City - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City Council meeting of the City of Pacific Grove. This is the regular meeting agenda, Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026 at 6 p.m. We're here in Council Chambers at 300 Forest Avenue, and I'm calling this meeting to order. And I will leave us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. At this moment, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Okay, we have a motion by Ralph, second by Amelia. Any further discussion? We'll take a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously 7-0. And for the record, we have all seven council members are present. There are no absences tonight on the council. Item two is presentations. And I have a proclamation here for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month that I'm going to ask our delegate from Jacob's Heart to come up and receive. we proceed. Are we good? Okay, thank you very much. So this is honoring Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services declaring September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Pacific Grove and whereas the character our community is revealed and how we treat our most vulnerable and each year 19.2 in every 100,000 children in our community will be diagnosed with cancer. whereas Jacob's Heart has been keeping medically fragile children and families housed, fed, and emotionally supported by steadfastly adhering to the following commitments. Parents of children with cancer, no child undergoing intensive treatment, families of seriously ill children will not experience food insecurity during and after the pandemic, and no child seriously ill in our community will ever miss a medical appointment because of a lack of transportation. Whereas Jacob's Heart holds the memories and honors the legacies of hundreds of children from our local community who have been lost to cancer, ensuring that their memories will never be forgotten. whereas it is important for all Pacific Grove residents to recognize the impact of pediatric cancer on families within our community and honor the children in our community. I, Nick Smith, Mayor of Pacific Grove, hereby declare September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Pacific Grove, and I do hereby honor Jacobs Heart Children's Cancer Support Services for outstanding support to our community and acknowledge the organization's contributions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And what was your name? Alicia? Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming and representing Jacob's Heart. Would you like to say anything? Okay, go ahead.

Well, I just want to thank you and the council for proclaiming September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, for standing with the kiddos, their families, our team, the dedicated volunteers who come out, the whole community that surrounds them, because it really does make a difference for them to know there's a community out there thinking of them. Even, like I mentioned, volunteers, we had one volunteer who turned out to be a kiddo and she told me she kept all the birthday cards that were sent to her by other volunteers because it means that much to know people are standing with her, you know, these families. They go through an up and down journey. Nothing's promised. And sometimes that does lead to bereavement. So even continuing to be there with them as they face tough emotions, as their regular bills pile up with medical bills, it really does make a difference for these families, for everybody to surround them. So we deeply appreciate it and helping us to spread awareness.

Excuse me to catch a breath.

The last thing I want to share with you guys is to encourage you to say a child's name if you have been touched by this, because many times I've heard it expressed that some people feel like it could be taboo or triggering if they say a child's name that has passed. But we find that a lot of times a family wants you to say that name, recall them, remember them, share the story. So you've been touched by it. If you know someone, visit that memory of them.

thank you again so much very heartwarming thank you very much for all that you do for the community we really appreciate it thank you okay thank you so much okay um All right, we'll move on to item three, council and staff announcements. And at this time, I'll recognize any of my colleagues that would like to make an announcement.

Go ahead.

Council Member Emilio, Mayor Pro Tem.

I read an article out of the New York Times and talked about e-bikes. And that's one of the topics throughout the world, actually. And there are a couple of states back east right now that are If a child gets really injured or killed, they're holding their parents responsible for that. You can get it on New York Times, but that's what I would report.

Thank you very much. And at this time, we'll recognize staff for any announcements. Mr. Rehrig?

No, thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. It's day eight. It's been a great week. I'm really excited and grateful that you're giving me this interim assignment. The staff have been fantastic. It's a real warm greeting from the staff, and they're getting me educated. The community has been wonderful. There's a lot of people talking about Measure R and their opinions about where the city is and where we're going. So, again, thank you for your trust in me, and I'm always available to you.

Thank you so much. We're very glad to have you here. We appreciate it. We'll go ahead and move on to item four, general public comment, dealing with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the city and the council, but that are not appearing on today's regular agenda. At this time, are there any members of the public or in chambers or online that wish to make a general public comment? We'll take chambers first. If you have a chambers comment, come on forward and sit here in the front row.

Good evening, council members, honorable mayor, and the public. I'm Mira Park. I've been living in Pacific Grove for about, let's see, 13 years now. I have two kids in the school district and we love this community. I live on the Damonte Forest side of PG at the end of a cul-de-sac on Shafter. And that cul-de-sac butts to the Pebble Beach, you know, that whole area. And every few years we have goats. And they bring in the goats to do the fire management and suppression. And a couple of weeks ago, these goats were out there and they escaped. And you see the photos that I brought here. That's about 200 goats that jumped the fence and just rushed all of the houses and ate little garden plants. And I was bringing my son home from school and we're stuck in this big goat herd. And they eventually got the goats out, the herder and the shepherd dog. And it was really, I love animals. So it was really cute to see all these goats. They were just adorable. They were doing all crazy things. But after they left, you can imagine what 200 goats would do to a street. There were droppings everywhere. And we had trash pickup the next day. So one of my neighbors called the city and said, hey, we have a problem here. Can you send someone to help us? So I think it was six o'clock in the afternoon, the Public Works Department came, did the street sweeping a couple of times and took care of our street. So I'm just here to really acknowledge and thank the city for being so responsive. I'm coming home from work from Salinas and I work in public service as well. And I know how hard it is to work in a community and work with the public and you don't hear all the good sides, right? You only hear like when something is not working. And we all have that, but it was important enough for me to come here today to acknowledge that and just to thank the city and thank all of you guys for doing the work that you do because I feel like the city is really moving in a direction that I feel welcome. My kids feel welcome. I see a lot of businesses and I just really want to encourage that and just thank everyone for their service today.

