements is onerous for affordable housing owners.

Thank you. All right. Okay.

Thank you. Comments? Okay.

Anyone else on public comments? No? Okay.

I'm approved. Thank you. Thank you for the reports. So, when is the state supposed to lease their fund or, you know, concur in this?

Yes. So the report has been pushed back, but the intention is quarter one of this year. Of this year? Mhmm.

So we're we're almost in alignment with them. Right? If we were so if we were the direction is now like, we start now. Is that what you're hearing? And then even if when if they take a little bit longer, people already start collecting data. Is that the idea?

Yes. And for clarification, the building energy performance strategy report would be for BPS. So already putting those targets for reducing energy and emissions. But the benchmarking parts are already been filled out.

Okay. So because so I guess I'm I'm just confused, like, why why the differentiate when it feels like we're all, like, in tandem with the state at this point?

So the what we're expecting out from the state any day now is their strategy report. So but their actual regulations, it's that's kind of unknown at this point

Oh, okay.

When those would take effect.

Okay.

And I think the strategy is that that's kinda like just their Like, their plan for doing Yeah. They accept something. Okay. And then they've gotta develop regulations. I would expect that would be at least another year Mhmm. To develop that. Yeah. And then we don't and we still and what we've been told is that they are anticipating when it does go into effect, it would actually take effect. I think it was 2030. Right?

2030 and possibly the first target, 2035.

Oh, I see. So we could start developing and have a local target or much earlier than that if we if we do this. Right? Have a local Yeah. Much. Okay. And then and so you said a point five full FTE. And then are you expecting those annual fees would eventually pay for that staffing? Yes. Is that ultimate? But then there would be some upfront cost.

I can see that in terms of engagement. No.

That's why I'm asking, would there be, like, until we get to a place we're collecting a fee, the the point five full time employee would be something we'd be paying for in our current budget, obviously. Right? Mhmm.

Yeah. Is that right?

Okay. I think we we're thinking that the program could be developed by existing staff. By existing staff. Okay. Yeah. Because, mean, that's obviously my question. Given the situation that we're in and any kind

of staffing, is this something staff could take on? I see that's a Yeah. That could be direction from

the committee if if you only would move forward with

this if it was cost cost neutral, basically. Okay.

The fees would cover the staffing. Okay. Even the upfront.

Could be could be a could be something you guys could provide direction. Okay. And then I I was gonna ask, and actually, the the public comment was interesting was, what is, like, what is the biggest bang for existing buildings buck, you know, for reducing greenhouse gases? Like, what are we asking of them if they start benchmarking and then the changes that they would need to make?

Are you asking in terms of, like, what upgrades, energy Yeah.

And then, like, what, like, what cost would there be to them? Like, how is how much of burden is it? And I but, you know, the public comment was sort of, I think, kind of is along those same lines where they're saying this would be difficult for them to be monitoring to a local and state.

Yes. Well, what'd be most helpful for that type of flexibility in mind is having a list of suggested upgrades that they can do and then put them there. What's most effective for them, money and terms of their building. So it could be as, like, LEDs switching to that if they haven't done that. Insulation for the current HVAC or ducting to just reduce energy load. So it could be a mix of of types of reference needed.

And are you saying that there so there's no penalty involved. We're just trying to say, look. Here's the standard we're trying to get to to get our existing buildings reducing their GHC grade, their greenhouse gases. Right? So it's not a penalty program now or even we're not even protecting it to be that. Is that right?

I mean, it could be. There are some some cities that do have penalties associated with but I think most of the cities that currently have these compliance targets in place, they're they haven't got to that point yet where, you know, where there's this mandatory reduction in energy use.

Right. And then to the public comment, you know, they have multiple buildings. They're sort of worried about, you know, following state and local. Like, what do you say to that comment?

Well, we've been involved with the CalBPS group where, if you saw on the map, has a lot of jurisdictions across California and quite a few in Bay Area. Yeah. So we're talking amongst each other to help avoid that type of confusion. Okay. And from those who already have a BS learning from their lessons. So that was definitely something we want to keep in mind as we move forward with any type of outreach. But then again, BPS would be the we're talking about three to five years from now.

Benchmarking. For the state. Right? For pardon me. For oh, I see. So we would benchmark for three to five years, and then we would come up with an ordinate a local ordinance based on benchmarking. Yes. Okay. I think I understand. And then yeah.

Because, I mean, I would hope you'd work with you know, like, he's a local you know, for a housing provider, we would wanna, you know, make this more difficult for them, right, if they were trying to match two different or state and local ordinance. I mean, because I like the idea, you know, here where it has been a trend center and, you know, sustainability goals. Like, I like the idea that we would start doing this to sort of make our existing building owners aware of, you know, where they're falling short, you know, and maybe where they could save money, like you said. I mean, it seems like it's kind of a win win if, you know, if we do this right and we get the benchmarking, that's really clear about how they may might be able to change. So so I'm open to it. And you're just looking for direction today. Right? We're not voting on this or anything today. Is that right? Okay.

That would be great.

Okay. Thanks. Jonas?

So

Yeah. I just wanted to

add Yeah.

To the we are not making a strong recommendation one way or another. We just wanted to receive your comments. Okay. There are only four cities in the Bay Area that have done that. Mostly larger cities, San Francisco, San Jose, city of Berkeley, of course, and then Brisbane.

And three out of the four cities have done it prior to pandemic when the financial situation is a little bit different than it is right now. So, you know, an option is to wait for the state and see what they are going to be doing so that we can join the other 96 cities in Bay Area to adopt this, including some of our neighbors, like, you know, San Leandro and Fremont and Union City and others. Yeah.

I mean, that's helpful because I think my question would just be to you, like, the burden on staff. Right? It sounds like a good goal for our own sustainability, you know, future. And but if and if you felt like it was something that was gonna be helpful to towards those goals, and it wouldn't be a burden on staff, I I think I also like what but, like, I think it goes both ways. Like, I don't wanna demand this on you or even say no if you think that would help towards our long term, you know, goals that we're trying to reach. So I know that I don't know if that's helpful or not, but, yeah, I'm open to it. I just would you know, is it would it really be something you could take on with existing staff and have that be, you know, helpful going forward? So alright. Thank you.

Thank you. Good questions. Good reporting, Ray, and good clarifications also. There is an educational component to our to all those people affected by this.

We're gonna let them know this is coming. We're part of this. What what what's what is being planned? So if we move forward with this, then we would be reaching out to as many property owners as we can, that would be affected by the the ordinance. Alright. And, you know, to find out kind of what's their the condition of their property, get some idea of what their what their current bills look like, and, you know, see how a benchmarking program might assist them with, you know, finding opportunities for savings. And in my mind,

the sooner the better. So I'm not really sure I like the alternate alternative, which is wait until the state. You're seeing as people who wanna do things, we go out there. We're we're a green champion. So in my mind, I saw on the slide that it will help us reach our cap sooner. So in my mind, that's key, reaching that cap. So I'd rather not wait for the state because you said '2 2030, 2035. That's too long in my mind. Let's be greener to that degree. Question. Why isn't a hospital, exempted? Do we know? Just

It's a good question.

They they I saw federal buildings I saw federal buildings, and in my mind, hospitals are special. I mean

So the the tool that's used to do the benchmarking, the actual reporting, it's it's the federal EPA tool, Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and it has the ability to compare buildings of similar types. So a hospital is gonna be benchmarked against other hospitals. And so even though they are an an intensive energy user Right. They're not gonna be compared against the warehouses in here. So, yeah, so the requirements would be set accordingly.

