City Council - Special Meeting

Well, good e Oh, that worked. Hello. Good evening, everybody. I'll just go ahead and Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, I didn't think so. I can't hear it either. Thank you. It isn't. Thank you. Can you hear me now? It's Yeah, I can't hear it very well either. Any better?

Any better? Ah, there we go. I hear it now. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. I am Mayor Erica A. Stewart and I'm calling this special meeting of the city council to order and all of the city council members are present. Um, council member Boswell, can you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I aliance 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. Very well said.

Thank you. So today today is a study session and what that means is we're having a very um awkwardly formal conversation. Um so this is a this is a time where we're going to share uh the staff report of course and um answer qu or ask questions and then we'll have public comment where everyone gets to share their their two cents. Um anyone who has one minute gets to go first. Anyone with two minutes gets to go second and anyone with three minutes gets to go last. That's just how that goes. Um, so what we'll do is after the staff report is done, we will cut off public comment. So if you have a friend or other people that are planning to be here and to speak, please text them now. Um, within about 45 minutesish, we should be ready and we'll be doing public comment. So I just want to make sure that you get your public comment chance in. I want everyone to be able to have their chance to share their thoughts. The good news is again this is a study session. So you still get to share thoughts even after today. This is just kind of guiding us, sharing us some sharing information with us, getting more data and uh kind of taking the next steps. So today uh if you have a public comment slip, there's slips outside, there's blank slips here, and you can turn those in to the city clerk when you're ready. So at the at this time we will move on to the staff to be able to provide the presentation. But before that I also just want to make sure you know because this is a study session for this topic only. We do not have general public comment about anything where we normally do during um city council meetings. So this is just specifically to this study session around the rental registry. Just want to make sure I give you all the lay of the land. All right. So with that I will pass it over to director. There we go.

Thank you so much, Mayor Stewart. Good evening, everyone. My name is Timmy Twe. I'm the director of community development. And with me here, I have David Amini, the senior planner in our housing division in the community development department. And we're happy to present to you this evening the study session on the rental registry. So, a reminder for everyone, this is a work plan item in our current budget. Uh it relates to the major city goal of housing and neighborhood livability. Uh strategy three about safe, healthy, health healthy and affordable housing. And specifically, it's the work plan item that is to conduct a study session with the council focused on the rental housing registry. And this is a follow-up to the study session that we had in October. that it was a more broad study session about renter protections, both covering state laws and then potential things that local jurisdictions could do to build on those state laws. So, if anyone's interested in that information, I welcome them to look at this staff report. There's a link back to that uh document that has a lot more background information about housing in the community. The recommendation today is to receive this presentation and conduct the study session on a potential rental housing registry. And again, the purpose of the study session is to summarize feedback from the community about a potential rental registry. Uh provide the council and the community with an opportunity uh to hear about the parameters of a potential registry. Discuss the resources needed to establish and maintain a registry. Uh review information from other jurisdictions, present options for what a registry may look like, and provide an opportunity for discussion on this topic. Again, this is uh a study session only, so there's nothing here to approve. Um, and it is the beginning of this conversation. Uh, I'd like to thank David. He's done a ton of work on outreach to community members. So, and thank you to all of the community members that are here and that have

given their time to speak with David and myself and invited us to meetings to come talk to them about what this might look like so that we could hear from them about their concerns and thoughts and ideas. So there really was um this is uh there was a lot of work that went into this evening. So with that I will hand it over to David who will walk you through the presentation.

And before you hand it over to David I just want to make sure I let everyone know um if you had a chance to look at the public um sorry the public meeting section of our website. There's a city council packet that we have on here and there was agenda correspondence that was added on this afternoon to answer some additional questions. So, if you didn't get a chance to download that, you might want to be downloading that now and checking it out. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, David. So, first we'll dive into the uh public engagement process that we conducted in the leadup to tonight's study session. In anticipation of the study session, staff conducted targeted outreach to a variety of stakeholders who are really generous in giving their time to discuss the potential rent registry and that includes all the entities listed here. The community groups gave really uh wide-ranging feedback uh while most of the groups agreed for the general need for more comprehensive data regarding our rental housing stock as well as the challenges of maintaining affordability and safety in our rental housing. There were v varying opinions regarding the necessity and a scope of a rental registry as a tool to address this need. Um, community groups representing tenants supported the creation of a comprehensive uh softwarebased rental registry with mandatory participation required uh for all rental properties under this approach. There would be um a yearly updated rental registry. There would be a fee to cover operation and maintenance. And the long-term objective of this rental registry would be to identify the rental units in the city. Collect information regarding ownership and collect collect accurate uh rental costs as well as data uh on evictions, unit term over and safe housing issues. And there was a desire for a public facing component of the registry for tenants to access and verify the information collected. Um, so groups representing uh property managers, realtors, and our business community questioned the need for and

the efficacy of a softwarebased rental registry. Some uh community members expressed a strong desire to utilize the city's existing business license database uh as well as some of the data from our local property management firms to identify and conduct enforcement against unlicensed properties. There are various concerns about a rental registry that are identified by the community uh concerning primarily the privacy and security of the information that's collected especially if there's a public facing component of the registry. Uh there are concerns regarding the accuracy of information that would be collected from property owners. Um potential delays in collecting information due to barriers and communication between property owners, tenants, and managers. There was concern regarding the potential for fees um the annual fees associated with a rental registry to be passed on to tenants which could have an unintended effect of increasing housing costs. Um also we heard that um there might be potential for landlords to withdraw their properties from the market um if they're required to register and provide the data to the city which could have an unintended effect of decreasing the city's rental housing stock and availability. Um, also concerns that there would be non-compliance from property owners leading to challenges um, reaching, you know, that 90 to 100% compliance with the registry. And then just um, a general concern or wonder about what the tangible benefits there are uh, to either landlords or tenants uh, realized through rental registry. And then finally, there was concern over the possibility of a rental registry leading to further regulations imposed upon rental properties um such as rent stabilization or further tenant protections. So in discussion with other cities that have implemented a rental registry, uh staff received many recommendations regarding the process to ensure success of this tool uh should council decide to move forward. These included the following. Um the main thing we heard is that robust levels of engagement with the community

are really necessary. Giving the community multiple opportunities to provide feedback and understand the potential impacts and requirements of a rent registry. Additionally, staff capacity building and training ahead of time um of implementing a potential registry is critical. The additional staffing resources um that are required to implement a rental registry are pretty significant and we're going to discuss that further on in tonight's presentation. Additionally, we got the recommendation to conduct a really long uh roll out process uh of up to a year or more to give the community uh ample time to voluntarily provide information before higher levels of enforcement um occur. And then there was a um recommendation to to conduct community workshops, have office hours with city staff to assist property owners with uh the sign up process. And then finally, um, a big piece of advice that we received was to keep the rental registry roll out sequenced separately, um, from any other, um, you know, different rental protection strategies or other, um, pieces of policy in order to keep the community focused and also preserve the staffing resources. So, now I'll move on to discussing uh, the basic elements of a rent registry. First, we'll dive into some really key statistics uh, regarding the city's rental housing stock. One of the key findings of our last study session in October was that the city can gather basic data on households in our rental housing stock with the existing data sets that we have. But those are really limited when it comes to um data regarding our rental housing. And so a rental registry was identified as a potential solution uh to provide the city with this data. So 59% of households in the city are renters according to the US census data. Um based on this information, staff estimates that there are anywhere between 12 to 14,000 estimated uh rental units in the city. A community group comprised of the majority of uh the property management companies that we have counted that there are about 8,200

uh and eight professionally managed units. And according to data uh that we have, real-time data from Zillow, right now the city's average rent is 3,700 per month. Um, you'll note that this number is a little bit different from the number that we gave in the staff report as it's a real-time number based on current market conditions and it's probably increased over the last month just due to more new rental housing listings hitting the market. Um, and another statistic from the last study session was that over 55% of city rental renter households are costburdened and that means that they pay more than 30% of their income towards rent. So with that in mind, we'll just jump into the basic mechanics of what is a rental registry. Rental registries are databases that are maintained by localities that contain information about rental properties and ownership. Depending on the design of a registry, property owners may be required to provide information like their name, contact information, um details about their property and units such as the number of units, the types of units that they lease, uh up-to-date uh rent information or basic occupancy statistics, um turnover information, if there's any eviction history, and any other information that a municipality may require. The majority of the rental registries that we looked into as part of this report were implemented with a specialized software from a thirdparty vendor. And so the finer points and the different aspects of a rental registry and the options that we have for implementation are going to be discussed further in the presentation. The majority of municipalities um that we surveyed do utilize rental registry data to ensure compliance with their local uh renter protection regulations. Some jurisdictions have rent stabilization uh components. Some have um further local tenant protections and then some jurisdictions also utilize information collected as part of the rental registry uh process to collect uh

housing safety data. So when weighing whether to establish a rental registry, it's really critical to consider the different goals that the city council may have for our rental housing stock. These could be issues such as stabilizing grant, improving substandard housing, establishing local eviction protections. The data collected in a rental registry can really be tailored towards these issues. And we'd like to mention that issues such as rent stabilization, local eviction protections often require additional ordinances and regulations. So staff's research found that over 35 jurisdictions in California have implemented rental registries. The information collected um by each city varies dep depending on their complexity, what their local uh rules and regulations are. Um, typically the information at at kind of a baseline includes owner information, tenant information such as the frequency of the property turnover, any eviction histories, property characteristics like the age, units, size, and number of bedrooms, the amount of rent, um, potentially lease language or information about lease terms such as, you know, fees, pet fees, utilities, parking, any extraneous fees on top of the rent. Um and then sometimes um code enforce city data such as code enforcement and permitting history of the property is also included in the rental registry. So most cities that we surveyed don't publish the information collected in a rental registry to the public. There were a few jurisdictions that we saw that provided a searchable database of units. Um, some example cities are Fresno, Berkeley, and LA County uh provide a searchable database of units where members of the public can view super basic information such as the unit addresses, the number of occupants, the rent amount, and the most recent date of turnover, um, the personal information of landlords and tenants was not made public in any of these uh, publicly facing databases.

And so just for an example, here's how Berkeley rent Berkeley's rental registry database appears to the public. You can see that when you enter in an address, you can see the unit numbers, their corresponding number of bedrooms, and the amount of rent. And most cities that staff surveyed implemented rental registries through adoption of a local ordinance. And that provides a regulatory framework in their municipal code outlining the requirements to register the fee structure um you know the annual fee that may be collected as well as the penalty structure for non-compliance with the requirements of the ordinance. And many communities as I mentioned establish an annual fee for registration for each rental unit that is required to be registered. These fees typically help support the administration of the registry. Typically, it covers most the entirety of software costs and the majority of staffing costs through that annual fee revenue. Particularly after the program is well established and is capturing most of the city's rental housing stock, we saw a range of anywhere between $25 to $250 annually per uh registered unit. And so based on our research, the implementation of a mandatory rental registry can take at least three years to achieve the goal of having 100% of the rental properties in the city registered. Um the drafting and adoption of an ordinance would take about 6 months to a year. After adoption of the ordinance, there would be an outreach and rollout period which would be designed to register the majority of properties through a lot of repeated outreach, communication, and potentially offering a reduction or waving of the fee during this time. During this time period, there's a significant amount of staff resources required in order to reach out to the different property owners, make sure they're registered, also respond to the um amount of inquiries that would come in from landlords, tenants, and just the

community at large. Most cities that we surveyed spent about 1 to two years in this phase um before the majority of properties were actually registered. Some cities did choose to wave the registry fee in its entirety during this time and so that would delay the realization of a revenue neutral program. After this initial outreach period um typically we enter what we call the enforcement period and so this is where um staff um kind of looks to conduct enforcement and identify uh unregistered properties and bring them into compliance with the requirement to register. There's a high level of staff resources needed during this time, you know, from our housing division, code enforcement, and city attorney to go through and identify the properties and move through that process to get them to register. Most of the cities that we surveyed reached an 80 to 90% compliance rate after that initial 1 to two-year outreach and rollout period. And then they had to enter the enforcement phase um to close that gap which can kind of last anywhere from 1 to two years on average and is typically just ongoing to get to that 100% compliance level. So once the program is established, uh, cities that have implemented rental registries typically use out-of-the-box software solutions from there's a couple providers um that we've seen 3DI, HDL, TMI, Decard, and there's some other um providers in there. These companies make out of the box uh rental registry software programs. And so they kind of provide um the following list of efforts that you see here. They'll conduct identification of the properties that need to be registered through analysis of um you know city data sets, tax assessor data and online data that you might see on Zillow or Craigslist. Um they'll also provide a website and portal for property owners to put in their information, pay the fees that would be associated with the registration. They also have the ability to send out mass communications through,

you know, mailers, email, phone um to try to reach um the majority of the community to inform them of the requirement to register. And some providers also provide a dedicated customer service line. So, they'll have a chat online or dedicated uh call center that you can um reach out to if you have any questions or move through that process. And then one of the critical pieces is that the software can automatically generate uh reports that cover all the various data points that are collected. You know, they can show in real time trends regarding the average rent. Um you know, ownership information, information regarding tenant turnover and really any other customizable data insights that are sought out by the council and staff. Um and then also the software provides a map- based interface that can show all the rental properties in the city and then associated data to facilitate data analysis. And there was kind of a range that we saw of anywhere between $10 to $50,000 per year for the different software solutions um inclusive of the startup costs and yearly subscription fees. Most cities that staff surveyed covered the cost of the software entirely through the fee revenue uh from the rental registry particularly after that initial rollout period. So cities typically collect information on an annual basis um to capture changes in rent and tenant turnover. Typically there's a requirement to register by July 1st, January 1st of each year. Um, in order to collect information, um, the the jurisdictions must identify the properties that need to be registered. We talked about how the software company typically analyzes city data and other data to, um, find these properties. And then, as we mentioned, there's an enforcement piece where cities typically conduct enforcement against non-compliant properties who fail to register. Um, that's usually begins after uh, the roll out period that we mentioned. And typically what we saw is