I apologize. I'm working on it. It seems to be frozen. I do have a manual one.

evening chamber mayor my name is mike gibbs i'm a resident of the grove a couple things one you may be aware over the past couple months there has been a kerfuffle nationwide about the flock system everybody's aware of flock we have it here in pacific grove i was looking at the uh check register and we just renewed or paid a 36 000 bill to flock last year the contract was renewed without any review, without any review at all. So I'm just wondering why that is. One of the things about Flock is that I sat through all the presentations and the Flock company assured us that bumper stickers, for example, were not taken. I have seen pictures of bumper stickers on the Flock system. Second, Ring, the Ring systems coordinate with the local police department, so that's fine. My question is, in some cases, does Ring coordinate with Flock? then what happens to that data so i would recommend to the city council a pause until we get those questions answered to pause in using the ring system a pause in the contract until the company answers these questions okay thank you for that second is some of you are parents a lot of you have been parents you can imagine what it was like if you think back uh to the carnival the county fair standing in line at six flags with your kids three, four years old, hopping from one foot to the other, waiting in a long line to get into the bathroom. It's very uncomfortable. It's anxiety producing for the kids. And then they get inside and the smell is pretty bad. They come out and say, mommy, I want to come here again. just i didn't have a good experience lovers point has this problem it's a beautiful place it's one of the most beautiful places on earth we need to do better for the bathrooms you've all seen the pictures lines particularly at the ladies room down past and around the corner at the beach cafe kevin phillips the owner of the beach house restaurant allows people to come up to his restaurant and use the bathrooms mr mayor did you know that okay good and so i want you just to think about this the solution is easy right at least temporarily until we can fix it on a long-term basis there is a sewer system over there by the beach house where they used to be bathrooms they took it out during good old days we bring in the chamber brings in a number of temporary systems Operates pretty quickly and pretty well. There's no lines, plenty of bathrooms. When we know that Labor Day or other vacation times are coming up, why couldn't we put a couple over there by the Shake Shack, the old grill? The space as you face it on the right-hand side, there's a lot of space there. Other space, one in the parking lot. For gosh sakes, don't make moms and dads wait in line with their kids and create an image of Pacific Grove that really isn't who we are. It's terrible. And you remember back, Mary, you remember back maybe in sitting in situations like that. Let's please do something about it. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Teresa Bacola. Can you set the timer, please?

It's not working from my end, apparently, before I saw it.

okay you're good to go okay there you go um i just wanted to inform you guys about who you just invited into your house uh in case you're not aware so uh berrig uh invited people to come to this event in a june 17th vlog where he said it was the celebration uh gathering of individuals coming together under that pesky little first amendment and then uh he also in that same vlog invited people to visit Carmel Beach, encouraging tourism. And he told people that he's not going to close the beach before the July weekend. The gray outdoors are always open, so please come. And his officers had this tourist attacked. Rather than denouncing the reason that they closed the beach in the first place for the six-foot social distancing rule, he thanked the public for his decision in closing the beach. and then there was also an article in the pine cone where his chief of police threatened that there were filing police reports and if we brought a chair onto the beach we could face a jury trial this shows the hypocrisy in the reasons for why he actively closed the beach and he kept the beach completely empty for that entire weekend This is an emergency order that he signed where he criminalized sunbathing picnics and sitting on Carmel Beach with six months in jail and or a $500 fine. This is a letter that he co-signed with the mayor. where he was attempting to control the coastline of Monterey County. And he petitioned the governor in order to shut all the beaches. Now, here is a lawsuit that Chip brought down onto the city of Carmel, where in April of 2024, it already cost the city $110,000. We were halfway through. My guess is it's probably about a quarter of a million dollars. What I also caught the firm that was defending Rarig doing was that their attorneys were not attorneys of record. They got sanctioned by the court. Then I figured out that one of the attorneys wasn't authorized to practice law in that court. He lost his partnership. he's now an associate they replaced him with two associates one of those associates made the exact same mistake and they got both that attorney and the firm referred over to the standing committee for investigation for a pattern of unprofessional conduct and they're being investigated for all matters in which they appear before the court so i didn't get to cover everything here but i'm going to hand in all of these documents and if you want to contact me For any additional, I'm at denisabcola at gmail.com. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone online wishing to comment?

I don't know. Hands raised on line there.

All right. Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and close general public comment. Yes. Yes. Relating to the. Normally we don't cross-talk it, but you have something to say. Go ahead and make a statement.

Mr. Hughes, thank you for your comments. Just so you know, I had asked the same question, and I found out that it was on the consent agenda last year, but it was never polled. So when it comes up for renewal this year, I would imagine that there will be Further discussion, so just to let, you know, it was on the consent agenda.

Thank you very much. I see a hand now, so we can. Thank you take that comment.

Yes, hello can you hear me? Yes.

Yes, my name is Ronald F. Owens, Jr. And I just echo what Teresa Piccola commented regarding the city manager of Carmel, who is now your interim city manager. We are duty bound as citizens to speak up against tyranny. And there was a lot of tyranny that occurred during COVID. My name is Ronald F. Owens, Jr. And I was a public information officer at the California Department of Public Health. And I just wanted to let you know that I learned while I was at the California Department of Public Health that Javier Becerra, he was the secretary of the Health and Human Services, he casually remarked about the vaccines The COVID-19 vaccines are killing people of color, blacks, Latinos, indigenous people at about two times the rate of white Americans. I informed the Monterey County Board of Supervisors in July of 2024, July 29th to be precise. I appeared before the Monterey County Board of Supervisors shortly thereafter, and I also informed them of the danger of the COVID-19 vaccine in December of 2024. Your county has not served you well insofar as informing you guys about the danger of the COVID-19 vaccines. And I just wanted to inform you that you are probably still having your pharmacies still being offered COVID-19 vaccines to your residents. So I wanted to make that point as well as echo what Teresa Piccola remarked about your former, about the former city manager of Carmel who's now serving your community. Thank you for allowing me to talk and to share.

And now for the hands mayor.

Okay, I'm closing general public comment now. And it's going to be, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. dealing with routine and non-controversial matters for which testimony is not anticipated, but we may have some. Consent agenda tonight. I know one member of the council was asked to pull item 9B.

Is that correct?