Right. And your slide show two hospitals with we have same rows, and the other hospital is

Which did a a pull.

What did this Sleepy Hollow is still considered, like Yeah. Classified as the hospital even though it doesn't have Mhmm. It has it has urgent care. So

Okay. Okay. Oh, the one that the Sleepy Hollow? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Okay. That's good. Right. And then, of course, at one half FTE, this is both back to colleague Roche's question. Is this a burden upon us? Is this cost neutral to us? How is that FTE? If if we were if we were to recommend let's do it now. Is that gonna put a strain on our PT?

It's gonna be a cost burden for at least a few years before we have a number of buildings that are going to be paying that The fees. So we're speaking of millions for the next three years. We're speaking a couple of thousands in the next three years. Do we have an idea as far as the cost goes? Mhmm. Mhmm. Half of a FTE, so it would be tens of thousands of dollars.

For the next three possible years without recouping any possible memories money to offset that. Right. So, madam Thomas, is that something that we can Yeah.

I mean, I have

couple of things to kinda, like, consider, and and I think we can have conversations. Or if you guys want them

to pursue this, it sounds

like that could be part of the next steps is looking into what a staffing model could look like and where that funding could come from. I think this is you know, we had a similar it's more definitely more staff. We had a similar conversation about rental registry in the fall. This would charge some of the same property owners. And yeah. So I think there's both the funding question. And then and then that, basically, it'll become cost recoverable when we could when you could actually resend when you add to the fee schedule Okay. As part of the

fee that that they would

have to pay to cover that.

Would would measure the money be something we can use for this?

Short answer is no. What's the longer answer? It's too big.

That's about $200,000 a year if use that. It's a no no. A 140.

Measure d funds need to be spent on efforts that reduce material going through the landfill.

K.

And this is gonna be focused on energy and emissions. So Okay. So a grant possibly. Mhmm.

Let's see. So I like good benefits. I like that. I prefer doing it now. Okay. Colleague, ghost time. Do you wanna do it now, or do you wanna wait till twenty thirty five?

Can we use the microphones today? Or Excellent. I like the idea of doing something now. You know? We've always Hayward has always been, like, you know, tip of the spear. I got the Yeah. In terms of doing sustainability. But we do have some concerns over our general budget. And because of those concerns, we honestly think a lot of you are already being overworked. And so I'd be okay with the delay.

I'd prefer to do something now. So whatever we can do now to start the discussion and letting our community know that we are working towards these goals. I prefer to see the FTE be cost neutral either by way of grants.

Mhmm.

So I

don't know if the energy would, you know, kick in for, you know, Grant to do this, but whatever grant funding that we might be able to find to move forward, I would be more inclined to see this through. I don't I don't wanna wait three years and then hope for cost recovery because things change. And so I just think we need to be on our toes about that.

Good good points. Thank you. Yes, please.

Is there any savings to the city if people came into compliance or, you know, if we had the goal to reduce their, you know, gases and they came into the compliance, does that save the money does that save the city money in in the long term? Could reduce our U of T.

Yeah. But that's good thing.

That's a bad thing.

Right? It's climate action. Yeah.

I think most of the savings is gonna be to the property owner. The property owner. The tenant. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, it's so then I yeah. I mean, if we're gonna do next steps, I would wanna see how we could make this cost neutral because we obviously can't take anything like that on now for the next couple of years, especially, you know, to customer point, you know, if everyone has already sort of burdened with work and we add this on top of it without, you know, proper funding. Yeah. So I think that's I I would definitely need to see how it would end up being cost neutral or something.

So let's look for a way.

That'd good. And I think we can also talk about it sounds like

that you guys are are giving direction to continue to explore.

To at least get to the next step to see if that's I would like to see, like, what what what would it really cost us to do this? Is there what's the reality? Yeah.

He said he said he said thousands of dollars. How much?

And I think the other thing that we'll we'll take into consideration from the city manager's office is we are gonna be pulling businesses about the business license tech, so we probably wanna keep keep try and keep these separate as much as possible and time it so that it's not, like Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't feel Good.

We're gonna have to make you a member of the green team response. You're doing well. Okay. Any other questions on this? No? No? No. Okay. Anything from our intern over there? No? Nothing? Okay. So that that means that we can go to item three. Item three is ACT 26 dash zero zero nine, proposed updates to requirements for trash enclosures and recycling of construction and demolition.

So this report is going to discuss two separate things. One is the requirement for trash enclosure when required to flush an enclosure. And also the design of trash enclosures, so that's one. And the other is compliance with recycling of construction and demolition degree because we have some challenges in getting all of our contractors to do the right things. So this is a report that covers those two things. Very good. I'm Jeff Kromp, our starting risk program manager this year. I did present the report.

Okay. As Alex said, I'm gonna present a report on potentially updating the city ordinances for trash enclosures and construction and demolition recycling debris requirements. And you will be seeking comments from the committee and your approval to move forward with this. And there's two different items. One is a new ordinance where we'd like to have an ordinance on trash enclosure requirements.

And currently, the requirements for permit applicants when they're coming to upgrade an existing building or build a new building, they're based on an internal policy. It's not an official code. The other item that we're looking for is the construction, demolition, debris, recycling requirements. And what we want there is basically to update the fine for those who choose not to comply with our ordinance. Both of these items or neither of these items are specifically mentioned for any strategic road map in the strategic road map, but they both are really closely related to a couple of the strategic priorities.

The trash enclosures item is really closely related to enhancing community safety. It fights blight and litter. If have the enclosure, there's not as much litter getting around. And the construction demolition, the the recycling item, that is really closely related to championing climate resilience and environmental justice, and it's related to promoting a circular economy. Talk about the trash enclosure item first.

Crash enclosures, they serve an important purpose. They protect the environment by keeping debris that people intend to put into the bins that doesn't quite make it contained, so it doesn't blow around, become storm water pollutants. They increase community safety. The picture on the right here are some that are just rolling around in a parking lot. They won't hit cars if they're in an enclosure.

They won't hit people, and they reduce the likelihood of people scavenging through the bins and getting hurt when you stand by something sharp in the bins. And they also improve aesthetics. People don't like looking at carts and garbage bins all the time. The little photo on the upper right shows some that just sort of had been got the property there to start using their trash room, and they had just been stored outside. I like to point out that we can make ordinances requiring, like, the best, most beautiful, best functioning enclosures there are, but they need to be used.

And so no matter what we do, staff is always gonna have to work with property managers and the drivers at waste management and Tricent to make sure they're putting the bins back into the enclosures and using them properly. So like I mentioned, our current method of operating is an internal policy. We don't have a formal code that we follow. And, basically, we follow this policy on a case by case basis and then add conditions of approval to permits to make sure that they do what they them to do. And we have a a requirement for an enclosure.

And I say enclosure. I had mentioned it briefly with that example I provided. It doesn't have to be an enclosure. You have a trash room at your property that does the same thing as an enclosure. Keeps the bins out of public view, protects the the litter from coming from them, and keeps them enclosed. But any new constructor is gonna have to have a trash enclosure or a trash room. And for existing buildings, if they don't have an adequate enclosure or method of storing their waste, we're gonna have them upgrade. And our current policy is that's only at properties where the tenant improvement work is $200,000 or more. And then the other trigger, the threshold for having improvements made is if it's changing use on the property. There's like a bookstore and it's sold and then you bring in a restaurant.

