City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, August 5th, 2026. This is a regular meeting of the City of Marina Council. Anita, can we please get a roll call?

Council Member McCarthy. Here. Council Member McAdams. Here. Council Member Biala. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Visser. Here. Mayor Delgado. Is on his way.

Thank you. We'll open it up for public comments on closed session items. Seeing nobody in the room and nobody on Zoom, I guess. Correct. Yeah. Okay. We'll close public comments. City Attorney, are there any changes to the agenda for the closed session?

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. There are no changes.

Thank you. Then we will go into our closed session and we'll come back here at 6.30. Thank you.

Recording stopped.

okay we'll go ahead and get started in progress we've just returned from city council closed session and now we'll begin the wednesday august 5th 2026 open session for the marina city council do we have a roll call please uh Can we have our, thank you, city attorney summarize our closed session, please?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. So council provided direction but took no reportable action.

All right. Jenny, would you mind leading us into Pledge of Allegiance after a moment of silence? Sure. Please stand for a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance.

and begin.

Thank you, Jenny.

Okay, we have a fire response maps presentation to start us off tonight. Our division chief, Mark Sweeney.

Mayor, council members, good evening. I didn't know I'd be up here so soon. I was just pulling out the agenda to see where I was lining up. We have a presentation available? Perfect. So I'm going to just give you a very brief update tonight on a project that we've been working on for the last couple of years. We had some very outdated response maps. I gave you a sample up there that looks like this. If you feel like looking at it, it's a big old heavy book. Fire Department likes to know where we're going and we'd like to know we're going right away. So updated and accurate maps are incredibly important to us. As I imagine everybody's aware, we've had a few new streets added to town, a couple of new addresses. And with that, our old response maps were very outdated. So with some help from Guido, he put me in contact with Max Antono over at Rincon Consulting. He's one of their GIS analysts over there, and I've been working hand-in-hand with him for the last couple of years to figure really get some nice beautiful uh very accurate maps it's got every hydrant in the city every knox box every alleyway every park perk pond it's got it all um Next slide, please. So our old maps were last updated around 2018. The image on the left is a little snapshot out of the old book that was a small kind of faded eight and a half by 11 paper copy. That is the area just south of the old roller city, water city roller hockey, where we now have a bunch of homes. And you can see there, there's a bunch of old barracks. And they're long gone. And we have a whole new city down there, which is on the map on the right, which is the one in your hands. And you can see where the big city park is going to be in green, along with all the new houses. So we even have some streets and addresses that are in there for the full build out of the city, including all areas of Marina Station, which is really great because we're way ahead of the curve. We've been working with the developers to make sure we have that updated information. along with all the hydrant layers and everything that goes along with it. So really excited about that. This gives us an opportunity for our folks to have very accurate up-to-date data. Along with these, one thing we don't have quite yet that I'm working on is a gigantic six by seven foot wall map that'll go in each station. And what that does is it affords our, the firefighters that are on the engine to quickly meet up come up with a game plan, look at their route of travel, pinpoint exactly what hydrant they're going to grab if they're going to a fire, and just kind of have that good communication and make a plan. So that'll be a really nice addition as well. Next slide, please. So along with this map program and updating all these files, we recently added a program countywide called Tablet Command. And what that enables us is almost every engine in the county has an iPad, a tablet. in the apparatus, and we've got all these maps built in. So now, when we have folks coming to our jurisdiction doing auto aid, mutual aid responses to help us out on fires, they also have access to all of our addresses, every one of our hydrants, all the information we have, they have as well, and vice versa when we go to them. So that's a really nice feature. On the right, you can see those numbers like the E5411, E5412. Those are our fire engines here in Marina. And what that is a quick little screen grab where we're able to see real time where all of our vehicles are. So for the responding units, they can see how far out folks are coming in. We can know exactly where people are when they're responding to vehicles or to calls. And yeah, next slide, please. And then a little bit more on tablet command on the left side there. We've also integrated a new program called First Do. And what this has allowed us to do in part is we can have our pre-incident plans built into these maps. So on the tablet, the image on the left is the VA. And it's kind of hard to see from here, but all those little dots on there are different maps. uh areas of concern for the fire department it might be where a stairwell is an elevator our fire department sprinkler system connections the hydrants so we can zoom in on that real close and see exactly where everything is and as we build that out we can also add additional information to those plans. And then the real nice thing about that is when we go out on company level inspections or a fire marshal goes out and does an inspection, he can bring the iPad with him. He can add those icons directly where they are at any building and they will populate our tablet command system in near real time. So these things will stay very, very up to date. And then the little grab on the right there, a little bit less to do with maps, but it's a function of tablet command. And what it allows us to do is kind of track resources on an incident, which increases our safety, our accountability for all of our folks. We can basically drag and drop our fire engines to their different incident command system assignments and track them. We can track time, how long they've been in the structure. There's built-in checklists. So all of that was kind of part of this whole mapping upgrade. Kind of exciting for the fire department. I know it's just a map, but it's a big deal for us because our old maps were so darn outdated that we just had no way of knowing where we were going a lot of times. We would have to rely occasionally on Google Maps. And of course, Google Maps isn't always up to date either. So this has been great. I want to thank Guido for kind of hooking me up with Rincon and getting this whole process started. And that's it. I'm happy to answer any questions if you've got them.

Mayor Pro Tem, Fisher? Oh, sorry. Council Member Biala? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So on this huge thing that you gave us up here, it says weed abatement zones. Could you tell us about that?

Yeah, absolutely. So every year we do what we call weed abatement, where our engine companies go out as part of fire prevention measures, and they drive around town just checking lots for problems. Weeds, primary, not weeds, I should clarify. Dry, hazardous growth worth of weeds, right? As we come upon fire season, we want to make sure the community is safe. We want to make sure lots have weed growth that's mowed down. It's not dry, you know, two foot tall grass, trash piled up. So what that is related to is just breaking it down into different geographic zones in the city so that we can tell our captains, hey, this is your area that you're assigned to. You're on a shift at station one. You look at map A1. You're responsible for everything in there. So it's just an easy way to kind of consolidate that into the map.

That's great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mark, I'm looking on page 12 of the large book you gave us, and I know that Liberty Court has had some resident concern about placement of hydrants. It just looks like the blue dot that's on Independence Avenue. It looks like there's a hydrant missing, and then there's a new hydrant coming onto Liberty Court, I believe. So this isn't projecting into the future. It's just what exists there now.

That's correct. And what we'll be able to do, fortunately, you know, these will get outdated with small changes like that. This really functions as a paper backup. We love technology, right? But in the fire department, we also love our paper backups of things because if technology fails, we still need to know where we're going. So we keep these in the engines. But because of that tablet command having our maps built in, if we have a change like that and we add a hydrant, I can simply send a GPS coordinate to Max. He can go on his computer. He can add it in. And because we already have a connection between the GIS files and county communications, that will just automatically upload and that hydrant will appear on those maps on our tablets, which is the primary place that we go for that type of information.

So for secondary use, when technology fails, will you have something like this in every truck?

Yes, correct. Every chief has a copy. Every fire apparatus has a copy. And the ones in your hands are extras. We also a lot of times we'll share them with adjoining jurisdictions like North County Fire. We'll give them a copy to keep in their engine that typically comes to help us. So they have a copy. We have a copy of theirs as well. And then, you know, to answer your question about the hydrant, I talked about the big wall map. What we'll do with something like that is we'll simply get some small blue stickers. And if we add a hydrant, we'll just put a sticker on the map so we know it's there.

But there's no easy way to edit or augment with new information all those books that the emergency response folks have.

Correct. Yeah, this is fairly permanent, which is why it took two years, because a lot of driving around confirming hydrant locations, addresses, and really working with some of our local developers to ensure that for areas like Marina Station, We have their entire build out in these maps. So we're not going to be behind the curve for the foreseeable future. Really the one area in here that will hopefully one day be out of date is Cypress Knolls because we don't have any plans for that right now. So that'll be an area that needs to be upgraded. That'll probably be the next time we do some new paper maps.

Yeah, I thought it was great that you had all of Marina Station mapped already because that's future. I was wondering if maybe the hydrants had been futurized, but to the extent that you could.

right and and the off the top of my head i'm not sure if those are the hydrants are up to date in here but i believe they are i know for a fact they're up to date on that tablet command yeah there are some in marina station on that in the big book you gave us and they're all in there on in the digital topic let's go to councilmember mccarthy thank you thank you mayor um i guess the more difficult question first so in terms of response times and you might not be prepared to answer this but do is there an update i know we had received a presentation um

I don't know, maybe a year or two ago that really detailed kind of some of the issues with response times. Are they getting worse? Are they staying the same, getting better?

Off the top of my head, I couldn't answer that. I would make the assumption that they're about the same because that's largely dictated by our station locations, which hasn't changed.

Okay. And then the second question is about fire lanes. It's kind of a nerd question, but is there a way that maybe within GIS, like spell out where fire lanes should be?

Yes.

And the reason I ask is that time of year where a lot of us are going door to door. I did so last night and there were no fewer than seven fire hydrants blocked by vehicles and fire lanes. I mean, it's clearly a huge problem in Marina. Is that something that concerns you or is the fire department looking at that?

It's a huge concern. Unfortunately, we don't have fire department doesn't have the enforcement capability to go out and ticket or have vehicle towed. So that's something that if we see them, we can make that report to our partners at the police department. They can take those enforcement actions. As far as what curbs in particular should be painted red, I would probably defer to Public Works and work with them to determine. I know there's a lot that goes into making that call. We can't just paint any curb we feel like red. And of course, whether the curb is red or not, you're not supposed to park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. And then if you look at some of these maps, you'll see there's some red arrows on a lot of the pages. What those are indicating is driveways into apartment complexes or a lot of the back alleyways that the garages back up to in our newer areas like the dunes. So that kind of gives us a visual indication of where that traffic flow goes. Otherwise, they just look butted up against each other. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Brian. Council Member Bialik?

Sorry, I'm tagging on to what Brian has just said. So it's really true that I see a lot, particularly in my street, there are fire hydrants blocked regularly by people parking in front of it. In terms of response, is it really like, what do you do? You straddle the car that's blocking it and you put your hoses over the top of the car? What really does happen?

We'll do what we need to do to get to that fire hydrant a lot of times. It's not something we want to do. We don't want to damage a vehicle. But if it's parked there, particularly if it's someone's home burning down or a life on the line, yeah, we're going to do what we need to do. We always have good practice of when we're going to a fire, we always identify our primary hydrant that we plan to use. and another hydrant as a backup in case either that one breaks when we get there. They do break. It's just not functioning the way it should. Then we have a backup plan. So we always try to have that contingency built in. And our fire engines all have water on them as well. So just because we don't have a hydrant doesn't mean we can't get to work. We have 500 gallons of water and you can put out quite a bit of fire with 500 gallons of water.

Thank you. I think I'm reminded by your standing here and telling all these things that I really should be reporting it because it happens quite frequently. You get tired of, you know, calling in and stuff, but yeah. Thank you very much. All right.

Thank you, Brent.

Mark.

I'll collect my books if you don't, or I can get them later. You want to hang on to them?

Yeah.

They're so heavy. They're heavy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

We're going to table the donation for all inclusive playground park to our first meeting in September. So we'll move to the presentation regarding the good progress on the eighth street design, which is out on former Fort Ord and the path of travel presentation regarding that. Thanks, Edry.

i thank you for thank you mr mayor members of council a brief history of this corridor 8th street is identified in the city's general plan in the fort or based reuse plan and in the dune specific plan as a major arterial connecting to the extension of california avenue which is a major collector road the improvements to this have been funded through a reimbursement agreement with shea approved back in 2020 2021 for all the improvements within the right-of-way Since then, we've been coordinating with the various entities at TAMC with CSUMB on the right-of-way improvements, what right-of-way easements are necessary, and then what amenities would be necessary for the corridor to best suit both pedestrians, multi-use, and then the park as well. We have since our last meeting, when we requested the CSUMB easement, we also requested some direction on how best we could incorporate trail connections. And what you see in the exhibit is a, in essence, a layout of how the trails, some of the trails exist and how we're proposing them to connect. The purple there are the pedestrian trails, which are five feet wide. These are normal sidewalks that connect all the way around the park. The green there are the eight foot to 10 foot to 12 foot wide trails that are multi-use and connect up to Hilltop Park. So some of the improvements and comments that were brought up to our attention was a better pedestrian connection. I'm not sure if you could zoom into the intersection, if that's possible.

Awesome. Thanks, Belinda. A little bit more, that'd be nice.

Pedestrian crossings on 8th Street. Any type of pedestrian crossing across an arterial road is difficult. What we try to do in order to make sure that it's highly visible and safe for pedestrians is have the warning signs ahead of it. Coordinating with the design team, they're able to incorporate flashing beacons at the crossing itself. We changed the crosswalk to a high visibility crosswalk and added yield chevrons on the roadway to alert drivers of the crossing of pedestrians at the Fort Tech Trail. Now from the 12 foot trail in the south connecting north, there was concern that the sidewalk was not going to be wide enough at five feet. We expanded that to 10 feet wide. We are also looking for a future project outside of what SHEA is accomplishing for the roadway project, a landing zone within the park itself of concrete that would incorporate a park sign and a gathering area. Some of the pathway connections that would connect to this 10-foot path from Hilltop, we're looking also as a future project to expand the pathways to allow bicyclists to better navigate some of these tighter 90 degree turns. Again, those type of improvements specifically for Hilltop Park will be done in the future phase, not a part of the shape project. But what we were able to accomplish was really the pedestrian and multi-use connectivity for the 12 foot pathway on the south side to better connect to Hilltop Park and allow a wider sidewalk to land at the Hilltop Park area. Those are some of the pathway elements. Open to any questions. We also have the design engineer, Andy Hunter from Whitson, who can answer questions as well.

Mayor Pro Tem Fisher.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Edwin, for the presentation. Just one question. Has the design been reviewed and approved by MSD? Or does staff look at the requirements from MSD?

So this currently is not an MST route because it wasn't a road. What we have done, though, is coordinate with CSVMB, who has reached out to MST. We also received a letter from Ms. Overmeyer from the planning department, and we'll be coordinating with them on the landing areas and how best we could service this intersection connection for them.

Okay, and also the bus stop itself has been... It's with MST, the bus stop on the South.

The bus stop design had been coordinated per the MST standards.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Andrea, I want to give a shout out to our former city manager, Lane long and, um, two of the four tag architects, Fred Watson and Scott Waltz, who for years have been, um, discussing Hilltop Park connection to the four tag that's here. And thanks to you and other city staff, including our acting city manager, we were able to have a meeting with you to talk about the changes that Fred and Scott were suggesting. And that's turned out to be a slightly better project because of the changes you've talked about today. I wanted to ask, well, not ask, we did talk about at our meeting a few days ago, the potentiality for restrooms. And so in that welcoming area, is it true that if we wanted restrooms in the future, we can lay this concrete area out, this welcoming area to accommodate a vault restroom?

Yes.

Okay. And same question for bike racks. Are there bike racks planned? And if not, it's not a very big deal to add them if we desire them.

Correct. It wouldn't be a big design change.

And that's because you're, in the future, we're going to discuss having a welcoming area that's not part of tonight's plan.

Right.

Great. Okay. Thank you, Edry.

Council Member Biala? Thank you. So, Edry, on this one that's up, so the green is basically for TAG, yeah? Yeah.

Well, the green is our multi-use pathways greater than five feet. Most of them are eight feet. The trail on the south side is 12.

But it's doubling for... It is doubling. So the green... So there's two parallel green things going, and then one ends and continues on with the purple. So... So the crossway is really the only connection for a long time, right? Because you just have the green going into the purple. And the purple is what now?

Sidewalk.

I'm sorry?

Five-foot sidewalk.

By foot. So that's just going to be invisible to the person using it. They'll just get, you know, kind of smaller at some point. Right. But it's essentially contiguous, continuous and all the way around. Yeah. And so does that impact like who pays for it, whether it's green or whether it's the.

Oh, no, no. All the improvements within 8th Street will be paid for through the reimbursement agreement.

OK. OK, great. OK, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Edry. Great project.