Okay. Councilman McGrath asked for 9B. I think maybe some others would like to hear that as well. So we're going to go ahead and hear 9B right after we vote on consent. and do any does anyone else in the public or on council wish to pull any other items besides the uh 9b milo item milo vr okay seeing none we'll go ahead and close that out and um and i'll ask for entertain a motion on consent i'll make the motion Okay, we have a motion by Emilio, second by Rao on consent. We're moving 9B to the next item. Take a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and take up 9B at this time, and I'll invite Commander Anderson forward to give us a staff report.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. There were some questions that were brought up about the MyOVR system. First and foremost, everyone should understand that the money is being used for this come from the state and it's explicitly used for the police department, typically for equipment or training purposes. So the Pacific Grove Police Department has identified a training need, and this particular system, MILO VR system, addresses those training needs for the department. Now, the MILO VR system basically is like a screen, and then it has interactive scenarios for officers to go through. A lot of it is it's focused. There's several hundred different scenarios that interact based on the officer's decision in the moment about what direction they're going to go in. And so it can end peacefully. It cannot end peacefully. The whole idea is that the officers get trained to try to develop a path for resolving the situations without any violence. So it's repetitive training, allows the officers to interact, to constantly find a way to articulate how to resolve problems. Typically, many of these scenarios have to do with people in mental crisis. It also does address active shooter situations, but also addresses like domestic violence situations. It also addresses all kinds of other like robbery in progress and so forth. Why we had ID'd here for Pacific Grove is all these type of crimes do occur here, occasionally in Pacific Grove. Our officers do see that. What we struggle with, especially with our recruits, is repetition. And as we all know, practice makes perfect. Repetition and being able to go over in a practice environment where you can make a mistake and learn from that mistake and get the repetitions in so that when you do go into one of those situations, you have some practice and repetition under your belt. And we identified this need for several reasons. A while back, we had an officer run into the cemetery at 2 in the morning on a report of an armed subject that was startling suicide. But this officer never drew their weapon when they ran into a situation with an armed suspect. Obviously, this caused a lot of consternation for this officer as a result as they went over it and why did they do their actions and not their actions. And that has a lot to do with repetition. If this officer had gone in and done several different repetitions, they would have known, even though I'm going to try to help someone in crisis, they do have a dangerous weapon, and I need to be prepared to respond to that. if needed so um we've had other instances where we've had military personnel and mental crisis highly trained um individuals and we got lucky where we had a very senior sergeant be able to address the matter that happened recently and um Because they have the experience of dealing with these types of situations and they were a military veteran themselves, they were able to make a connection with this person. And then despite this person being armed and highly trained, they were able to resolve the situation peacefully. which actually got recognition from the, I believe, the Marine commander from the base for resolving it peacefully. So we want to be able to provide this opportunity for all our new officers that come on. The training is difficult, and we want to give them the reps that we can. uh the other part of us being able to acquire this system it allows us to interact with our local agencies basically play well in the sandbox so we every agency comes to the table with different tools different equipment different training and so what it allows us to do is be able to provide this training to the local agencies And it allows us then to engage in some of the specialties they have and get training from them. And so it's a cost-sharing but on a little larger basis where we provide training, then they provide training for us, and we go back and forth. So overall, it's a win-win situation for the police department where we get to – come to the table with the Peninsula agencies and provide something to the other agencies. And it also provides something for our officers where we can get them the repetitions they need so that when we do have these incidents happen, they're ready and they're prepared. All right.

Does that conclude your presentation?

Yes.

I'm available for any questions. Of course. We'll go ahead and take it up to public comment on item 9B. Milo VR. We'll take Chambers first.

Hey, David Erickson. Many of you probably already know me by now, but if not, David Erickson. I just wanted to talk about my time in the military. I practiced on a ship. I was on Winston Churchill for five and a half years. Loved it on board, but every duty day, which for a long time was every three days, we drilled. When we drilled... like the ship was sinking and there was a fire in the main space and we had to do everything possible in order to make it happen and we drilled and we drilled and we drilled and we sent our our topside watches as a paul vacation to go to the to a vr simulator and practice the scenarios that we may be faced with every day of our life and it hopefully never happens to a sailor on the ship where they're standing on the quarterdeck and somebody comes with an explosive device on board the ship and says, I'm going to blow up the ship or blow up the quarterdeck or maybe come down to somebody who's suicidal, who's thinking about hurting themselves or something that comes from a trained eye where you've seen it over and over and over again, but sailors on a ship, we never see those scenarios. So the only time we see them is in that VR lab. And when we're getting there on the quarterdeck, we think, God, please let none of these things that I've actually gone through training for ever happen. But they do. from from um i i remember in pearl harbor when i was out there we had a uh a submariner who had gone in and who was on duty and had his firearm and and and disappeared off the quarter deck and how do you respond i mean the quarter deck had to respond to it and found out it was a suicide attempt so there's there's times where you don't want to learn the hard way and that's by not training our officers and our first responders the right way the first time so just as a community i think we should be taking care of them and

making sure they can help take care of us so thank you thank you thank you very much um online yes sir inga lawrence and dimer thank you sandra

Mayor and Council and Commander Anderson, I wondered, I'm sorry I didn't read it in the report anywhere, but is this a one and done as far as the 60,000 that's supposedly coming from the state for this training? Or is it something that the city is then going to be subscribing to and costs extra money every year for updates and software and anything else? And I imagine, I think I saw that this is post-certified too for training and stuff, but I just wondered if there was more information on that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and get that answered. Is there any other questions or online hands?

Yes, sir.

Okay, go ahead and close public comment on item 9B and direct that question to Commander Anderson that we got asked by, I think it's a good question, relating to the ongoing nature of the cost or is it a one-time cost, that kind of thing.

No, that's an excellent question. Actually, all the updated scenarios that come with it, there's no ongoing cost. Those come to you for the life of the system. The only potential cost would be to repair some of the equipment or change because, as you know, Tasers change, equipment changes in the future. But would it be at the $60,000 cost? No, that's for the whole system. And there's no subscription or anything like that. The only thing that you may notice in the report is there an option for a warranty, which is for all the different tools that are used for the simulation. That would be the only, if the council chose that option, the only reoccurring cost that may happen.

Okay. I do have one additional question and then I'll let my colleagues talk, but this is coming out of an existing law enforcement services budget fund. Is that correct? It's not in the additional allocation.

Correct.

Okay. Okay. Anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. Councilman Garfield.