That's a big change with the amount of waste going through that property. You're gonna have to make changes. And this method of having our internal policy has worked really well for years and years, for decades, but things have changed. And in the last several years, the state has had more strict requirements on both storm water and solid waste. And then that's made us ask more frequently for improvements to the the enclosures when the tenant improvements are Mhmm.

And for example, there I don't know how long ago it was, but there was a requirement for storm water to have 100% reduction in litter. That's really hard to do, especially if you don't have enclosures around. And for solid waste, organics became required to be sorted. And a lot of these enclosures were built years ago where there's no room for a third bin. There may not even be room for two bins if they're old enough because before recycling was even required.

In fact, I had this picture of an old trash enclosure that's near the Jiffy Lube by Jackson in Amador, and it's really got room for just one bin. And so they store one bin in there, and the recycling organics just live outside. And on the right hand side, I was able to reach over and take a picture of the bin because there's no roof. We require roofs now to keep the storm water out of it.

And when

we're asking for all these upgrades, it can get very costly, and this can frustrate applicants. When they come in and don't have any plan to do anything with their waste management, we ask them to do a lot of changes. And this picture here is of our standard design requirements. What it doesn't show is often we we ask often. We ask for a roof all the time, often for a sanitary sewer connection, and these things can really get costly.

And the cost can vary dramatically depending on how big of an enclosure you need. If you're doing the sanitary sewer, how far do you have to go to reach the the nearest line. So having a codified ordinance oh, and these costs can get up to $50,000 or or more depending on how large it is. So having a the the code can assure the city's process is predictable for builders and developers, and it can make the review process one consistent. Here's our suggested new thresholds for the ordinance, which are very similar to our internal policy.

Like, all new construction will require some sort of trash enclosure. Existing buildings where you're doing tenant improvements, if it's a change of use or a new business, they'd have to address the trash enclosure. But we made the we're suggesting the valuation come up to 500,000 and put a limit on the enclosure requirements to 10% of the valuation. And then certain businesses will always need to have some sort of an closure, organic centric businesses like restaurants or grocery stores. And for an example, in 2025, with our old threshold of $200,000 evaluation, you know, there were 35 tenant improvement permits that had that as the threshold.

And for the 500,000, there were 16 tenant improvements that we would have asked to upgrade their current enclosure system. Mhmm. We've had that. K. That's it. On trash enclosure, onto our c and d recycling requirements. And this one's pretty simple. Currently, if well, for every project that comes through that's over $75,000, we have requirement for them to recycle 65% of their waste, 100% of their concrete, and inerts. That's a very common ordinance for jurisdictions. And our penalty, if they don't do it, is just the basic administrative fee of a $100.

And then it escalates in a twelve month period to 200 or $500, but we don't get a developer coming through that frequently very often. So we have a little $100 fine that's not very scary for them, or we can refuse to sign their occupancy permit. Mhmm. And so it's like too small of a penalty or too big. Like, if there's a a large development that the city's looking to get revenue off of, the developer's not gonna be happy, and the city's not gonna be happy if we're delaying the whole thing because they didn't recycle properly. So what we're suggesting is updating the initial find to be up to a thousand dollars that has a little more teeth to it. And there's other options that can be Mhmm. Taken.

That's what we're suggesting. So

our next steps would be to take direction from the committee and make any changes to these ordinances before we try to go to council for consideration. And our recommendation is that does the committee receive public comments, reviews, and comments on this report, and then makes a recommendation to counsel to the drop in ordinance for the trash enclosure requirements, and another recommendation of counsel to adopt CMD ordinance updates. And this slide shows us specifically we'd like some comments from the committee on the appropriateness of the $500,000 threshold for the enclosure compliance for existing buildings and also the $1,000

fine for noncompliance with our recycling debris construction department.

Thank you, Jeff. Good report. Thanks. Alright. I'm sure that waste management management may have something to say about this. You don't have anything to say about this? You're happy with the trash enclosures project?

Like it

That's makes

an operation.

We've been working with we didn't present all of our design changes, but we've been working with waste management to update the design changes to fit larger bins and see how high the

That was gonna be one of my questions. Yeah. Oh, excellent. So nothing? No? Any other public comments? No? Anything online? Oh, no. Okay. So, Julie, you started last time, so. Oh, okay. So first of

thank you for the report and the insights out of it. It's it is actually kind of interesting going around the city because we have many older parts of town and newer parts of town, and it's we're allowing us to see the trash management, you know, fifty years ago, but it's handled very differently than it is in the modern era. And so I like the idea of being able to modernize around around the city. And some people may go, well, you know, why are you bothering with this? But as you pointed out, you know, it it affects the quality of water and and, you know, potential potentially has trash into the water that flows out to the bay.

I mean, there's a lot lot of reasons why we need to be concerned about keeping trash in, and, of course, also trash flowing around the neighborhoods. You know, it's when I'm out knocking on doors, you know, during campaign season, I'm talking to residents. It's usually one of the top things on their mind is how much trash there is that floats up. And so our committee does a really fantastic job of picking it up after the fact, but, you know, we wanna do something about making sure that it doesn't happen in the beginning. So I like this idea.

But we're also a business friendly town, and so, you know, we don't wanna burden everybody with, you know, such onerous restrictions that it becomes problematic for them, especially because not all of our neighboring cities are going to be as attentive as we are, to such things. And so we wouldn't wanna chase people away to have them go open a business just across the border in the next town just because it was rule like this. So I like the idea of having, as you put it, the fines up to a thousand dollars. I have some questions about how that might be determined, but I do like that. And another question is about the improvements.

One of your slides said about improvements over $200,000, and then another slide said 500,000. Yeah. 500,000 with a with a cap of 10%. So if if I haven't confused you,

would you mind possibly addressing those 2? 200,000 is what our internal policy is right now. So if we see a tenant improvement that is only for 90,000, we're not gonna ask them to do anything with their current trash enclosure. But if it's $200,000 or more, we're gonna say, okay. We want you to make improvements here. And so the 500,000 is what we're suggesting changing that to so we're not should be more business friendly. So we're not hitting as many people with asking them to do this. And then we put that 10% cap on there to make it so that at the $500,000 level, they're we're not gonna ask them to spend more than $15 on their trash enclosure. But, of course, you know, the higher the valuation, the more we would want them to spend on the enclosure.

Oh, well, I see. Okay. Alright. So so there is automatic growth in there. So inflation, you know, five years, we don't know if, in fact, you can visit these dollar amounts every year. It just naturally kinda grows?

No. No. The percentage would just be on whatever initial whatever cost of the valuation was. Just that 10% would be more. So it was a $800,000 project. You know, they'd have a $80,000 that we'd want them to go up to. It doesn't have to, but that would be the cap on what we ask them to spend. So to to that point, we don't have any built in CPI or anything that would increase the valuation. We would have to come back and look at

that in five or ten years when it became significant enough. K. I think I think this is a good start. And then in terms of the fines of up to a thousand dollars for the c and d component of this, how would those fines be determined? So if they're a $100 now, it's like you're in or you're out. Right? It's like you you Yeah. That's qualifier and you get a $100 fine. How how would you escalate that to a thousand?

Maybe we oh.