Okay, we're going to move to staff and council announcements. Let's go to staff first. On August 9th, this coming Sunday, we'll have our monthly volunteer community cleanup on Lapis Road and Del Monte Boulevard from the Beach Road roundabout north to the landfill and over to the highway and back down Lapis Road. So any volunteers that want to join, pizza at 1215. We meet at 10 a.m. We're doing a really good job. There's some progress there with partners like the District Attorney's Office and Regen Monterey and the County of Monterey's Department of Environmental Health Department to work together to try to reduce the cause while we are addressing the symptoms every month since January 2017 without missing a month. But it's more than just picking up trash. It's also coordinating with cameras and enforcement and fines to try to get a better and better handle on what used to be a very a very messy area, including the part within city limits and the part that's outside of our city limits. I also wanted to thank volunteers. There are about a dozen folks, including our pro tem, Elizabeth Fisher, who came out last month and cleaned up three very dirty areas abandoned camps to the east of the Equestrian Center, to the east of the former stockade on Fort Ord. It was a big job, and there was about 70 large bags of trash and a lot of bulky items that Public Works picked up the next day on Monday. So it was a good partnership between the city, Public Works, and all the volunteers. So thanks to Sustainable Marina volunteers who showed up for that and to the city for partnering. The last thing I want to say is that the children's sensory garden outside the front of the Marina Library is coming along well. There was an Eagle Scout project that put in a small food garden for children, apple trees, plum trees, guava, raspberries, blueberries, and other chives and things like that on the ground surface. And MPE, Monterey Peninsula Engineering, donated a lot of tractor time and labor to trench in some new water line for the water pump that's coming in where the kids can pull on an old-fashioned farm pump, squirt out a little bit of water and mix it with dirt and then go cook whatever they want to cook with those ingredients at the mud kitchen. So that children's sensory garden is amazing. Thanks to MPE, we're saving a lot of money, but it's going to cost about $35,000 by the time we're done with it. So it really helps to save the money that we've saved. We've saved about $8,000 with the MPE Elk. So thanks to everyone involved with the Children's Sensory Garden. It's going to be a very popular children's family area of clay and curiosity. All right, let's go to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. Car Month is here. I call it Car Month because it is way beyond a week. And unfortunately, it's also the same week that falls on everyone going back to school, which makes traffic even more challenging. All the moms in the room are nodding their heads. Um, so the first event is August 7th and the last event is August 16th plus load in and load out. Uh, Monterey County has a great interactive, um, map and an app that you can download. It shows all of the real time, um, traffic challenges as well as closures. You can go to mccarweek.com, um, for that. And also, um, A big thank you to the staff and the team who put on a fantastic national night out last night. It was super fun. It's one of my favorite events. I love to engage with the community and especially the kiddos. Chief, thank you for being here. I might put you on the spot for a second, can I? So last year during Car Week, we experienced a few of those like pop-up, unpermitted, I don't even know what you would call, not even like a car rally, just a massive amount of people with very fast cars. I think some went to the Best Buy parking lot. Some went to other parking lots. How are you and the public safety team sort of being a little proactive this year so we can...

not have that again thank you yeah or hopefully we won't experience what seaside did last year we assisted seaside with their event as well as the rest of the peninsula monterey county as well as highway patrol we have a plan in place and we've been meeting throughout the county as well as with the Peninsula agencies to kind of talk about this in preparation. Each year we kind of get a little bit better as we learned a little bit more about the different people that tend to come out. So we do have a comprehensive plan in place to deal with it. We're also having meetings planned tomorrow. So we do have an operations plan. We also have a local event that may occur in our city as well in terms of just a showing, but That's on everyone's radar. I appreciate you bringing it up in terms of the routing and some resources everyone can tap into. Stay tuned to our social Facebook page. We'll post things out as necessary. Our officers were also trained in noise ordinance as it relates to vehicles for mufflers amplified mufflers so we can cite them as well i think seaside is the same thing as some other agencies are following suit so we have a much more comprehensive complement of resources that we can put in place to kind of deal with that

Perfect. Thank you. And I just want to clarify that the event, the car event on the promenade is a permitted event. And what we're talking about are not, I don't want to call them events because they're not permitted. They're really more of like a lot of people on social media are saying we're going to basically go and take over. Last year they took over In-N-Out and they took over 17 Mile Drive. So it's not an event per se. It's It's just an unplanned, massive amount of very fast cars.

That's correct. That is the correct distinction.

Thank you.

A big one.

I appreciate that, Chief.

Thank you so much. Chief, a follow-up on that. Last year, about the time we had a mini car show, a really cool car show on the promenade, was right about that time. We had a lot of... not so fancy cars, but cool cars too. And I think that might be what Councilman McAdams is referring to in the Best Buy parking lot, which usually doesn't have a lot of cars. So when I saw all those young, people under 25 seem like hanging out and showing off their cars and talking about their cars and lifting up the hoods and looking at each other's engines. I thought it was pretty cool and vibrant. I liked it. And if, were they breaking a law? Cause if they're breaking a law, that's not so good. But if they're enjoying the time in the parking lot and they're not breaking any laws, you know, are there laws preventing what happened at the Best Buy parking lot last year? Social media saying, Hey, come to the, come to the parking lot, show off your cars.

Part of the problem is, to answer your question, it's private property, so they have to have authorization to be there if they're going to be doing something more than just visiting and talking with someone and moving on. They're designed for the patrons of the businesses, but I can't say that they're breaking the law. However, what we're talking about, what happens is when one group shows up, they get on their social media apps and says, hey, meet here in Marina at this location or another location in another city. And then they start, as they are there for a minute, they start... speeding out and going in circles and exhilarating their speeds and all of that. That's very disruptive. That's dangerous. And so that's where it becomes a problem. So we try to stay on top of that to keep them from congregating in areas if they don't have legitimate business there, because we know the behavior is very clear to us over the years, what's going to happen if we don't stay on top of it.

Yeah, I didn't give you that, but I saw people with less fancy cars able to enjoy and showing them off to each other. And I thought it was like, that's really cool because these are not rich people showing off their cars, but they're proud of their cars and they're talking about their cars. And I liked seeing, I drove back and forth a couple of times to see all their cars. I thought it was okay. I didn't think about it being illegal. It just looked like fun and safe.

No, if it stays in that realm, then it is fine. And if it's a permitted event, as we were discussing at the other, then that's great. It's just that sometimes that presence draws others to that location, and then they want to one-up and show up, and then it gets out of control.

I think we all may have gotten some email whether the permitted event or whether the promenade event was permitted and whether it was paying any money into the city for the permit. Can you speak to that?

Yeah. So the last year, the streets were still owned by Shea Homes. And so it was not a city event. And so it had nothing to do with us. We didn't provide personnel. So we had no really city resources applied to that. So it was strictly a private event on their private streets, on their private property. And this year they are applying for the same type of an event, but we have now taken over the streets as a Last month, I believe it was, just very recently. So now they're going through the permitting process, and they'll be able to, once we sign off on it, have their event.

All right, because that was a fun, great event, too.

Very low-key, very calm.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Let's go to Chancellor Biala. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to announce. All right.

Okay.

I just wanted to announce that the Marina City Sister Program has been active, very active over the last four years. And this year, we're actually going to have August 22nd to the 25th. Five Japanese high school students from Izunokuni come with two chaperones and we're going to keep them busy for January. basically three days and we have five host families who live in marina who have agreed to accept one of the students each and we're going to be taking them all kinds of sightseeing and also cultural educational kinds of things but i think the highlight for them is going to be meeting at marina high school and for about three academic years now we have hosted along with the marina high school a zoom exchange program so six students from izunokuni high schools and six from marina high school have every year gone together on a zoom meeting and it's been really wonderful and the kids really do bond even on a zoom meeting but Those five high school students from Izunokuni have been participants of that Zoom exchange. So we're going to kind of make sure that they hook up with the high school students that they've engaged in the program. And we're going to have a big pizza party for them and everything. So it's going to be very fun. Great, Cathy. Let's go to Mayor Pro Tem Visser.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just for anybody who doesn't know yet, the car event that was discussed earlier, it's this coming Monday in Marina, the only permitted event in Marina. This coming Monday, August 10, it's at the breast step and the promenade, that whole area will be closed off, but you can still reach Trader Joe's. And it starts at 10 a.m. and it runs into sometime in the afternoon now. So... with the risk of attracting more people, just come to the Dunes on Monday morning. Thank you.

Thank you, Elisabeth. Okay, I wanted to give a shout out to the Friends of Muriel Library and the library staff who continue to organize great movies, bands, and other kinds of programs and activities. But about a week ago, two Saturdays ago, they had a band outside, one of the bands that played at the July 4th party. And I can't remember their name. Shannon. Shannon and the Knights. And they were playing outside the front doors of the Marina Library with plenty of seating and standing and dancing area. And it was a great event. And I hope that they're going to do that on a regular basis. But I know they do all that they can with a lot of volunteer support. It's not easy to put all that programming into place. But just a shout out to everybody that's partnering around the Marina Library to make it such a community hub for family events like that. Okay, so we're going to move on to public comment, starting with folks that are in the room. If you'd like to speak, come on up. You have up to three minutes to talk about the consent agenda items or anything that's not on our active agenda later tonight, whatever might be on your mind. Hello, Rebecca? Rebecca?

Hi, thank you for having us today. My name is Rachel Corvello. I work at Joby Aviation here based at the airport and AJ, the airport manager, wasn't able to join us today, but he wanted me to let everybody know that we are hosting our fourth annual chapter event, Girls in Aviation Day at the airport. It'll be on Saturday, September 19th from 10 to 1 p.m. It's entirely free. And while the event part of Women in Aviation International is geared towards women, girl students aged 8 to 18. The event is open for all students of all genders and ages. We'll have so many STEM activities, science experiments, like hands-on activities. They'll get to look and crawl around with airplanes, look at different tools, talk to different people in aviation and other STEM environments. And so we're really excited. It's going to be amazing. Last year, we had about 800 people. 80% of them were from Monterey County, but we had 20% from outside. So we love that we're bringing people to Marina.

What's the date and time?

September, Saturday, 19, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. September 7th or 19?

19. September 19th, Saturday, 10 a.m.?

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 10 a.m.

I want to let the Learning for Life High School know. Yeah. Right there.

Yeah. And if any of the student or like any student groups want to coordinate like a group reservation just to register everybody at once, we're happy to do that.

And did you say it was mostly for youth or for all ages?

It's for all ages. It's the activities are based to the eight to 18 range. But, you know, like I didn't study microcontrollers when I was eight. So it's new to me. It's applicable to me.

That's great.

Yeah. Everyone has fun. The adults have fun, too.

Thank you, Rachel. And so I just hear that they're looking for volunteers and who should they contact if they want to volunteer? Okay, so we'll try to get Rachel. Do you have a phone number that you want to announce? So volunteers, if you want to help out with this event. And it's Saturday, September 19th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. My name is Rachel.

Phone number area code 317-709-7603.

That's great. They can volunteer. Wonderful. Anyone that wants to speak, come on up. Hello, Annalise.

I went to the facilities tour. So, hi, Ana Luz. I am a professor at Hartnell College. I teach business, physical science, and engineering. I'm a former civil engineer and also former software engineer, so big on problem solving. So, looking at the facilities tour, I definitely see that there is a really big risk in not having new facilities for fire department or police department, city hall. However, I wouldn't Being the solutions oriented person that I am, I would propose that city home take over the public safety building once they have moved out into a new facility. The reason why is because looking at the at the facility. Again, this is very rough analysis. It's from the 90s, perfectly standing, great conditions of a building to be operating as an office building, not as a public safety building because of, from what I remember, three main risks. One of them being the overcrowding, which is preventing people from being able to do their work properly with delicate information that's been shared. Number two, because they're right next to the park and you don't want to be mixing police issues with kids. And number three, because our fire department and our Austin firefighters have to be running down several flights of stairs to get to the vehicles, cutting into response time. So I do think it's very high risk and which is why we do need new facilities. However, I don't think we need a new city hall. I did see the conditions of city hall. They're bad beyond the lifespan of the building. You know, it definitely needs to be, you know, get people out as soon as possible. But given the conditions of the public safety building, I think it's in great condition to to serve as an office building for City Hall. So I would recommend that City Council look at that as an option. We have to be resourceful with our residents, people on really tight budgets. It might not seem like a big deal, but when you have a UUT and you have people living paycheck to paycheck, really tight on the rent, anything that you add on to that is a lot to them. So I want you guys to think about that. Otherwise, it makes you seem like you're out of touch with the realities of the community. So I would highly recommend that you take City Hall off the list with the with obviously with the condition that you're going to take over public safety building. and that obviously these portable facilities are beyond their lifespan so i do agree with that it's it's not a good place for for the rest of i have i'm running out of time i'll stop at that but i but i want to thank the you know our very kind tour uh guides i think that led us into a lot of the realities that are in place thank you thank you analuz anyone else from the

Okay, let's go to, I think it's Denise Turley. Welcome, Denise.

Hi. Hi. Okay, so a couple of things that are kind of, you know, left on the table and haven't been discussed in a while. Number one is, remember when PG&E came and talked about why we had that power outage for four or five days? So question is, what's the update on that? Have they moved any farther forward on that? And it related to that item. In one day, we had up to 11 power outages because they implemented a new, oh, a tree branch might fall on our wire. We're going to shut off your power. You know, and it went on and off and on and off all day long. So that could also be discussed at that meeting. If that is a real thing, if they've implemented something new, it'd be nice for the community to know so that they could give feedback. Then the other issue that we have going on relates to, thank God, all the people have run out of all the fireworks, we hope. It would be nice to have, I believe there's supposed to be an update meeting coming up as to where the city wants to go in specific locations about fireworks. Of course, not safe and sane, but the actual dangerous stuff that starts fires. And a third item, it looks like we'd like more update on the cause of the fire in Preston Park and were promised by the former city manager information for months. and it didn't happen, we've asked the fire chief and she didn't know that should, and what's happening in the community is all kinds of crazy scenarios. People are being blamed that weren't even there. So that would be a nice one to tie up in a neat little bow and stop speculation. because it is still a pending legal matter. You get back 10 seconds. Bye.

Thank you, Denise. Let's go to Mike Moeller. Welcome, Mike.

Good evening, Mayor, Council and staff. I wanted to ask some questions about the ballparks at Preston Parkfields. I recall about a month ago, I'm pretty sure that the recreation director, Elizabeth, said that their funding was not complete for the expansion of those ball fields. But I do recall recently, Mr. Mayor, you made a comment that said, unquote, Cash in hand, $10 million to complete those. So I want to clarify, is that $10 million complete cash in hand or is it still unfunded? And what is the status of the incident or take permit for that expansion? And the timeline for that, is it going to happen soon? Is that a permanent decision to expand those parks? Or is there an alternate plan like the Los Animas property, the old stockade for some other plans for soccer fields or other ball fields? That's my question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Anyone else online wish to speak?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Hello, Doug. Hello, Bruce. How are you doing? members of the council thank you i just wanted to share it it seems like it's uh uh common knowledge which is great uh and i don't know if this is going to share or not but i wanted to share a a flyer of the central coast park poker rally car show that's going to be at the dunes promenade Uh, as a council member, uh, mayor Pro Tem Fisher noted on August 10th, Monday, August 10th from 10 AM to 3 PM. Uh, was trying to bring up the flyer. Here we go. Hopefully that is that flyer is now showing on the screen.

It is Doug.

All right. Thank you. That, uh, yes, it's a, uh, it's a car show. It's a kickoff to, uh, uh, the auto week, which I think, um, Councilman McAdams astutely noted it's much longer than a week these days. Every year it grows. But it's on August 10th. It's from 10 to 3.30. It's at the Promenade. The host is the Promenade Commercial Association. The event organizer is the Central Coast Poker Rally Group. And Shea Homes is a major sponsor. It has public attendance, obviously, live music, awards ceremony, and various activities. Anticipating about 100 vehicle entries throughout the promenade, as you see there relative on the picture location. It's also anticipated to have around 300 attendance, maybe more this year. Live music from 11 to 2 p.m. in the Village Square. There will be some vendor booths as well and an awards ceremony at 2 p.m. So just want to encourage everybody to come out Monday at 10 a.m. for an exciting event, as is often the case. An event like this for auto week starts in Marina because Marina, as we know, is the gateway to the Monterey Peninsula. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Doug. All right. Let's go to Greg Fury. Welcome, Greg.

Hello. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, loud and clear.