This is exactly why I pulled this is I'm very much in favor of it. And I really, really appreciate the time that you, that the commander took with me to answer my questions. And the question, the answers were so good. I wanted everybody to hear them. So thank you. Appreciate it very much.

You're welcome.

Council Member Paduri and then Council Member McDonald.

Yes, thank you. I was fine with consent. I just wanted to know, this seems like every PD should be doing it, right? Why are they not doing it? And you mentioned that the state is funding it?

So it's monies that come down to the state, to the county, specifically for police departments to ensure that police departments have funding to be able to purchase equipment that the city normally can't afford for the police department.

I think it's somewhat related, right? Like, I mean, every PD seems to be eligible for it. Seems like, again, like... Mental health is like one of those things where you definitely need to get trained. Why is this not part of the training curriculum to begin with? I mean, that's a different question, I guess, different topic altogether. But having said that, like, shouldn't all PDs be doing it? Any insight into that?

Well, yes, I have experience at two previous PDs. Obviously, I'm a bit aged in this profession. So my first PD was the first one of the first generations of this type of system. And the next agency that I work for also had that system and they just recently upgraded to the high end fancy one where you take a whole room in a building and And it's basically almost like 360-degree screens and doing the interactive. So many police departments do do it throughout the nation, but a lot of it just has to do with, well, money, time, and training. Okay. All right.

I'm surprised that we're the first in the Monterey Pencil, but hopefully this will start the ball rolling. Thank you.

Councilman, I'm in there for Tim and Amelia. Okay.

Yeah, thanks so much. I really appreciated seeing this agenda item as well, having previously worked in aviation safety. There is so much safety to be had from simulators in aviation and in PD. You really do get the chance to try out skills. And it's a different thing to learn something in a book than to have to go through the thought process of being faced with a situation and seeing how you would respond. And I love the interactive aspect. where you can learn from your responses, make errors in a safe space, say, oh, I wish I would have done that. And I really appreciate the debriefing aspect of this because that's often the best way to learn not only what did we do wrong, but what do we do really well so we know to repeat that also. So thank you so much for being proactive and recommending this and bringing it forward. You're welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Burton.

Thank you Commander Anderson for the presentation. Really appreciate it. I am supportive of it also. But I'm just curious, do veteran officers go through some training also on this simulator? That's one question.

Yes, it's continual ongoing training. So it's something that even veteran officers can get on and improve your skills.

Let's see. Does the five year still plan that once an officer is on, then they go through advanced post-training? Do they do that still?

We have post-training every two years. And the officers, I believe, I think it's seven years, they get the advanced. That also depends on education. So it might be five. Don't quote me exactly.

That's all right. I'm totally supportive of it. Okay.

I think Rau than Moreland. Sorry.

Did I step on? I apologize. Commander, is there any limit to how many, you know, we've got the equipment, we've got the software. Is there a limit to how many people can go through this and how many times?

Well, it's designed, I don't think it's really designed for any more than two people at one time to go through it. But we all learn from each other. So you can have a class of, you know, 10 people and everyone's going through it. My experience has always been it's like five or six, like a team, a patrol team going through it at the same time. And you all start to figure out how each person works. reacts in certain different situations uh who's really strong verbally uh who's has trouble finding their words sometimes uh and who's good at spotting what in situations and you all start to learn from each other so even if you're not the one interacting in the moment you're still learning in that environment okay so there's no limit to how many times you can use this tool in a year no okay great

Nick, go ahead.

Again, very obvious to me. This is a fantastic user resource, so thank you for bringing this. Just a quick question for those who are coming on to the forest during the academy, are they receiving, I assume, this level of training and this should be viewed as like a continuing education or once they're in the field, a way to kind of identify some gaps?

understand how this is yeah so yes in the academy the the recruits get extensive amount of training from like live interactive role players uh to sometimes they get introduced to the vr system milo vr system for us this particular uh system we're planning to use as continual education so especially for our new recruits coming on if they are having trouble making decisions on a car stop or at a robbery crime, investing in a robbery crime and so forth. Basically, we get to throw them into these different scenarios. They make a decision. The system, the instructor can choose the system to go in one direction in regards to how the person on the screen is going to react. The officer then reacts to that. And so it gives our new officers or recruits opportunity to train up on situations they've shown a weakness in. So for us, because we don't get tons of stuff all the time, For our recruits while they're in the training program, what it allows is, okay, you're a little weak on that car stop. So we're going to put you into a bunch of different scenario car stops, and we're going to give you a bunch of reps and a bunch of different decision avenues. different things that are going to happen so that you get the reps in and how to one, find your voice, find your words, be able to communicate with the people inside and resolve the situation with the minimal amount of hopefully no violence, but at least a minimal amount of violence if necessary.

Council Member Garfield?

Yes.

how policing is getting done. And it's really admirable. I appreciate hearing about it. So I'm making a motion that we authorize the city manager to execute a purchase agreement with FAAC Incorporated for the procurement of the Milo Range Mobile Situation Awareness Training Program and extended warranty for the police department, not to exceed $60,000, including associated items and applicable taxes.

Second.

All right, we have a motion by Council Member Garfield, second by Council Member Rao. Any discussion further? And I'll just say it was actually a very fascinating presentation. I'm glad we got to hear it. Thank you very much. We'll take a voice vote at this time. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Glad that we'll have that training for our officers. It's very important. All right. Moving right along. We're coming to the main event of the evening here. 12A, affordable housing opportunities, unpermitted ADUs. And again, we're going to have Mr. Bliggs take us through the ADUs. Thank you very much, Mr. Bliggs. Go ahead.