that this is done through the administrative citation process in the municipal code. Um and if a mandatory rental registry is implemented through an ordinance, there may be measures in there um that constitute additional fees uh regarding not failure to register a property. Um, and then upon receiving actual information showing that there's a possible violation, then there's a significant effort on behalf of the city's code enforcement division, um, housing division and city attorney to actually verify that the violation exists, move through that process, and actually get the property to compliance. Now move on and discuss a few different uh example cities that staff surveyed um where they've actually implemented rental registries over the past few years. So the city of Culver City in the Los Angeles area established a rental registry program in 2020. Um they also established this in tandem with permanent rent control and tenant protection um rent stabilization regulations. Their rent registry is managed um by two full-time staff members from their uh housing and human services department. Uh the rent registry, rent control, and tenant protection programs altogether incur approximately $1.3 million in staffing and software costs annually. And they've set a annual registration fee of $167 per unit, which fully funds both the staffing and software costs of the program. We also have Santa Ana, which similarly established a rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance in November 2024, which included a rental registry program to monitor compliance um with these regulations. This program currently employs three full-time staff members from their housing team, two full-time staff members from their code enforcement division, and then two full-time staff members from their city attorney's office. And their annual budget is approximately $1.6 million uh inclusive of staffing and software costs. and they set a $100 per unit

annual fee which again fully funds the cost of the program. Now move on to um some smaller city examples. Uh Monterey established a rental inventory program in 2023 and the intent was to provide more robust data to the city regarding their rental housing stock. Their program did not include any rent stabilization or local eviction protection measure measures. It was just uh the rental registry. Their program is overseen by three full-time staff members from their four-person housing team. Each of them dedicates partial time to conduct oversight of the program. Their rent registry program has incurred approximately $236,000 in annual costs uh for staffing and software. And um their staff informed me that after two years of the program's adoption, um approximately 82% of their properties are registered and compliant uh with the registry requirement. and the revenue from their annual registration fee, which is only $50, currently covers over 90% of their staffing and software costs. The city of Davis uh established their rental resources program in 2017, and that consists of a mandatory rental registry requirement for all single family and multif family rental units. They also have a mandatory inspection program for rental properties that have 1 to four units and a movein inspection requirement for larger multif family properties with more than five units. Their rental resources program utilizes one half-time staff member and a supervising manager from their uh social services and housing department to operate the program. And they also utilize additional code enforcement, finance department, and planning department support as needed. The city of Davis's rental resources program has incurred approximately $250,000 annually in direct staffing and software costs and they've set a $15 per unit annual fee which fully funds the cost of the program. Now move on and discuss a few different

options available for implementation of a potential rental registry. The first potential option for implementing a rental registry is to utilize the city's existing business license program to gather information about the rental units. Currently, the business license program is administered by our city's finance department. Under this program, all businesses in the city, including residential rentals that generate revenue in the city, are required to obtain a business license and on an annual basis remitt a tax payment based on their gross receipts earned in the previous calendar year. typically or currently the city collects about $300,000 a year in business taxes from residential rental businesses uh with the minimum tax being $25 per licensed operator per year. The business license program right now is administered primarily by one full-time staff member who's responsible for taking in the information from all the business license applicants. And there's not currently a capacity or structure for identifying unlicensed rentals or collecting more significant uh housing data. During the annual business license renewal season, uh staff from other divisions within the department um come in to support the revenue management division as they manage that increased workload. And per the city's latest active business license report, there are a little over 2,600 active business licenses for residential rentals in the city. And that's inclusive of both long-term and short-term rentals. Um, many businesses include multiple addresses or units covered under one license. So staff estimates that there may be 10 to 12,000 rental units that might not be captured under the existing business license uh program. So, this option would necessitate um significant changes to our existing business license and tax program, including uh adoption of local regulations to require operators to provide the additional information regarding their units when obtaining or

renewing a business license. There would also be updates needed um to the business license database potentially through software and also significant staff and potential consultant resources that would be dedicated to actually identifying unlicensed rental properties as well as conducting outreach um to those owners and inform them of their requirement to secure a business license. Um, additionally, there's no guarantee that um, this kind of program improvement would provide the data that is sought out uh, through the rental registry beyond basic information such as addresses. Um, you know, getting further information such as the unit size, information on rent trends or map- based insights, demographic or safe housing information may not necessarily be um, illustrated through this effort. Additionally, there may be issues um tracking properties that are removed from the rental market. As as we've mentioned, uh business licenses cover multiple properties and units, and there's not currently requirement to notify the city when an owner takes a unit off the market. Additionally, uh without the additional revenue from an annual registration fee, it's possible that the software and staffing costs um to improve the business license database may not be fully recovered by the additional tax revenue. So, here's just um some super brief information regarding the resource needs to improve the business license program. Uh staff considers this a high resource need. there's software costs of between 10 to $15,000 per year. And then staffing wise, um we're estimating approximately three full-time equivalents necessary across the finance department, city's housing division, code enforcement, city attorney's office, and our communications team that would be necessary to implement this effort. So, moving on to our second option uh for implementation of a registry, we

have a voluntary rent registry. So this option would employ a software provider to roll out a rental registry without a mandatory registration requirement implemented through an ordinance. Um the registration rate that would be achieved would likely be pretty low. However, this option would have the lowest impact on staffing needs as a software provider would really handle the bulk of the registration process and there wouldn't be a need for staff to conduct outreach to um properties that choose not to register or facilitate a high volume of inquiries. Um, before pursuing this option, council should really consider the intent of establishing a registry if the intent is to have a complete 100% picture of our rental housing stock. A voluntary registry likely won't achieve this goal. Um, in research with the software providers, they've indicated that cities that tried the voluntary registry program typically only get to about 20% of the total properties in the city registered after the first year. As I mentioned, the overall resource need is low to implement this type of program. There would still be software costs of anywhere between 10 to 50,000 per year, but only about a half of a full-time equivalent needed in the housing division to just administer uh this voluntary registry option. So, now we'll move on to the final option that staff has that staff has for tonight for implementation potential implementation of a rental registry and that would be a mandatory softwarebased registry. This option would implement an ordinance to require all rental properties to register with the city and employ um a penalty and citation process to um conduct enforcement against non-compliant properties and owners. This option would utilize off-the-shelf uh rental registry software solutions from an established provider. If this option is pursued, staff recommends implementing an initial

rollout process of at least a year where enforcement would not occur and that's in the interest to get the maximum amount of properties to register. The city could also explore um a reduction or waiver of the annual registration fee in order to incentivize participation registration in the program. This would come at a cost of the city of approximately 200,000 per year in unrealized fee revenue and so there may be delays in um reaching a full coverage of the software and staffing costs of the program. Once the initial rollout period is complete uh the enforcement period would begin and the collection of fees would also begin which would start to reach um supporting a bulk the bulk of the program's operations. staff found that most cities that we talked to cover the cost of their software entirely and also a significant portion of the staffing spent on program administration. As I mentioned earlier, the city of Monterey is currently covering about 90% of their rental registry program costs after two years of the program's existence. There also would be a potential financial benefit to the city of recovering missing business license tax revenue uh through the rental registry and capturing those unregistered properties. So a approximately three full-time equivalents would be needed um across the city's housing division, city attorney's office and code enforcement division in order to administer this mandatory registry program. The highest cost would be incurred in the first several uh 1 to two years. During our roll out and enforcement period, um after 1 to two years, the program could start to reach that self-supporting phase through revenue from the annual registration fees. Next, I'll hand it back to director to cover focus questions and additional information. Thank you so much. So to wrap this up uh next step. So the the question is is there interest in moving forward and

should council wish to move forward. Uh as we heard all of the cities we spoke to said you have to do a lot of outreach to roll this out. So additional outreach is obviously necessary. We would have to make a plan, look at what that looks like, ensure we have adequate staffing and support. So, we're doing that in the proper way and we're doing enough outreach for a successful roll out. Um, a scope of work would be established to term to determine more accurate cost estimates. David did a lot of work talking to other cities, talking to the companies that do this uh work to try to come up with these rough numbers, but we would really need to look at what does that look like in the housing team, what are the other uh teams that would need to be involved in the city. Um, and I just want to remind everyone, we do also have an upcoming discussion on code enforcement priorities in May. And I'm bringing that up because that relates to safe housing. And that relates to the code enforcement staff that would be involved in this as well as whatever other priorities are established or removed from the code enforcement team or shifted around. Um, so that does play into this item. And so staff's uh proposal for next steps in the staff report is that should if there is interest in moving forward that staff would work in the next six to eight months to think through all of these things, put a proposal together, come up with some more established numbers and then that would become part of the uh next financial plan. Um and the next financial plan also does include um the mandatory update to the housing element. And I bring that up because that is a massive lift for the community development department and especially the housing team. Um so these two things together would likely be it for what especially what the housing team could handle um in that financial plan if that makes sense. And uh some other information for the

council to consider. Some of this came from the additional staff agenda correspondence. So, thank you for bringing that up for people who may want to take a look at that. Um, I just want to note to everyone the current work plan does not include further work on renter protections and rental registry. It was the study session that we had prior and then this study session. Again, we do have that May study session on code enforcement and safe housing. So, that's related, but th those are the main items in our current RO program. Um, if if I have, you know, I understand this is an interest of people to get this moving quickly. So, if this were to move forward now, we would need to shift around existing work programs or remove them and re-evaluate what that looks like. Um, we've highlighted the work programs that are happening in community development in the staff report and a lot of them are related to the housing division. A about half of them are statemandated. We cannot not do them. We must do them to stay compliant with uh state mandates. But I have highlighted here for you the nonstatemandated work plan items. So one is to organize a focus group to explore barriers to residential infill development. This likely would just get removed or pushed off until we have time. Um conduct educational forum and improve the below market rate unit uh program. We know there uh are a lot of concerns about how this program works and this is the group that works on that. So, this is likely something that would have to get uh pushed off until we were able to roll out the uh uh rental registry or at least delayed significantly depending on when it can be picked up again. Um creating a strategic plan for the safe housing program. Uh we do have that study session coming up in May. We are already working on that and so, you know, I think we could probably keep moving on that. And it's also important for us to understand what priorities might look like in the next fiscal plan.

Um but uh so this is one that I think we could keep moving forward with. Um and then we do have creating a project plan and standard operating procedures for enforcement of zoning regulations pertaining to Greek houses. Again, that's code enforcement and planning related. And so that's one that would probably get delayed if we were to jump all into this. Um I also want to note that the housing team, the housing team who has two people, one of which is sitting here today, um also does other work and a lot of it is also statemandated work. So um processing our housing entitlements and building permits. We have required deadlines that we must meet for state uh to meet state law. And that's also really important work to us. We're pro- housing city. We're trying to get the housing units built and so we have to process them and we want to do it in a timely manner. Um facilitating the below market rate housing program, the CDBG and affordable housing fund management and then the general plan maintenance and reporting is coming from this team. And then um you know again trying to proactively collaborate with the development community to move housing projects along. So having said that, um the main focus question that I think is really important for the city council and the community to consider is what is the goal of establishing this registry? And I think that thinking about and talking through this question can both help determine whether or not the registry is something to move forward with. And then also if it is, what does that registry look like? What option fits the community the best? And then as you move forward, if that's the direction that we go in, what are the questions that you add to the registry? So the goal really should drive the policy. If the goal is improving safe housing, you know, a registry isn't necessarily going to do that tomorrow. It can give you additional information and insight. It

can help you identify patterns. Right? If we have a registry that lets us connect code enforcement violations with ownership information or neighborhoods and we can see where things are happening, that can be helpful, but it does not do anything to give community development more insight into where there are safe housing units or not. It doesn't, you know, because someone is registered in the program does not mean the housing unit is safe. It doesn't mean that we know what it looks like on the inside or that it meets all the standards. So I just want to make that clear and you know if the if the goal is to have more information a registry can do that right. So I think that I just want us to all kind of keep coming back to the idea of what is the goal of of taking this action and then our other focus questions are outlined in the staff report. Is there interested in moving forward with registry? If so, what option or options that we've presented or combination of options were there warrant further study or consideration? Is there additional data or analysis that you think would be beneficial to determine next steps? Is there something we didn't bring up or talk about that would be helpful in you for you making a decision or moving forward? And then finally, if there's interest in moving forward, what does that timing look like given the um you know, the opportunities and challenges that we've outlined today? So, with that, I just want to thank everyone for um sitting through our presentation. It was a lot of material. There's a lot more in the staff report if anyone wants to read it, and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have. So, thank you.

Thank you so much. That's um a lot of information and a lot of detail that um you and your team have created and we really really appreciate it. Um before we get into all the questions uh from council, I just wanted to make sure if there's anyone that would like to put in public comment. Um this is kind of your last and final time. So please make sure you put in your slip of uh public comment. Uh over by assistant city manager there are slips and then right outside there are slips as well. Want to make sure you get your chance if you would like. So, with that, I will um entertain any questions from council. Um, one thing I didn't see though before we go any further is there was kind of the voluntary voluntary to mandatory. Um, with the voluntary, does that include the software option or is that kind of a voluntary plus? the way it was presented on the screen with the $10 to $50,000 price tag that would include the software option. And so it it from talking to the software companies, there are some cities that just get the software, launch it, and kind of see what happens.

And so that that would include the cost of the software.

Okay, great. And I know there the the conversation that you shared already, I just want to hear it one more time out loud. So, if uh if we went forward with this and the software uh and use the software, then could someone request a public records act um to get all of the information of all of the rental uh tenants andor landlords? there that is absolutely something we would work through with our city attorney's office and the software company but there are having managed a rental registry before there are mechanisms and agreements that cities have in place with these companies um and you know making sure they're working with their city attorney's office so that someone can't just say give me all of the private information of everyone involved in this registry and so there are ways that cities can ensure to protect that private data

thank you I know that's a concern I've heard quite a bit in the community So, just wanted to make sure that was out there. Uh, Council Member Boswell.