Hello, Mr. Mayor and council staff. I wanted to share some background with you, and you can draw your own conclusions or opinions, but I was particularly concerned. I listened to the presentation from Dodd-Wall's plans for a luxury hotel, and I remember hearing a council member here recently say, well, you know, that's like free money. And I wanted to share with you years ago, probably 25, 30 years ago, I was down in Southern California working in in an area that not only do we have like 30 cities, well, 20, 23 cities, seven districts, but also the Mira Loma development area, which is millions of square feet. And I was in commercial fire protection planning. And I want to tell you that every developer without almost no exception that walked in for a meeting for building a, you know, in some cases, 800,000 square foot building, whether it was storage, manufacturing, hotels, you name it, we have the full gamut. Every one of them could not afford to build that building if they had to follow the rules. The rules were simply what the code was. They were all looking for a shortcut. They were all looking for a deal. And, you know, we saw all kinds of dramatic. We used to call when they went into the cities, these developers shooting fish in a barrel, meaning the council members were the fish. You guys may be the fish. Mr. Dodwall is a very successful developer. I was there when he tried to escape from his impact fees and all of the drama that accompanied that. And all I would suggest is every one of these developers, you know, they said, I can't afford this. I can't do this. When before, after the meeting, they got on their plane and went back to Dallas or got in their Porsche Turbo Carrera, drove down to Orange County. Miraculously, every one of those buildings got built. Now, I'm not suggesting that one thing or another, but I am telling you, Mr. Dodwell, as you know, is a successful businessman. They all operate under the same playbook. And I like what Brian McCarthy's suggestion was, put it out for another RFP. See how many developers line up and aren't asking the city for half of the TOT, which cuts, which is essentially a giveaway by the taxpayers. and you guys are proposing a uut and a 25 million dollar giveaway to a developer that is a lot of chutzpah so i would suggest to you that most developers are pretty savvy they have pretty good legal teams they know the game you guys are elected officials you don't have the expertise very few council members do that's not a mark on you it's just you're liable to be the fish in the barrel And I have friends that are wealthy that come down from the Bay Area. They're not looking to stay in luxury hotels. The other thing you do is you hire a consultant and tell them, here's the result I want. And it's inverse logic. I saw that many, many times where they said, here's what I want. Now build an argument. So whether that's the case here or not, I don't know. Whether you guys are the fish in the barrel, I don't know. I'd be very careful. I'd look into his finances. I'd see what is affordable. I'd do a lot deeper dive than just take anybody's word for it. Good luck with it. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Anyone else wishing to comment online? Just raise your hand. We'll close public comment in a moment. Okay. We'll close public comment. To Denise Turley, our acting city manager, Courtney, has your email address, so she'll get back to you with any information she has about a PGD power outage update and also a fireworks update, which the police chief might help her out with that. And if the fire chief has any information on the cause of the Preston Park recent fire, that they can provide you. And they'll decide whether they want to give those updates to a future city council meeting. And Mike Moeller, I assume that Elizabeth, our Department Director of Recreation and Cultural Services Department, will get back to you on any information she has about the funding status incidental take permit timeline. and the building timeline for those additional parks at Preston Park. And, you know, the idea about the stockade, that's just something that Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Fisher has suggested be used for soccer fields, but it hasn't become an official agenda topic for the council yet. Did I miss any questions that someone else may have noted? All right. Okay. Thanks everyone who did comment tonight during public comment. We appreciate that. So we're going to go to our consent agenda now, and there's one item that we're going to pull that's 10F1, because we need to appoint a couple folks such as Brian and Jenny, should they wish to be a voting delegate at an upcoming conference in September. So that'll be our first action item after our consent agenda. So, but for now, anyone else want to pull anything? And I think we are going to pull the, no, that's it. Any suggestions, brief questions? Anyone might have consent items? Council Member McCarthy?

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pull 10G1 and 10K1.

Okay. Anyone else? Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a comment on G2, 3, 4, and 5 regarding the purchase of public safety vehicles and public works equipment. First, I want to thank my colleagues, city and staff, everyone involved for the collaborative and thoughtful budget process that we went through. And so for me, it's really rewarding to see the purchase agreements come before us because here's like the tangible work. And then, you know, also these are like a huge investment of our community that allows our team to provide and continue to provide excellent public services. So that's all. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jenny. Let's go back to Councilman McCarthy.

you mayor having heard those comments i just want to kind of echo because i think that it's important that the public realizes that we understand that we're approving a tremendous dollar amount worth of vehicles tonight and that it's not something that we take lightly yes it's on consent but a lot of thought uh from staff i think went through that and um i think for me it's something that i really thought long and hard about whether to pull or not and that's why i am pulling the one item but um i just want to make it clear to the public that it's By every measure, it's a huge expenditure, and it's something that we don't take lightly. So thank you.

All right. So those two items you pulled will go to the end of the action agenda item. Mayor Pro Tem Fisher?

I know my light is hidden. Just a quick comment in addition to what Council Member McCarthy just said. I asked questions about what will happen to the vehicles that are no longer that are being replaced so um public works will come to us in the future with a proposal to surplus the vehicles and then auction them off so there will be some money coming back in probably so but i agree it's uh it looks they need it it's needed for our city so thank you all right i motion that we approve the consent agenda item but not including uh

10G1 and 10K1 and then 10F1. Second. Okay. Any comment before I vote? Let's go to a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. All right. So that motion passes.

Let's go to what was 10F1. Just to get this out really quickly, do any council members who are going to the Malverns

Do any council members going to the September conference wish to be a voting delegate? Can you raise your hand just to start? Oh, sure. So we have two yeses only. All right. Would you both be willing to be the delegates then for us? Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Let's go ahead. If you have any comment, Council Member McCannon and then McCarthy.

Sure. Thank you so much. And I'm happy for Council Member McCarthy if you want to be the voting delegate and I can be the alternative needed. We can just sort of figure that out when we get there. Does that sound good? Just so it's more official. Is that what they need? Okay, perfect.

And I'll just mention that both Councilmember McAdams and I are on three different policy committees between the two of us, public safety, transportation, and community services.

Okay, I'll motion that we appoint Brian to be the delegate and Jenny to be the alternate delegate. I'll second that. Any comment before we go to a motion? All right, we will vote. Let's take a vote. Please, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passed unanimously. So now we'll move to our public hearings. First of which is the downtown vitalization specific plan.

Good evening, Mayor Delgado and members of the City Council. My name is Tim Mayer, Planning Services Manager with the City. This evening, the City Council has requested to consider and approve proposed amendments to the downtown revitalization specific plan, following direction from a recent market feasibility report and based on feedback from both Planning Commission and members of the public. Next slide, please. As the Council is certainly aware, Marina has pursued the development of a vibrant downtown since before its incorporation in 1975, and over the following decades, the City has engaged the community in many ways. Following years of public outreach, in October of 2024, the Marino City Council adopted the Downtown Vitalization Specific Plan, or DVSB, to guide the redevelopment and enhancement of downtown Marina over a 20-year horizon. The DVSP presents an aspirational vision for downtown Marina as a vibrant pedestrian friendly destination encompassing mixed use buildings, retail and office space, and new housing in alignment with the city's general plan. The plan sets out a regulatory framework by identifying lists of allowable land uses and establishing objective design standards to guide physical development within several designated districts to promote compact development, foster street type improvements, and facilitate enhancement of public spaces. The plan therefore serves as a primary vehicle for the city to promote future investment and reposition its urban center for growth and community renewal. Next slide, please. STATED GOALS OF THE DOWNTOWN VITALIZATION SPECIFIC PLAN INCLUDE ENHANCEMENT OF THE SEVERAL ELEMENTS OF THE AREA GOVERNED BY THE PLAN INCLUDING MOBILITY, ECONOMIC VITALITY, HOUSING, CULTURAL DIVERSITY, AND COMMUNITY IDENTITY. THE DVSP CONTAINS VARIOUS POLICIES, PROGRAMS, AND ACTIONS TO ATTAIN THE STATED GOALS AND OVER TIME TO FOSTER THE COMMUNITY'S BUILDOUT POTENTIAL OF 1.38 MILLION SQUARE FEET a commercial or retail space, and up to 2,904 housing units, which brings with it significant redevelopment potential. Next slide, please. In adopting the DBSB, the city sought to develop a plan which was visionary in nature, but realistic enough to allow for practical implementation. The council directed staff to pursue studies of the plan's economic feasibility within the year following plan adoption and report back to the council the results of this research. Along those lines, in early 2025, the City retained HDL Econ Solutions, or HDL, to prepare an economic and market assessment and retail void analysis. As part of these services, HDL prepared a peer review of the Downtown Vitalization Specific Plan. The City of Marina Downtown Vitalization Specific Plan peer review report, prepared by the consultant, cites the challenges of creating a walkable, pedestrian-oriented downtown in light of existing conditions. The peer review report highlights the prevailing built environment as centered on a four lane roads with five foot wide sidewalks surrounded by a strip all suburban urban form dominated by chain stores, many with long-term leases that have been in place for many decades. A lot of these challenges, the HDL peer review report presents recommendations to plan's existing land use regulations and design standards. Next slide, please. On May 14th, 2026, the Planning Commission held a public meeting to consider proposed amendments to the DBSP. Following deliberation, the Planning Commission adopted a motion of approval on a six to zero to one to zero vote, recommending revision and clarifications to the DBSP, some of which are shown on this slide. Next slide, please. This slide shows excerpts from the DBSP land use matrix on the right-hand side of the slide, and on the left-hand side shows footnotes included as clarifying elements. A few uses within the land use matrix were modified or reorganized to eliminate internal discrepancies, while others were allowed to encourage foot traffic to enliven the downtown area. Several footnotes were added for clarification. In response to Planning Commission recommendations, Several additional revisions were included pursuant to comments made at the May 14th public hearing. Next slide, please. IN PURSUING AMENDMENTS TO THE DVSP STAFF CONSIDERED APPROACHES FOR PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION AND AT THE COUNCIL'S REQUEST EXPLORE THE OPTION FOR CREATION OF A BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT OR BID. IN A BID MERCHANTS VOLUNTARILY PAY AN ASSESSMENT FEE WHICH CAN BE UTILIZED FOR A NUMBER OF TASKS SUCH AS MARKETING, IMPROVEMENTS AND MAINTENANCE. OFTEN FEES ARE USED FOR ADDITIONAL STREET SWEEPING, GRAPEE REMOVAL, PROVISION OF EXTRA SECURITY AND SIMILAR. MARKETING TASKS COULD INCLUDE ORGANIZATION OF EVENTS, HOLIDAY LIGHTING AND ADVERTISEMENT. THE CITY WOULD BE EXPECTED TO CLIP. A BID would be created by local legislation after receiving a threshold of votes and would be operated by a board of directors. Staff has engaged a consultant, New City America, regarding the creation of a BID for downtown Marina or parts thereof. The consultant has provided a proposal and has recommended pursuing, instead of a BID, a similar route called a community benefits district, which provides for greater flexibility and practical implementation. and received information regarding time and costs associated with the exploration for creation of the CBD, along with the cost and time committed for establishment of such a district. And those are shown on this slide near the bottom. Should the council desire to pursue creation of a BID or a CBD, staff requested the council provide direction for such an action. Next slide, please. Based on information as previously presented, staff recommended the city council acknowledge the environmental determination and improve the resolution as shown on this slide. I wanted to also mention that there was a desk item prepared and presented that shows an illustration of future roundabout and median improvements that would help to potentially catalyze future development in the DBSP. So that's been provided for your reference. And so again, the recommendation is prepared and presented on this slide. Next slide, please. Staff are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Tim, to you and your team for the work you put into this, all the public meetings, et cetera.

All right, let's go to the public.

We'll open a public hearing, starting with those folks that are in the room. Anyone that would like to speak, come on up.

Hello, good evening. My name is Daniel Alvarez. I'm a field rep with the North Coast Carpenters Union. This redevelopment plan looks great, and I think this project will look, Marina, even better. But as we talk about the future of this development, let's talk about the members and the construction workers that are actually going to build this project. At the end of the day, we need to think about the families that are also living here and working here locally. This project has the opportunity to do more than improve the city. It can provide good paying jobs, healthcare for their families, and good apprenticeship program, so it will be an opportunity for the future generations. I hope the city and the developer will make sure this project creates good opportunities for the people who build these new projects. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alvarez. Anyone else wishing to speak?

Let's go online. Anyone online, please raise your hand. You have up to three minutes.

All right, we'll close public comment. My first question to Tim and team is regarding what Mr. Alvarez just said. A lot of this that we're talking about tonight will be public works projects. And so, of course, there'll be prevailing paying prevailing wage. Can you speak to the the topics of apprenticeship and health benefits for the workers in the construction?

Sure. I actually might defer to my colleagues in public works for. information on that um uh as a planner i'm primarily you know versed in private property matters so um but uh to kind of piggyback from mr alvarez's comments so this um there's potential for significant redevelopment in the city's downtown as part of this uh dvsp and also um in light of new state law that allows for uh significant redevelopment potential that didn't exist even a couple of years ago when the dpsp was first kind of conceptualized so there's quite a bit of uh potential for future development in downtown but specific to the public works question i'll defer to scott nishma all right thank you uh

Well, right now we're not talking about specific projects, so it's hard to answer that question.

Just in general, all the public works that are going to go on.

All the public works projects, state law requires prevailing wage for them. There are specific wages required for different positions, whether you're a general laborer, backhoe operator, grader, concrete worker, whatever the case may be. Those have to be followed regularly. So there are not, to my knowledge, benefit requirements like we required for the CMAR process. So that I think is up to the discretion of the contractors. okay ishmael the cmar process seems to be working pretty well for the aquatic center is that still on track be working well it is still on track it's going very well um we got a very good contractor so we're happy about that and uh it's worked out so well i've i've thought we should probably do something like that for some of our larger projects yeah so so that's where i'm going with this um

we could do it for the Del Monte medium project. We could do it for any major public works project in this downtown vitalization specific plant implementation, it seems, or if not a CMAR, cause it's not that big enough that we could still figure out how to score, you know, good healthcare prevailing and not just prevailing wages, but apprenticeships and that kind of thing. Using the CMAR process as a example of it going well, can we, can we either, you know,

let it have a baby and do it in a smaller way there's smaller projects but can we do something like what we did with the aquatic center downtown if council desires um like basic limits for health care benefits and we want to make that a requirement for contractors we could um

And it wasn't necessarily a requirement, but it was you score higher if you do.

Yes, correct. Yeah, we could do that.

Okay. So in a future city council meeting, we can discuss that.

Yeah.

But I think that the hope is that if you can get a great project and do better for the workers, why not? And if it's working out at the Aquatic Center, which is a project, maybe it could work elsewhere. Sure. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's go to Council Member Viala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I have a few things. So first, I think, Tim, you were saying that the downtown vitalization specific plan is consistent with the general plan. But I just wanted to remind you, we're sort of in the midst of a major overhaul. But I'm just trying to look at the crossroads between the two. So the biggest change for the downtown specific plan is really that we are requiring buildings to be fronting the curb and then the parking in the back. And of course, every major, you know, strip mall in reservation doesn't have that. We are walking past huge parking lots. So how would that be addressed in the general plan?

Thank you for that question. So, as you mentioned, the general plan and the DBSP are required to be consistent with one another by law state law. And so essentially the, the idea with the DBSP is to provide kind of parameters for development for the future development of the cities downtown. And so. Essentially, the way the DVSP is structured is it contains a list of allowable uses. So there's permitted and conditionally permitted and prohibited uses. And it also sets out development standards specific to the downtown area. And there's four different districts. So depending on the individual district, whether it's transition or four, there's going to be three with the revisions that are proposed. So transition, core, and multifamily. And so those individual kind of land use designations have different allowable uses and such. The idea is that it's really setting out a vision for downtown Marina to grow and mature. And obviously right now we have a lot of redevelopment potential. So I think hopefully I'm answering the question you're asking, but there's consistency with both the existing general plan and also the general plan 2045.

so we're we're kind of heading out before the general plan is finished so if we do something in the in the downtown specific plan it should be repeated in the general plan yeah well maybe

Just to clarify, so the 2045 general plan actually for Marina Station, for downtown, it basically just says, see those specific plans. So that's the consistency. Remy and Associates didn't want to duplicate all the great work that had gone on in Marina Station, downtown, and the dunes. It just... Carves it out and says, see the specific plans. And I mean, there are general parameters in terms of build up the downtown and support walkability, but it basically is a carve out within the 2045 general plans.