mayor smith members of city council again john bugs with your community development department uh this is one of my workshop sessions with the city council to get some feedback from you on what direction you'd like to guide us in in evaluating accessory dwelling units into the future as you know this is one of the um make sure this goes that's not going to work for me there we go One of the city council policies that you adopted back in, I think, 2025 is to take a look at unpermitted ADUs. We've kind of done that, as you're also aware, that accessory dwelling units provide a lot of benefits to the property owners and to the citizens of Pacific Grove because they do provide additional housing opportunities. In fact, the housing opportunities that they provide have been recognized by the Stinson Department of Housing and Community Development and also recognize in our housing element that the state has certified in fact. Of the 1125 housing units that have been allocated to the city 224 of those are recognized as accessory dwelling units and we do we do see an ongoing permit stream of accessory dwelling units coming into the department for approval. We have had programs in the past regarding sort of an amnesty for illegal housing. Some of them could be classified as accessory dwelling units. The most recent one was a period of 2002 to 2002 where the city did an expensive survey amongst the city to identify where some of these units were located and look at evidence on the properties and also following mail carriers around to identify where mail was being delivered. So I think the estimates from that period are pretty accurate that there were roughly 350 to 400 unpermitted housing units in the city. So there's quite a substantial number of housing units in the city. At the time said in return for the city recognizing your unpermitted unit, If you make that unit affordable and comply with some health and safety requirements, you will not have to have the unit abated or taken away and the school will recognize it. We didn't have a number of people that came forward during the amnesty period. Unfortunately, there weren't a whole heck of a lot. Out of 400, I think we had 11 people that came forward. 4 were able to have their housing units recognized and 7 were not because of various situations or conditions in the housing unit. So 7 of the 11 were recognized and they had to abate those housing units. So one of the things we're doing right now with regards to our accessory dwelling units, we're currently not in compliance with state law. So we're updating our zoning code for moving compliance with state law. And that's regarding items such as making sure that we are processing permits for accessory dwelling units within a certain timeframe, which is in 60 days. Also, we have now a shorter window to review an application and determine whether or not that application is complete. That's only 15 days. And there's some other things like parking standards and step back requirements. And there was one, I don't know if it's in Pacific Grove's regulations, but some cities do require that an accessory dwelling unit retain or incorporate the architectural features of the existing house. The state is now taking that element away so we can no longer require that a ADU be compatible architecturally with the existing residence. So it can be something very different. And you've probably seen advertisements for some of the pre-built accessory dwelling units where developers are promising to come down and kind of drop an accessory dwelling unit into your backyard. So we're working on that. We're also doing an outreach effort in conjunction with some other cities on identifying the benefits of having an accessory dwelling unit and kind of the permitting process someone would need to go through in order to get an ADU approved. We're doing that in conjunction with other cities, City of Marina, City of Seaside, City of Monterey, and some of the South Carolina cities are all involved in that effort. And that's going to be taking place on September the 17th. We're going to be holding that at California State University, Monterey Bay. So in terms of options for the city council, one of them is, do we continue pursuing an effort of letting the public know about the opportunities for accessory dwelling units and maybe encourage the public to come forward with those permits or those requests for permits? Or do we offer some kind of amnesty program that would allow people to come forward and have their unpermitted unit recognized The only problem I see with the amnesty program is that they generally don't result in a lot of success. For example, the amnesty program that the city had in 2000, 2002, of the 400 illegal units, we only had 11 people or 11 property owners come forward to have those units recognized. you know, well over a majority of the property owners did not come forward. And it's really, I think, kind of an issue of economics. You know, once, you know, under that 2000 to 2002 program, we were going to recognize a unit if they would make it an affordable unit. And I'm sure a number of those property owners were charging rents at market weight, so they were losing income there. There was a potential for doing upgrades or improvements to the structure, getting a building permit, paying those fees and costs. And then there was, since it's become a permanent unit, there was the re-investment of the property by the county tax assessor. All those in combination are kind of a big blow for people to swallow in terms of, you know, do I come forward or not to get my unit that I created recognized. So I don't know if we would be all that successful in, I kind of tend to believe that a Maybe a bigger outreach effort explaining the benefits of the accessory dwelling units and the regulations that have made it easier to get an accessory dwelling unit approved through a non-discretionary permit process might be a broader net to cast in order to get more people to come forward and get their units recognized. The benefit for the city is that we do get additional housing units that count towards our arena, that 224. That could go beyond that, especially if we're looking at 400 illegal units that are out there. So there's good progress to be made towards the arena. And again, the benefit is for the property owner, they get additional income. They have an opportunity to allow members of their family to live there. Plus, there's also opportunity for companionship, especially if someone is living alone in their home. So all that in combination is a um kind of information I wanted to share with City Council and open it up for a discussion or questions that you might have and and wrap up my presentation and ready to address anything that you you have to explore question thank you um go out to the public and see if we have any uh public comment relating to this item 12a

I don't have anything online. I'm sorry. One raised.

Thank you, Mayor and Council and Director of Community Development. I wouldn't push or waste any money on outreach as such. I think we all know very well about ADU's We've had them all in our neighborhoods. We have them plopped into small spaces all the time. And I know that the city would love to have because they count as lower income, uh, affordable units, but I just wouldn't be spending a whole lot of city money on community outreach or staff time doing that because the results just don't back up historically and now. So certainly go to Monterey Bay University and you know, talk about that and update your regulations. But I don't think that you need to spend any other city money on that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. No further hands are raised, Mayor.

Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment on item 12A. Bring it back to the council. I see a hand already. Council Member McDowell.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I actually have some clarification questions. So as the caller mentioned, that because of the current arena, the ADUs do count as low income. And I'm wondering if, so it sounded like the challenge before was that they would need to actually be rented as lower income units. Do I understand that correctly? Whereas that wouldn't be the same, so they wouldn't have to potentially reduce income coming in. And do you think that would provide a further incentive?

uh yes yes and the question about the under the prior program they would have to agree to rent those out as lower income units and you assignment of the income categories is a little bit different now in that the uh hpd recognizes an assignment of adus under certain income categories and they use a 30 30 30 10 percent rule so Of the accessory dwelling units that are permitted in the housing cycle, 30% are recognized as being available for very low income households. 30% are recognized as being available for low income, 30% for moderate, and 10% for above moderate. And that's all based, I think, on a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Association of Bay Area Governments does an annual survey of accessory dwelling units to kind of keep track of those numbers. So we can't really require that someone rent out their unit in a certain income category any longer, given the way that the state has structured accessory dwelling units. They just automatically apply them to that range of incomes.