All right. I guess I'll get us started. Um, I have a lot of questions. We'll see how far we get. I may take a pause and let other folks ask questions. Um, and I recognize some of them might be um beyond what can be answered sitting here. So, I'm perfectly uh it's perfectly okay if uh staff wants to get back to us even at a later date. uh and perhaps some folks in the audience who have been very helpful with contributing uh data and insights uh to the city uh might um want to take a crack at some of these as well. So, uh let's see. Uh first of all, it was a late night the other night, but I'm quite sure we set aside some budget possible for the possibility of use for rental registry. Um, uh, could that budget potentially be used to support, uh, consultant or contract staffing to do additional work on development of anything, whatever it might be, business license enhancement or registry, that sort of thing.

Yes, it could. So, you know, I've been thinking through if the direction were to move forward, what would the next steps be? What would we need more immediately? What would we need long term? Obviously long-term you need staff internal who knows the system and can bring the community along in this process and implement it over time. There are things that you could use consultants for. Um for example, if we wanted to spend a year doing really robust outreach or community forums, mediation talking sessions. Um in a previous agency I was at, we hired a professional mediator to host 12 community forums about these similar topics. Um, and that was a consultant. And so I would say from like a PR outreach engagement specialist, um, you know, that would be something that could be helpful. In terms of ordinance writing, you know, working with RIT to make sure our systems work. That's a lot of internal staff. That would be more difficult to bring a consultant in and just have them hit the ground running. Okay. uh you put up some task in terms of what might be uh pushed off if we were to prioritize uh additional work here. I think it was um anyways uh I think I wrote it down 3D and 4B. They look to me like tasks where there might be some overlapping work that could be done that might uh benefit both uh objectives. So 3D is create a strategic plan for the safe housing program, right?

Um and so that that it does overlap, right? A part of the strategic plan could be to have a rental registry so you can track things uh more adequately. Um but that was envisioned as a separate work plan item that was specific about safe housing in particular. So not necessarily getting data but but ensuring housing was safe. doing a lot of outreach to tenants and landlords, which um to your point, one of the reasons some cities use or one of the things some cities use registries for is to be able to contact landlords, you know, through mass emailing. You have a lot of addresses or email addresses of every landlord in the city. And so if there's messages you want to convey about safe housing or things like that, it can be fairly easy to do so. Um and then 4B is to construct conduct a study session with council on code enforcement priorities related to safe livable neighborhoods and re receive feedback on priorities. I agree that that is connected which is one of the reasons that um our recommendation was to have that study session and then let us hear the feedback from this the feedback from that and then work through what does that all look like to feed into the next budget cycle. Um because if we hear, you know, safe housing is the number one priority for code enforcement still. It's it's pretty high up there. It's pretty much our number one right now, but we want you to do XYZ. You know, that could be related to this effort and it could be the same staff or necessary to get additional staff or to move staff around based on that conversation.

Thank you. Uh the business license option um included um I think a couple of FTE ultimately to implement as well. Uh we currently assign one FTE to manage our business license program. So is is what you're showing in the business license option additional FTE or would it include the existing FTE? this would be additional and the reason it seems high I think I've talked about this with a lot of members of the public and I think that it makes sense to think you have an existing process can't you just add some questions and get the data and one of the things that as we've been thinking about it and working through it is that we the you could do that and then as David stated though we the the this system is not necessarily set up in a way that the rental registries are set up with the followup, the continual tracking of each unit over time, the ordinance that's behind it to make sure that it's implementable, the enforcement mechanisms through the code enforcement and city attorney. So you basically have the same staffing required for the kind of offtheshelf registry version, but we'd have to also kind of rework our existing process and internally create some a public dashboard that includes this ways to analyze this data. One of the things you get with an offtheshelf system is they've already set up you plug the data in. you know, the landlord plugs the data in, the city can plug data in, and you can run reports. That's all set up. So, this would get us some data, but without any mechanisms to analyze it in a way that you could do. So, we would probably be needing more help in the IT division to be able to

analyze this data, know what it looks like over time, and make sure it's useful to us, if that makes sense. Can I ask a question along with that? Thank you. um you stated in the uh Jenna correspondents or the staff report that it wouldn't be verifiable. Can you share how the software data would be verifiable because I think that's the kind of confusing part for people.

Sure. And I I'll take a stab at this and David please jump in if I'm incorrect. So one one of the things that is if you move in this direction that's helpful about a software system is it is built for this purpose. So, the software will ping staff if it says, "Hey, this unit's been registered four years in a row and it it dropped it dropped off. No one's registered for a year. You need to follow up with this person." The business license process is not necessarily set up that way, you know, and if you add a question to it of register all your units and then someone neglects to register one out of five of their units, they're still registering with their business license. And it would take staff going through each one to verify did one of the units disappear, where did it show up? Did it show up on someone else's business license that next year? Maybe it was sold. And what the offtheshelf system would do is it will track that unit no matter who's registering it over time. Um, and it also can you can put in things in the system where it can flag for you if a rent has gone up more than 10%. Or if the unit has turned over more than x number of times in a certain amount of time. So there are things about it that um can flag things to staff. Um, but I think by verifiable, we meant that it it's going it's it's going to take a lot of manual labor to be able to verify that people have registered year-over-year. That the units are appearing over and over again. That there's the same units with the same address numbers. You know, it's not one year it's unit 1 2 3, one year it's unit ABC. That would be much easier in the software system

if we went with the business license option. Are we imagining that that we would be managing essentially two systems? We would be managing a business license system and a registry system or is there software out there that could effectively manage both of these? I I know it I mean it seems like we could probably use some modernization in our business license uh management anyways. Is there a way to kind of solve two problems?

I think we'd have to look at that. I do believe HDL does both of these things. So they they do business license processing and they do rental registry. So there are systems out there that do both. So the city if we were to explore this further could reach out to some of the firms and say like if you have both of these things what does that look like and could you make it one single portal for the business and then they can do both things at the same time. Um, and so there are systems that I know of, at least one that does both of these things. So if that was a system we went with, we could work with them to see if we could make it one touch point with the landlord instead of feeling like they had to do two different things.

The uh software vendors, I looked at a few of them that were in the staff report. Are they um I mean I'm sure some of them basically just sell you software. Uh are any of them providing services too where they help you um you know they've got I don't know if it's proprietary or they've got just clever strategies for identifying uh rentals that are have not been previously identified by the city. I mean, if you had a voluntary registry and you only got whatever 20%, I mean, do they have ways they could tell you, well, here's the other ones based on scraping data from, I don't know, Zeil or property appraiser or utility bills, that sort of thing.

I'll let David take this one. He he talked to all of them, I think. Yeah. So most of the software providers that I talk to have some kind of way of searching data that's either fed to it through city data sources, the county assessor. There's ways to kind of whittle down those properties that probably need to be registered. Some providers also do scrape the internet as you mentioned. They may be able to go to Zillow and say, "Oh, this property has been listed year-over-year for this amount. It needs to be registered." there are um many ways where they can kind of go through and um identify the properties uh that would need to be registered and provide that information to staff pretty quickly.

And then beyond that, the the range in pricing, I mean 10 to 50, I've seen some that are higher, especially for the first few years, like the setup is more work for them, but you can get you could there's like add-on packages that you can get where they'll field some questions, right? So instead of a question coming through staff, there's a hotline and if a landlord is having a hard time, you know, understanding the system or there's a malfunction, they field that question instead of staff. That's add-on costs. So there are other services beyond the setup that are often add-on costs with these services. the um you mentioned that Monterey has a a compliance rate currently of 82%. Can you remind me how long they've had the program in place and and do they have a compliance target they're aiming for that they think they will get to? Uh I think the program was intended to reach 100% compliance. They really wanted to collect comprehensive data on their entire rental housing stock. Um so in conversations with our staff, the program has been out for almost exactly two years now and they've actually reached about uh as you mentioned uh 82% uh compliance and coverage of all the property. Typically um there's kind of a significant enforcement effort that's needed to close that gap. uh because there's lots of staff resources dedicated to after the software may identify the properties that need to be registered, there's still a significant effort needed to actually go and verify that the violation is occurring, you know, move through that citation process. And so typically there's a much smaller amount that you get when you enter that enforcement process versus the first year of the roll out. Um I don't recall that any of the examples we we had were voluntary

registries. Uh but I'm uh did you see anything out there in terms of incentives that are can be offered to increase voluntary compliance. Really the main incentive that we saw that was offered is that one-year rollout period where the fees are either reduced or waved. um that was the primary motivator I think to get uh properties to register across these programs and the example of a voluntary registry. I only heard that from a software company. I was unable in my research to find a city that um you know actually move forward with that. It may have been that it was kind of an initial strategy.

Okay. The uh one more question and then uh I'll turn over the mic. Um, I know that uh we were able to get a number from the realtors and the property managers. I think it was 8,28 units that are covered by their uh folks participating in that. Um, do we have an do we have a sense of how complete their count number is for their the kinds of properties that they were reporting on? And then does it include um are there any kind of obvious exclusions from that outside of more you know single mom and pop so-called ownerships like Haslow for example is are they in that number?

Uh I don't think that the housing authority or those kind of people self-up housing or those kind of more affordable units were covered in that. Um, but I do think that the pro uh the figure that was given to me by the realtors association was a pretty comprehensive uh overview of the major major property management players in the city. Um, I think really what wasn't captured in that 8,200 figure is really the mom and pop landlords or those that just choose to individually represent themselves of which anecdotally we know we have a high amount of those units also in the city. And so that general number that staff pulled together of anywhere from 12 to 14,000 units, you know, it's it's probable that maybe there are property managed units that are, you know, not being accounted for, but I think the majority of units that aren't captured in that property management figures really the mom and pop units.

Great. That's all for now. Thank you. Thank you. It's hard. We all have a lot of questions. Council member Schwarzman,

thank you. Yeah, just to piggyback on that, the way I read it in the staff report was that, excuse me, those were professionally managed units, that 8,200, which definitely implies to me not although professionally people self-help and HLO are I guess a professional manager, but that wasn't the impression that I got from the data. So maybe I don't know if one of the folks that helped gather that data here is um is here and can speak, they can clarify that for us. Um, another piggyback on uh, Council Member Boswell's questions was about the the price of the databases of the software systems. And I tried to ask a question about this in agenda correspondence, but I didn't quite get a a clear understanding of in my experience with software systems, you have a bigger upfront cost for the setup and the building of the system and the adding of all the questions to personalize uh our system differently from other cities. And then you have sort of an ongoing maintenance cost. And your your estimate was $10,000 to $50,000 a year, I assume, but how much of that would be the ongoing cost um in future years after the setup is done? Do we have a like a smaller range of what that would be or is that a pretty

from what I saw?

David, please jump in if you saw something different. Some some of them were the same throughout. I think you know they're competing for business, right? So if they can say, "Hey, you're going to get $30,000 every year. we'll we'll get all your units in the system. No upfront, you know, surge in the pricing. And then a few of them I talked to, it was, you know, 50 $60,000 for the first year because there's so much work that goes into it and then it stabilized at, you know, 30 40 after that. Uh with an understanding obviously it's going to go up, you know, 5% per year because of inflation. Um, and so it really was a mix of ones that were flat rates of just this is what you get versus others. And but I think over time I s most common things I saw were like I would say $30 to $50,000 per year kind of ongoing.

Okay. Thank you. um some of the questions or I guess concerns that we got. One of the items that I heard from uh from a renter actually was concern about uh and I think there's there's both from what I heard there's both interest in publicly facing information and reservations about publicly facing information both uh from those in the property management field and in the renter arena. So, one of the concerns that I heard was uh from a renter was uh if the rent is publicly available in a database, is that going to be used as a way for uh for landlords to slowly inch up the the level of rent on all of the units across the board in the city? um if we were to do you have a good idea of what information if any we would share publicly if we went forward with a rental registry.

So that would be something that we would look to you know through the conversations with the community through the study sessions that we would have after this in anticipation of the ordinance development getting feedback from the council. you know, ultimately it would be uh could be in the ordinance as to what information is gathered and where how that information is used or some guiding documents. Um, but we would absolutely listen to, you know, what the desires of the community are and then direction from the council. I will say, you know, from from what David and I talked about, it is fairly rare for an outward-facing part of the registry. I think it was like three or four that we could find that had an outward facing component. The rest were, you know, you log into the system because you're the landlord or a tenant if there's a tenant portion of it and you put your information in and then you can see your units, but there's no way to see beyond that. A lot of the cities also though do reporting, right? So they might report out just aggregate, hey, last year the annual rents for onebedrooms was this, two bedrooms was that, you know, and it could become become part of the general plan annual report. Um it could be that the council says we want an annual report on the status of our rental housing registry. And so there are um opportunities whether good or bad for full transparency of what the rents are for certain types of units that aren't related to each individual specific unit but can be aggregated for information and data. So, if we did go down the road of an ordinance and a program, there would be lots of opportunities for the community to weigh in and the different um sectors that you got outreach from already so far to weigh in on what things we collected and whether or not there would be publicly facing information and what that publicly information publicly

facing information should be and probably some conversations with the city attorney's office about that as well. Yes, those would all be aspects that we'd have to work through and then ultimately decide when we adopt what what would be required, what would be allowed to be released, things like that.

Um, another issue that we've heard about through this process is evictions. We've we've heard uh a lot from folks and just trying to gather information about our our housing stock and what it looks like and how many of what type of unit we have and we just don't have very much data right now. So, one curiosity I have is about eviction information. Is that some of the if we asked information about evictions? Is that kind of information verifiable in some way? Going back to I think one of the other questions that was hinted at earlier. So what I have seen is that some cities have a requirement that you register every year or if someone is evicted. You know, sometimes they require if a res a resident just it's turned over for some reason. So you can you can mandate that someone reports when there is an eviction on a property. Um what be in terms of verifiable what becomes difficult is we only know what we know. You know a tenant could call us and say I just got evicted and we could look and see if it's in the system. If not, we could follow up and say you're out of compliance. But unless someone told us that, uh, because there is not any requirement that anyone notifies for any other reason about that eviction, then we just would only know if they did report it. So, so we got an email from someone that said that they were evicted essentially. They were asked to leave their um their rental um because the owner wanted to sell the property. uh and then later I don't know 6 months 8 months I don't know what the duration was later they found out that the that the unit had been rerented. So in that situation we may find out we may not. Is that am I understanding that correctly?