Great.

But to answer your question, when the DVSP got adopted, it is consistent with the current general plan as well. So just, yeah. And as Tim alluded to, we're required by state law to do that. Yeah.

Okay. And then my next question is a very important statement on page 10 of the HDL. It says essentially the transformation of reservation road to an urban downtown street, blah, blah, blah, is basically not likely. I mean, that's the reality of what we're talking about. So I just want to make that really clear. But it does say that the specific plan does not include any financing options to create wider sidewalks, narrowing traffic lanes, creation of a wide landscape median with pedestrian respite areas, or bulb outs at major intersections and reservation roads. But actually, we have been considering these things, all of these things, I think, in the recent Council meeting. So, you know, this statement here is probably not updated because I think we are looking at roundabouts on reservation. I think we are looking at narrowing. I think hopefully we'll look at the sidewalks too. So this statement is out of date.

I think that's correct because the HDL report was done before we had the was it March community meeting um and then some subsequent Council actions about the roundabout at Del Monte and Reservation yes because I think those things that we are trying to bring forth to the public are really critical for the vitalization because all but one parcel on Reservation Road

is already accounted for. There's only one empty lot and that happens not to be owned by the city. So asking these developers to make major changes on their private property where their businesses are bringing in adequate funding for themselves is a huge task. We had some public outreach with the public in these charrettes and stuff. But I don't want to be the party pooper, but we could want everything in the world. I mean, we had such wonderful comments from the public, but this is all private ownership. So I can't stress again, please do not be feeling that you have been solicited feedback and yet we're not acting on it. Our hands are tied. I think there are ways that we can create the motivation to change so that we comply to it. But I think we ought to be really clear to the public about what those are. And we just heard about the community benefits district or the business Business Improvement District. I think that's a good thing. What we're doing for the streetscapes on reservation can help. But ultimately, I think when it talks about financial options, I think we need to think about, do we buy the land? Do we create incentives for the businesses to do something more for their properties? I mean, these are real life considerations that we can't just be floating out in seventh heaven thinking that all this wonderful stuff is going to come to fruition. We have to be actively trying to figure out how to make it happen. Otherwise, it'll be 50 years before anybody says, hey, I'm going to invest another $3 million to make this comply with the vision that Marina would like on Reservation Road. But we can do things like this. these districts, special districts. And I think, you know, I'd like to hear a little bit more about that in my next round of questions, but, you know, I think we need to do the changes on reservation road. All of that is going to help, but to think that we have the power to change most of this, you know, I think they've clearly said at HDL that our vision is highly unlikely unless we do some very specific things. which are long-term and expensive. So I'll ask my questions in the next round. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Kathy. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. I guess my first question is HDL EconoSolutions here today, or?

We don't have a representative here today. They were present, representatives were present at the March 24th public outreach meeting.

Okay. I don't suspect you know the answer to this, but I'll ask it on the record anyway. We've long several times talked about this data that they have and they presented to us once about our market analysis and our demographics and, you know, clearly flawed. I think we even agreed with that it was flawed. So it said, for example, like I'm making this up, but like we don't have any veterans in Marina, right? Something that was demonstrably incorrect. Do we know if they've made any efforts to correct that data? Again, don't anticipate that you'd know the answer, but I'll ask it on the record anyway.

Which specific, so there are two HDL products. There was a market analysis of the entire city and then two or three specific properties. And then they did this peer review of the downtown. So which one are you referring to, Council Member?

Yeah, it was a market analysis, demographic data for the entire city.

That one got published about a year ago. I'm not aware of this veteran comment. We can certainly take a look at that.

One of many examples. So like another one was there's nobody in the city that has over makes over $300,000 or something. Right. But it's stuff that was clearly incorrect. And I think even HDL said, yes, that doesn't sound right.

I can certainly take a look at that report and get back to you, but we don't have that follow-up as of today.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I just think it's really important, right? We're building an argument based off of somewhat flawed data. Like, I just want to make sure that we're trying to hold HDL accountable for having the best quality data that we can possibly have to make the best decisions that we can. I had sent some questions. I think this item was continued from another meeting. Is that correct?

This item got continued from the July 7th meeting.

I had sent some questions at that time about incentives, and I'm glad my colleague, Council Member Biala, brought that up because I agree. I think incentives and spending money on this project is going to be what it takes to see something come to realization. We've talked about $50 million, $25 million incentive for a hotel project in the new part of Marina. If we were to bring that to the old part of Marina, do you think that that might change the statement that HCL says this may never come to fruition?

I think the peer review report, the kind of, it was not an incredibly extensive document. Essentially what HDL as consultant did was review kind of the aspirational nature of the DVSP and try to find ways to make it more practically implementable. And so I think it seemed like their conclusions were totally reasonable. And I think primarily the idea was that They wanted to find a pathway or recommend a pathway for us to provide revisions as kind of requested by the council to make the DVSP something that could actually happen in real life. And so essentially the DVSP amendments were reflective of those recommendations. and um so primarily they offered options for you know things like um originally in the dvsp there was this idea of you know um accommodating mixed-use development which is great we can definitely do that um but i think uh as heard by the community in the march outreach meeting And it's kind of reflected in the kind of market reality as HDL reviewed that something, you know, the concept of vertical mix use probably wasn't as realistically attainable as like horizontal mix use, which would still, you know, and so I think to answer the question, yes, certainly a catalyst project would, I think, be really instrumental in transforming the downtown. So I think you know, with kind of small changes, we can see perhaps a large result. So obviously the city is investing in the public right-of-way improvements, and we're starting to see kind of interest in developing, you know, parcels here on Del Monte Boulevard. We have like the Dutch Brothers Project, for example. And so Catalyst Project certainly would, I think, go a long way in spurring probably future redevelopment ideas from other

uh property owners out you know maybe in the proximity to i think i'm running out of time um so we'll come back customer gaps thank you mayor i think i'm gonna piggyback on your thought there so um and something to like a word that you've said and thank you council member biala but when i hear the word aspirational like that's just really what this is and sometimes unfortunately these reports are like just the most expensive reports on the bookshelves um So when we sort of like talk about revenue sharing, could a revenue sharing policy be incorporated as the broader downtown revitalization plan?

Do you want to elaborate in terms of what you're thinking?

So what Councilmember McCarthy is saying, right? Like we have all these beautiful new businesses over on the promenade, right? And hotels and all of this. And unfortunately, Del Monte and Reservation are kind of like the redheaded stepchildren of the new marina or however you want to look at it. So... As we're talking about incentives for developers, and we just did the Mercedes thing, we're maybe talking about a hotel, other people are calling and wanting in on this. So number one, should we have a policy? And included in that policy, is it... common to see in cities when I was sort of researching this, that in those areas of the cities where you want that development or that flagship, whatever it is, that's where you focus your revenue sharing agreements, or that's where you perhaps have a tiered type of revenue sharing, you know, within the criteria. It's not this like case by case basis, but we would have that policy defined that would sort of enhance this downtown policy.

Yeah, and you're hitting on a lot of really great policy. I mean, that development and redevelopment went away in 2012. But certainly, if the council wants to adopt some type of incentive package, whatever it would entail, that's certainly within the right...

The mic is cutting off. I'm sorry. Okay.

Certainly the council has that right to adopt a incentive pact based on different jurisdictions or different properties. If you give me $25 million, yes, we will help improve your down. If you give me personally $25 million, then the department will see an improvement in the downtown.

Great, thank you. And so that maybe sounds like a future item or I'm hoping our city attorney is sort of catching it on this messaging, but I would love, I mean, especially we're having just this like random open dialogue that nobody really knows about, about future revenue sharing. And so for me as a policymaker, it would really help me to have a policy to follow, which we don't have right now. And so I kind of think that this really like would complement this work as well, right? So the council can, and future councils will be guided through that sort of revenue sharing policy and where we want to see that investment in our community. Because it can't all go over there. We need to bring some over here too. Thanks.

Mayor Pro Tem Vischer?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I would like to explain for those who don't know what CMAR is, what we discussed earlier for this item. It's the Construction Manager at Risk. It's a project delivery method where a construction manager acts as a consultant to the owner during the design phase and then converts into a general contractor bound by a guaranteed maximum price to complete the build. And this is what the city is doing for the the MARC, which is the Marina Aquatics and Recreation Complex or Center. Anyway, just to explain for those who don't know. And I'm glad to hear that it's working out so well. So the suggestion or the recommendation is to get a business improvement district and then the merchants will pay an assessment fee.

Just to clarify, after the July 7th meeting, council member McCarthy sent us some questions and that was one of them. So that's not part of today's action. That ask is if the council, the full council wants to give us that direction to potentially do that, we would have to come back on a separate day and agenda is having to get that contract approved. So that's just the background information.

Okay, because I like the idea, but I would like to know how much it will be for the businesses. Because on one side, we say we want to offer them incentives. And then we say, oh, we want to charge them to do marketing for them.

I think it was voluntary, they mentioned.

Yeah, but even if it's voluntary, you know, you want to know what can they expect. It won't be free. So how much would it be? And so for a future meeting that will be brought back.

Well, the council has to give that full direction. It's $45,000 to do an initial feasibility study to do that. And it's a total $147,000 to actually do the feasibility study and then establish the BID. So that would be the ask if the council wants us to bring that back.

Or we could use the money just to offer incentives.

We would need direction from the council. Separate from the incentive discussion that Councillor McAdams brought up.

Okay. Thank you. And for the rest, just for the report, Yes, we all know we just need to go. We know our downtown. It will be so hard to get this all done to make it into this vibrant, walkable place that we all would like to see because we know what's there. We know it will take a long, long time to change that. But I do like what was in the report already to say, you know, what can be done is the... the infrastructure intentional increments be accomplished within the short-term timeframe rather than the midterm. So this is what we're trying to do with the roundabouts and the road diet. And the road diet is mainly to make wider sidewalks. You know, you don't have so much space. So if you want it for the pedestrians, you'll have to give it up somewhere else. So thank you. Yeah.

All right, my comments start with our former community development director, Fred Agerter, who was with us during the downtown vitalization plan process. And he had gone through similar processes in other states and cities, California and Utah included. And he said, if you come up with a downtown vitalization plan, it can be 30 years before you start to see the major changes happening. But if you don't have a plan, it'll take longer than 30 years. And I appreciate the idea of these incentive discussions because that can obviously shorten the timeframe. But we're not talking a few dollars. You know, we might be talking millions of dollars if a, for example, if a shopping center was going to spend $20 million or more to move buildings around to comply with our downtown guidelines. And then they wanted us to share with them the sales taxes that's generated from that shopping center for the first five, 10 years or whatever. That's a big incentive. It's not just, it's a big incentive. And I like Council Member McAdam's idea of, Coming up with a policy, other agencies call them guiding principles, where you take a controversial topic and you come up with a policy about what criteria go into considering it on a case-by-case basis, the kind of amounts we're talking about, and what criteria you would use to say yes or no to a particular opportunity to provide investments. I think the incentive experience that we have had on former Fort Ord have worked out Well, great in some cases. And in some cases, we probably would not do that again. And we might hold those examples up as ways that were not in the community interest. And we wouldn't want to repeat that. And our white paper on this policy could go into the past where we used incentives and did it seem that it worked out well and good, bad, and ugly. But I really like that idea because I think it's rather bold to go into that of going to the incentives and you can get burned as a community and you can greatly benefit. And to the extent that the incentives worked out on former Fort Ord, those that did, it provided a lot of cash for Central Marina, which doesn't have developers lining up to change Central Marina. So those developers that see the profit in changing, redeveloping former Fort Ord through their impact fees and through their sales and hotel taxes, that's how we were able to build Gloria Jean Tate Park and wendy hill park and do some of our streets i mean it is contributing heavily to the improvements we see around town in central marina without that central marina would not be progressing or catching up as well as it is and the last thing i'll say is that the uh Del Monte Boulevard median, which looks very tired and old, is the first step in implementation of the downtown vitalization process. When that turns into a well-lit, beautifully landscaped, something that you can feel good about when you see it, it will incentivize businesses to start investing. And when we do the remodel of Del Monte Boulevard, I've had one restaurant say, he's just waiting to see is seeing is believing. And when the proof is in the pudding, and those projects are happening, he said, even the Del Monte median, has him believing that Del Monte is going to become a safe, walkable, bikeable place where there's going to be a lot more traffic that will help his business and be worth his while to put $7,500,000 into a seating area that's expanding out in the direction of Del Monte. So I'm looking forward to Del Monte median remodel, beautification being the first step in a long time. that we've been wanting to have a downtown vitalization going on okay let's go to councilmember biala

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I agree with everything that's been said after Council Member McAdams' comment. And yes, I think we need a policy, but we talked about short term. We can talk about all of the four strip malls, but I think a policy that applies to them, it's important to have a plan, as we said, but why can't we sort of target um because i as i said there's only one undeveloped underdeveloped place and that's right next to the mst site right and that's not owned by us of all the res of all the downtown right that's the only one on our our downtown but look at right next to starbucks on reservation road that I would say is underutilized. So yes, again, we don't own it. But if we were to say one parcel that we're going to focus on and see what we can do, rather than saying blanket wise, we're going to have this kind of policy, if that would be as you call the catalyst project, which I think it makes great sense. Let's see what we can do. Let's see what kind of incentive, let's see what kind of, you know, uh considerations we can give for that and and it doesn't have to necessarily be money i can see we we don't have an economic development commission yet but you know is there is there ways that we can outreach to get developers to look at that parcel as opposed to just randomly say come to marina we're great city You know, can we not use some of our resources to get that capital project? So, yes. So so I'm suggesting that all of our, you know, you know, suggestions that we focus our energies on one possibly feasible project. If we look at the whole downtown, it really needs so much attention. It's it's you know, it's unwieldy. It's it's unimaginable to me how we're even going to get one of these strip mall people to move. So if we could do that, then we could experiment and say, absolutely.

We can certainly take a look at, you know, what are the two or three catalyst projects within the downtown and what would it take to get a developer to come to the table?

That would be great. And whether, you know, it could be any of these things, whether we buy it, whether we, you know, give incentives or revenue sharing or whatever. Let's experiment with something that seems like it could become that for us.

Right.

And then I know we've been talking about horizontal mixed use and vertical. It took me a long time to figure out what we were addressing there. But I'm not opposed to horizontal mixed use. But I just want to know that we are not throwing out the vertical. Because even though people have been saying, oh, the vertical mixed use doesn't work, the Dunes is doing very well with it. I think they have maybe two left. So for maybe Marina is always doing something different than other places, but it is working on the dunes. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to.

We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We are not. Yes.

Okay. So you're allowing vertical and horizontal. Okay. So absolutely. And there is both. Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Because I still don't conceptualize. We can talk about all of this theoretically, but I'm trying to think of, okay, so even a horizontal mixed use, I'm not sure if I took any of the four strip malls and said, how does that help them? What can I imagine that they would build even if we allowed horizontal mixed use? But We don't have to get into that, but I'm just saying as long as two of the issues are always going to be available, I'm happy with that. Let's see.

So just so I can make sure I'm remembering. So I'm hearing pretty loud and clear from the council. And correct me if I'm wrong. We understand it's an aspirational document. We understand it might take 20, 30 years. But staff, please come back, you know, maybe not immediately, but what could we do to accelerate or catalyze the downtown? Is that a fair, either a BID or a district or... Having to develop her round table to talk to the, say, Shea Homes or third millennial partner and say, if we were to give you these three parcels, theoretically, or we were to connect you to these properties, what level of density, what kind of parking? Yes. What kind of incentive would it take to get you to actually come to the table to develop those parts? Is that a fair? Yes, totally.

And it doesn't have to be the ones that we have now. I mean, we could use our city resource to do outreach and business, you know, business. I know. What do you call it? engine kind of stimulation from outside, but certainly working with our current ones, although they're pretty maxed out too right now.

Well, I would say third millennial partners, Dustin, the main developer, he's been very gracious to share some pro formas with me in terms of this is your downtown, this is the density you're showing Guido. These are some gaps that he was, he's already so great. I could potentially reach out to him and others to say, great. Is this something that great.

Yeah. And if we could identify three parcels in downtown that are underutilized in terms of what, how we think about it, because we don't own any of it. And then start that because if we do nothing, this thing will be five, you know, 50 years from now, we'll be in the same place. I guarantee it. But, We need to start that catalyst going.