Thank you for that explanation because what I'm wondering is it was 22 years ago since this attempt was made before and the regulations are going to be a lot different now. So one of the things that immediately came to mind is it might be helpful and I don't know if you've already done this. Have you reached out to current owners of ADUs to find out challenges they might currently have to registering or permitting them that maybe we could tackle that problem to make it more possible and easier for people to be able to get them registered.

We've not done that outreach effort yet. It could be certainly something that we do to get an idea of what it is that is, you know, in their minds what the roadblock is to coming forward to get an ADU recognized.

Because it seems to me we don't want to assign a solution without really understanding what the problem is first. So it seems to me the first step would be to do that needs assessment, reach out to the people who might be the possibility of getting those conversions, finding out what challenges they're facing, see if those can be addressed so that we can come up with a system that actually moves the needle on helping them to get permitted. Yeah. And so I think that the zoning improvements, it sounds like will help as well, because I don't know what the seven reasons were. They weren't qualified. That was my kind of other question. Like, what was the limitation that we only got the four instead of the 11?

I would suspect it was probably life safety standards for the building code that they couldn't meet, let's say, egress requirements to get out of a sleeping space, or maybe they didn't have adequate kitchen or food preparation facilities in the building that just didn't meet the building code requirements. There was a new piece of legislation, I think it went into effect in 2025, which does lower the threshold for... units that were built prior to 2020. So the building division can only take a look at some of the more prevalent life safety requirements such as the egress from a sleeping space or bedroom and making sure that there's appropriate sanitation facilities. It doesn't allow the city any longer to go into any further review of what were the construction techniques and did the construction meet all of the building code standards, unless it's something really obvious that prevents a life safety situation.

And I think that's a good thing. We want people to have a safe residence to live in, but it sounds like there are enough changes that if we can identify what properties exist that may now meet the criteria and wouldn't face these same challenges, I think that would give us a better idea of what our opportunities would be for getting these recognized. Helps with RENA, helps the homeowner, I would presume as well. And the only other follow-up that I would have is I don't know if there are any programs out there. So say somebody doesn't have It doesn't meet regulations. Are there any programs out there to help financial aid or something like that so that they could, are there any grants or anything like that that might help homeowners with that?

Not that I'm aware of. We do have a CDBG grant program, but that's for households of qualifying incomes to do improvements to their existing home, not make improvements to an accessory dwelling unit on the property.

Thank you so much, really. Okay.

Council Member Garfield?

Thank you. I'm concerned about the, this is a program we want to have go forward and every successful program needs to have sort of a carrot and sort of a stick. And the previous one sounded like step up, get recognized and oh, by the way, your taxes are going to go up. So it's sort of like, why would they? Is there any reason that a property owner with an

unlicensed adu would want to be recognized well um i think there are well one is their conscience you know they just want they know that they've had this unit that there was that was unpermitted and maybe declare their conscience they want to get it recognized and permitted uh the other thing is that um if they're looking to sell the property in the future It might be better to get that unit recognized so when they do market the property, they can sell it to a potential buyer or tell it to a potential buyer that, no, we've had except for repair. So I think those are probably two of the bigger incentives or reasons why they would want to come forward.

And the revaluation of the property is out of our hands?

it was out of our hands at rest with the county tax assessor's office and it's um it's only a re-evaluation of the improvements done to the property so sometimes i think people are it's a little bit of an unknown because you don't know what that assessment is going to be but that unknown is scary so it's not a reassessment of you know the entire value of your entire home it's only for those improvements that So maybe having an assessor provide some information or explain that in a little more detail would be beneficial as well.

That might be a good educational opportunity to say it's not as bad as you think. Yeah, and I think we also have to recognize that as much as we want all these people, all these ADUs to be counted, it doesn't actually provide any additional housing. It's just a recognition of what we already have. But if we can make it easy and provide models of success stories of how it works, that always helps others step up to see how it might work for them. That's very true. Yeah. There's a lot of things people don't know yet, it sounds like. Yeah.

And at the counter, I think the planners, when they're helping someone or answering questions about an ADU, they're often asked, well, are there any success stories or examples of someone who's gone through the process and gotten approval for ADU? an ADU and maybe these would help provide those examples. Here's a unit that wasn't permitted and they were able to get a permit and recognition. So yours coming forward with the new and the request for permit at the beginning shouldn't be that daunting or onerous.

It sounds like also the educational outreach opportunity is how do you get people to that planning desk?

Yes, true.

Then have a discussion and show them how easily it could be done. So press release, you know, campaign. But you might find reasons at your conference that this could be done collectively.

Yes, that's going to be a good opportunity.

Thank you.

Council Member Roth.

Thank you. So we talked about the carrot and the stick. The question I have for the city attorney, I mean, hypothetically, if we know we've made an assessment of 350 or 400 units, we know where they are, we've got the list. Is the city liable for anything that happens? Hypothetically, they have a fire. And we know that there's an unapproved or unpermitted ADU. Someone has a fire. They say, well, the city knew it and they didn't do anything about it. Are we partially responsible for this? A, and then B, for Mr. Briggs, I would say, you know, The stick for me here is the insurance like if you've got an unwanted or undocumented or permitted unit and you're renting that out. Does that put the homeowner at more risk? And if so, then the question may be, hey, let us help you with your liability. Because if somebody is not meeting egress or co-compliance with electricity or plumbing or whatever, I mean, that's a pretty big risk for a homeowner to take, even though they're making $2,500 a month. that may not be worth it to take that risk. And I think if maybe they understood what that risk was, maybe they would change their mind. But anyway, those are the two questions. Oh, the third question is what happened to the seven? So we know they came to the counter, we knew it, but there was no enforcement taken, right?

I'd have to go back and do some more digging to determine what exactly happened to them. But I would assume that we did take some kind of enforcement action since we were clearly notified by the property owner that they had a unit that wasn't permitted.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Senator, I don't know.

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Rao, generally not. It would not impose liability on the city as there's governmental immunities for permits issued or not issued. You know, and to the other point, nor is there liability. You know, the other side of this coin carrot and stick is code enforcement. And likewise, there's not liability as long as the city sort of has a complaint-driven code enforcement policy.