If you had a requirement hopefully the person is following the requirement. If not we could go back after the fact and see if it was reported. Um, but otherwise I I don't know that we would know unless we were informed in some other way or brought into that issue for some other reason. Did you I thought I heard a voice over there. Yeah, I was I was just saying affirming I mean if people are complying with a regulation that says they're mandated obviously there's always going to be a certain percentage of non-compliance with any regulation that's adopted.

Right. Okay. Thank you. The other thing that we heard uh throughout this process from the community was concerns about um this being implementing a registry system being sort of a precursor to things like rent stabilization or enhanced uh eviction protections or other sort of policies that we might set based on the information that we gather. other and I just wanted to get a little bit more clarification and and put out there um what you put in the uh agenda correspondence about rent stabilization. And granted, we don't have a lot of data about our housing stock right now, our rental housing stock, but there is a very small potentially percentage of uh units in our city that would be eligible for additional rent stabilization above and beyond what the state is already implementing. Is that correct?

Yes. So question eight in the in the agenda correspondence was about how many of the units that we think we have in the community would be exempt from statewide uh we wouldn't be allowed to uh I'm sorry have further rent restrictions on them and because of Costa Hawkins the city can't expand rent stabilization to any units built after 1995 or single family units regardless of date of construction. And so that's one of the things we tried to dive into in the previous uh staff report in October is that a little bit unknown because again we don't necessarily know the mix of single family multifamily dates of construction but it is likely that a vast majority would would we would not be able to implement um any further protections for them

because they're either single family homes or they were built after 1995 if they were multif family. Correct. So, it would really only apply to multifamily housing that was built before 1995, right? Okay. Just wanted to put that out there. Um because I think it's important. Um and I also just want to see if you could repeat for me because I think I wrote it down correctly um from your report, but and I asked a question about this in agenda correspondence too. uh the business license process. I think we only have it's like 2600 or 2900 uh businesses business licenses that are related to uh rental units. Um some of them are for more than one rental unit. Um but I think you said we estimate that there's about 10 to 12,000 rentals that are not currently covered by active business licenses. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. And that's just based off of um the limited data that we have. You know, we do know how many total housing units that we have in our city and we know what percentage of households are renters. So, we can kind of extrapolate that to an overall figure of the amount of rental units we have in our city. But again, that has somewhat of a low degree of accuracy. So, that's just kind of where um we arrived at that figure. So, could a rental registry give us better data about the ones that are not registered as a business licenses and we could kind of extrapolate who needs a business license that doesn't have one already if we had better data in our registry or

Yes. One of the things we haven't talked about is the ability to enforce the business license requirement through the rent registry. So what we've seen in communities is sometimes they say in order to do your mandatory annual registration, you have to upload your business license. And so in order to not be out of compliance with the rental registry requirement, which has some fines and followup, you need to get your business license, make sure it's updated, and then upload that into the system. So they, you know, through that system, they're bringing people on board with the business license aspect. Can I ask something along with that? Of course.

Can you remind us what the um fines and followup is for people who have a business, whether it is a rental um or a business in town that's retail, etc. if they do not get their business license. Emily.

Yes. So, um there's a about a $90 fee approximately um to obtain a new business license. The fee to renew it annually is about $50, um in addition to the business taxes that the each business has to pay annually in order to renew. Um, and then if for the businesses who go past July 31st and have not yet paid their tax and fully renewed their license, we then send out three rounds of administrative citations. Um, the first citation is $100. Second citation is $200 and third citation is $500. So, businesses can get up to $800 in administrative citations annually. Um and and we are we're constantly working on, you know, what what actions can we take beyond that three rounds of citations. Um after the the process that we went through in the last renewal cycle um about a year ago, we were still um we still got about 280 businesses that remain out of compliance. And um as you're aware, we sent some letters out a couple of weeks ago to the 15 accounts that owe us the most money. Um we've seen a little bit of progress there, but we're we're constantly working on what can we do beyond that citation process.

Thank you.

Okay, I have two more and then I'll stop. The the second to last one is um looking for it here. I I noticed I think in I was looking at the city of Monteray's kind of went down the rabbit hole and was looking at some of their documentation online and it looks like they have a structure to their registry. They call it an inventory. I think um their inventory has a clause in it that they uh they have like a their fee structure is like for if you have one to three units then you pay one set fee and if you have more than three units then you pay a per unit fee. So, if our goal is to kind of not penalize small mom and pop landlords, if you will, um we could develop a structure like that that is less cost prohibitive to a smaller property owners than the professionally managed or the presumably larger property owners. Correct.

Yes. You you could establish the fee structure however you wanted to based on what are the goals and constraints and things like that. Okay. Last, so if if our if we decide to go um provide some direction to move forward with next steps um and we don't want to uh hinder that list of work plan activities that you outlined there, um which are all important things too. Uh the probably best option would be to uh to propose some direction for coming up with some work plan items for the 2729 financial plan. And that would put us at actual implementation three or four years uh two to four years after whenever we actually start that process. Correct.

Yes. And if I can add to that, please,

you know, if if there's direction to move forward but integrate it into the next budget cycle, which was our recommendation, that doesn't mean we're going to sit around and do nothing for the next eight months until we talk about it. That actually is time that we can use um to do the things like develop our scope, figure out what our staffing would need to look like based on this conversation and the the code enforcement conversation. you know, do we just need to add staff to the existing housing team? Does the housing team need to be reworked to include a code enforcement? You know, there are different things we could do based on what that looks like in the BMR program. You know, these are all related. And so, we would be spending that time thinking through internally what it looks like, really drilling down on the costs, probably starting to develop an RFP so that when when we all say go, it's already done. Um, and so there's pre-work that we can do in the next six to eight months as we're developing this for the budget. Um, we would have to do that if you said go do this tomorrow. We'd have to do that anyway. Um, and you know, so you you're going to gain probably a few months, half a year if you say go now. But there are things we will do to prepare for that that I think is it's not lost time if that makes sense.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. and thanks for all the work on a great report. Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis. Thank you so much. Uh great question so far from my colleagues. You've gotten uh most of mine here. Just wanted to drill down on that business license thing for another minute. Um I'm curious if there are other communities that uh also only require one license. And this might be a question for director Jackson. Only one license regardless of the number of units or if that's kind of particular to our community and if that's another piece of this that um would be helpful to resolve in some way.

I actually don't know the answer to that. Um I most of the time that I spend talking to other agencies about business license programs is what they do for enforcement and nobody has figured out the special recipe on that yet. So, um I don't know, but that's that's certainly something that we can do some outreach on and get you some follow-up information on.

Yeah. Just be curious to see if if we're sort of outliers there. And um also, I think maybe as part of this whole process, it might if we're going to require business licenses um if we move forward and we require business licenses to be uploaded as part of the registration, then what does that mean? Is it individual to each unit or is it kind of a collective uh depending on the size of the business itself? So would love to have a little resolution there if possible.

In my in my past life there were uh we required one business license, you know, so you might be a company that owns three buildings with 500 units. That's one business. Um, and but the business license didn't necessarily have all the units because we had a rental registry and you would just upload your business license as part of your unit. But does that make sense? We didn't need to track them in the business license because we had a registry. So the registry itself could just kind of resolve that problem of not having that information at this point.

Thank you. Um, how common is it for both tenants and managers or owners to both have access to the registry so that there's almost a a dialogue or verification process um within the system?

Sorry, one second. City manager, did you want to join in on this?

Thank you. Just uh some thoughts on the business license. uh and why it is that we are in a place of having some uh rental properties that may be all incorporated within one license. And I I I haven't looked back at our um code, but I would imagine it's really around the definition of a business. And businesses can be formed under lots of different types of structures. Uh, and so we'd probably have to get really in um really detailed in the way we want to define what a separate type of business is. And it's maybe a situation where we could be perpetually chasing that. And so I think really helpful kind of closing the loop there at the end about the way that they would link together if we did have a registry that wouldn't necessarily put all the kind of onus or burden on the business license process. if it's really a matter of where units are located. But the two, you know, it's it's sort of like it it's more or less a tax certificate. It's it's giving authorization to conduct business, but it's separate from even our land use process, right? You can have a business license, and sometimes this happens in other jurisdictions where somebody accidentally issues a business license for a business that's not even permitted where they are located. But the two are not the same, right? you can have an authorization to to um pay us taxes, which we would say yes, please, and thank you. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what you are doing is legal and fully up to code. And so that's where the it's a tool for us, but it's not the kind of one tool to solve all things. And so I'm glad to hear the um connection that was offered in terms of the way that um registry program might work.

Thank you. Thank you. I I think um Emily, sorry. Did you want to add to that?

So, our our code requires that there be a separate business license for each branch establishment, which means um locations at different addresses. So, we have a handful of small local businesses in this community who have multiple locations. Um you know, Blackhorse, Scout, and Slow Do come to mind. they all have individual licenses for their different locations throughout the city. Um, our interpretation of that has historically been for residential rentals that the property if you have professional property management company who is working with property owners to manage the properties. The property management company should per the code have a license. Um, their gross receipts are the fee that the the property owners pay to the property management company. They pay a business tax based upon the gross receipts generated from that. Um, but the property owner should also have an individual business license for each address. And we're actually um working on that effort right now with our economic development team to kind of take a look at what are all of the both res mostly commercial at this point proper um rental properties that we have, who is the um commercial property owner, and then who is the tenant and making sure that they both have licenses and that they're both paying the business tax. And so that's an effort that we need to do with residential rentals as well. Um the focus really is on commercial given that that's higher value. It's actually super interesting. I feel like maybe in some ways it's a little bit more of a can of worms to try

and attack this from the business license angle because we're going to be caught redefining what it means to be a business if we expand the requirement. And wow, that feels like a heavy lift. Um, city attorney might want to add to that. Yeah, please.

Yeah, I I just would would add to that that our business license and tax regime is not regulatory in in nature. Right. So, the distinction that your city manager was making is the difference between this is a revenue system, not a regulatory system. And so the enforcement mechanism um you know gets a little wonky as well in terms of if you're trying to use that business license system as a regulatory compliance measure that's a that would also require some code changes and really a fundamentally different utilization and approach to our business license tax structure. So, strong argument to keep them partitioned, but perhaps there's still a world where there's an interface that makes it easy for somebody to come in and enter the data all at once and kind of have a one-stop shop in that sense. But, okay, thank you for that. And then I think we were on to the question about the the dialogue.

Yeah, certainly. So, all of the jurisdictions that we surveyed really um aim to collect information primarily from the property owner. That's typically due to just how the ordinance is structured requiring the owners to submit information. Um, typically where the tenant kind of comes into play is in the cities that have a rent stabilization program. There is there has to be a formal process for the tenants to contest the rent data that's submitted. So, if the rent is actually higher and in violation of the city's local rent stabilization, there has to be a process for the tenant to actually formally submit that through the rental registry portal. I didn't find an example where a tenant could just kind of register a property. Um, like we kind of mentioned earlier, some of the registries have a login for the tenants to view the information about their unit, but overall the tenant participation in the registry is somewhat limited. So, how does it generally work with sort of um almost the the factchecking element of, you know, you got somebody that's actually living in the house, then you have the person who owns and is renting the house and say in the uh the registry it's recorded as a three-bedroom residence and you've got your tenants in there saying actually there's seven bedrooms or whatever it happens to be the scenario. Is there a way for tenants to essentially engage in that process? So to David's point, you can build the registry however you want within the confines of the system that you have. Some cities mandate factchecking by the tenants because usually probably almost always it's because there's a local rent control ordinance. And so you have to be able to give the tenants an option to say no, the landlord's not being truthful and let me appeal that or it's too high and I'm going to let the city know. The I guess benefit of the public facing information is like Berkeley's you could go look up your own unit and

say what did my landlord say the rent was last year and then note if it's incorrect or not. Brings up another interesting question of okay then what right? So, if we get a call from a tenant that says, "Hey, I looked online and it's incorrect." That's then the city reaching out to the landlord. Hey, it appears to be incorrect. You know, and then we have to figure out how to fact check that and we need to make a call as to how far down that road do we how much time do we spend on this um for each one that we get. Um if it's not in violation of a local regulation, right? If it's in violation of a local regulation, you have to make sure that they're they're being truthful. Um, it's an interesting question, um, because you could also set it up where there is a login for the tenant. They can view the information and then you need to have a system for them to be able to contact the city and then we have to figure out what do we do with that. Um, but separate and apart from that, it is self-reported data from the landlord ultimately. And unless someone tells us it's wrong, um, again, we don't know what we don't know. Yeah. Um interesting quandry there with uh who has access to the information. Then um couple of small things here. Actually just a quick follow up on one of the things you mentioned earlier about um eviction. I did see that uh Syracuse New York has registration as a prerequisite to eviction. So as kind of a check to ensure that folks were um actually part of the rental registry. Uh, one of the models that I I did see um and we were talking about sort of the the carrots and sticks to get kind of voluntary um participation in this. Uh Fresno looks like they have a model where they wave the fee to register, but there's a pretty hefty fine for not registering. That seemed like a fairly uncommon model and I actually have no idea what that means in terms of being

able to recoup costs there. But um just wanted to throw that out as an interesting kind of carrot for the system. And I think my last question for now is about code enforcement upstaffing or I guess not even just code enforcement but our upstaffing in general. If it's somewhat unique in that first year or if that's something that when once we up staff to a certain level that's the same kind of staff that then would be able to carry it through and run the program. or if we need a unique kind of staff to get it stood up and then a whole different type of staff to actually run it and if you could just get into that a little bit.

Yes, that is a fantastic question. If we were to move forward, we would definitely dig into that a little more with cities that have gone through the establishment process. My educated guess is that the staffing is a little bit different. So for example to council members Boswell's question at the beginning we are going to focus on outreach education setting systems up. So we're going to need it involved but over time it becomes like any other software system we've had over time. You know there might be issues but you're not integrating it with our current software. Um I would hope the same with the city attorney's office. Obviously, they're going to be very involved in ordinance writing, making sure we have the definitions, making sure we're thinking through everything, but over time as it's up and running. I would hope that we see, you know, compliance and probably legal issues as we go and challenges there and they'd have to come in with enforcement if it escalated, but there's going to be much more need at the beginning of the process with some types of of staff. The other one would be, you know, the planning staff. Um, again, that's the outreach, that's the ordinance writing, that's the making sure everyone's brought on board. Um, I don't know that we're going to need code enforcement right away, but the code enforcement would actually ramp up later, right? So, if we have a voluntary program for the first year, not voluntary, but no, um, enforcement for the first year, code enforcement is more of an educational thing, but then they're going to ramp up um, and having bringing people along and enforcing them throughout the life of the program.