Yeah, we can certainly. Yes.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kathy.

Let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm hearing a lot of agreement on the dais, which I'm really thrilled about. I want to kind of add some color to what Council Member Viala said about the vertical versus horizontal. I mean, semantics... know i think semantically in the document it really seems to focus on horizontal mixed use and i kind of think it should be opposite i think it should be no we want vertical but we will consider horizontal versus we want horizontal we will consider vertical um so that's one issue that i would love to see change if the council approves of that you know these things take so long i'm honestly not convinced that 30 years the mayor talked about when this does start getting billed out i think vertical will probably be favored again right just like it was 20 years ago i mean things come and go inside right right so i want to be a little agnostic to what we're favoring if we can and the document doesn't really appear to do that from from my read um so council member if the council wants we can add a line to the

The table in the plan that just says, you know, to make it clear, we support vertical or horizontal. That's completely, yeah, we can make that more clear.

And I think where I just disagree with my colleague a little bit is is in terms of the, you know, picking the three parcels, like I want to be very careful not to kind of pick favorites. I think we should design a policy that offers anybody the opportunity to to improve in the downtown if they have a parcel. Right. And so when it comes time, I want to give direction that staff return with a downtown focus incentive strategy. not vague encouragement real tools like fee deferrals reductions targeted tax sharing were legally appropriate um and i think i sent these to you an email but facade and tenant improvements grants infrastructure priority lot consolidation support right like all these kind of like this toolbox of tools that we say to the downtown owner like hey these are things that we are going to provide for you if you want to accomplish x y and z it's a little bit a lot of work i think for staff to kind of grapple with what that toolbox will contain But I want to be careful not to kind of say, oh, you know, property owner A, you got picked.

It was more, you know, to try to take something theoretical and make it concrete. And not that we would, you know, pick a parcel. It would be like if there's a parcel in the core. So right now the core density is... 50 to 70 units an acre right so we would go to our development partners and say is that enough to get you to invest in these downtown and maybe they say no i need 90 to 120 units an acre and i need to reduce some parking and potentially a reduction in impact fees like that that would be the diet it wouldn't be to like you're saying favor it would just be to

have that dialogue and then to bring that back to the commission and council and say is the commission and council willing to up the density or do this that and the other so that would be that that would be the goal and the last takeaway for me is just i love the idea of the bid but i don't want to be the only tool in the toolbox right like maybe that's one of many that we can consider but i think that the revenue sharing and all of those things need to be in that toolbox as well and you know we kind of really need to go all in if we're going to be serious about this happening um We need to build a really big toolbox. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay. My thought on the Business Improvement District, I agree with Mayor Pro Tem that because it's – well, she didn't say this – because it's voluntary – Great.

So real quick. So based on our initial conversation with the consultant, if the BID is formed, everybody in the downtown pays some. It's not a voluntary thing.

So even we were in the downtown, it's based on value and size of the parcel.

So it's the most volunteer. That changed it a lot. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify.

So what I did highlight from hearing Mayor Pro Tem was that there's a price of about 200 K if we went the business district route. And she kind of mentioned that, well, maybe that's incentive money. Maybe that 200 grand.

And once again, it's a 45,000 to do the feasibility study. The full wraparound from beginning to end is 147. That's the quote we got.

So add those up.

Oh, it's total one 47 total 150 grand. Yeah.

So, so the, the, The thought is, if we have $150,000, let's talk about how to spend it. If we want a BID that's not voluntary, of course we wouldn't do that if we're getting panned from the business owners with that concept brought to them in advance. but if we got 150 grand that we're thinking of spending, it's not a lot of money, but it's, you know, it's, it's significant. We could spend that money in some other way to incentivize. It could be facade. You know, we give you a 25% discount. You do 75 of your cost for your facade improvements or adding landscaping or adding a sidewalk where it's missing on Carmel Avenue or something like that.

So it'd be nice to have that discussion of, um,

relatively small, $200,000 incentive projects. We talked about or Kathy mentioned Walgreens to Starbucks, that slice of reservation road that's highly underdeveloped and has a lot of potential for a lot of different things. And so I think that with Brian McCarthy, Councilman McCarthy's, you know, pointing out that leave it open to everybody. You know, what would you do with your property if you if we were able to apply some incentive tools, some money from the city's coffers or whatever? from tax revenue or tax revenue coffers to get you to go. I think that idea is really good as far as a downtown focused incentive package. So do we need to speak to some of these issues in the motion we make tonight?

so you know it was a full council so i mean so for i guess we would ask for clear direction does the council want us to at least as a first step engage with the consultant for the feasibility study of the business improvement district so that would be part of the motion and then the second part of the motion would be directing staff to come up with a incentive package that could incentivize or accelerate the implementation of the downtown. I think that's a good summary of what the council is talking about.

Okay. And the last thing I'll say is I agree with whoever has already spoken to it, that it'd be great to have a sentence in the documents we have before us to say that vertical mixed use is encouraged.

Yeah, we can start. And horizontal is okay too. That's, that's an easy.

I'll just note that next to the post office, we had vertical mixed, And it took a while to fill the business half downstairs. Didn't take any time at all to fill the residential above. But now we have a really good physical therapy. We have a really good lab for medical, you know, blood tests, things like that. And I think it worked out. We have mixed use downtown that's vertically diverse. So that's great. OK, let's go to our city attorney.

Yes, I just wanted to clarify a couple things about the business improvement district. So yes, there is a voluntary component. In other words, the businesses would have to kind of sort of works the other way where you if there's a majority protest, then it doesn't get formed. So it's essentially a vote situation. But once it's formed, then yes, it would be mandatory.

that would be so when we spoke with the consultant to renee's point there would be a significant significant amount of outreach explaining this is what the bid could do and pick up more trash and have entertain whatever it might be uh and then if i believe it was 51 when we spoke with the consultant if 51 of the folks in the downtown agreed to it then it would become an official district yeah so that's my understanding so

Thank you. Let's go back to Council Member Biala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So in terms of what you're saying of attempting to do incentives, but also can we word it in such a way so there's an application of other city resources? So I don't just mean money, but it could be something else, you know, that we would contribute something or other or, you know,

You can make the incentive package whatever you want it to be. Okay. The cities have slashed impact fees. They've waived permit application fees.

Yes.

I mean, there's a whole... Okay.

Okay. And, and, and it would be, and it would it be inappropriate to say that not only are we going to outreach to property owners and developers, but also to identify underdeveloped parcels in the downtown. Absolutely. Can we do that? Absolutely. Okay, great.

Okay. Would someone like to make a motion? So I'll motion that we include in our motion for staff to look into A downtown focus incentive package that has tools that we could add to that we could use for incentives to expedite improvements. And number two, that staff come back to tell us what steps would be needed for the business improvement district or what else we might do in staff's opinion to use the same amount of money to do some other kind of incentive. And that otherwise, oh, and that we change the sentence so that it's clear. We encourage vertical mixed use, and also we find where appropriate horizontal mixed use to be satisfactory as well. Aside from that, we go with the staff recommendation that language that we adopt the resolution before us approving the amendments to the downtown specific plan in response to the recommendations from the Atlantic Commission and the recommendations of a market feasibility analysis prepared by HDL econ solutions and determined that these improvements to the downtown are subject to exemptions from environmental review in these appropriate sections listed in the staff report.

Mr. Mayor, I have one comment.

Let's get a second or.

A second. Okay. Second by Kathy. And go ahead, Kathy. Okay. So we know the BID, but also there was mention of community benefits district. Is that less expensive? Is it less wieldy for us to do? So I don't know the difference.

I just need clear direction. Does the council want me to engage with the consultant for the $45,000 feasibility study of the business improvement district?

Okay, but does that include community benefits districts?

Yes, that'll be part of it.

Oh, that's part of it. Okay, got it.

Before I clarify that motion, I just want to get a hand consensus. I can go either way, leave it in, leave it out. Do you want the consultant to be paid approximately 50 grand to go down that direction?

all things autistic.

Okay. So you're thinking of a downtown focus incentive toolbox that we come up with before we go down specifically to a business improvement district and spend 50 grand on that. Okay. Jenny, anyone else?

I agree with

Jenny? Okay. It doesn't matter what I think. Yeah, so for now, we're going to table the business district direction.

But thank you, Brian, for thinking about that. Can we include sort of the broad brush of that's a possibility and how much it would cost? We're not saying to go ahead and do it. We're just needing the parameters.

I understand that that and several other things will be part of a downtown focus incentive toolbox.

That's totally fine. We understand the direction. Great.

All right. Any other thoughts before we go to a vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously with the five of us here. I'll move on to our second hearing regarding the Recreation and Cultural Services park naming process.

No, we have three more housing element action items. Actually, four. Okay. The next one is... Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought I was looking at the hearings, and I was looking at the action items.

The mayor wants to go home early today. Religious...

I never want to go home early. I know that Shep likes to stay late, so I do too. We're going to go to the religious and institutional housing overlay.

A little bit of context...

As the council knows, we got our fifth cycle housing element certified. Rincon helped with that. Sixth cycle, they also helped with that. Then we got $86,000 from AMBAG to do some further housing element implementation work. They've helped us with three or four of those. Tonight is program 1.4, and Kimiko from Rincon will be giving that presentation, and I'm here to provide context as well. I'll pass it off to Kimiko.

Can you hear me okay? Good evening. Okay, let me just take a minute here to share my screen. Okay, good evening. Can you all see my screen?

Yeah, Kimiko, let me make a short announcement. If you could just pause for a moment.

Thank you for your patience.

I wanted everyone to know that it's my understanding we're not going to do the new traffic roundabouts tonight. So anyone who's waiting only for that item coming up about the Del Monte Boulevard roundabouts as part of Marina Station north of... Beach Road, that's going to be pulled until the 1st of September. So the next time we meet at the start of September, we'll go over that. So just wanted to let people know. All right, Kimiko, thank you for being patient with me.

No problem at all. Good evening, Mayor Delgado and council members. As you know, my name is Kimiko Lazzardi and I am a principal planner with Rincon Consultants. I'm going to be walking you through the religious and institutional housing overlay, which has been prepared as part of the city's broader housing element efforts. I'll start with a brief overview of the broader project, and then I'm going to spend a little bit more time focusing on the overlay itself. So what it does, how it works, and how it relates to SB4 and CEQA. And there's a little bit of a lag on my end, I think, on advancing the slide, so I apologize for that. So a really quick overview, the work on this project was funded through the REAP 2.0 grant program, and it's focused on implementation of housing element programs. The first is program 1.4, which is centered on facilitating affordable housing on faith-based and institutional properties through a zoning overlay. The second program is program 2.3, which was presented to the planning commission, I believe back in January, and it involved developing an economical housing toolkit. And these two programs are an important part of the city's eligibility for the state's pro housing designation, which really gives the city an edge when applying for larger state grants for housing focused community benefit projects, infrastructure projects and public transit improvements. So that's a general overview of the broader project. And now we're going to get into some details of the overlay itself.

Kimiko, would it help if we just forward the slides for you here? Would that help you out?

That might help. I don't know. Yeah, do you have it up on your end, Guido? Yeah, it's just a bit of a delay on my end.

Yeah, if you want to stop sharing, Kimiko, and then...

Okay, give me a second.

Okay, so we'll bring it up. Okay.

Do you want to let me know when we're...

If you go to slide, there you go. That's it. All right, thank you.

Yep, that's it. Yeah, so at the state level, recent legislation, primarily Senate Bill 4 and Assembly Bill 1851 have created new opportunities for housing development on properties owned by religious and educational institutions. So SB4 allows the development of affordable housing opportunities on qualifying properties owned by these institutions by right or ministerially. The projects do need to meet somewhat stringent requirements of the law in order to do so. And then AB 1851, and there is some nuance here, but it essentially prevents jurisdictions from blocking housing projects on these sites based on the parking requirements that the city may have in place for religious institutions. So in developing the overlay, we looked at best practices from other jurisdictions and paired that with outreach to local institutions and affordable housing developers in the Marina area. Please advance. So in terms of outreach, what we did, we conducted mailers and email notifications to religious institutions across the city. We had conversations with affordable housing developers, and we also spoke directly with representatives from the Chua Udam Temple. Next slide, please. And what we heard from the development community, there were a few themes that came through pretty clearly. There was interest in identifying sites at higher allowable densities, but also in maintaining flexibility so that projects can scale down if needed for financial feasibility. There was also interest in exploring programmatic CEQA solutions or approaches that would pre-clear properties under CEQA. And not surprisingly, funding constraints came up as a consistent theme for these types of projects. From the religious institutions here in Marina, there was less interest in large scale development partnerships, but there was interest in smaller scale housing, particularly for staff or members of the congregations. And that feedback really helped shape how this overlay was structured. Next slide, please. So at a high level, the RIHO is an overlay zone that applies to a specific list of properties, and those are shown here on the map. These include religious institutions, educational institutions, and other quasi public or community serving sites. There's 21 sites on here. It does not change the underlying zoning. Instead, it creates an additional optional pathway for development. The idea here is to add flexibility without disrupting the existing zoning framework. I will note that SB4 streamlines housing in local jurisdictions without a dedicated overlay to implement it. But what this allows the city to do is to create a pathway for additional residential development above and beyond what is allowed by state law. This approach ensures that the city is consistent with the commitments that are in the housing element and to maintain the pro-housing status which gives you stronger future access to grant funding. Next slide, please. So the overlay provides two primary development pathways. The first is for fully deed restricted affordable housing projects. These can be developed on any site in the overlay. SB4 includes some flexibility in how those units are distributed across income levels. So for example, a small percentage of employee or manager units along with moderate and low income units. but if a project meets all of the requirements under SB4, it can be processed ministerially. If it doesn't meet those requirements, it can still move forward under the overlay, but it would go through discretionary review and it would include a project level CEQA analysis. The second pathway is really geared towards those smaller scale projects we were talking about just a minute ago on R1 sites. These projects are subject to the city's inclusionary requirements and would require discretionary approval. Next slide, please. So for the fully deed-restricted projects, this summarizes the development standards. Densities are increased beyond what's allowed under base zoning. Projects that qualify for ministerial approval under SB4 can develop up to 20 units per acre in the residential zones and 40 units per acre in the commercial zones. uh with the discretionary approval process those densities go up to 25 and 50 units per acre respectively setbacks are stay consistent with the underlying zoning and building height can increase by one additional story or 11 feet higher than the maximum of the underlying zoning Parking requirements are reduced to one space per unit. And if the site is within a half mile of a major transit stop, no parking is required, which is consistent with state law. And as with other residential projects, the city's objectives design standards would apply. Next slide, please.

Go back one. Oh, there we go.

So the development standards on the R1 sites, these properties, the property owners can choose to pursue a larger scale SB4 style project consistent with SB4 or comply with these separate development standards for those smaller scale projects, more in line with existing neighborhood conditions. In these cases, density is capped at 18 units per acre and the height is limited to 30 feet, which is consistent with the R1 zone. There are also unit size limits as listed here to help ensure that housing units are more affordable by design. Parking is still one space per unit and objective standards apply here as well. Lastly, these projects must comply with the citywide inclusionary housing ordinance. And the reason for these more stringent, lower density development standards is to make sure that we are not incentivizing these projects too much on sites where a more deeply affordable project could be developed. So overall, this pathway is really intended to make smaller projects feasible on sites where a larger project may be economically infeasible. Next slide, please. So in terms of how this relates to SB4, the overlay is designed to work alongside state law. Projects that qualify under SB4 are processed ministerially and are exempt from CEQA. And for those projects that go over and beyond what is allowed by SB4, the overlay creates that local pathway that allows them to move forward through discretionary review and with the required environmental analysis. And again, why did we take this approach? It allows the city to satisfy the requirements of the pro-housing designation in the short term while intentionally creating a pathway to do more to streamline housing development over time. What this overlay can do for the city is really allow city staff to see how these standards perform in practice and then refine it based on actual projects and not just assumptions as those things start to develop over time. So it gives you time to implement some of the more aggressive standards you might consider in the future with a ministerial approval process, but that would require you more community input and a more intensive CEQA analysis. And lastly, timing is an important factor here. As the city completes the general plan, additional zoning code updates will be needed for consistency with that new plan. And so the city may want to consider a more comprehensive approach, including looking again at the SB4 compliance and the overlay and potentially apply more aggressive standards at that time in alignment with the broader zoning code update. Next slide, please. For CEQA, from a CEQA perspective, the key point is that the overlay itself does not approve any specific development. Projects that are not already allowed ministerially under state law would still require project level CEQA review. Adoption of the overlay ordinance itself is not considered a project under CEQA and is consistent with a common sense exemption. Next slide, please. So in March of this year, the Planning Commission voted to recommend adoption of the RIHO with several changes. And those are listed here and include adjusting some of the language and the purpose and intent for added clarity, clarifying in the ordinance text when a development project qualifies for ministerial review process. We've also added a column to table one of the ordinance to more easily see what the underlying zoning of the property is. Reducing the maximum unit sizes allowed to provide for units that are more affordable by design in projects that are 100% deed restricted. Reducing the maximum density allowed on properties with an underlying residential zone from 40 to 25 dwelling units per acre. and also adding language directing the city to provide for public meeting to the extent allowed by state law. So these adjustments have all been made and are reflected in the ordinance text that is before you this evening. And I think that's all I have on the presentation. I'm here to happy to answer any questions and to support the council's discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Kimiko. Let's go to public comment. We'll open the public hearing. Anyone in person wish to step forward? Please do so. You have up to three minutes. Not seeing anyone rise. Let's go online. Anyone online with input, please raise your hand. We'll call on you. All right. Denise Turley, welcome back.