Any other responses from Mr. Biggs?

Yeah, I'm not an insurance broker, but I can relate maybe a tangential experience in other communities where, you know, especially in response to some of the wildfires that we've been having, we've had property owners that have come in where the insurance companies have identified trees that are on their property or their proximity to wild lands and require that they either get the trees removed they change the roofing material they re-reside their building they do greater extent of yard cleanup to prevent fires from reaching their property so i i think maybe this is You know, unpermitted units, unpermitted construction is maybe the next frontier that insurance companies would be looking into to try and make sure that they're not going to incur any losses that are unwarranted for, in their opinion.

Councilman, are you ready?

Yes, thank you. Thank you for bringing this up too, Mr. Biggs. I appreciate it. I was hearing through some of the comments and things that I – like you mentioned, one of the things that I discovered is the – there are certainly lots of regulations that have come into play since obviously the 2002 – it's 2002, I mean – the unpromoted ADU account is almost like a graduate of its own, has its own mortgage. But the thing that struck me was the new regulations from the state provide amnesty to all the homeowners pre-2020. And obviously safety is a big element, but it appears that Pacific Grove does not have it's almost like we need a checklist of what these safety elements are or what this mandate from 2025 is effective for to say that the 2025 rule allows amnesty for these homeowners with unpermitted ADUs provided you meet these conditions. So I think we need a checklist, number one. And I think that checklist would be helpful for us to determine or at least reach out to these homeowners to say, have you satisfied these conditions? I mean, the last thing we want, whether they are permitted or unpermitted, is having a fire or some safety-related issue. So I think part of the, when I look into this agenda item, part of it is, me understanding that these regulations exist. And I myself was kind of discovering this. I'm pretty sure no homeowner knows about this, or maybe they know, perhaps, I don't know. But at least the seven homeowners that were previously rejected, I think this is a good opportunity to tell them that, look, Regulations have changed. Perhaps you could at least satisfy this checklist. And I think that's useful for us to maintain on our website to say, you need to at least have this criteria. And then whether they get to the next phase of like getting into the permitted ADUs or not, it is a secondary thing. But I would agree that like, there's no like exactly a carrot to throw for them to come in and do all these things. So our best bet here is to make the community safe. So I would suggest leaning towards all, and I know a couple of regulations, but I don't know what other regulations are there. All that I know is SB 13 was kind of enacted and as a result of SB 13 expiring AB 2355 or something is now the enacting kind of rule that goes into effect. And I think we need to be compliant with those two and at least let from an outreach perspective, let the community know that these two kind of laws help the owners and these two laws, they need to be at least compliant with it. So in the future, too, if it comes to like somebody wanting to selling a home, at least they have that in front of them to say that, like, look, I want to satisfy this immediately rather than like spinning the wheel on what needs to be done. Jamie, that's where I am. And I don't think To me, like an outreach is, I mean, I don't think it'll help the cause, but if we have enough votes here, I'm open to it. But I do not see an outreach exactly working. I would say an outreach to just more broadly saying these rules exist and Pacific Grove is wanting to be compliant and you can be compliant to something to that effect will matter. Thank you.

Council Member Moreland and then Mayor Proton.

know thank you very much for this detailed report um we have regulations for health and safety there's a reason like that is um been adopted and um we're not talking about sheds we're talking about where people live um everyone knows we need housing like that is irrefutable however not at the cost of health and safety i don't think that's the right compromise um can you tell us a little bit about in terms of just general building in our city When we think about ADU has its own speculation, our own criteria, because we're involving the state's initiatives as well. Just general building when we do have things that are built without permits, without that kind of oversight within the city what is the actual enforcement how is your department informed what does that actually look like and does that apply at all within adus we talked a lot tonight about people volunteering people did not step again that was 20 years ago i completely agree with My fellow council members, some of their statements as well. But what does that look like? What even is like the base? I'm not saying that that's what we need to do, but what is the baseline that I guess the stick option, not necessarily we want to do that, but what is the baseline that we have within our purview?

Well, that's changed a little bit with California regulation. I think it's AB 2533. So what we ask a property owner to do is provide us with the floor plan that identifies where on the property the accessory dwelling unit is located. And then on the floor plan, show where the rooms are at and any windows where their kitchen facilities are. And we would take a look at that, especially through the building code division, again, against the backdrop of 2533. And then I think once we have a good idea of where that accessory development unit exists on the property, we would go out with a building inspector to do a physical inspection and make sure that at least those minimum health safety requirements are met. We wouldn't now require that they do a demolition of a portion of a wall to demonstrate that it's been appropriately framed and built and all the appropriate attachments are in place. As long as they can demonstrate in line with the California law that there's those safety elements i think they're on an easier path to get uh city recognition of that um that unit and going to council member dimmery's comments i i think you know his comments about coming up with a checklist of these are the things you need to comply with in order to have your accessory dwelling unit recognized having that available to members of the public may leave some of their concerns or worries about the unknown and what's the city going to make me do. If we can tell them, these are the things we will be looking for, make sure that you have those addressed. I think that might be the carrot that could get more people coming forward to have these units recognized.

And what is the consequence? Let's say they decided like, no, they don't want to take that meeting. Like what happens then from the city? Well, yeah.

You could take enforcement action and that has various paths, but I think we would first let them know we would want to work with them to, maybe you've got one or two things here that don't quite meet health safety requirements, but these are the things you need to do to make sure that you bring it up to those standards. And we would encourage them to, and give them a reasonable timeframe to get those things done. and let them know that, you know, we're not going to go out there right away with a code enforcement action and give them ample space to come forward and get that unit recognized and make any corrections that are needed.

So appreciate that.

Sure.

Yeah, again, so I don't think that that would be something that we would want to initially go towards. I just wanted to say what is the the bounds within it. But I do think letting people know that again, if people are living in these spaces, these are not sheds. I think it is important that there are guidelines to make it a health and safety environment, a safe environment for our citizens to live. And I think that there's opportunities for that. There's a kind of a happy medium I think we can look at. So thank you. Got it.