All right. Thank you for that. appreciate it. Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Uh, yeah. So, I want I want to thank my colleagues for asking all these questions. So, you're I really am down to just a few. Um, when uh uh there is a um a noise violation, um the loud party type thing, and um the residents of a of a house get um a citation. Uh, the landlord also gets a citation. How do we know who the landlord is? Do we know it through the business license or do you guys just go to the county clerk recorder and look at the deed or how do you how do you know and how do you contact the um the own so that the owner of the property also gets um the fine whatever it is. We have access to that information through the assessor and then through other programs that we have that code enforcement uses to identify who the current owner is.

So, so our staff does that research to find Okay. Thank you very much. And that's all I have for now.

Thank you. And thank you so much to my colleagues for the many questions. Um there's so much more. I feel like each time we're kind of picking up a each question is a rock with more um roots and worms underneath. But I I I keep going back to the business license um conversation. So also one of the names kind of stirred my memory of a short-term rental company as well. So, it seems as though we have maybe HDL, not sure, um that could do business tax as well as rental registry. There's others that might be able to do short-term rental as well as registry. I'm just wondering with all of these kind of things scrolling around. Um should we be kind of almost rewinding and looking at the revenue and the compliance aspect of the fee itself? So trying to figure out that aspect a little bit more. Um is there if we were to do the rental registry, is there almost a combin combination of kind of like bundling? You know, they're doing the short-term rental, they're doing the business tax, and they're doing the rental registry.

That's definitely something we could look look at. And we've already had conversations. We actually spoke with uh the company that does our short-term rental. We were talking about short-term rental and we brought up, hey, there's conversations about rental registries. is that something you do and they said actually that's we're we're going to bring that on to our system.

Um and so I think more companies are looking at it and so we would definitely look at where there is overlap and how could we simplify. That's one of the challenges just frankly we have in general is we have so many software systems tracking so many things that one of the hesitencies is bringing on another one that then doesn't talk to the other systems we already have. So we would be looking at one, how well does the system work? Two, does it integrate with what we already have, right? Like our our existing code enforcement and permitting software because if it doesn't do that, that doesn't do us a lot of good. And then two, are there things that we are know we are going to do in the future or maybe are doing now that we could bundle together. I think that's a really good point and absolutely something we would work into an RFP to be able to prioritize systems that could give us some efficiencies in that way if they met all of our other criteria. Nice. Thank you. Yeah, I think the efficiencies aspect as well as just what we've gone through with our larger system and some challenges with that. I just want to not repeat that. Um, also with the software, this may not be an answer, you know, but wanting to help our property owners not duplicate their work as much as possible. Is there a way, I know we talked about a little bit, is there a way for them to just upload a CSV or something with their data so they're not retyping in all of their property owner data in MLS, in Zillow, in, you know, all these different places.

So, I didn't see through my research um the ability to necessarily upload a spreadsheet or an Excel file. However, I did notice that some of the software uh sources can kind of start to prefill um the unit numbers. You know, for example, if you own an apartment building, the software can pull from either the city or the county assessor data and automatically fill all the units that are in a property. So, there are ways that it can kind of create efficiencies in reporting multiple units in one go.

Okay. Thank you. Um, and then for the property management 8,200 number, etc. Um, and the 14,870 units and the 26 to9 rentals. I'm just trying to I'm still trying to really kind of wrap my brain around this. So, back to the business tax uh comment from um Director Jackson. Are we to assume that the 8,200 is out of the 14,000 and change units? And so if we were to take the 2600 plus the 8,200, we're really only missing about 4,000 units then for the rental rentals in our community

for the for the business license. I think it's very hard to know. I I don't want to answer for Director Jackson, but I think one of the challenges is it's it's truly very hard to know what we're missing and what we're not missing. And that's why David said this has a very large margin of error. Yeah. I think you went through it with finance and you were looking at what's reported on each one. But again, it's um not necessarily reported in the same way and not as clear as it would be in a registry where it is the same unit year-over-year addressed the same way. you know, and you can follow that unit if that makes sense.

Yeah, that does. Thank you. Just trying to make sure I'm picturing this fully. Um, so many of the questions were answered, so I'm just trying to make sure I didn't miss any. Um, oh, and then as far as when it comes to the data, if certain data was public facing, that we would have the ability for domestic violence or different reasons that people need to not have their information out. um that we would be able to um have someone ask for confidentiality or something of that sort. Is that something that the software has shown that it could do so far?

That would have to be something we look at the city attorney's office. I would imagine that we just generally wouldn't be publishing anything like that anyway, but I also know that, you know, people are very sensitive about any data. And so even just what Berkeley has of I don't want someone to know what I'm paying in rent this year. They know what my address is and I don't want them to know that or things like that, you know. So I know that we will be addressing those concerns on an ongoing basis and we'd have to figure out, you know, what the process is for if you could ask for something to be removed. But again, it's potential that we don't have a public facing version of it, right? So then that's a non-issue.

Yeah. just making sure if there was that that would be something we could do um remove if necessary. Um and then lastly, I think this is probably a question that is not really in your realm, but as far as kind of going back to the evictions question. I I thought there was a place that had to be um whether it was in the court system or something that someone had to list that there was eviction happening. I mean, how else does a public notice happen that ends up on someone's door? So, I was just curious, um, is there not a public filing or something that has to happen?

Thank you, city attorney. I'm going to um hand off to our deputy city attorney who is the far more knowledgeable resource on landlord tenant issues and unlawful detainer. Hi. Yes. So, unlawful detainer cases are not um public record. Um generally if an eviction is I guess final that could come up on um like a background check for a tenant but the court records themselves are sealed and it could not be accessed by um our office. Thank you. That's very helpful. All right, those are my main questions. Council member Boswell,

thank you. Just a just a few more. Um this is another tenant protection question. They have me back. Um if there is a violation of the tenant protection act, say an illegal rent increase or eviction, um can you remind me what's the ten tenants remedy? It's essentially they hire an attorney. And does the city have any is there any city responsibility?

The city does not have a role in unlawful detainers or landlord tenant disputes. Typically, those are private matters and they're handled through the the process outlined in code and through the courts. If the city became aware um perhaps through some kind of reporting that um a tenants's rights have been violated under TPA, can we affirmatively refer them to an attorney or act in sort of an arms budsman role? We certainly regularly provide people with uh information for attorney referral service and to slow laugh and and other community resources that assist folks um particularly lower income um folks or people that don't have resources to hire a private attorney. Um we we make regular referrals there when people are looking for that type of service.

Thanks. Um, and then just uh a couple follow-ups on one of the agenda correspondence items. There was a question about uh whether the city could uh mandate an um inventory checklist and the answer was affirmative. Um if we required a checklist uh submitt would we have to act on potential violations identified in that submitt? So in in general enforcement is discretionary and there's a rec and that's based on a recognition that resources are limited right so there there are some rare exceptions but uh in general enforcement of city code is is discretionary

um is there a difference between the state's habitability requirements under the health and safety code and um other city codes. Would we enforce them differently? I I don't know if I'm understanding the question entirely. Well, I'm assuming we have codes we enforce that go beyond this the list the state's list of what they consider habitability. So

typically for for in the interior I mean building code if they're you know plumbing code your your generally applicable codes the the the provisions that require you know hot and cold running water and heat and and those types of provisions. um we have incorporated into our municipal code uh the uniform building code, uniform fire code. So we could enforce those provisions that way. Um but beyond that state habitability law, we would not. Hi, John as a code enforcement supervisor. We we enforce all the provisions of the health and safety code that were uh revolve around habitability. Um we also adopt the international property maintenance code which has a whole list of things that essentially mirror the health and safety code but there are some provisions that are different. Um, and then as uh Christine was saying, we we definitely look at building code, plumbing code, electrical code, all those things can come up when we're doing an inspection uh to determine if there are habitability issues.

Okay. Yeah. I I mean I'm just probably was kind of answered in the previous question of whether we might treat a certain kind if we became aware of a certain kind of violation that we might treat one kind of violation differently from another in terms of whether we would exercise that uh that discretion to conduct code enforcement

and I think that might be at the discretion of whatever we decide to go forward with in terms of if it's submitted as a violation or potential violation but uh In general, the health and safety code does require if we get a report from a tenant that we do respond um and we inspect and we notice the property owner regardless of the status of evictions or anything else going on between tenant and landlord. Um but if it was provided to us through this process, it would be a little bit different. If it's provided by the landlord, I'm not sure exactly how we would respond, but that would have to be kind of a a decision we'd make moving forward.

Right. I I think as a general statement we can say that we prioritize health and safety issues and enforcement of those issues above, you know, someone's garbage can being left out an hour too long. There there certainly is a prioritization and things that are going to affect people's health and safety that are within the scope of our enforcement are going to receive priority typically. Thank you. That's helpful. I'm finished. Thanks. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, just a super quick followup to one of Council Member Marks' questions. Um, she had asked about uh identifying owners when there's a noise uh ordinance violation. Um, I was actually kind of surprised by the answer because I thought that there were occasions where uh the information is somewhat obisfated like it's an LLC or something like that. Don't we run into situations where it's difficult to identify who the contact person is?

Yes. asked John Mezipza to talk through what happens when you run into that situation. But yeah, sometimes the owner isn't John Smith that lives at on Main Street. It's, you know, an LLC that's owned by another LLC. And so it can be more difficult. Some are more difficult than other others.

We generally pull the property owner information from the assessor's role. So there's going to be an address attached to that. Um, we also have the ability to look up LLC's and who the agent is of that LLC and the and the address that would be associated with that. So, u, but generally our system automatically pulls information from the assessor's information uh database and that's how we get the property owner information. So, the difference with like a rental registry for example would be that that information be somewhat like proactively provided to us. We'd have the agent name, contact versus having to pull from the assessor system and then potentially investigate layers of ownership. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Thanks. Yeah. One last one that came up as we were discussing some of the I think as Council Member Boswell was talking about some of the sort of safe housing code enforcement elements of this. Um, and based on again some of the emails and uh that we received and discussions that I had about uh this potentially being a tool to help with our safe uh stable housing major city goal and I think uh in talking to you previously uh the incorporation of some sort of checklist or something I think this came up in agenda correspondence as well. It might be possible, should we go down this road, to add some sort of checklist that uh both the landlord and the tenant could potentially fill out to check off, you know, is there, you know, are there smoke detectors? Is there common carbon monoxide detectors? You know, what are the safety? Is the plumbing all in working order? Is electrical all in working order? But if we had something like that, it would basically be self-report unless we added a code enforcement component to it or it rose to the level of following up as a health and safety violation. Correct.

Yes. And if we did not have anything like that, you know, the enforcement associated with this registry is truly are you registered or not and you're not registered and you need to be and let's enforce on that. we would really have to think about and look at what the implications of something like that would be from a staffing standpoint because of that reason. So, for example, if someone wants to register but they refuse to fill out that form, you know, then it's we going back and forth with them of there's everything else there, but I won't fill out the form. And so that's something or if the forms half filled out or if one party signs it or if there's something noted and it's not a health and safety violation but you know and so we'd have to think through all of those things and then figure out what is our protocol for addressing those and um if it came to our attention that there were a number of issues that we could have tens of thousand you know 12,000 units registered and discover a thousand code enforce ment issues that need to be addressed, you know, which that's good. We should know about safe housing issues, but it it would have a big impact on staffing. So, I just we would really need to think through what are the implications of asking for something like that.

Thank you. I I think that's important to think about what you know what this tool, you know, to your original question that we're going to be discussing later, what what is this tool? Um what is it really going to get us and what's the value of it if we go forward? So, thank you,

city attorney. I just wanted to add that that that really is sort of nearing the rental housing inspection program model more than the registry model. Um, and you know, so if there's a if there is a proactive enforcement expectation component, we're currently not doing that. It's complaint driven. It's b or you know sometimes observation driven. I mean, obviously, we have properties that are in such a dilapidated condition that it's very obvious and we've pursued receiverhip actions under the health and safety code reactively for those types of properties. But when you when you're beginning to gather that information, I do think it's important to focus on to what end. Because if the expectation is then that there's going to be a proactive enforcement response to a failure to fill out the form or filling out the form saying no, there's not adequate how you know adequate water, hot water or you know whatever the the violation is. Then that's a much different resource response discussion than the one that we've been directed to have here. Thank you. Yes. Um when we come back to the timeline, one of the things that we've talked about obviously is the housing element. We need to do that in 2028. Not really a question. Um back to the work plan items that are already on the next one whether we want it to be or not. Um, so timewise of what we're looking at so far, if this rental registry study session equals an ordinance and all these things in the future, at this point, are we kind of missing the boat of will the registry be done later than the housing element and therefore the data is really only useful for eight years from now?

That's a great question. One of the things I've contemplated is how the interaction between this and the housing element. And so one potential benefit of a registry if we had it up and running right now is that we would have much better data uh to feed into the housing element to know what does our housing stock look like in terms of rental units. Do we have enough, you know, studios for the single households that we know we have because of the census? Do we have enough larger household uh units on the in the market to support larger households in the community? Because the housing element requires us to show that we're meeting the needs of the population and the community members that we have. Um I think your point is a good one given what we know about the timing to set this up and the roll out. We likely would not have the full set of data to feed into this next current housing element. uh you know I I think I got excited about the potential of data but I think given the housing element process we're kind of we would be moving concurrently with one another. There could be things that we find that are useful. Um, the other thing to consider, and this is we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves, is how this interplays with the housing element in terms of a policy or a program that um we implement to show the state that we're addressing some housing issue in the community. That gets us right back to the question of what is the point? What is the goal of this? and is it achieving one of the goals of the housing element of you know providing uh the housing that is needed in the community and how does this support us in doing that um and so I think or not right so I think that that's something to think about is how does this fit in with the housing element as we start to move in that direction

and in that same vein how would would the rental registry work with the loose I know we're not officially doing that yet but we know what's on her horizon

I think it would be similar Right. We we would just it would it would give us additional information truly that would be I think you know more immediately more helpful for the housing element but again we probably miss this cycle having complete information for that but the land use is informed by housing needs in the community right so they're all connected and the housing needs you need to know what you have um and right now we use census data which is good and that's what the state expects u because that's what almost every city does this would give us a little more granular data.