Was I saying, I mean, I think we we require the, debris recycling for all construction projects, anything over $75,000. So that includes a lot of, like, home remodels. So we could look at, you know, smaller projects potentially having a smaller fine for noncompliance. But and but exactly where we draw that line, need to do a little more analysis. Oh, okay. Fair enough. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. I'll start with the c and u one first. Yeah. I say, yeah, I would approve it up to a thousand dollars because it sounds like $100 isn't working. People just aren't doing it. Is that right? Just avoiding it. And so if we if they know upfront there's a thousand dollar fine. I I yeah. I'd be interested if you wanna say if it's a home project, maybe it's something smaller than that. But, I yeah, mean, I think the rule needs to be clear. We we're trying to get people to comply with the rule that's already there. Right? We're just putting a little more teeth to it so that everybody will have the understanding. Right? They go into the project, they realize, okay. If we don't if we don't follow the rule, we're So I'm actually okay with that. Like, that's a yes for me in that. On the trash enclosure, yeah, I like that you're gonna bump it up from $205,100,000 because I think it's hard for some an existing building to have to sort of come back and come to compliance with the new rule.

But you said right now, it's sort of a rule, but not an ordinance. So are people, again, just ignoring that? Like, they'll they'll come in with their understanding of how they're supposed to open their business, and they're not thinking about the $5,050,000 dollars that they might have to do for it. Right? Because I've heard this. There's some businesses that are like, what? I am paying another 50 for a trash enclosure. Is that what's happening?

Yeah. You you we'll we'll get some applicants that are very upset at the the cost of the improvements that we're asking them to do, and I believe it has escalated to council if you have.

Right. Is it because they saw the rule and they're like, well, that's not an apartment. So I'm just

gonna They're asking for yeah. They're all, well, where are you getting this from? You know? Yeah. You know? Well, it's just our policy here. Well, that's not a. You know? Yeah.

I mean, so I like the idea that we're gonna just make this clear from the outset so they know what the full scope of their project looks like if they're gonna start opening a new business or, you know, retrofit an old business that they know what they're in for on that. And then and but the the idea of, like because you're right. I've seen plenty of enclosures that are not used. Right? They just leave the bin out all week. Right? And then people use it and, you know, trash gets everywhere. Or, like, you know, the cobbler parking lot over there? Mhmm. Those trash enclosures get trashed. I mean, they're just open, and I guess people go through them. I don't know what happens, but there's piles of trash inside there. So what would the ordinance take into account a usage requirement? Enclosure.

We hadn't thought of adding anything like that to it. Just the just the construction of it.

Yeah. Okay. I I can talk a little

bit to that. Yeah. So running the stormwater program, so the follow-up would be the stormwater inspection. So inspections would go over with the property owner how please use your your enclosure. Please have it locked. If you go inside, open a bin, put trash in, please close the lid Yeah. And lock it up. Because, yeah, people will go through it and then mess, and it goes all over the place. And so the the intent of the trash enclosure is null at that point. So we do a follow-up inspection program to help them with that. And from the environmental bent, but we still achieve the same goal.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess you wouldn't want to put too much in the right. For now, let's start with enclosures is what you're saying. Let's get people to use the okay. And then as far as the oh, you said so, like, if you're a club store versus a restaurant, you know, like, I I would as far as, like, requiring businesses that already exist, would you differentiate that? Because if you're a high trash, you know, producer versus a low trash producer.

It's more like the type of waste. The like, grease and Yeah. Organics coming out of a restaurant is much more has much more potential to cause environmental harm than, like, a bookstore or an office.

Okay. I mean, I I I like the idea of us just being clear with applicants that are coming in. Right? Let's let's sort of bring what was suggested basically into a requirement, and then everybody understands what their, you know, what what their the full cost of their project is. And if we're moving it out to a 500,000 limit, then I I think that feels fair, right, that we're basically saying, like, this you're gonna be, you know, bigger business. We need to make sure you have the closure. Right. And you said 500, and then after that, it goes up 10. I mean, it's 10%

after percent.

After 500,000.

At 500,000.

Right. Five

10%. Yeah.

Well, what if, like, if if that's the value you're saying, you have to pay at least 50,000 towards an enclosure. What if the enclosure costs more?

Well, then yeah. We still need to iron out some of the specifics of it.

Because like you said, what if it it needs a drain or and that's gonna be really costly to, like, feed into the storm water system. So what would happen in that scenario?

So we were we were looking at the, kind of the state regulations for, Americans with Disabilities Act and, you know, where is the improvements are similar. You know, they're limited to a percentage of the the valuation. And so, I think we would just look at if if there are improvements that could be made to the enclosure that would bring it closer to compliance with our standards and it falls with the under the the cost cap, then they would go ahead. But if if we evaluate everything, like, say, we need a a roof over the enclosure, but the roof is gonna cost 60,000 and our threshold's 50,000, then maybe we might say, well, you don't have to install that roof. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I see it's a way of being fair, like, not making this, like, astronomical. Right? Right? Because it's on a, right, a strange piece of land, or it's right next to a condo so that roof enclosure is really necessary so you don't smell it. Okay. Okay. Well, I say before I've been developing this ordinance, obviously, we'll get to look at language later, right, once you iron this out. But I I just think that, you know, I think the certainty of an applicant coming in understanding the scope of that project, I think, is something we should do. Thank you.

Thank you. Good comments. Good good questions. So some businesses are exempt from a traction closer from building? No. I asked about Ed an enclosure at Edna's Donuts on Tennyson Road, and I was told that it was an old business or it was grandfathered in. So there's no need for a.

If they're not coming to the city and applying doing any tenant improvements

Okay.

We're not going out to just any business and saying, hey. You don't have an enclosure. So, yeah, in those situations Yeah. Yeah. Operate against AR.

But what is it's it's very unusual. So I complained about these garbage bins at Jackson Liquors into our entryway into Hayward, It's ugly bins. So I complained, and then the city went over and told them to build an enclosure. They did build an enclosure. It was so nice, wooden. And a month later, it was gone. But not the trash bin. It's now facing Mick and not Jackson, so it doesn't look as ugly. So it's very unusual. And I asked because Buena Petito has been asking for a trash enclosure for many, many years.

Well, at least many months, and nothing has been done by us, but they're willing to do something with it. And then, of course, we have Arthur Max coming into town. And in that area, at the moment, there are six bins out there in the cold, the poor things. You know? They're the ugliest things that you've ever seen. And what are we going to do with Arthur Max begin operation? Are we going to build a storage shed for all of these or the you know? And I've been told, well, we really can't force them to do anything because we're gonna lose parking spaces. I don't care if we lose two parking spaces. You know?

It's the beautification of it. But I also have to go back to colleague Goldstein's movie that we don't we are a business friendly town, and we certainly do not want to tell or encourage people to go to a city or San Leandro and leave us. So we need to find a good balance. I like the program. I love what you're doing. Eventually, we'll see something. The fee structure is actually what the funds. Let's just say. So we need to look at this a little bit more. But there was one other one that I want to Oh, Buffalo Bills.

Okay. Alright. So and the the Deborah's is fantastic. I think that's actually the trash enclosure over there. So so

Can I ask a question?

Yes. So you you are going to work on it. I think you have support from us as far as what you are doing and want to do. If we can figure out a way to be friendly and also hard knows about it, it's been fantastic, because they are the ugliest thing in the world. Mhmm. Yeah. I don't mind the smell, but, you know, you're driving by, and there's this ugly thing out there. And so that's go ahead.

Yeah. Just to the to comment about the business friendly part of it or about businesses wanting to come here or not come here based on what they have to spend. What are other cities doing on trash trash enclosures?

Well, it varies a lot. Mhmm. We looked at a lot of other cities, the design requirements, and some of them just have a a two page with some bullet points. Other ones have, like, 30 pages with various diagrams suggested, and some do the sanitary sewer just on staff recommendation. Others, every enclosure is required.

So so even, like, an oil that's requiring it, it varies.

They're Most of them yeah. Even that varies. Yeah. Okay. So

They don't all have an. No. Okay.