Understood. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

thank you mayor um thank you uh mr biggs for the presentation appreciate that um i know there is a checklist uh on the website for city it says uh accessory dwelling units dealing with um permit process but maybe that needs to be updated i i don't know i don't you know i don't have a uh I had an ADU unit 13 years ago when we bought the house, but the city made us pull the ADU out because there was no water or something like that. But besides the point, for 26 years ago, I know where I was in 2002, exactly. And I personally didn't – let's see, was there – I don't think that's – oh.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Hopefully it has an ADU in it anyway. Okay. So let me get my thoughts back in. So this pre-check list, as I was looking through it, I don't, you know... I'm not a building inspector or anything, but maybe that has to be updated. It says everything about fire systems and permits and bathrooms and a separation of units and dealing with sewer lines, etc. 26 years ago that some people didn't move forward except like seven or six or whatever it was i honestly think we need to move forward that's what the city of pacific grove is best for and i think that uh another question i had was i had a lot of questions about adu but a lot of them were answered by my colleagues do we have any adus in the system right now that people are anxious to get that built? Do you know of any?

Yes. In fact, let me see. I think for this... The housing element cycle, I was going back and taking a look at the number of permits we have issued for ADUs. There's around 84 accessory dwelling units that have gotten permits and they either have been constructed or in the process of being constructed. So there people are taking advantage of the new rules that we have in place and they're

there is an ongoing interest in on the part of property owners to develop their sites within the edu thank you mr biggs for saying that because that's what i was curious about i thought maybe there were six or seven in the queue but 84 that's fantastic i think we need to con as i said earlier i think we need to move forward and your answer at 84 people trying to get adus that's fantastic and uh had some other questions but you pretty much everybody else answered them so thank you okay thank you uh joe um yeah so i guess i'll just chime in here i think

We've heard a lot of different ideas. We received the report. We've been provided some direction and feedback. A couple things that I heard, and I believe there's a couple more questions, but a couple things that I heard was checklist, and then we found a checklist, so maybe update the checklist, said checklist for our current regs. the ADUs are already going through a process at this point. I mean, the regs are going through a process currently. Correct. Okay, so that's good. That would be a concurrent effort. I personally, I think I heard it a few times, but I personally think So outreach could be good, depending on if we could get some people to convert the units or, you know, make them real units. I think that could be good, even if there may be someone living in there that may not. I don't really know, you know, so we'll find out. And then, what else do I have down here? Yeah, I think getting out the word would be good. Pursuing opportunities is always good, and anything we can do to get our numbers up is going to be helpful. Council Member McDonald and Rao.

Thanks. Actually, two follow-up questions from that. One is, so the checklist that already exists mentioned fire safety, and I'm assuming that might have been something to do with sprinklers because new codes required sprinklers. Do you know if that kind of upgrade would be required, or would it be by 2002 standards? That may be a big impediment, and that's why I'm asking.

Fire sprinklers, the requirement for them is triggered if you're doing an addition to the house. So if it's converting existing space within the house, then that would not be triggered. So I think most of the unpermitted ADUs or units I've seen over the years have been actually the conversion of existing space. into a separate unit. We've, we kind of mentioned on times that, you know, we have a community of 15,000 citizens and it's like we have 15,000 building inspectors. So when people start doing additions on the outside of their house, that doesn't go unrecognized and we get phone calls. So that leads me to say why I think it's more of a, you know, behind the walls situation where the ADUs have been created, but thus fire sprinklers wouldn't be triggered.

Okay, because I think that would be helpful to inform people that those requirements wouldn't change. And if it is an external unit that nobody has pointed out yet, would they have to meet that? Because that, I would imagine, would be a deterrent from having them come forward to request. And then the other follow-up was... So being that we have 84, and I think you said 224 was the target, if I remember correctly, if we get more than 224 because we get conversions in all this building, can we still count additional ones, or is that the maximum we can count?

We can still count those beyond that 224. Those all count towards our renum.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That's very well.

Mr. Biggs, just a clarifying question on the 84 that are permitted or that have come in from, is that year to date or?

That's as of this year.

And starting when?

We're keeping records going back to 2020 and that 84 is just for the housing cycle, so starting in 2023. Okay.

That was super helpful, thank you. And then the 400 that have been identified, they were identified by interns that were paid through a special grant, is that correct?

That's correct.

And so since this is 26 years old, I mean, a lot of these houses in the last 26 years have been sold. So we don't even really know if that number is valid anymore, right?

We don't, but I would suspect that it is pretty accurate. I think they did a pretty comprehensive evaluation and kind of a check. What we could do is maybe go back and do sort of a test. A check? Yeah, sort of a test of where we know units were identified and see if they still exist, see if there's some validity still to that 2002 survey.

Okay. I think that's a good idea.

Little spot check.

Little spot check. Anything else? I think we're kind of going to wrap it up, but would you like to? Okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that at the end of the day, I'm looking for simpler things for the community, which means that I don't want them looking at an updated checklist to figure out if they're unpermitted or not. I would rather have a section or a link or some menu item that says, unpermitted use, you go there, you do this, this is your checklist. Just keep it, my opinion is just keep it simple because this is complicated in itself. And then secondly, since it appears that we're leaning at least towards the checklist, is this something that you're going to bring it back to council for adoption or?

We could certainly bring it back for you and share it with you. Most of our checklists are created internally, so we don't really go back to council for approval of those just because things change fairly quickly. We like to be able to respond to current needs and requirements. We can certainly bring it back and share.

I'm open either way because if you're going to bring it back, I was going to put a timeline on it. But if not, I'm good.

And I don't know about, I think we got to have the checklist because that's how you're going to get the information out. But yeah, I think I would leave it to staff to determine what those things are and then the things that they do because they do that. They actually go through a process. um you know regular process um that's that's all i have for tonight do you have a lot of comments so you can sift through it you've gotten good comments and good director from council and i think we have a good idea where to go next thank you okay thank you very much so we're gonna go ahead and close the item uh thank you for the discussion everyone i appreciate it um and that brings us to the end of the agenda so thank you everyone online and in chambers for sticking with us tonight we appreciate you uh meeting adjourned