Hi, thank you. So I'll do a little bit research, more research now. But the general question for me that came up is, so the categories are only religious and educational only. Is that correct? And so how would that affect you as a city who was given property that meets maybe one or both of those or maybe nothing at all? And how does it affect the obvious institutional educational system in this area, CSUMB? Does it include them because technically they're not in the city limits? My two questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Denise. Anyone else before we close public comment? Okay, we'll close public comment. And Denise asks, is it just religious and education? And Denise, it includes public or quasi public institutions. And I'm wondering if staff can speak any further to that as appropriate.

So we have our definitions in the ordinance. So the original religious institutions, and then also the definition for a quasi community institution, lodges, clubs, fraternal or benevolent organizations, community centers and recreation centers. So that's the definition.

All right. How about city hall or fire?

I don't think we were really looking.

it says parks city parks well that that wasn't really within the scope of this yeah just an answer yeah all right and then how does this affect marina's portion of csumb and potentially csumb outside of marina if at all

I don't really think it's going to, I mean, so there was another state law that got adopted that took effect January 1st that allows the CSUMB. And I have the Google GIS map up on the city website, anything within a half mile of the campus. they're able to do way higher density than what we're proposing. So they would probably default to that state bill. And off the top of my head, I think it's like AB 2287. So I don't think that this would come into play for them. There's another bill that allows far greater density than this would even remotely get close to. And I can get you guys that bill number. I had Rincon create the GIS map that shows... all the properties within a half mile of the CSUMB campus. So we have that GIS layer up. So I don't have it readily available.

Thank you. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. Great work, staff, on the report. I really appreciate what the City of Marina is doing in terms of affordable housing. And I think back to our arena number approval where we, I forget, double... 685. That's our number. Percentage of what was required. Was it double or... So our reallocation was X, but we actually approved.

Yeah, so what this and previous councils did when I started is we were in jeopardy of the fifth cycle numbers being transferred to sixth cycle. But working with the council commission and Rincon, the council adopted an affordable housing overlay that we worked with the state on. And because we adopted that in a timely fashion, the fifth cycle numbers did not transfer to sixth cycle. So that's why our number is...

significantly lower than other cities around us so thank you i i think what i'm talking to specifically though is that we we planned for many more units than we were required to is that accurate correct um and at the time i you know talked about how proud i was that we did that but now you know as i look back on it i'm still very proud but i realize that there's implications right we've kind of set this standard going forward into the seventh cycle that you know and and there's these provisions called no net loss i think we're talking about tonight that i don't fully understand but i think there's going to be unintended consequences of over planning um and for what we're required to and it speaks to this item because um as is mentioned we've done more than what state law requires and i think that's good but how much more right um and so i asked a couple of questions and and guido was kind enough to print those and put them on the dais Just one example of those questions were, what would happen if we remove the language of quasi-public institutions? And the answer was the minimum pro-housing baseline designation score is 35. Under this plan, it's 56. If we remove quasi-public institutions, it would reduce it by two to 54. So not that much. Why is that important? Because I don't know that one, that we've clearly defined what quasi-public institutions are. Two, I don't know if we fully understand the implications of that. I know the American Legion, for example, was referenced as a potential for a quasi-public institution. As I think most of us know, we're really struggling with what the VTC has done in the city. We've heard a lot of comments from the public about the implications of those affordable units having a plethora of sex offenders and convicted murders and no real checks and balances as to what that really looks like. And so it kind of just raises some red flags for me. For that reason alone, at this point, I would be in favor of removing the public and quasi-public institutions piece, just because it's not clear enough to me what the implications are. I do have a couple other questions. To be clear, if a religious institution builds affordable housing, all fair housing laws still apply, right? Like they can't, for example, say, oh, you have to be Christian to live here, right?

Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay.

Well, it's confusing because right out this window is a student housing project. You know, student housing isn't a protected class, but yet they happen to all be students there. And so is that an unintended fair housing violation? Like who meant, who... enforces that is it the city that manages the low-income housing program is it Fair Employment and Housing Agency the state agency enforces those okay does the city play a role at all so if somebody says hey I'm of a different faith and I haven't been accepted into this housing unit and I feel like I've been discriminated in or does it go straight to the different agents I mean I think we can take the information and provide a referral but that would be that would be a Okay. I'll move on to the affordable by design piece. I'm struggling with that just a little bit. It seems to me a better approach would be to regulate the minimum unit size versus the maximum. I mean, if a builder says that, hey, I'm going to build mansions that are affordable, like, let's let them do it, right? Like, I'm trying to understand what the thought process was there by the commission.

Yeah, let me back up to... So... If we show HCD that we're meeting our number and we're knocking out all these programs and we're implementing them for seven cycle, it's a heck of a lot easier to get certified. So just wanted to kind of point that out in terms of affordable by design. So the planning commission actually spent a good hour on that. Bryce and Kimiko from Rincon had higher unit sizes and the commission felt real strongly that we should lower the maximum size so that if somebody actually implements this, that the unit sizes are affordable. they're affordable if they're smaller so that was the thought process from the commission so but the price would be dictated by the affordable housing program right not the unit size or my misunderstanding no it would just be you know if we put a cap that you're using this program and you have x square footage then whatever the market would bear um but it would be at a lower rate because it's a smaller unit so that was the thought process

okay so the price of the unit's not dictated by the affordable housing program but the qualifications to apply for it is maybe that's where my misunderstanding is so you have to be a certain percentage below ami or

Yeah, I mean, 20% of the units have to be inclusionary for one part of the program. But the overall, like I said, the overall concept was if you have a limit on the maximum size, then potentially they're more achievable for marina residents and others, right?

Okay.

Yeah. And then I think my final comment for now is just regarding the... potential of 50 units per acre and I just I guess would ask the council to think about right wherever this list of of churches is in the city imagine a 50 unit per acre site there is there any where we would want that? I don't know what the answer is, but I'm just trying to imagine what that is. And I understand at that point, it looks like it might be discretionary, but that doesn't mean that we can necessarily reject it unless we have a legitimate reason, right? So I'm just wondering if we want to go that high. I'm inclined to say no, because 50 units an acre is a lot. That's like a three story, you know, pretty dense apartment complex with no green space and no, you know, in my mind anyway. So I'll just put that out there for now. And just I'm curious what the rest of my colleagues would think on that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Guido.

Yeah, and just to clarify, and Kimiko can correct me if I'm wrong, but Section 51060 talks about the maximum densities or the underlying zoning. So, Kimiko, did you want to clarify what that meant? Because some of the churches are actually in the R1 zone, so maybe we can get some clarification.

Yeah, that's just, I think, I don't know if this helps at all, but like I said before, there's 21 sites. Eight of those are within the downtown specific plan area. So if you think about the existing underlying zoning for those, and I'm generalizing here because I'm not going through each and every site, but some of those are already multifamily residential. Two are within the transition zone, one's in the core zone. So you've got eight that are already in areas that allow their underlying zoning, allow significant densities. There are three that are within other specific plans. So the station specific plan area and the SPUB. And then there are the nine R1 sites and then the one C1 site. So again, it's, I don't know if that helps provide some.

I think the clarifying question is if a church is in the R1, just so that I understand what would be the max density? I guess that's the question. Is it the 25 dwelling units identified to 50 or is it whatever the base zone is for the 18 that you're showing in the next section of the ordinance?

On page 10 it says 18 duplexes dwelling units per acre.

Right. And I guess that's why I just wanted to get said projects on sites with the underlying zoning is R1. If that's the case, then the max density would be 18 dwelling units an acre. That's how the ordinance reads. Correct.

Okay.

So, Council Member McCarthy, what do you think about 18 dwelling units per acre on R1 sites, single-family housing sites?

I think my question would be where would the 50 be potentially? I know that doesn't answer your question, but where would the 50 be potentially allowed?

I think that would be in the C1, if I'm reading this correctly, and in the downtown multifamily residential zone, which is already zoned for higher density.

And the Dunes specific plan?

I don't think we have – let me just read the list of sites. I'm not seeing off the top of my head. No, I don't think that's – no.

Because there's religious institutions out there, so I guess I'm – 50 is for properties with a non-residential underlying zoning district.

Okay, okay. So that would be the DVSP, the multifamily residential, the C1. And actually, Councilmember, you're right. You're showing the two within the dunes, the University Village, the Young Knock Presbyterian Church, and the Central Coast Baptist. That's showing. So you're right, Councilmember.

Those would be up to 50. That's correct.

So thank you for clarifying.

That's it for me for now. Thank you. Sorry.

All right. Councilmember Biala?

I'm listening too intently and I forgot what I was going to ask now. Some of it has been answered. We can go to Mayor Pro Tem.

Let's do that.

Mayor Pro Tem for sure.

That'll be short. So thank you. Yeah, because I more and remark, I guess, because I also noticed that the planning commission, they want to reduce this size to make it more affordable. Makes sense. But then they also want to reduce the density, which makes it more expensive. Or can.

I think they were trying kind of the similar theme of, you know, we support the policy, but maybe not. I think we were proposing higher than the 50, right? So just trying to break it down just to support the neighborhoods, but also support the policy. Yeah.

Okay. And I also noticed that in the presentation, it did mention that religious institutions are interested in smaller scale project for institution staff and members of the congregation. So I had that same question. Will it be limited to, do you need to be a member of that church?

I don't believe so. And I would have to work with our city attorney for that clarification, but I'm pretty sure you can't just exclude it in the presentation tonight.

So those were my, more of my remarks and questions. Thank you. Didn't give you enough time.

No.

Oh yeah, no, I do. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So when we think about affordable housing, we usually think somebody has to subsidize it. So even in regular development, right, there's 20%, but there's 80% market rate. So that's the way they're able to afford that. So in this overlay, how does that work? So, you know, churches would have kind of a tax advantage anyway. Is that how, because these are not market rates. These are all affordable?

That's correct.

So is that how this logic goes? So they're already in a special tax bracket, so to speak. And so for them to have all affordable units on their property at this point, that's how we can kind of see how this pencils out for them?

Yeah. So, I mean, I can't, I'm not an affordable housing developer, so I don't want to misspeak. But I mean, the general idea is that These are usually large properties that are not being fully utilized. So usually they'll go to mid-pen housing or eded housing, and there'll be some land lease agreement that the church or the congregation gets some money for selling off or leasing the land. And in theory, it's then given to the mid-pen housing and then they lease. they develop the property with whatever source of funds.

So it's not necessarily profit-driven like regular private developers because they would need to get subsidized in order for them to get a property. That's why this is actually a good thing. If the assumption is we want more affordable housing, then then this is the way to do it because there's not a profit incentive built into this because they own the land because you know they have tax exempt status or whatever and they're making a there's no need for them to come out with a lot of profit for these overlays in theory i i yeah i mean i guess that would be a good okay okay i just want to understand it yeah yeah And, you know, I think I'm okay with the smaller, um, uh, you know, units, smaller number of units on smaller properties. Um, but, and, and, and residential could be large. It doesn't really, you know, that's not the thing. So I don't know how to articulate that in, because this is doing it by zone zoning, right. Yeah. And, and, and whatever, but, um, and so they have different, um, uh, DUs on them, but I kind of conceptually think that a 50 density dwelling unit could house more, but regardless of whether it's commercial or residential or whatever else designation, is there a way to be able to craft that in some way? The overall parcel is big enough to put a 50 DU structure on it versus It could be the same zoning area, but it's half the size. And therefore, they shouldn't be trying to squeeze in 50 units.

uh yeah i mean so if it's like a you know if it's a one acre parcel and they split off half of it for this that would be 25 units right yeah right which which was i think kimiko said when they helped with the research talking to the local congregation that seemed to be kind of more in line with what they were wanting not the large scale

Right.

Projects.

But however we have this in here, would they be prohibited from putting more dwelling units on that property? That's what I'm getting at. I like 25 for smaller parcel. Right. But if it happens to be in the same zoning as someone who has four times that, I'm not going to put 50 on there because it's allowed.

Yeah. I mean, it would be based on the parcel, right?

Well, if you have, if you say 50 units per acre, right? Right. So if you're in a particular zone and you, you know, I guess it would, well, they could still, if it was 50 units per acre and you had four acres, you can do 50 units. And if you had one acre, you can still do 50 units.

That would be 200, right? Oh, yeah, true.

Yeah.

Yeah, you could. But I think that's why Council Member McCarthy's comment was prescient because I think the concern about the Higher Dead City is going to be really already at the downtown mostly for the ones that we've identified, except for maybe the one on the C1. And I think that's Council Member McCarthy's concern about the American Lesion site. that's C1, so that could be some pretty significant density. So it's really up to the council today if you want to take out the institutional type uses to alleviate that concern. That's really the council's decision.

Thank you. When does the sixth housing element cycle end?

2031.

And how are we doing meeting our affordable component of it?

I mean, we're building 622 affordable units in the next 8 to 10 years.

But that's 8 to 10 years, so that takes us beyond the sixth cycle.

Yeah, I don't have the exact number. Actually, it's on the ACD website.

So let's just talk ballpark numbers. are without this if we didn't see this tonight and didn't do this tonight would we meet our sixth cycle requirements on affordable units you mentioned 685 for our moderate or above moderate yes i'd have to double check the numbers on the lower but in general we're we're tracking on meeting our numbers so maybe without this we would still meet our sixth cycle affordable requirements

yes but this is a program within your housing element so we kind of have to adopt it if the council wants to tweak and modify it great that's your right but the program we still have to have some finality to this and adopt because it's in our head You know, the HCD does check if we do adopt these programs. And there is a four-year cycle checkup that HCD does. So in 2027, I will be getting a letter from HCD saying, hey, how are you doing on meeting all your numbers? And how are you doing meeting all your programs?

So I am in favor of program 1.4 being part of our housing element. Do we have a lot of discretion in the details of our 1.4 housing element ordinance?

We do, but the only caveat is the stuff we've added to go above state law helps us get more pro-housing numbers.

You mean for the Shepard cycle?

No, for our pro-housing designation, the more we go above state law, the more pro-housing numbers we get, the more pro-housing numbers we get, the more PIP and other state grants we're eligible for, including transportation grants.

Okay.

So just there's a lot of state money potentially involved with keeping the pro-housing designation and having as high a pro-housing score as we can. So that's why, yeah.

All right. So I asked those preliminary questions because I think in residential districts, few neighbors, most neighbors would be in the NIMBY category. Most neighbors would not want 25 unit per acre developments at the churches and other qualifying property owner locations. And so I want to consider this carefully. If we don't need to do it, I don't want to radically change the character of neighborhoods all across city, residential neighborhoods, if the people already living there don't want it. So I know that there's a little bit of conflict between the state pushing us and us having to agree to expediting higher density projects. We lose a lot of our discretionary approvals. In this case, there's some discretionary control that we can maintain depending on the details that we pass.

True, but Kimiko did point out that barring nothing, 20 to 40 units an acre is allowed by right in some of these zones.