And then there have been some requests around there's the um apartment data that's shared with us that's taken on the five years versus the 10 years. Um would that be data that could be helpful in making these um decisions around the rental without a rental rental registry versus with a rental registry? So I think if I'm understanding correctly it's like the census every 10 years they also do you know kind of estimates in between or reaching out in between. So absolutely when we do housing element we grab any and all data that we possibly can and whatever is the most recent. Um sometimes the housing element cycle lines up nicely with some recent data and other times you are left with sevenyear-old data you know and so you're looking for newer information. Um, again with this you would have pretty up-to-date information at least for your rental stock. Again, it's not going to tell us anything about the ownership units. The census would do that, but you would have more up-to-date information than you usually would have from the census.

Thank you. And the last thing is we talked about the potential things that would have to come off the list in a sense maybe. Um but when I look at a couple of these issues, for example, um the code enforcement priorities on 4B, would if we're looking at the rental registry, are you then saying we wouldn't look at the May code enforcement housing livability study session? That seems like it would have to happen either way. So, it kind of seemed confusing.

The the code enforcement one, I think we would still do. I mean, we've we've started writing the report. There's a lot of things wrapped up in that. that one I think we we committed to doing. Um the other ones are ones we would have to look at or you know the the residential infill one, the BMR that is that is all in David's head and and so those are the ones that I would be looking at. Do we need to remove them? Do we need to push them off significantly? Um, and then, uh, you know, I don't I don't want to dwell on this, but I do want to really stress that additional work that this team does that aren't the work program items, but is the 90% of the day of reviewing the permits, working with developers, um, facilitating the BMR program. Those are the things that um we can't lose sight of and that you know we have to make sure that we're doing those per state law where additional staff would really be necessary in order to maintain the current workload that we have and supporting you know moving housing forward in the community.

Thank you. City attorney just maybe to put a little a little finer point on the code enforcement priorities. Should the council provide direction to move forward with this, this will necessarily become one of your code enforcement priorities. Thank you. That's I think where I was in terms of, you know, allocation of resources and sort of what thoughts you may have in that other context. I think there's some overlap in the ven diagrams and there's some resource implications, you know, for between one and the other.

I do too. Thank you. But council member Shoresman. Yeah, just to piggy back and get clarification on that. I guess I understood that and I hear what you're saying, city attorney. Uh what I would think what I was understanding would that would staff would be looking for direction from us if we wanted to put this into our priority list for the rest of the financial plan. They would probably want guidance from us of which things are going to come off the list. Is that what your expectations were? Yes. Yes. I mean, we'd absolutely have to take some of them off the list. I think a lot of them are just on the list because they're state mandates, right? So, this is what's left,

right? These are the ones that we would have to choose between basically if we were going to prioritize this over something else. And then I think to city attorney's point, this becomes the code enforcement priority for the next year and a half, two years, right? Um, if this moves forward now, right? And so then the the you have less wiggle room in what else becomes a priority a for code enforcement because they will be fully invested in establishing this program and helping us make sure that we're bringing people along. That makes sense. Got it. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we were all clear that that's what we would have to do.

Yes. Thank you. I just wanted that to be said out loud. Thank you so much. All right. With that, it is 7:30. We're going to take a 10-minute break. And um if you did not get your public comment slip in, I'm just going to say you have 10 more minutes. Make sure you get that in. Thanks so much. All right. Thank you so much for the great break. We're going to go ahead and get to it. We have Oh, really?

Hi. So, we have at least 96 minutes of public comment. So, as I shared before, people who have the one minute, Hi there. People who have the one minute, they get to speak first. So, our city clerk will uh list off the names. I'd like to ask that you get in a row, three at a time. She will name off three people's names. So, please get in a row so we can keep it going. It'll be like a really fun, you know, relay kind of fun experience. So, So, will you agree or disagree?

Oh, thank you very much. I don't have my whole rule list of rules today. But just as a reminder, we have a lot of new people in the room. So, I want to make sure that if you support something, please give us the hands and the applause. We hear you that you appreciate it and you uh support it. If you hate something, that's totally fine. Give us a thumbs down. We see you. Um but please no clapping, no booing. We one need to move the public comment along. two, need to respect people who are speaking and let them share their two cents, whatever those two cents are. And then three, um, we want to be able to give you your chance to be able to speak as well. So with that, city clerk, thank you so much.

Our first three speakers, Frank Zika, TJ, Bruce Judson, and come on up. All three in a line, pretty please.

Okay. My name is Frank Zika and I'm a um I live in the city of St. Louis Abyispo and I was noticing in your in your original presentation you talked about affordability. Um but I didn't hear any of that tonight. I heard about implementation and uh enforcement and cost but I didn't hear anything about affordability. So if this is supposed to increase lower you know increase affordability um you know is the juicers the squeeze I don't see where that happens and as far as affordability the thing that drives I think un unaffordable housing is that the base unit of housing in the city is a dorm room and right now a dorm room is 1,500 to 1,800 a month and it's going to go up to 1,600 to9 1,900 a month. And so as people landlords realize what a dorm room is going for, when they look at their housing stock, they're going to be talk about that.

Totally hear you. Thank you so much.

Good evening. Uh my name is TJ Holderness. I'm a licensed realtor in St. Louis Abyispo County and a property manager. I work with families trying to find housing in this community. St. St. Louis Abyispo already has a supply challenge. We need more housing investment, not less. When regulation increases, uncertainty increases. When uncertainty increases, investment slows. If our goal is long-term affordability, we need policies that encourage maintenance, reinvestment, and the creation of more housing. Before adding new requirements, I ask that we carefully consider how this impacts housing supply and whether it moves us closer to or further from affordability. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you audience. I appreciate you.

Bruce Judson, Kathy Absiner, Leo Bernett. Is there Bruce Judson? Bruce Judson. All in. All done. Okay, Cindy. Okay. Um, I am Cindy Albsmeer and I'm a local property manager and I just wanted to say that I um, let me get to it. Um, I respectfully encourage the council to focus on solutions that support housing supply maintenance and collaboration uh rather than adding another layer to of regulation. Thank you.

Thank you after Leah Mike Moss and Janice Krooks.

Hi dear city council members and city staff. I'm here on behalf of Slow County Tobacco Control Coalition and strong support of a mandatory rental registry that links code enforcement data, includes a clear health and safety checklist for tenants, and make certain data publicly available. A well-designed registry would benefit both tenants and property managers by clarifying current rental standards, increasing transparency, and supporting data-driven policy decisions here in our community. Our coalition reviewed more than 20 rental registry programs across California. We found that the city of Fresno includes a comprehensive health and safety standards checklist that could serve as a useful model for San Louis Vispo and support code enforcement efforts. We again encourage the city to pass a mandatory rental registry that links code enforcement data and includes a comprehensive health and safety ch checklist. Thank you for your time.

Wow, thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Janice Krooks. I'm a realtor and a property manager owner in slow. I appreciate that the staff has identified that there are ongoing costs to this program. Software, staffing, data management, compliance, oversight, and enforcement. Those costs won't disappear and will increase over time. They will be either absorbed by the city or passed on to the housing providers and ultimately to the renters. Before moving forward with the rental registry, I urge the council to fully assess the long-term financial and staffing implications of the program. We all want safe housing. Let's make sure we understand the full cost of any new system before implementing it. Thank you.

Thank you. Mike Moss, Helen Finger, Kathy Godfrey. Is Mike Moss here?

Okay. And feel free when you're up there, you can move this mic up and down so we can hear you. Echoing the original presentation, I want to stress what problem are we trying to solve by creating a rental registry program. I'm passionate about promoting affordable housing in our city and making housing safer. Um, I only heard three main reasons for the registry. code enforcement, capturing unlicensed rentals and tracking current rentals. And I don't see how that is going to solve our problems. It's going to create a brand new program that's going to suck away resources from the things that need to happen. Code enforcement, we were told, can't be done in conjunction with the registry. It should be something we're doing already. So, I really encourage that we lean into code enforcement and we look at expanding our stock. creating this type of a program is going to have people not want to uh put their house in for renting. Thank you.

Thank you. After our next speaker, it's Astra Keelin, Lisa Jouer, and Liam Brock.

Good evening, council mayor. My name is Kathy Godfrey and I'm at 963 Broad Street in St. Louis Abyspo. Simply a property owner. Um I would like to encourage no on moving forward with the rental registry. I think that Timmy Twe kept reemphasizing what is the goal here. And I think that's exactly the right question. Please stop this journey and focus on things which are more important to our community. Most importantly, you have access already to this data. Councilman Markx asked a great question. She said, "How do we know who owns a property for disturbance issues? You know, through assessor roles and records. You also have data through the assessor's office." That data that you keep talking about is already out there. So I it seems like it's overreach to try to go and create a new registry when you've already got the data. So Mayor Stewart and council, you represent the people of slow. Why is this in the best interest of the community? I just didn't hear it this evening. So where is the fire burning that has percolated this onto your agenda? Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Liam. Uh, I went canvasing over the past couple weeks and I've heard from some of my fellow members in the tenant housing union um stories that they've heard from people in the apartments that they're living in that for instance uh there's broken appliances that are letting off carbon monoxide and their landlord is not taking care of that issue. And I think that we need to have much more accountability uh for the landlords here in this city. And I think it's absolutely absurd to put, you know, human health below cost uh of the program. And obviously the program is going to scale up with the more things that you put into it into the rental registry. But I think we need to track code violations. I think that we should have the rental registry be mandatory. And I just think this is a basic first step in accountability.

Thank you. After the next speaker, it'll be Sawyer Sakeet, Haley Townley, and Leslie Halls. And feel free to line up right on behind.

Hello. Greetings, city council members, and mayor Stewart. My name is Lisa. I live in St. Louis Abyispo, and I've been a renter almost my whole life. Um, so I had a couple questions. What do renters want? We want affordable rent. We want safe housing. And we want protection from retaliation. What do good landlords want? Rent payments, safe housing, and protection from retaliation. So, it's kind of like aligned. Um, so what do cities want? Cities want safety for the public. They want people to follow the laws. And I do believe that rental registries are part of helping cities collect data in order to do to accomplish those things. more better safety. Um and yeah and facts and facts help help us make good decisions. It helps cities make good decisions without data. A lot of us make decisions based on bias or internet searches or poor decisions are made without data. So um we need accountability. It comes from knowing the actual numbers. That's like a foundational that's that's why I really believe in a mandatory rental registry and soon sooner rather than later. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Sawyer. Um I uh turned 30 this year and I've lived in San Louis Vispo County for about twothirds of that. Um, next year I'm actually getting married here in central California and I love this area and this town which is why I'm choosing to build my life here. Um, I do feel compelled to come here and speak tonight because as I understand it, there are forces that are within this city that would not see all of its inhabitants allowed to prosper. That instead of making this a city where all classes of people can find happiness and affordability, those forces would prefer to hide predatory behaviors and extract any penny they can from renters living here. The ask here isn't really that much. just a little transparency when it comes to the single most expensive aspect of anyone's life. Uh who benefits from a rental registry being stopped? The ones who don't want their practices being seen by the light of day. So the logical next question is does the city of slow want to attract people or landlords? To me, it makes much more sense that St. Lucispo is seen as a great place to live and rent in as opposed to a great city for landlords to set up shop in. As the presentation showed, approximately 8,200 of the 12,000 rentals are professionally managed properties. And if those units are professional, then they should have no problem with transparency, unless their actual goal is to hide any exploitative practices from being seen by the city. I implore the city council to approve this registry so that they can uh make informed decisions on housing going forward and make it mandatory so we can avoid any delaying of data um for the city to act on. You can't effectively solve a problem you can't see. and this registry is going to hand us our glasses. Thank you very much for your time tonight, city council.

Thank you and congratulations on your wedding. After after this speaker, it'll be Angie Casper, David Gray, and Brenda Mack.

Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm Haley Townley. I'm a local real estate broker and property manager. I work every day with renters and with housing providers here in St. Louis Abyispo. We all want safe, stable housing. we agree on the goal. My request tonight is simple. Before creating a rental registry, please make sure there is clear objective data showing it's necessary and it will actually solve a defined problem. California already has strong tenant protections in place, including rent caps and just cause requirements. A large share of our rentals are professionally managed and operating within that framework. If there are specific bad actors, identify them. use existing enforcement tools and address those issues directly. A citywide registry adds fees and administrative layers. Many local rentals are owned by small families who invested their savings into these homes. When costs and uncertainty rise, some leave the market. And when supply shrinks, rents rise. Please define the problem, measure the impact, evaluate the tools that we already have, and let's be sure we're solving a real issue with the right tool for our community. Thank you. We don't solve a housing shortage by making it harder to provide housing. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Stewart and the council. My name is David Gray and I've been a real estate agent here in Slow for 30 years. I'm here tonight to voice my opposition to the proposed rental registry. I care deeply about safe housing, strong neighbors, hoods, and long-term health of our housing market. I work regularly with renters, housing seekers, and providers. This registry is a redundant, expensive, and counterproductive tool that ultimately will hurt the very people it aims to protect, our local renters. First, we must adjust the address the math. Every new fee, every administrative requirement imposed on property owners is eventually passed down. It'll only push rents higher. Furthermore, new staff software to manage the database is a massive reoccurring taxpayer landlord expense for a system that simply dup duplicates other methods to collect housing data. Second, this this registry were her mom and pop landlords who provide so much of our naturally occurring affordable housing. These aren't corporate conglomerates. They are our neighbors. By burrowing them in red tape, you're incentivizing them to sell or convert to short-term rentals. This reduces our long-term housing supply. Finally, there are privacy concerns regarding the centralized collection of our owner and ten ten tenant data. Instead of creating a new bureaucracy, I urge the council to focus on using other data gathering methods and um other compliantbased enforcements of our existing codes. Um let's not punish responsible owners and tenants who will ultimately foot the bill. Please decide against the registry. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Angie Casperac, and I want to preface my comments by saying that I am speaking solely as an individual and not as a representative from the human relations commission. I'm here to advocate for the creation of a mandatory rental registry. I think it's important for the city of Slow to have a mandatory and comprehensive rental registry as a tool for compliance and for a historical record. I am confident that anyone that has recently lived close to the poverty line or has close friends or family members that currently do so have heard countless stories of horrendous living conditions in the city of San Losispo, bad landlords and the lack of available affordable housing. I believe the only way to make an effective rental registry is to make it mandatory. I know that there are a lot of good landlords and I am sure that they will be more than happy to comply with the registry, but it's the bad actors that we need to be watching out for. the slum lords, the ones taking advantage of young students with no experience or the elderly that can't advocate for themselves by not following the existing laws and trying to get as much money for as little as possible out of their housing. These are the ones that the city should want to have information on to protect the most v vulnerable in our population. Outreach and incentives will not make a voluntary registry the useful tool that the city needs. I understand that a majority of the people are driven by self-interest instead of altruism, fairness or the collective good and there will be many people here that will use any excuse to just try to dissuade

you from moving this rental registry forward as a mandatory and comprehensive. Um, I also believe that people who say that making the rental registry voluntary is the best way forward, but I don't think it's going to be true. Thank you. After the next speaker, the ne after this speaker, the next one will be Brenda Mack, Patrick Kimble, Jerry Clemens, and Matthew Roberts. Oh, Brenda.

Brenda, come on up. Um, good evening honorable mayor and council members. My name is Brenda Mack and I'm here before you to speak on the imple implementation of the rental mandatory rental registry. The city of Samuel has had a proud history of being the first in the county and sometimes the nation of implementing ordinances for the greater good of the community. While the man while the mandatory rental registry would not be first in the nation, it would be first in the county. Continuing St. Lewis's historic leadership. It should be mandator made mandatory because sometimes people left to their own devices unfortunately do not act for the greater good of the community. As we are in a datadriven age, data influences nearly everything. This data is important for the implementation of community housing needs now and in the future. Thank you. Thank you. And y'all please just give us this as a yes or this is a no. Thank you.

Sorry. Try this thing out here. Hello, council and mayor. Uh my name is Patrick Kimell. I'm a uh contractor in this county and a lot in the city. Um when I first graduated from Kpali, I uh went and got a job with a a local commercial builder and uh I went into his office and he was like, you know, kind of interview me. It was for a labor laborer position, so it wasn't, you know, like management or anything like that, but I I did have a finance degree. And uh he's like, "Well, we could probably use you. We usually start you out at 10 bucks an hour, but since you have a degree, we'll give you 12." And you know, how's that sound? I was like, "Okay, well, I didn't want to be in an office, so I was like, "Okay, that sounds pretty good." Um, so I started working for him. I rented a a dumpy little place in Mororrow Bay. Uh we paid like I don't know 725 bucks a month and my wife and I we were able to save $800 a month. We scraped by. We screded and uh ultimately um just saved up enough for a nest egg and for a home and were able to buy a home thankfully. Uh and so I I think the American dream is is alive and well. Um uh you know I I came in here just like thinking pretty strongly against this registry program. But now I'm kind of indifferent because if it gets implemented, it just it's just going to pass on the money that it's going to saddle the renter with the with the costs. It's just like everything like when they built the sewer in Losos, they added about four grand a month or a year to the, you know, your property tax assessment. And so right after it got built, like all the all the landlords were like, "Okay, well now we got to pay for this thing." you know. Um, so we have a stent rent, we have a state rent control. Uh, it's like 5% plus CPI. And right after it got implemented, what did everybody do? They

just went boom because they didn't want to be caught being too low. And so now they raise the max they can every year, you know. So, um, I'm indifferent to this proposal. I I don't think it's like fiscally responsible, but it's not really going to affect what it's not going to get the effect that you want. And I do think that city staff building with community development, Mr. Dway, is doing better than most in this community approving new projects and and and just trying to push stuff push stuff through and and the city doesn't have a lot of latitude on what actually what development takes place. It's state driven. So like you you think you might have a a way to impact it and which maybe you do with your housing housing element to a certain extent but the state is the one driving this and they're pushing hard and and I mean we'll talk to Mr. Way I mean there's four units I mean you're pretty soon you're going to have 10 units 10 residences on a single family lot and there's nothing you can do about it and so I just I'm just wondering if this is the most effective use of your of your money.

Thank you. Thank you. Morning.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. I'm Matthew Roberts. Um, I did send in a letter earlier about the options just to add um a little information associated with those. I think they could be fleshed out a lot better. Um, but I would like to add a fourth option, and that option, um, would be to hire through an RFP a real estate consultancy that does your data analysis. You're saying you don't have the staff to do that. I'm a realtor. I could do what you're looking for very easily with the tools that I have. It wouldn't take very long, especially with the data you've already got. So you could find somebody to gather the data you're looking for so you can make informed decisions for pennies on the dollar of what you're talking about. So I think try to try to look at that option if you wouldn't mind. Um based on the data that you um provided in the report, my educated guess is that um you could just from some of the data points that you've got, you've got 8,200 units under management. you've got um a estimate of 12 to 14,000 units. Okay, that means you have 70% knowledge through property managers of all those units. You can gather this data really easily just by querying them, you know. So that leaves 45% or so 70% 30% left, right? Okay, so the math 4,000 units. Um those are all mom and pops. They're not LLC's. They're not the 1enters, you know. Those are people who are hardworking middle class people, worked all their life, spent all their savings to buy a house so that they could rent it so that someone else has a roof over their head. This is a vital service to the community. We don't want to ruin that for them, right? This is

people's retirement. I'm retired. It's my retirement funds, you know? So you start digging into those things, force people out of the market. Who comes in? Private equity firms, investors, LLC's buy up those things. What do they care about? Profit. They don't care about tenants and whatnot. It's a business. It's all about profit. So just be careful what you you're you know, make sure you know what the goal is. There's lots of ways to get to a goal. There's not only three options, many more options. Okay. Um, option one was missing software that could have been used for it. You know, the software that's there could be implemented. Option two, um, property managers, if you were to go with the option two of the voluntary one, you already have 70% covered, not 20%. Right? So from 70 to 80, if you're just looking for information, it's not a precursor to a rent control ordinance, then that's the information you need to be able to do your housing element and those kind of things. So just think about those things, please.

Thank you. After Jerry is Steve Barish, Barry Price, and Dave Baldwin.

I believe Steve Barish is gone. Steve Barish here. Okay, if it falls. Here you go. Thank you. Hi, mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Jerry Clemens, and I live in St. Louis Abyispo. I want to thank you for making renter protections a part a part of our major city goals and keeping safe and stable housing in the forefront. when creating city policy. I app Oh, by the way, I need to say that I'm re representing myself, not the Hazel board. I appreciate the time and effort staff put into the rental registry report as well. It was quite qu comprehensive. I became involved with the slow tenants union two years ago because I wanted to learn how to advocate for renters like myself and others so that we had health and safety protection such as hot and cold water, heat, no moldy w no moldy walls that create sickness in people to name a few. I didn't want to have a rent increase after I asked for a heater to be fixed for example. Yes, I'm just giving an example. a few months months down the lane, excuse me, a few months down the line and then told this was a normal that time of year for a rent increase because I happen to ask for my heater to get fixed. This is an example that was given to me by somebody I know. Who could I complain to? So, one tends to keep their mouth shut. For me, the rationale behind a mandatory rental registry is it allows a city to gather real time information as to what kind of housing do we or do we have, do we need or what that we don't have. Once we have that information, that gives the city

builders, property owners more information on the needs of our community regarding housing, rentals, single family, etc. This information would also put into perspective where to build or not build. We can find out which houses, let's other buildings are not being used to capacity or left vacant full-time or shortterm properties such as Airbnbs, which also contribute to home insecurities and possible homelessness. These are data points necessary for great city planning. If we had a mandatory uh rental registry also with this data, it allows for possible increased green space which we really need to consider with a uh climate crisis upon us. The less land we have to develop, it's healthier for our communities as well as biodiversity. There are many assets to a mandatory rental registry. Please support. This is about being supportive for all of our community, not just the business, but for renters. You know, it's this is also a class issue as far as I'm concerned. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Stewart, council members, and staff. Uh, I'm Barry Price with the tenants union. Thank you for all the time and effort that you've put into engaging with stakeholders and preparing for this study session. I also want to acknowledge Mayor Tyler Williamson of Monterey who's here this evening and we're looking forward to hearing him shortly. Uh, we all understand the need for more housing in St. Louis Abyspo and we all agree that decreasing regulatory burdens will help us achieve that shared goal. If we want to increase housing supply responsibly, we need accurate baseline information. You can't plan housing growth in the dark. A rental registry is not anti-ousing or anti-landlord. It is a prerequisite for serious pro-ousing policy. Now, there are understandable concerns about the impacts of the program, especially on small operators. But what truly hurts small landlords is sweeping regulations born from uncertainty. Precision is protective. Without data, fear drives policy. With data, evidence drives policy. A well-designed and implemented rental registry will protect responsible landlords while enabling growth. Responsible governance requires complete and accurate information. A rental registry is not a control mechanism. It's housing infrastructure. It will provide critically important

information for our housing element update. If implemented correctly, the registry will reduce uncertainty, not increase it, and create the political and planning foundation needed to grow our housing supply. Now, I want to note this is the second study session the city has had on this topic in the past four months, and I know that staff has worked very hard and devoted considerable time to meeting with stakeholders. So now is the time to take action. I encourage you to move forward without delay by implementing option three presented by staff during the current 2025 to 2027 planning cycle. Thank you.

Thank you. After Dave Baldwin will be Steve Ferrario, Carrie Howell, and Tim Townman. Uh good evening, mayor and city council members. I'm Dave Baldwin. Um I'd like to begin by expressing great disappointment in the process. Um for such an important discussion item, private property rights, I believe a postcard or email from the city to all rental property business license holders is not unreasonable. The only reason I know about this meeting is due to a local realer who provides a monthly newsletter. With that said, I fully agree that rental properties must be safe for tenants. However, I'm very concerned about the pro proposed approach. First, the proposed registry creates a lot of questions. What is its purpose? How does it benefit rental property owners or renters? Personally, I don't see any tangible benefits for landlords or tenants. It won't improve rental safety. It won't stabilize rents, and it won't impact evictions. But it does create a bureaucracy that increases rental costs, invades privacy, reduces private property rights, and creates significant disincentives to maintain or expand the rental supply. Also recently, the state gave Californians the right to remove their private confidential personal information from databases. The city council by creating a new database of private non-public information appears to be counter to California's push to protect privacy. As a property owner, based on your staff report findings to date, I respectfully oppose the proposed rental registry, and I expect other property owners feel the same way. Second, out of the renter

protections listed at the previous study session, three ideas are worthy of further consideration offering potential benefits. One, smoke-free multifamily housing. Two, renter and landlord education. and three, a a safe housing checklist. Mediation also has merit. I currently include the slow noise ordinance and are you a good neighbor brochure in my rental agreements. Third, landlords don't like vacancy at all. So, my question to the city council is this. How many evictions were there last year for something other than not paying rent? Is there a really an eviction epidemic? And finally, housing is created when we allow people to build it and control it. Cowpali is doing their part by adding thousands of rental units. Is the city of St. Louis Abyspo making it easier and less costly for builders to construct new housing units in town? Focus streamlining permitting, offer incentives for new builds, and tackle barriers to inventory growth. Thank you.

Thank you. I got this thing right. Okay. Mayor Stewart and city council, my name is Steve Ferrario, and I've been a realtor in our community for more than 37 years. And today, my message is simple. I oppose the creation of a rental registry. I care deeply about safe housing, strong neighborhoods, and the long-term health of St. Sabispo's housing market. Every day I work with clients, investors, and tenants. I appreciate the city taking time to study this issue before considering any formal program. As you consider a rental registry, I respectfully ask the council to pause and ensure there is clear and objective data demonstrating that a new program is truly necessary and that if implemented would solve a defined problem. I've yet to be able to see a problem in the staff report recognized. I understand there is strong advocacy and pressure around renter issues and those voices deserve to be heard. At the same time, new regulations should be grounded in clear evidence and demon and a demonstrated need. California already has strong statewide tenant protections in place. State law limits annual rent increases for most rental housing and includes just cause eviction requirements, creating a comprehensive framework that applies across our community. It's also important to note that the rental registries are relatively uncommon in California. California is comprised of 483 cities and towns. 35 cities have adopted rental registries. 31 of those cities have already implemented rent control or formal inspection programs. We have past experience with a formal

rental inspection program and we know how far that went. This suggests registries are typically implemented as part of a broader regulatory framework and a first step to rent control be before moving forward. I urge the city to clearly identify the specific problems a registry is intended to solve and how success would be measured. Please also be transparent if this rental registry is intended to be the framework towards our city being governed by rent control. Evaluate whether existing enforcement tools such as the city business license program, which could simply and cost-effectively be upgraded to accomplish everything the registry is aiming to do. and in the process not add another regulatory layer and save hundreds of thousands in additional cost which will be levied on property owners who will simply pass those costs on to their tenants. I know I will. We all share the goal of safe and stable housing. Please take a careful and balanced approach as you consider adopting a program that is not needed while being aware of the unintended consequences in doing so. Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration.