But what he was doing is not unusual. Right.

Alright. Thank you.

Alright. Very good. Anything we don't need to vote on this?

No. So you are moving the staff recommendation? Absolutely. Yes. Establishing usefulness. Got it.

Keeping in mind that we also need to Right. Give me one second. Yes.

Okay. I'm gonna do it.

Right. Right. You mean a bow. That's what you're saying.

Right? In the CS. Yes.

Yes. I moved in your second, and I can move in and post you anonymously just making sure that we are as friendly as possible to our businesses. Okay? All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Very good. Thank you. Good job. That's it for me. Alright. And we'll expect the reports on him in the future. Yes.

Alright. And we'll go to council if I'm sorry.

Of course. Alright. Let's see. So that means we can go to item number four. Number four is RPG 26 dash zero two two, compliance with stormwater trash deduction requirements, information and discussion.

Yes. I'm going to introduce the Councilman Goldstein in his remarks touched on this that sometimes trashing the community ends up in the waterways, and there is an requirement from the state that trash in waterways would have to be eliminated by I think it is July 2025. The city under leadership Elisa Wilfong, our source control administrator has done a fantastic job to be ahead of a lot of other agencies in implementing this requirement. I will have Elisa to present the report and talk about this.

Thank you so much, Alex. I think the last item is a nice segue into

If I may, that photo before I forget. Is there any way to put a a mesh there? Because I see a lot of garbage coming through that that opening. So anyway, something about mesh? Or

I I definitely will give you a suggestion for it. Better than a mesh, we have what's called a full trash capture device

Okay.

Inside the inlet. And so when the trash falls inside, it gets collected. And then all we do is pull the grate to clean it out, and it doesn't gush to the environment.

And when I clean the streets, I'm always picking up vapor and junk.

Me too.

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you. Mhmm.

And on the dumpsters, you know, it's it's the trash and the blows everywhere. It's just, you know Mhmm. We gotta do something with that. Anyway, I'm so happy to be here tonight. Thank you so much. I'm here to talk about the compliance with the stormwater trash reduction requirements, and this has been a long, long journey. One second. Hang on one second.

Post it on social media.

It's a video. It froze up for a second. It's okay.

Okay. I apologize. That is good.

The

presentation doesn't. We will Maybe I stop should I stop sharing?

Stop sharing and see if it's the screen. Yeah. Is the screen.

I mean, it's the.

It's Thank you. It's okay. Let me let me just go ahead and keep going because first slide is really the introduction of the requirement, and it's just a quick review. Permission c 10 was created in 2009, and so this has been a sixteen year journey to get this finished. And c 10 is is the trash reduction provision in the mispervisional permit. What it said was we had to get to 100% heard it a little bit tonight already. 100% reduction of trash by 07/01/2025. Just for your knowledge, this is the first limit that we've ever had.

Wow.

In the Bay Area that we had to comply with. And it was quite the tall order to to do. How do you reduce trash by a 100% to the waterways? And this is referring to our municipal storm water system, you know, not directly in a fresh in the in the ocean. It's just what's coming out our storm drains.

So this was propagated in 2009. In addition, the last bullet refers to an amendment that was made years later during this process. Not only do we have to control the trash in our municipal storm system sewer, we also have to control private properties, and the acronym is private land drainage areas. Let me explain what that is. A PLDA is a private property that is plumbed.

Let's let's see if you can put in your mind, like, parking lot with its own storm drains. It's plumbed to the city's main storm drain pipe in the street. So it's bypassing the gutters that you see on the street. So if the city were to install something, let's say, in the gutter to filter the trash, it would not filter that private property's trash. And so the water board, which is our regulator, said you

have to do that as well. Okay.

So the reason for the provision, we all are aware of how trash impacts the environment, through the chemicals and the pollutants that just, you know, the upper right picture, I think, says it all. That's not what we want. We don't want trash in our community, in our in our waterways and environment. We want it to look nice and pristine and clean for the wildlife and for for enjoyment. So that's really what the push was and the the priority was for the water board that really kind of pushed the the requirement on cities.

Next, please. So back in 2009, the way we started this was first we had to identify where the trash was. And so we had this map color coded to where and this is based on visual assessments. And so we went out into the environment, and we documented where the trash was found. Mhmm. We broke it into colors. So the green color is areas that had little impact of trash. The yellow was a medium level. The kind of the peachest color is a high, and then predominantly the freeways was deemed very high as far as visually what we were seeing. Next slide, please.

So over the sixteen years, this is what our map looks now. We have all these blue areas of actions that the city has taken so that we have eliminated all those colors to where we're we're collecting the trash and and complying, you know, with the mandate. And this this table just kind of illustrates actually, can you go back one? I think you skipped one. Okay.

Go ahead and go to the next one. I will I will just visually I'll I'll verbally tell you. So our road to compliance has been since 2009, we have been doing mainly the two things to tackle the mandate. We've been installing full trash capture devices, small and large, and we've also done an inspection program to tackle those private land owners' areas. How we funded this was over a series of grants, and also a collaboration with friends who's been a very good partner because they have similar a similar mandate that the city does.

They have to reduce their trash in their own jurisdiction. It's difficult to do it for highways, and so they went to the cities to collaborate because we have the land area. So we can put a full trash capture device downstream, which then would filter the storm water coming from the freeway. And so they provided the funds, the city provided the work so that we would put the trash devices in and then comply. But in total, the city installed 629 small devices. Those are the ones I mentioned that were in the gutters. And then we installed six large devices, and we're talking, like, large underground bolts that are as big as this room and and bigger.

One on Tennyson. Right?

On Tennyson. Yes. And we're gonna get to that because I have video. K. And then as far as the inspection program, we did this over a year to comply with the private landowners. And so over a year, we had to assess hundreds of properties, same kind of process that the city went through for their own streets. Which which one had a trash issue? Kinda break it down into those colors. And those who did have a trash issue, we implemented an inspection program to address it with the property owner, follow-up with a formal inspection, and then enforcement if necessary. I'm happy to report that of the 71 that were on my list that got down to, like, the real trashy spots.

Only only had one property that just could not keep up with the level of littering, and they had to install their own full trash capture device. It was not a financial hardship, and they were able to comply, and they were happy with that option. And so they just simply maintain those devices. Next slide. Okay. So all the projects that we did were fantastic. I I I love them all, but I did pick one. So this is our Tenesin project. I just wanted to highlight because it just happens to be our largest one. Mhmm.

It's in my opinion, it's the most spectacular one. So this is an area right off of Tennyson right next to the off ramp and on ramp to freeway. This is Caltrans right of way. So we had a huge area to work with, which was fantastic. Because what we discovered was that there was not just one pipe, but there was two.

You can see the two in the center there. That means the project instantly doubled. Instead of putting one device, we had to do two. And you can kind of see the scale of how big these devices The round parts of the devices is where the storm water is filtered and then the trash is thrown to the center and collected. The square one, you'll see it in a second here, is where it ties into the pipes themselves, and that's where the water is diverted to the round sections where it's filtered, and then it's thrown back into the square section, and then the clean water is flown through.

These devices treat over 400 acres, so it's one of our largest treatment drainage areas that we've done. And it was very spectacular, but it was also very, very difficult because you can see how tight those those square pieces are, those pipes were very, very close together. Another element of this I just wanted to showcase is the difficulty because these large pipes are not owned by the city. They're owned by the county flood control district. So we had to work with them as partners to get approval of this because their main concern was flooding.