I mean, if we don't do this, barring nothing. And I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about not doing that 1.4. I think I said that earlier. I'm in favor of doing 1.4. To the extent that we have discretion, I think we need to be careful because people move to that part of town that they like. They like the excitement, the density. more nightlife, more potential. They go to the Promenade, they go to downtown Central Marina. If they want the quiet, they go to a cul-de-sac. Me, I like a little bit more excitement where I live. So I live on a very busy street, but I know that if I live next to a church, I don't live next to a church, but if I did, I do live next to a school. If somehow that school put up a 50 unit apartment complex, I'm sure that's going to change the character of the neighborhood.

Of course.

And so I don't want to go lightly to approve an overlay where 10, 15 neighborhoods would potentially in the next 10, 15 years have a pretty big change in their vibe. So I just want to say that I've taken enough time, but I just want to be very careful and stay within our discretionary ability to limit the change that could come about by increasing dense projects if we don't need to. But if we need to stay legal, I think that's good. Okay, let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to start by maybe talking, and I don't want to get too sideways, but the nuances of this nonprofit housing situation, just in response to Council Member Biala's comment. I think that Midpen, VTC, all these organizations, yes, are nonprofits, but they have massive budgets and they're dramatically driven by fiscal needs. And so I'll use a VTC as an example. My understanding is the reason they have dozens of sex offenders there is because they pay the most money. The reason they have convicted murderers there is that the state gives them more money to house those populations than maybe an average low income population. population and so there's a lot of nuances in this that I think are very confusing that probably maybe not tonight but really deserve a lot of discussion one question I have for staff is can within this policy i mean fortunately i think that the churches are going to be a little bit reluctant to house sex offenders and i believe that as a landlord you can um you can make a rent decision based off of that factor but as a policy maker can we say that these organizations cannot rent to sex offenders

I would have to defer to the city attorney because I don't normally get involved with dictating who can and can't live in units. That seems to be a little bit running afoul of fair housing law, but I'd have to defer to the city attorney on.

I don't know off the top of my head, but can certainly get back to you with an answer.

Has Rincon ever heard of that question by chance? Okay. Again, unfortunately, in Marina, it's a real problem that we're dealing with. There's an extreme overconcentration in one of our affordable housing and transitory housing projects. And so, you know, it's one of the things that I have to be mindful of. Okay. Yeah, I think I mean, I've already kind of said my piece about wanting to reduce a little bit of the density. I'm all for this. I think this is a great plan. I think that is the right thing to do. And quite frankly, I think a lot of the religious institutions could potentially do a fantastic job partnering with some of these organizations. But I'm nervous, of course, and it's because of some of the problems that we've had in Marina. And so for that reason, I'm going to favor one removing the quasi public institution language only reduces our score by two. and then maybe reducing the density a little bit. One more question for staff. If we only went with what's required by SB4, does that mean that our pro-housing designation score would be what?

Kamiko, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your email back to me said it dropped by two points. Is that correct?

Yeah, from 56 to 54.

So across the board, if we... If we approve this with absolutely no additional thing, so no additional density, not the additional language of the quasi-public institution, no additional height, no additional anything, that it only drops by two?

Do you want to clarify? Do we want to come back and verify that, Kimiko, or is it true it's only two?

I think that specific program is worth two points.

Okay.

the quasi public program is that the over and beyond sb4 yeah okay which is twofold it's expanding the application of the overlay to the quasi public and to allow for um potential increased density through that discretionary pathway those are sort of two areas of the ordinance that go over and beyond sb4 Okay.

So yeah, I mean, I think for me, I mean, two points is not worth all of this extra hassle. I'm all for the pro housing designation and making sure that we're doing the right thing and providing a lot of affordable housing, but I'm not sure that I support all the provisions in the staff report. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Mayor Pro Tem Vischer.

I would like to know if a future council would decide that they do want to include it. Suppose we do not include it tonight. What would the procedure be for that?

Just like any other ordinance, it would go to Planning Commission and Council. We could start with not allowing it, but in the future if... More like the STR ordinance, you guys added a provision that said after three years we would come back so the Council could keep it and we could come back in two years, see how it's going. It's really up to the Council.

Because I do like your proposal. Thank you. It's not now or never. Right, right.

unless it's a ballot measure or a charter something, you know, all these ordinances can always come back, right, so.

How could this affect, how could this help or hurt Monterey-Pencil Unified School District properties such as the Del Mar Development Center there on the corner of Marina Drive and Lake Drive? Is that a school? It used to be a preschool.

Yeah, I don't know. There was another bill that got adopted... two years ago that allowed by right school district housing even higher even higher than this and it basically said city okay great we'll let you know but we're going to drive on and do our projects so that's this whole separate school districts are allowed to do that as of about two years ago all right yeah as a planner guido

What do you think the appetite is in commercial zones in Marina for allowing higher density than SB4 allows?

Kind of going back to our earlier conversation and talking to Dustin from Third Millennial Partner, the vertical, even HDL said that might not be a possibility. The horizontal might be more viable. If you're really trying to incentivize the downtown and in relation to this as well, you probably should up the densities in the core because that will potentially get people to come to the table to flip the property and to incentivize. So kind of mixing the two conversations. But yeah, I mean, there's got to be a certain level of density So when they do their pro formas, they can say, oh, yeah, actually, this is a reasonable profit for us to make, right?

I'm glad you provided that information. My question was, as a planner, what do you think the appetite is in Marina of current residents, business owners? Would they appreciate higher density projects or would they not want them?

Once again, it's a chicken and egg thing. In downtown San Jose, it was dead. No, but I'm just giving you an example. It was dead when I moved there in 2000. San Jose did huge density and they have a business improvement district. Residents moved in, which incentivized getting the commercial, which then steamrolled having more residential, right? So it kind of snowballs. So to answer your question, it's a little bit of... both right if we incentivize the downtown and we get more density then people will want to invest more commercial and then it kind of accelerates what we talked about earlier okay right so that that's a long-winded answer all right so i'll be able to cherry pick in saying stay with sb4 don't go beyond it except in downtown area where we want to incentivize downtown vitalization that's certainly within your right as the council okay

And I think that that would be if we had a room full of residents from all over the city, apartment dwellers, downtown, single family home dwellers. Right. I don't think they would. I think they would agree with that.

Right.

So kind of like what Councilmember McCarthy was saying is don't go beyond SB4, except where we want to. And one place that I would suggest would be in the downtown vitalization area. Maybe there's other places too. I haven't thought this all the way through, but that would be, that would be my recommendation.

If that's a recommendation from the council, then it would be the, if you go to section 020 of the ordinance, the DVSP areas with the MFR, those would be the properties. And the R1s would stay with the 18 dwelling units per acre. And I guess the other ones would drop off in terms of if they're not in the DVSP, the ones within the dunes. And I guess the council would have to decide if they want to keep that C1 parcel that's in the, I guess you're saying it's in the downtown. So I guess it would be just the ones in the DVSP.

Yeah, I don't see a lot of, I can't imagine a lot of consternation from existing businesses and residents if those DSVP marked locations.

MFR, MFR, yeah.

MFR, multifamily residential went beyond SB4.

Okay.

And if that helps us score better, et cetera, it helps us vitalize and implement our design, our downtown plans better, faster. That's great. Okay. Okay. So that would be.

If that is the will of the full council, I guess the ask would be because it's a substantial change from kind of what we're presenting to you guys today that you give staff the discretion to. kind of re-edit it and bring it back for a formal adoption with hopefully not a lot of discussion so if that's appropriate consensus by council brian you're not looking happy No, no, no. Yeah, because that's a substantial change from what you guys are looking at today. So if that's the direction of the council, we would go back with the working with the city attorney, implement that direction, and then come back for a first reading.

Would that be a public hearing, et cetera? Yes, it would. Just like tonight. Okay.

I guess I just do have a comment to that. I mentioned yesterday I'm knocking on doors just in this area, which is all Carmel Avenue, the Marina Gates, where it's so dense. And one of the things that I heard from people is like, it's crazy. There's already no parking. And I forget, this does require on-site parking or no?

It's within a half mile of the MST site.

So I guess, I mean, I could easily go with it. I wouldn't be real happy about it if that's a consensus of the council. But, you know, as I talked to people just last night, you know, that's our densest area of Marina and we're talking about making it more dense. And I'm hearing that people have problems there already.

i would point out that when the council adopted the dvsp we did a parking study that showed if we were to do more shared parking within the downtown there's actually way more parking than we were required so i just want to point that out and i can provide that kimley horn study just like yeah brian were you within the downtown vitalization pacific plan area well i'm looking where these churches are in particular um

So I was at Charles Apartments, Seacrest. I think that's all downtown vitalization. Let me look at a map. Yes.

I don't know. I'm off the top of my head.

Yeah, it totally is. It's in that MFR. Yeah. All in that MFR. So Carmel, you know, we're Carmel.

I know AccuFresh and Charles Apartments. I didn't know that was a part of our downtown DVSP.

It is in one of the zones.

So we're talking Seacrest-Carmel intersection.

Okay.

Is that in our DVSP? Brian, do you have a map that confirms that? I do.

We can.

I mean, downtown is pretty right. I don't know if you can see.

We have on the GIS map on the planning website, we have a GIS, but I'd have to get access to it. if you go to the planning services.

So I think Brian is right. Lower Carmel Avenue is pretty congested, not a lot of parking. And there's a couple of churches there. And if that lower end of Carmel Avenue is within the downtown civic plan, having worse parking is not going to be appreciated by the multifamily residential folks there, right? So, okay. So let's hear from Council Member Biala.

Is it?

No, I just turned it over to Council Member Bell.

Oh, no, but go ahead. Do you have some information?

Oh, the council wanted the downtown map. It's off of the planning website. We have a GIS map.

Yeah, if you can bring it up, that'd be great. We can look at some of these.

So, Mayor, I think maybe what you might have been thinking about is in the red, the core, and there's one church there, which is Compass.

Compass is in the core on Crescent Avenue.

That's what our planning packet says, yes.

It doesn't feel like core, does it? Close enough, right behind Chevron.

But maybe that would be a candidate, right? And gain us a point or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if we can cherry pick to that extent. Just to say the core. I don't think we could.

No, we have to say just the core, which is just that one church.

Yeah, I don't think, oh, there's only one core. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

And it's clearly identified, right? The core. So...

I'm sorry. I'm trying to get you guys a GIS map.

So we may be whittling this down. That's fine. To just the core on VSP. So one parcel.

Just to the core.

Yeah. Okay. Now, if we just did to one parcel, does HCD care, do we get a better? Well, I mean, you know. We implement the minimum plus one.

No, I think it's better to say the core. Getting too specific sounds fishy. I know, but you can just say the core. Anywhere in the core.

Anywhere in the core.

Yeah. Okay. Well, my comment was, if we wanted to see the results of our experiment here, and we say that we would come back to the council in four years. And that would coincide with the next cycle.

Oh, that's a great idea.

So we would have data that could help us. And then if it didn't really help us or we want to change it, it would be a good time.

Right, exactly. And so the council adopted the affordable housing overlay. And there were 35 parcels in there. And I think we've gotten two people, right? So there was this big concern when I brought it four and a half years ago. And to your point, maybe we just write it out, see how it goes. Right. So that's another option for the council.

And the other safeguard, if you want to call it that, is that when we approve these developments, we really don't even want, but we forced to, the ninth apartment on Del Monte, the 56th apartment by the post office, they never got built. And so it's, it's, it's not, it's not easy to, to have these dense developments. Okay. So I think where we're going now, thanks in part to, or largely due to Brian that because of the parking congestion already today, that we're just going to go SB one minimum and, plus the DBSP core, which happens to be one lot.

I'm sorry. So SB4, the minimum requirement, plus in the core district. Okay.

Is that where we're headed? Yes, in the four years. Okay. And we'll reevaluate in four. Okay.

So we'll have to, like I said, rewrite the ordinance and we'll bring it back for our first reading.

How do you think the planning commission would think about this after they had gone through it, probably in more depth than we have.

I don't have very opinionated planning commissioners, so I'm sure they'll reach out to you and tell you. So, I mean, it's, you know, so. All right. Council Member McCarthy, did you have any more input?

I guess just as not as part of what you bring back to, well, as a question, I'd like to see if we could ask about the, can we add language about sex offenders in there? Is that within the city's right? Can we just ask that question? The answer will be yes or no, but.

I'm like 90% certain I'm not allowed to put that in a city ordinance, but I will defer to the city attorney and we'll get you an answer.

I think it's just to come back with the information. Right. Right. Part of the motion. Right. So.

All right. Mayor Pro Tem, do you have any more input?

Just a question. Do we know if any of the other 35... institutions had plans to build something or did they show any interest?

So Kamiko and Bryce did a lot of outreach. We only got three or four bites from people. One of them they referenced was the, the Buddhist, whatever temple.

So what are we allowing now? As long as they stay within the, or we say no, not at all in the core.

I think where I'm hearing the council go is have the enhanced density within the core, and then everything would just be straight state law SB4. So if that temple wants to come in today and file their permit, they would just follow SB4. Okay. And what's the density for them?

According to SB4.

20 to 40 units an acre.

You still have parking issues. Yeah.

Which, by the way, if they're within a half mile of the transit, they're going to be able to tell you to go pound sand and you can't make me do parking anyway.

That doesn't make a difference. I mean, only that housing is needed.

It's right off modern lane, so they should be able to modernize. Okay. Maybe get a new road there.

I defer to the mayor if you guys want to make a formal motion, but I understand the direction, but I defer to you guys if you want to make a – but I understand the direction we're going.

So if you know you're going to come back with SB1 plus one core unit and information about sex offenders and murderers. Density? What about density?

And the core. The core would be the only one with the enhanced density.

I said SB minimum plus one. SB4, right. And for the four. Yeah. Yep. Okay. All right. So we can move on.

Sounds good. And continuing the theme for the night, we have three more house and element items and Tim's going to do those. So, and I'm here to help. So we can.

Welcome back, Tim.

Okay, thank you. Let's wait for the PowerPoint to come up here. Okay, well, thanks so much. Well, good evening again. The council has requested to consider strategies for implementation of several programs of the city's housing element as required by state law. Next slide, please. So for the benefit of members of the public, I know the council knows this, the housing element is one of nine required elements of the city's general plan. And the general plan serves as the blueprint or core planning document for future development of the city. The housing element incorporates an analysis of the community's housing needs and contains actionable policies, programs, and strategies to ensure the provision of safe, affordable housing stock for Marina residents of all income levels. The city's six-cycle housing element, as we've talked a lot about, received certification or official approval by the State Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD, on April 11th of 2024. That certification demonstrates the city has adequately planned to fulfill the community's existing and projected housing needs, including a fair share of the regional housing needs allocation, or ARENA, through the years 2023 through 2031. TO ENSURE ONGOING COMPLAINTS, THE CITY IS REQUIRED TO REPORT ITS PROGRESS IN ATTAINING STATED GOALS OF THE HOUSING ELEMENT BY FILING AN ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT OR APR WITH HCD. AND THE PLANNING COMMISSION CONSIDERED BACK IN MAY AND JUNE AT PUBLIC HEARING THE RECOMMENDED ACTIONS AND ADOPTED SEVERAL RESOLUTIONS RECOMMENDING APPROVAL BY THE CITY COUNCIL. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. The city's housing element contains an action plan which establishes programs intended to achieve its goals of provision of housing for occupants at all income levels as required by state law. Consistent with the statutory mandates, this evening the council is requested to accept the planning commission's recommendation and consider adopting the provided resolutions and ordinance to ensure attainment of its housing element goals described briefly in the following slides. Next slide, please. So the first of three is anti-displacement strategies seek to reduce involuntary moves and promote housing stability for residents most vulnerable to market pressures. The city's housing element recognizes displacement as a barrier to achieving housing goals and advancing equity. Under Assembly Bill 686, jurisdictions are required to affirmatively further fair housing by addressing housing disparities and barriers to housing opportunity. Anti-displacement strategies are an essential component of affirmatively furthering fair housing goals or AFH goals and implementation. The anti-displacement strategy adopted by the Planning Commission on June 11th of 2026 attached to Staff Report as Attachment A is presented to the City Council for review and acceptance. Next slide, please. The second of three programs, energy efficiency refers to the ratio of useful energy output or service provided to energy input and accomplishment of tasks. In the context of housing rehabilitation and development, energy efficiency focuses on the strategic use of building technology. Implementation of energy efficiency measures improves air quality and building safety while also prolonging the useful life of structures in new construction and are contributing to the preservation of existing housing stock. A reduction in operating expenses reduces overall housing costs, therefore, residences being allowed to remain in their homes, preventing displacement and offsetting the risk of homelessness of low-income residents. Actions to increase energy efficiency also reduce reliance on external energy sources and minimize vulnerability to fluctuating energy prices, which are critical for furthering housing stability in low-income populations. The city has proposed a cohesive energy efficiency strategy advancing the attainment of housing element policy six and program 6.1 has recommended the resolution attached to the staff report. Next slide, please. So the city's housing element recognizes the detrimental effects to the community caused by the loss of existing housing units, which are affordable to lower income households. Housing Element Program 1.2 affirms the city's aim to facilitate construction of replacement housing, offsetting units which are lost to demolition in accordance with state law, including Assembly Bill AB 1397. And Program 1.2 of the housing element directs the city to take several actions. Program 1.2 requires staff to monitor development on non-vacant, in other words, developed or partially developed sites, identified in the housing element sites inventory, and ensure that any development as a condition of project approval replace the existing units occupied by or deed restricted for occupancy by lower income households. um a draft ordinance has been prepared amending the municipal code to ensure compliance with ab1397 as required by the city's housing element the draft ordinance also incorporates a definition for demolition which is currently absent from the city's code and the council has requested to consider the draft ordinance for adoption next slide please Oh, thank you. The City Council is recommended to take the several actions as recommended on the slide, which I'll read briefly as number one, adopting a resolution, approving City of Marina anti-displacement strategy, addressing housing element implementation and advancing housing protections for residents most vulnerable to housing market pressures. Number two, adopt a resolution advancing energy conservation for housing and residential development as contained in the energy efficiency strategy. The third bullet there, conducting the first reading of an ordinance approving amendments to Title 17 of the City, Marine, and Municipal Code, adding Section 17.48.050, replacement housing, and Section 17.04.214, or demolition, to implement Housing Element Program 1.2. and then the fourth bullet finding that the proposed measures including municipal code revisions are exempt from further environmental review pursuant to section 15061 v3 of the secret guidelines uh next slide please and staff are available to answer any questions thank you thank you very much tim for this topic um let's go open a public hearing now to public comment anyone in the room here would like to speak please step forward

Not seeing anyone rise. Let's go online. Anyone online want to provide comment to this matter? Please raise your hand. Before we close public comment, welcome back Denise Turley.