And so this is actually the first one that's been in the county system to date. There's been others, but this is the first one, and it was a little scary for them. They didn't really appreciate it. But just like them, they have to comply with this mandate, and so they are putting their own devices in now.

So Were you there?

I was there. Yes. Really? I got to see it. I couldn't miss it. You know? Most of the time, these installations are done over one day, but this was fun because it was two days. So I got to spend a little bit more time out there. And the reason it's so quick is that because the crane is extremely expensive, and so they want that in and out as fast as possible. Yeah. Next slide, please.

That's a wow.

Yeah. So so here here's where we are now. We have all these devices in the ground, and our charge basically is we have to maintain them. So when they fill up with trash, we have to clean that. This is a picture of small device. The picture to the left is a clean one, and the picture to the right is a dirty one. So when they collect the trash, we don't we usually wait usually, the small ones are cleaned twice a year, and we don't wait until they're, like, bursting. We wait until they're no more than 50% clean, and then we go out and we suck all the trash out and then dispose of them. Next slide, please. So this is a picture of a large one.

It's it's a design on one side. So you can see what it looks like underground because right now you only see a manhole. It's not very exciting. But they pop the manhole, and when they maintain them, roughly about once a year, so a little less than the smaller ones, they come by, and most of our city crews clean these. They come by with the tractor truck. They lower the vacuum system, suck all the trash out, and then pull the the waste over to the, corp yard and or the yard next to the treatment plant. These are fantastic. I I like to take care of our maintenance folks. They're very easy to clean. And then the the example of Tennyson, we actually since they're it's on a median area, we've created a special pad so they can drive right off the road so there's no safety issues.

They can clean, maintain the the devices, and then they can safely enter back into the road. So that worked out really nicely. Next slide. So so what's our future here? So our future now, technically, pay word is done. We have 100% compliance. However yes. I'm so happy. So happy about that. We've been working on this for a long time, so I'm glad it's over. However, we have an opportunity to do one more project with Caltrans. There's a stretch of 880, which is not covered. It's covered from point of view. It's upstream is covered where our trash is located. The the freeway section is not covered downstream.

So they asked us, would you like to do one more project? They were interested in funding it. And so we are going to install a very, very, very large unit on Cabot. Okay. That's almost to the bay. Like, it's like the last hurrah. So this is gonna be our largest project. It's gonna be over a thousand acres, and it's gonna be probably two devices, the largest I've ever done, and it's gonna give them credit. And the reason it benefits the city is that I can eliminate a lot of those small ones that are treating and doing their work.

Mhmm.

But it's their financial burden to the city having to clean them every year. So this makes makes good sense, and it's a good location. We're in the process of getting approvals again with the county because the pipes we don't own. Regarding the the PLDAs, the private land drainage areas, on an as needed basis, we will go back and we will inspect them to make sure that everything is still clean, you know, picking up litter. If they need to install a little trash capture, we'll evaluate it at that time, but they're kind of folded into stormwater inspection program knowing that they're really special because they have the drainage situation that we have to regulate.

And then lastly, as I already mentioned, we just have to maintain the devices. So we have to clean them on a routine basis, make sure they don't overflow, and that they're all functioning. I've had instances where some of them have broken, some of them got stolen. So we I know. That'll be valuable. I don't know what you're gonna do with it, but, I mean, we they they from time to time, things do happen. So we will go out and we've been small ones are not that expensive. So it's not a it's not a burden on us, but we have to maintain make sure that they're there and that they're maintained and cleaned periodically. And that's it. So I'm available for questions, and I'm just very happy to report that this has been a a long journey, but a success.

And we don't have to worry about CTEP anymore.

Since 2009.

Yeah.

Right. Very good. So

Oh, sure. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Congratulations. I remember when we had some of the area talks about the big ones going in and what that's gonna do, having to learn about it and understand why this was so important. So, yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. Thanks for all the work that you guys are doing to make this happen. And then I remember us talking about the private owners, and so I'm glad to hear some of them have just installed their own trash capture, you know, where they weren't able to

come into compliance. And are they responsible for cleaning their own? Yes. Okay. We set up an operation and maintenance program with them. So we have an agreement that's been signed and and, actually, it's attached to the property itself. So if the tenant or the owner were sold sell it or or switch, then they would assume that that responsibility so that if they left, then I'm not left hanging. You're like, wait a minute. There's these devices that you have to take care of. They're not to start all over again. Yeah. So that's that's going to run with the property.

Oh, okay.

And then so they have hired a contractor, and they will go out and clean it regularly. And then attach that operation and maintenance agreement is I I've asked them to submit an annual report to me by the end of the year just as a check-in Yeah. So that everything is okay and that you did actually claim them. And and they they were they were very cooperative. It wasn't Right. It wasn't a problem. So if we had to go through those steps with other property owners, we're we practiced, so we're we're good to go so we can do more.

I was thinking, like, you know, the new shopping center there and, you know, at where the Spouts and Crazy Kings is. Is that, like, an example of a property that would have its own trash capture? That's a big trash producing site. And, like, do they have their own?

It is. And, you know, matter of fact, I I drove through that one today. I was writing our our fellow over there and talking about, you know, kind of the topics of tonight and everything. Actually, it's really clean. The parking lot's super clean. Okay. But, yeah, that would be a good example because they have their own most of the time, the newer developments with their own storm drains that you see in the parking lot are gonna be directly plumped. So, yeah, that would be an example.

So they would have their own trash capture in?

Only if they have a trash issue.

Oh, I see. Do it. Okay. Okay.

Some cities have. Some cities say, automatically, you have to put it in. Yeah. I did it on assessment value. So if you've had an issue, we would we would go that direction. But if you did have an issue, you could still I gave him an option. I said, do you wanna try to pick it up? You know? You wanna maintain it with operations? That's great. If if you can prove to me that that works, then I'll go back and do a follow-up. If it proves, like, with the one that I had to work with that it didn't work, and they admit it, and it's like, you know, we we start at seven in the morning, and we by 10:00 in the morning, it's completely filthy. Okay. You you have a high traffic area. It's very challenging, and they opted just to put the full capture.

And then you were saying that, you know, first the county was was nervous because they were worried about flooding. Were they worried about flooding from the devices overfilling flooding or worried about coastal flooding and, you know, contamination?

Actually, it's the it's the opposite. They're worried about it backing up and affecting flooding upstream.

I see. Okay. Yeah. So that's why we cleaned out so much.

Any object, anything, even a pedal pebble, they were worried about putting in their line that it was gonna affect the hydrology and then it was going to back it up up upstream.

Is there any, like, any scenario where it couldn't back up, or is that would that just be if we weren't constantly cleaning it?

My experience with Just out of curiosity. Yeah. My no. My experience with these devices since we've had them, since these large ones since 2012, they don't back up because as long as you clean them and maintain them Mhmm. They really good at what they do. I mean, that water is flowing. Yeah. The foolproof is that the box that was in that video Mhmm. The weir that stops the water, it's designed to where if the rain storm event was, let's say, like, massive one that we had, like, three years ago, it would it would go over the wear, and it would just it would just fall through. It wouldn't it wouldn't back up because it has to go through those rounds. Okay. So with those foolproofs, I feel very confident that we're not gonna They didn't, but I I feel very confident that we weren't gonna cause them flooding issues.

Okay. And then just I mean, some things are just out of curiosity because it's a good news report. On the one you're saying this new huge one you'll do out at Covet Road, would that if you were like, if there are several private properties along the way, would could they just pay into that? And then, you know, instead of having their own captured license because if it's gonna because you said even some of the city ones, you'll be able to eliminate Correct. Those charcoal ranchers.

They don't they don't need to. There's Caltrans. We we funded all of this with with Oh, okay. Public money with grants. And so they they could, but honestly, we we are treating other areas equally, so we wouldn't just do it for them. The but they are gonna benefit from it. So they are no longer on my list because I will be treating it downstream as well as eliminating

I see. So if it's downstream from this big one, you're not getting it. Right? Because you're probably up enough to to work. Okay.

Yeah. Which which is a huge benefit. Yeah. I don't have anything up. I can just focus on Right. One large one. If I could put them everywhere, I would have. But engineering wise, it didn't it didn't Yeah. Work out, unfortunately. But I put them everywhere I could. Yeah. Well, it's awesome news for

Hayward, awesome news for the bay, and thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your time. Yeah. Thank you.

I was so excited about this that I forgot to do public comment.

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

Any public comment? You know? Nothing from waste management. What's what's wrong with you guys? And then Impact Academy left. Alright. Very good.

Colleague Goldstein, you're on. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I I saw that video at some point in the past, and maybe while it was under construction there on Denison, they have driven by, and it was very impressive. Mhmm. On the project. But more than that, I I I'm just really impressed that the technology exists to make it happen. I the pictures of the smaller ones, I'm I'm actually kinda surprised, and maybe because the scale was thrown off when I saw that really huge one. I somehow imagine the ones that were in the storm drains were also pretty large, but they they actually look pretty small.

They're very small. So and they're also custom because the they're called inlets. If you look through the gutter, you know, our typical gutter that I, you know, recognize when I'm walking along the sidewalk. It's almost it's just like a concrete little box. Now some of them can be quite deep, but the dimensions, the the width and the the length is is very small. And some of them are super small and super shallow. So it was a little challenging getting these devices in there because it depends on where the the inflow of the water is coming from.

Mhmm.

So but, yeah, they're all shapes and sizes, and we had to get a contractor that was working with custom materials. And so they when they installed it, they went out and they cut it just specifically for that inlet.

So so the Cabot Road project, you said we'll we'll be able to take some of those smaller units out? Yes. About how many do you think?

That's a good question. I estimate maybe twenty, thirty of them, which is great in

time. Yeah.

Because they're they're at least twice a year, and they get a little costly because they have to go to each one and clean each one.

Yeah. That means taking the grade off and then the stuff down there.

Some of them, they're so small. Speaking of size, they have to get in there with a shovel. They can't use a factory unit.

Oh, really?

So it's it's it's it's labor intensive.

Okay. Good. And, hopefully, that'll cut down on the theft of this one. I'm just surprised that anyone would steal. But, you know, construction metals. Right? Metals. Well, I'm well, I'm taking the steel and then resell them. So copper must be neighboring cities that

are gonna be there. Yeah. We're

topping what we need. Exactly. We need to go check on you, you'd say, and No. I'm just kidding, of course. But, I'm just surprised, you know, that's what happened.

But Me too. When you pop the gray and you just see the little hinges on the sides, it's like, oh,

boy.

What happened?

You must you because you've been with this project for a while. You must

I don't think I've taken it personally.

Yeah. Was gonna say, you must feel like you lost a pet. That's true. You're a little little rover.

Else? Alright. Very good. I'm just wondering if Conrad's gonna say anything about this. Conrad? Oh. No? You're just a backup? Super. Oh, okay. Alright. My only question, I love what you're doing. It's excellent. Thank you very much. My hats off to you. It's tremendous because I really hate seeing garbage and litter, especially in those the downspouts. So CABG project, what is going to be the our cost?

Our cost is is zero. We do take staff time to design and implement it, you know, as far as, like, getting counsel to agree to spend the monies, but all of it is funded by Caltrans. And that includes my consultant.

And that's it into John going down in there and digging the hole?

Yes. Oh, really? Contractor as well.

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Oh.

It's all it's all been grants and Caltrans, they're they have quite the tall order. So they get up and down the state having to reduce the trash. They have the money. They just don't have manpower, and they don't have

the land. We do. Yeah.

So they are so excited to do this, and they get a lot I mean, the whole stretch of $8.80 and 92 is gonna be covered for them, and they're because they're thrilled. So so they can scratch or check Hayward off their list and move on to the next one. Yeah. The moment, they're projects all over.

At the moment, they're on my positive positive list because they have cleaned up 92 and and and Hisperian. So so I'm happy with I'll be unhappy later, but for not the moment, it's up to you. Yeah. Alright. So that that's it. And do you need to vote or anything? This is No. This is gonna we'll just eventually go over to our colleagues, the full council, can I report of some sort? It will not.

No? Okay.

Should if we can that would be we should you should send a memo out to,

you know, to

to sheriff council. Because I think

that's Yeah. Something to celebrate.

To say a 100% compliance with this.

Like Yeah. I think so. That's a biggie.

I I think that would be great.

Yeah. Yes. And show the video if we have a couple of minutes.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We got a little

bit of Yeah. Great. That's a good idea. Yeah.

We are being green. That's important. Okay. Let's see. So that ends item number four. We're going to item number five, which is RPT two six dash zero one two, urban water use objective annual report overview. Bye bye. Take care. That was

I think

you just need to scare the anxiety there so that

you could ask me here.

Scared the loss. So as you know, the city of Hainborg has one of the lowest residential per capita usage of water. Among the members of Bosco, 26 millionaires, the last in Czech, we were number four and five in lowest usage. And, approximately right now, it's something like 48 gallons per capita per day. However, there are regulations from the state that are trying to ratchet down the amount of water usage by residential per capita.

Okay. When in 2022, the regulations were adopted, the threshold was set at 55 gallons per capita per day, so we were below that. And I think last year, the number was changed to 47, and, eventually, the number is gonna go down to 42. So the whole point of this report is that we still have work to do related to our water conservation, and we cannot relax. We have to make sure that our commercial customers, our residential customers are going to practice water conservation and lower the the usage.

So when this report was prepared, annual urban water use objective, I thought that we share it with you. It's six thirty right now. We can present the report or and and Conrad Bruganski is here. He's a water resources planner, and he can present the report, or we are here to answer any questions, however, you prefer.

So how long did you report?

Probably five minutes. Okay.

Let me let me go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll be really brief. Thanks for that. It says Alex mentioned, it's just an informational update It's been for the committee on the annual reporting requirement. It's probably annual water use objective, and the state gives us a threshold that we have to meet immediately.

We've been reporting on this for the last three years now. We are in compliance with the state's objective and the threshold. We have been well below the threshold, which is very good for Hayward. There are a a couple of items I just wanna touch on here quickly that that comprise this objective, and it's residential indoor, outdoor use. Our commercial outdoor use primarily for irrigation and also our water loss throughout the system.

Generally, we're faring well in all of these categories as how expansion our residential per capita use is 47 gallons per person per day, which is one of the lowest the Bay Area. It's in the top 10 lowest in The Bay. We wanna keep it at that level, but the state is now us eventually to reduce that down to 42 in 2030. So we have a little bit of time, but we have some work to do in terms of how we are going to deliver this message. So there are a couple of additional reporting requirements that are coming our way just to be aware of.

We have to identify our top water users in the ninetieth percentile range for residential and commercial. The goal is eventually we have to offer them incentives or rebates mostly through way of education and outreach. And so one of the main items we'll be working on for this year for 2026 is enhanced outreach and messaging to our residents and especially with our commercial customers with a focus on outdoor use because that's where most of our savings can be realized. Of course, this aligns with the Citi strategic road map on our sustainability initiatives. But as I mentioned, one of the things we'll be working on this year is a lot more outreach to our customers.