Hi, thank you. My just comment in general is it's hard to take notes that fast on the slides that we're seeing. And is there the possibility of getting an electronic copy of the slides shown on these so that I have a basis of which to, you know, do further study. That'll do it for that.

Thank you, Denise. Anyone else would like to raise your hand for online commenting? All right, we'll close the public comment. And I think that our staff, including our acting city manager, know how to contact Denise via email to send her an e-copy. And Guido says no problem. Guido and Tim say no problem. Courtney does. Okay, let's go to council. Council Member McCarthy.

Thanks, Mayor. I'll just say super quickly that I'm supportive of, was there something? No, sorry. I'm super supportive of this. I think one downside, right, is that it does make redevelopment more expensive, or at least that's my take. Would you agree with that? If you have to replace a low-income unit because it's if you're required by state law anyways we're just trying to codify it and make it like uh more concrete in our local ordinance okay so like the previous ordinance this doesn't go above state law and anything no this is yeah this seems pretty straightforward yeah okay i mean even if it did go in this case i feel like i'd be supportive of that but yeah i make a motion to approve not to end debate but just to get us rolling i'm happy to second that

okay so that motion includes the two resolutions before us being adopted and the first reading of the ordinance and finding that the proposed measures are exempt from further environmental review okay uh

Just one quick clarification. So it does incorporate state law, but it adds the definition of demolition so that you know when it applies. I think there's a question right now as to when it applies. And so this just makes it clear. Thank you for the clarification.

All right. If we can have a roll call vote, please.

I just wanted to show my colleagues didn't have.

There's no lights.

Okay.

Roll call vote, please.

Council Member McCarthy.

Yes.

Council Member McAdams. Aye. Council Member Viola. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Vischer. Yes. Mayor Delgado.

Yes. All right. Thanks. That was easy, but not for you folks. That was a great action item by the council. Well, now we know what staff likes. But good work to your team. We're going to move to the Recreation and Cultural Services section. This one. Okay. So Elizabeth, this is yours regarding the park naming process. We might be getting out here at 10 o'clock. And I'm sorry, Cheryl, it won't be later. I'm sorry.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. And good evening, Council. Elizabeth Crisanti, Recreation and Cultural Services Director. So tonight we are talking about the park naming process. So just to give you a little bit of background on this, we currently have three parks that are up for renaming. This would be Hilltop Park, City Park at the Dunes, and City Park at Seahaven. So this topic has been under discussion with staff and the Recreation and Cultural Services Commission for several months, probably dating back to last September. So they've been talking about it for quite a while. Right after I arrived in the springtime at my first Recreation and Cultural Services Commission meeting on May 6th, I presented a draft application and submission process. I received feedback on it and I revised it. At the July 22nd commission meeting, I presented the updated version and the commission approved it. And so that's what I'll be presenting to you tonight. And that's what's in your staff report. So let's go to the next slide. So the park naming process is outlined in Resolution 2002-122. This was adopted June 18, 2002. And in a nutshell, it outlines policy and procedure for naming all city-owned facilities and properties. It encourages public support through engagement and submission opportunities. It defines best practices for choosing options that best represent or are related to the geographical area, the terrain, historical significance, other categories, et cetera. The resolution also allows for city properties and buildings to be named after people or corporations when a substantial gift is involved and provides guidelines if no substantial gift has been given. And finally, the resolution outlines a review process giving city council final approval for all names. Next slide. So the timeline that we are proposing for this is also in accordance with the resolution. We're looking at an application submission timeframe of potentially starting relatively soon after tonight, assuming that Council approves us moving forward with it, ideally giving six to eight weeks for a really robust application submittal process. So I have October 31st as the deadline. However, that could be a moving target based on Council's direction or if we want to go longer. So it's very flexible. So the initial process, as outlined in the staff report, would be that staff would vet all of the applications that come in once the due date is passed. And that's really more to just kind of weed out any that are, say, not completely filled out, not legible, not completed by Marina residents, really just paring down all of the ones that are obviously not meeting the guidelines. And then staff will present those applications in a pool to the Recreation and Cultural Services Commission for a review as well. And that is also follows a good process that the resolution outlines that that suggests having a subcommittee of some kind to do reviewing. And so the commission's job would then be to pare down the pool and create a smaller application grouping that would then come to council. So really by the time it comes to council, it would have gone through several different vetting processes and you would ultimately be presented with a pool that is, you know, relatively present, what's the representative of the larger application pool. If we get 200 applications total, ideally we'd like to present council with say 10 max for final approval. So that would be the timeline. Going to next slide. Thanks, Belinda. So this isn't legible for folks at home, but the application is included in the staff report. And so the application essentially just outlines how we would verify residency and that would be requiring folks to give us their address. It would talk about just some of those best practices, do's and don'ts. And then it would request information based on why people are proposing the name that they are for the justification behind it. And then we do also have the hyperlink available so that if this is an online form that people can fill out, it would take them directly to the website, have pictures and visual aids of the location so that people can kind of get an idea of what they're naming because some people aren't familiar with these areas. And then ultimately applications would be turned into the department. We would be the initial clearinghouse for that. It is already created as a fillable document, so it can be submitted electronically via email or it could be turned in hard copy to City Hall. There's lots of different ways to do that. Next slide. And so our thought process on running the campaign for the naming application process, we would do a big press release for it. We would do a thoughtful and intentional online engagement campaign. We would use social media. We would... do distribution through our existing programs and events and then we would also have card copies available and also we're open to other suggestions as well if council has other ideas these are just the kind of the low hanging fruit opportunities that we thought we would tackle and we're we want to do a really good saturation of the community with this one thought process one thought process too was to also submit it through the monthly newsletter as well so THAT MIGHT BE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL. SO NEXT SLIDE. THANK YOU. SO THE RECOMMENDATION TONIGHT IS FOR CITY COUNCIL TO ADOPT THE RESOLUTION APPROVING THE DEPARTMENT TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE PROPOSED PARK NAMING PROCESS FOR HILL TOP PARK, CITY PARK AT THE DUNES AND CITY PARK AT SEA HAVEN IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE GUIDELINES DEFINED IN RESOLUTION 2002-122. NEXT SLIDE. And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take questions and comments and let's chat about it.

Great. Thank you, Elizabeth. It's great to see this coming forward. Let's go to the folks in the room. Please come on up to the podium if you wish to speak. All right. No one's coming, so we'll go online. Denise, I don't know if this was something you want to talk about now. So let's go to Denise Turley in case this is fresh.

Yeah, actually, it is. I just would like to add to this discussion that we not use the word park in a place that's called Preston Park. Preston Park Park or Park Park, Preston Park just doesn't make any sense. I would ask that the that Elizabeth and her team and I've already asked her this. that they choose a name, any name, whatever the name is, even the ones that aren't being changed, and consistently use that name and ask staff and the council and everyone else to consistently use that name so there isn't so much confusion when there's the double park word in the conversation. That's it.

Thanks, Denise, and we hope you continue to enjoy Preston Park. Let's go to Mike Muller. Welcome back, Mike.

Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Council and staff, I tell you, Denise read my mind. Yeah, Sports Complex would be a better name for Preston Park Park. But I was thinking in the future, if there happens to be an auditorium type of, you know, amphitheater at the Dunes Second Avenue Park, would there be a consideration to name that amphitheater something other than the park itself? If you have such a big park, what happens if there's a soccer field that goes up at Seahaven? Would it be the, you know, the Bob Smith soccer field within this park? Just wondering. That's it. Thanks. Good night.

Thank you, Mike. Anyone else wishing to speak? Please raise your hand. Okay. We'll close public comment. And to Mike's question, the all-inclusive playground, could it have a specific name? And is that for tonight? Or is tonight we're just talking about those three parks and a process for those three?

So tonight we're mainly just talking about the three parks. But I think that if there's direction from council in the future that we want to have a naming campaign for a particular feature or amenity that we would be open to that. I think it just has to fall within the guidelines of the resolution.

All right. Let's go to council member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. I absolutely support the resolution and thank you for this work. But what I am going to speak to, though, is the policy from 2002. Because so the resolution that we're potentially passing this evening is not going to supersede this prior policy and procedure. Is that correct? OK, thank you. So I would like, of course, like move forward with this. Thank you for the form. The resolution is written well. I would like, though, for the naming policy, the overall policy to come back to us. um we're seeing with like all of the caesar chavez libraries and par so we're really in real time experiencing what happens when you name facilities or parks you know when you give it a person's name and then something comes up or even with like civil war statues and stuff like that right so um and i'm this might be for the city attorney how I'm reading and understanding the policy, there's really, and this, the 2002 policy, there's really not clarification of like, my family's going to donate $5 or are we donating a million dollars? And is the name for perpetuity or is it for like 30 days? So, yeah, so I think that this needs a lot of work. Um, and I also think about equity too, right? Like just because my, you know, your family or my family has deep pockets, like, no, we don't get to own the park or we don't get to have the name. So, um, I, I want to be mindful like this is, these are our community spaces, right? Um, And then also in the form, thank you for including the form. When we talk about the sort of like the site name or the neighborhood, right? Well, what concerns me is especially with neighborhoods that have HOAs, if you name the park, the neighborhood, dunes park or whatever then those residents are gonna feel ownership right and and um i know that they the county experiences that in east garrison you know like oh those people aren't don't live here why are they here at lincoln park playing soccer so i think we need to be really mindful of that Because these are, and I understand that there are some cul-de-sac parks that are owned by the HOAs, but these are the city parks. So let's not name them after the development or let's make sure that it's known within the name that this is a community park for everybody, not just the residents of those specific areas. I think that's all I have. I mean, of course, just sort of like the community engagement with the designing of the parks, you know, going into the schools. I would encourage that, you know, staff reach out to MPUSD and have the flyer put in their newsletters and stuff like that, because I would really like to see, again, our youth and our kids taking ownership and naming the parks in addition to designing them. Thanks.

all right thank you jenny city attorney renee ortega really quick um so so yes while the policy could be clarified as far as you know qualifies as a donation um and the period of time in which a park would be named uh after someone uh but i think there are several you know, kind of procedural things that need to happen for that. So, for example, city council would need to accept the donation. So, you know, and so in that sense, you'd still have some discretion. So.

Okay. Let's go to Council Member Viala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with Council Member McAdams. You know, I... One, I want to say that I like the idea of naming a park on natural or geographic features, a traditional theme of the city, which is in the staff report here, as opposed to an individual for one of the reasons of we may later have to rescind that and everybody's gotten used to that park being named that. It's happening more often than you would think these days. And so I think we should... you know think about that and quite frankly if if it's a place where children go to name it after a person who one they don't know and then sometimes has a hard time remembering what that name was and then on on top of that adults may not even know that person and two generations from now the people who knew that person won't be around. And so it's just so complicated when you're going to name something after a person. So I really hope that we even have the children name it or, you know, have a name that's suggestive of the things. I mean, we even say, you know, the owl park or, you know, the pirate ship one, that's what kids remember. So I have a hard time with, you know, with the name kind of thing. And I also would like to humbly ask you to make the deadline after the elections in January, because, you know, these naming things, you know, they can get tangled up in politics and we're so close to the elections. November 5th versus your October 31st. Can we just kind of let, let the new council kind of take a bite at the apple here and whatever. So thank you. That's my only comments.

Okay. Mayor Pratama-Fischer? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you. And I would like to thank the commission, the Recreation Commission, who really worked on this. And so it already includes, you know, the form already says include potential names should not include names of individuals. So that's covered for... this for these three parks at least for now so and yeah and the whole goal was to um council member mcadams the whole goal was to avoid or to change the names from the dunes and sea haven just to avoid any uh confusion about uh anybody everybody's welcome which by the way is also for the parks that are owned by HOAs at least in our HOA everybody's welcome and so um I think this is it because I just agree with everything else I heard, including I hate to see that people can just buy a name. No, no. And I've joked in the past if, I don't know if they're listening, but Kaiser or Montage, depending on the gift, on the donation, and then only for a limited amount of time. But anyway, that's not for these three parks now. And I'm looking forward to seeing what especially the kids will come up with because they designed the play structures and everybody loves the play structures.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Biala?

So soon? Does anyone else want to say anything? You know, I'm sorry. I had not seen that. We don't name things after the people. So thank you. Because in the body, it was saying something about individuals. So.

Yeah. So just for clarification, there are already several facilities in the public building inventory that are named after individuals. So through this process, we really just want to stay away from naming after individuals or corporations and stick with the categories that are specifically listed on the application, which are historical significance, geographical terrain, et cetera.

And I don't know in future policies, do we say when we can also change the names from individuals to, you know, a more generic name that's, I don't know if that's in your, in the policy anywhere.

Yeah. So the, the policy is very general. And so as council member McAdams pointed out, there's, there probably needs to be a little bit of overhaul on it. Especially as we're getting into so much more development where we're having the opportunity to explore naming more and more amenities, parks, potential streets, buildings, all of these different kinds of things. So I think that's another great reason to kind of stay away from the naming after individuals or corporations because it provides additional layers of complexity to the whole process.

And my point was the ones that have been named already to individuals, can we reverse that and name it something else in the future?

Yeah, I think people have to define that.

And also, if we're going to take away the individual names, maybe there's another way we can honor people. I don't know, you know, have some kind of things, you know, in our city hall, our new city hall, something of a recognition kind of thing if we're not, if we're going to get away from naming facilities or parks after people.

Okay, given the hour, I think we're almost done with these three parks. I'm done. Modifying the policy and other things are coming, it sounds like. But for tonight, we're talking about these three parks. So I'd like to motion that we adopt the resolution before us, approving the Recreational Cultural Service Department, progressing with park naming process for these three parks as defined in the guidelines of the resolution draft. I second. 2002-122. Okay. Council Member McCarthy?

Yeah, I just wanted to follow on to Council Member Beall. I mean, like the Tates, for example, I believe are still here. So I just want to be cognizant of when we have that.

Let's focus on that.

Well, it's already been said, so I just want to put it on the record. I understand, Mayor. So let's keep it straight. Okay. So I want to be cognizant of that.

Anything more?

No. Council Member McAdams?