We have a customer portal for water use that our customers cannot access, And so we'll be using that as a tool to roll out some strategic messaging and work with our customers to understand their water use a bit more and some of these requirements that are coming down the pipeline. That's the direction that we're going. So we just wanted you to be aware that we do this annual reporting. As Alex mentioned, the residential per capita use is going to eventually go down. So we have a little bit of work to do on that front.

There are many discussions happening around that, of course, and analyzing kind of the impacts and benefits of that low water use threshold. But for now, we are in compliance with the state and any requirements, that we have to pull as of now. But we do have a full report also if you're interested in any additional data points as part of

that. So

please keep your comments and question too many because my stomach is groggy.

So first of all, great great report. Thank thank you for that. And so if I heard you correctly, not only are we already on target and below, but excuse me. The the updated numbers from the state were also below those thresholds currently. Right? Correct. Yes.

As of now, the indoor threshold is 47, and we are right at that

point.

This is superior. Compliance stuff. You know? Yep. Great. And so

we wanna do additional outreach just to keep people aware and continuing to make progress on saving.

Is going to go down to 42 gallons per capita. Oh, I'm sorry. That's where I missed.

We're at 47 now. We're at 47.

Okay. Alright. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Good. Thanks. Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah. It's always nice to know that we've been below the levels up till now, but more work to do. So if we do more work on this, can we go after the residents that are above the effort or, you know, sort of because, obviously, you know, people that are doing a good job of water conservation, then ask them to do more. It feels, you know, bad. And and there are people that are just constantly above that, I assume.

Yes. And so that's one of the things we report now is that ninetieth percentile number we report a total on those accounts. So we are aware of

Okay.

Of those accounts. Yeah. Okay.

So

the next step is kind of that target And

then our rate.

Right. Considering it's an average, if we just worked on those, right, then we could break down our overall average. That's the idea. Right? So it doesn't necessarily have to affect every household who's still trying to do a good job

of it. Absolutely. And by the way, we provide a lot of incentives, rebates, and other things to encourage them to do that. It's not forcing anyone to do anything.

And then my last question, because I know you're trying to get is what will data center water usage do to all of our limits? It feels like the huge amount of water usage will start lower averages out

of the water.

Is it

No one intended.

We don't know right now. Yeah. The longer answer is that in a climate like hay Hayward's climate, the water usage is not going to be what we have read that, you know, in Phoenix and It's huge.

It's huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So only during the time of day that the ambient temperature is above a certain number, and there is a need for water usage. As you know, we have two existing older data centers in Hayward. We have looked at their water usage. It is not exorbitant. It's not, you know, over the top, and I'm not expecting the water usage for the new data centers to be, you know, more than some of the other customers that we have.

Oh, even though I mean, because the stack one, won't that be, like, a much bigger so even with that, you're able to extrapolate what it takes, okay, from the other data centers. Okay. And technologies have improved Yeah.

In terms of how to cool the chips and

Okay.

And not use all another water. Okay. One good thing is that the owners of these data centers are very sensitive to image of, you know, being sustainable. So they want to work with us to maybe use some recycled water Yeah. Or reduce their usage otherwise.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the part. Mhmm.

Follow-up. Can could the data data centers be using, could they use that great water?

And and I know you mean recycled water. Yeah. In terms of that, they need to have purified recycled water. So it takes, you know, an end of the of treatment. But we are working with them to see how we can provide that kind of water. Okay. Good. Either we provide recycled water and they do the, you know, PFK sort of treatment or we do it for them. So we are in conversation.

Very good. Conrad, thank you for your importance. Thank you, That's beyond what the city requires. So that takes us to item number six, which is the, ACT 26 dash zero zero eight proposed agenda planning calendar, review and comments.

So we have the items that you see for your next meeting, which is in September. During the Saturday work session, the decision was made that CSC is going to meet twice a year. So now is March. The next meeting would be six months from now in September. The only thing that I wanted to highlight for you is that we have two meetings of CSC.

We have six meetings of SEAC, the infrastructure committee, and then we have council meetings on the first and third. So we want to make sure that we, you know, schedule these so that you don't have to go to two or three meetings in a in a in a given week. I was looking at September 14, for instance. It is the second Monday. So the second Tuesday is the council meeting.

I was thinking, maybe we'll bring this to September 7, but then September 7 is the Labor Day. So we cannot do that. So we have to live with Mhmm. This or going to September 21. So we'll we'll make a selection for you and bring it to you so that it is going to be the least impactful on you. Alright. Thank you.

Yeah. There's a library I have a library commission meeting on the twenty first. So we

That's what that's what I mean. I have to take a look at it.

The twenty eighth, but, you know, yeah, maybe pull us all the way through. Could I just there was just one thing I would like to add.

Of course.

That I know we've I've asked this before to add data centers as an agenda item feature. And maybe it doesn't have to be like our data centers, but environmental impact of data centers in general. So that I think that is the sustainability question. So it's not an economic development question, but a sustainability question. Because, know, it it already came to the team where, you know, people came in and talked about that. And so I think it would be helpful if we have a sustainability sort of look at this. Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm.

For for not only their water use, but energy use, emissions, and everything.

Exactly. All the things that I think everyone's worried about around the country, even though I understand we're not a huge farm data center city, but we are gonna have a pretty significant one coming up.

Absolutely. Yeah. Anything from you?

Well, just real quickly adding adding on to that, you know, keeping in mind we are a business friendly city. So the objective there is to make sure that we're in partnership with the companies that wanna bring their data center share Mhmm. And being able to communicate out our sustainability True. Responsibility to our community. Correct. Thank you.

Thank you. And and to piggyback on Alex's comments, I do want the record to show that he was very instrumental in making sure that we did not the city did not do away with the sustainability committee. So I thank you for that support. Yeah. Very important. In my mind, being green is tremendous. But yeah?

No. I I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah.

So thank you. Thank you.

Alright. Good work, you guys. Thank you.

Yeah. And then now we have an honorary member with Mary Thomas. So this is our our our committee is growing. It's a little bit growing.

First place I started over here. Yeah. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Way back when. Yeah.

And cup ten year phone comes. Yeah.

Am very happy. Alright. See, committee members, staff announcements, and referrals.

Just wanted to to mention, I'm sure you're gonna like hearing this, that there are activities in town related to installing solar on the roof. And usually that is about 500 kilowatt a month, which is equivalent to the usage of a 100 single family homes. The month of February, for whatever reason, the installation was close to 1,200 kilowatt. Oh. So that's more than 200 single family home, which if you, you know, look at the annual, it would be more than 2,000 single family homes.

Every year that are coming off the grid for the most part and going on clean and green and renewable energy. Mhmm.

Great. Are birthdays coming in? Birthday?

Yes. I was gonna mention that we've been doing a lot of planning for Earth Day, and our, litter cleanup and Earth Day fair will be Saturday, April 25. Mhmm. That week's part.

Okay. But Ah, find the hospital. Hospital. Yeah. Just

We will have the Greenbelt Alliance. They've been doing a lot of work for us recently. So they will be there with it, and we'll have our stuff at their table. Yep. Excellent.

Alright. Anything? No? Nothing. From you? Mary, anything from you? Miss, Baragas, anything from you? Conrad? No? Alright. Linda? No? Okay. So that's it then. The meeting is off at 06:41. Have a great time. Make sure you shop here first, and we'll see you in September.

Oh, I

like these.