Thank you. Hi there. Hey folks. I'm Carrie Howell and I am participating tonight as a private community member um here in the city of St. Louis Abyispo. I've been a renter for the past eight years in St. Louis Abyispo and for the past seven years um my property manager. So, I'm one of the 8,000 homes rent uh referenced here has raised my rent by the maximum amount every single year for seven years. So, for seven years, I have to make the decision every single year. Do we choose stability? Do we choose community? Do we choose my children's school, their neighbors, the village that we have built and been promised in community vitality? I have to make those tough decisions. And so I currently pay $1,400 more each month in raised rent fees alone. And this pattern has not decreased. And I don't think my property managers do that, which I hope they're not here today. It's very possible they are. Um I don't think the property managers do it because they're bad. I don't think they're bad landlords. I don't think they're malicious. I don't think we're bad tenants. I think property managers and landlords do it because they can. For too long, we have relied on the kindness of landlords to fill the gaps in our housing policies. We cannot continue to do this. For this reason, I respectfully caution against a voluntary program. I respectfully caution against a public education campaign where we continue to ask tenants to be both victims and police. And I would caution us to listen to the

landlords and realtors here today who have shared explicitly that they would pass these fees on to their tenants. They have been upfront and I would be cautious of the manipulative language of the framing that the registry would lead to increased rents that this increased regulation leads to increased rents. People who increase the rent make a conscious decision to do that and they do that because they can. They have shared slide four of the presentation said landlords would withdraw property said landlords would put the fee on the tenants. every single person has shared that they would today and I welcome every member of the public watching and those on the dis welcome to the life of the renter where advocacy actively risks retaliation. They have shared that this is their goal. I wanted to address briefly what has come up which is labor. the labor of the city of the staff and there is and the word heavy lift that I heard several times there is no heavier lift that than the stability I risk in speaking here tonight I'm privileged to go last oh thank you for your time

thank you after Tim is Julia Albert Steve Del Martini and then Donna Hairpric

Hi there thanks you guys for your service to the city and staff did a great job getting this together. I'm Tim Townley. I'm the St. Louis Abyispo Association Realtors President. Um we're celebrating our hundth year this year and serving the community, helping people buy houses. You might wonder why we got purple tonight. Realtors come in all shapes and sizes. We have people on the left, people on the right, they're red, they're blue. We come together with purple, right? We are here to advocate for safe housing and to protect property rights. Professionally managed properties have several steps that enhance safety and livability. Uh I don't know whether you guys are familiar, but everything that we do, I'm a property manager as well. Every tenant before they move in has a move in inspection sheet that they check all those things off that you're talking about checklist, right? We take pictures of the place when they move in. When they move out, before they move out, we give them a sheet that says, "Hey, is there anything that you need to fix before you move out?" They look at that. Then we do a move out inspection with them. Take pictures again of the property. If there were some issues, we take a third set of pictures to make sure that everything's done right. So they see if we take some of their deposit to do that. In fact, Kalpali's study found that over 85% of the kids liked or had no opinion of their property manager. They didn't dislike them. So we're looking at a pretty small amount of people that are problems. I think the best way to do this is maybe utilize the slow app, the ask slow app, and have people tell you who the bad actors are, and then let's go out and get those bad actors. Let's not build

something that is on the backs of people who are doing the job of making really good housing for people. Shoot, I rented a house in St. San Los a Bispo probably for 10 years before I scraped my money together and bought my first condo. Um I think maybe what we do is put together a mediation system that could actually help tenants and property owners find an outcome that's satisfactory to both. We all want safe living conditions, especially realtors. The reason that we do re we take care of renters is renters eventually become homeowners. And if we do a good job taking care of them, then we can do a good job taking care of them when they buy a house. We're in this for the goodness of our community for sure. And I super appreciate you guys giving us a seat at the table early on this discussion so that we can make a good decision. Thanks.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor of Stewart and council members. My name is Julia Albert. I am a local resident of former reenter and slow and I am the chair of the local tobacco control coalition. Our coalition has previously shared survey data with you, highlighting health and safety concerns and rental housing. And while we feel those surveys were helpful um in providing data, they were one-time data and anecdotal reports that really don't provide a effective comprehensive view of what's happening. We strongly support the adoption of a mandatory rental registry that includes publicly available aggregated data and links to code enforcement information and has a clear health and safety checklist. A checklist could serve as a tool to promote safe and healthy housing. A well-designed registry would improve transparency, help identify patterns and gaps, and allow the city to make informed, datadriven decisions that protect both renters and property managers. We want to be clear, a volunteer registry would not solve the problem. Voluntary participation would likely result in incomplete data, leaving us in the same position we are now. Without a full understanding of what the rental market looks like or what the housing conditions are across our community. If the goal is accountability, transparency, and informed policym, participation must be required. Our coalition is committed to protecting residents rights to safe and smoke-free living environment. But meaningful action requires comprehensive data. A mandatory registry is a foundational step towards ensuring safe and healthy housing for everyone. We respectfully urge you to vote in favor of making the rental registry mandatory. And since I have some time, I want to follow up that our coalition would love for you to follow up on the smoke-free multi-unit ordinance that was brought

up. We believe this would protect both renters and the property managers from damage and it could also be linked to code enforcement data to a rental registry. Thank you. Thank you. After Donna is Jen Fields, Weston Patrick, Rachel Whan.

Good evening, mayor, council, and staff. I'm Donna Hair Price with the slow tenants union. First, I want to thank the renters for speaking and risking the retaliation of the landlords. I'm going to talk tonight about how a rental registry advance our city's goal and creates belonging. One of slow city majors goal is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion to create a more welcoming, safe, and inclusive community by embedding equity into all city policies, services, and organizational culture. Adopting this major city goal reflects your belief and knowledge that belonging is created through deliberate actions and programs that benefit the collective good rather than the economic interests of a few. I know protecting our neighbors is both timely and utmost priority for you all. Rental registries create belonging by establishing a transparent, safe, and stable housing environment that connects tenants, property owners, and local government. By centralizing ownership data, rental registries foster trust, ensure habitability, and enable direct communication during crisises, making residents feel valued and secure. If we require landlords to rep report rent increases or evictions that allows oversight that prevents harassment or illegal displacement, the city can create an effective

protections based on identified needs for our most vulnerable and targeted neighbors. Protection communicates belonging. Advancing a softwarebased mandatory rental registry is a direct action you can start tonight signaling that we hear, see, and value the over 60% of our voters and residents who are tenants. You can use the rental registry precise data to better drive our housing element and for inform where we build our multifamily units, meeting the needs of our community. A rental registry embodies our major city goal of safe, healthy, and affordable housing and our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity for all our current and forthcoming residents. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, slow city mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Jen Fields, and I'm speaking solely as a renter in slow and not uh in my role as a human relations commissioner. I appreciate the outreach and thorough research into rental registries and how they can be implemented in slow by uh city staff. um health and safety issues along with general rent instability will be worsened by the climate crisis. It is all always people already living paycheck to paycheck that are most vulnerable to climate disasters. Safe, affordable, and reliable housing is one way the city can proactively address this disproportionate impact of climate change. Luckily, in Slow County, we are predicted to have relatively mild climate change impacts compared to other locations. And this offers us a really great opportunity and responsibility to be a welcoming and safe place for our immigrant neighbors, current and future. Migration is a human right and it's at the core of humanity since we've existed on this planet. We need to think about our climate future and safe and affordable housing is key and a rental registry is our tool. We need stronger protections for renters to meet multiple of our city goals. And a rental registry is a crucial first data step to do this. We cannot h meet our climate goals without housing justice. We cannot meet our homelessness response goals without housing justice. We cannot meet our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals without housing justice. And we certainly can't reach our housing and neighborhood livability goals without housing justice. The city climate action plan also makes it clear that reducing building emissions and improving energy efficiency are necessary, but we cannot effectively reduce these emissions from

residential buildings when we don't understand our res our rental housing stock. I'm urging the city council and staff to continue to look into establishing a comprehensive and mandatory rental registry and requiring a health and safety checklist as part of the rental registry to promote health and safety standards. Just like the climate crisis, we can't study our way out of this. We need actionable policy and set timelines associated to protect majority of our city residents. majority of our city are renters, not real estate agents or landlords. Uh despite the public comment tonight, please ensure that this study session will lead to meaningful action within the next two years and work towards filling the gaping hole in rental protections within the city of St. Louis Abyispo. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of the council. My name is Weston Patrick. I serve as the secretary of community relations for Cowpali Associated Students Incorporated. I'm here tonight to inform you about a resolution currently before the ASI board of directors that urges the city council to establish a rental registry program to better address student renter concerns. This resolution was authored by myself as well as Andrew Angulo, the chair of the ASI external affairs committee. This resolution has cleared our administrative review process and has been approved by the ASI internal review committee and will now go before the ASI board of directors who serve as the official voice of the more than 23,000 Calpali students. I will note here that the population of St. Louis Bispo is around 47,000. While while you were all emailed a draft copy of this resolution, I wanted to highlight some excerpts that I feel like are feel are particularly relevant to the study session. Firstly, according to the 2020 US Census, 62% of housing units in the city of St. Louis Abyispo are rental units and approximately 13,930 Calpaly students live off campus, representing 61% of the student body. Additionally, Cowpoly students consistently raise rising rental prices, difficulty finding houses, and flexible lease terms, intentionally rushed application process processes as chief as chief concerns of the in the rental market. Further, despite the value and necessity of the information that would be held in a rental registry, CowPoly entities such as the university housing, ASI, and the off-campus housing program rely on sparse, incomplete internal shared internal and shared survey data to inform policies and advocacy. This leads to the existence of multiple data disagreements that ultimately affect the pursued goals of these entities. In the city's case, rental, lease, and landlord data exists in the form of the business license database managed by the city's

finance department, which holds limited information about uh about rental units, notably not including rental addresses under a license, rental amount, and importantly, whether or not there are student occupants in the unit. All this data could be featured in a rental registry. Should this resolution pass, it would constitute an official statement made on behalf of all Calpali students and would urge the city to establish a rental registry program and urge that such a program make a deliberate effort to not only identify student housing but track areas of a discrepancy for students living in St. Louis Abyspo, including but not limited to lease terms, rental increases, and substandard housing issues. This resolution would conclude that a problem cannot be diagnosed a problem that cannot be diagnosed cannot be addressed. And with an everchanging housing landscape in St. Louis Spispo and with rising rents, especially for students, a rental registry is the essential first step for comprehensive action both at the university and city level to address real student renter issues. I am grateful to live and go to school in a community with such an engaged and driven city council. I look forward to continuing to work with each of you to share the CowPoly student perspective and make life better for all renters in St. Louis Bispo. Thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you. After Rachel will be Jonathan Ayala, Graham Upgro, and Alan Utkin. Good evening, Mayor Stewart and council members. I'm Rachel Whan, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Slow Chamber of Commerce. We want to begin by acknowledging something we believe is important, that we share the city's commitment to ensuring that every resident of St. in Louis Abyspo, including those who rent, have access to safe, healthy housing, and understand their rights as tenants and landlords. That common ground matters as it reflects the spirit of partnership we value in our relationship with this council. That said, the chambers board of directors encourages the city not to move forward with developing a rental registry program at this time. We want to be transparent about why we've reached that position. First, the financial concern is significant. Implementing a rental registry program is estimated to cost several hundred,000. Those costs don't disappear, and they will likely be passed on to tenants to bear the consequence. In a city where housing affordability is already a pressing challenge, we are cautious about any policy that may inadvertently make renting more expensive for the very people we are trying to protect. Second, the value proposition of a registry remains unclear. We have not yet seen evidence that a registry program would meaningfully improve housing conditions beyond what thoughtful enforcement of existing tools could achieve. Before the city invests substantially in a new administrative uh in new administrative infrastructure, we believe it's important to demonstrate a clear and measurable benefit to residents. The chamber does support expanded

education around the business license process so that all rental property owners understand their obligations and participate appropriately. As we approach the upcoming update to our housing element, we strongly encourage the city to use that process as an opportunity to conduct a holistic comprehensive assessment of housing, one that examines rental conditions, the feasibility of a registry, and the state of our multifamily housing stock together. That integrated kind of approach will produce better outcomes than addressing these issues in isolation. The chamber remains a committed partner to the city in pursuing policies that grow our housing supply, protect residents, and keep slow a place where people can afford to live and thrive. We simply ask that new programs be grounded in demonstrated need, proportionate cost, clear benefit to our community, and considered in the broader context of our housing crisis and other significant priorities such as paying down the city's unfunded pension liability. Thank you for your consideration and for the work you do on behalf of our residents. Thank you. Wes. Um, my name is Jonathan Ayala and my husband and I are non- studentent renters and voters here in the city of Slow. We know that the racial disparities in home ownership rates in the state of California means that black and Latino people are much more likely to be renters. This means there is a racial justice dimension inherent to housing justice programs. Rent protections are just one component of housing justice and a rental registry is an important tool that the council can utilize to decide how we can best serve

our most vulnerable neighbors. I commend the city for taking the issue of a rental registry and tenants protection so seriously and I want to echo what my friends in the slow tenants union have already shared. We strongly support this council move forward uh with implementing a mandatory rental registry in a timely process. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

After Allan is Garrett Philin, Tyler Williamson, and Hodes. I'm Graham. I'm up to Grove. Uh a lot to unpack here. Um, I support safe and stable housing for all residents, whether renter or owner. U, I encourage staff and council to continue pursuing streamlined permitting and planning processes that allow more housing to be built across the board. That should kind of relieve some of this uh, pent-up supply constraint. Um, that being said, as far as a rental registry, I'm challenged to find the the benefit uh that a rental registry addresses. It doesn't. When I think of safe housing, I think of, you know, mold and broken windows and rodent infestation. This doesn't address any of that. It doesn't address rent. Um, it's just data collection. I heard that across the board. All of you want the data. I do think there is an opportunity or maybe even a missed opportunity to capture a lot of this data at a much lower cost without the unknowns. Um I a pre previous commenter talked about you know commercial appraisers have a lot of this data. It is already verified. Uh Co-Star is a paid subscription service that has a lot of this data and analytics. Now, you may not capture everything and it may be a point in time study, but you spend a fraction of what you're looking at spending here and you still can kind of uh aggregate that across the city. um you know, for for the amount of money we're talking about, I I would rather see those funds spent toward some type of mediation service or legal services that helps provide tenants the empowerment to understand what they're dealing with. I would rather see some of

those spent uh funds spent toward um educational flyers and that needs to go out annually, probably two to three times a year. It needs to go to tenants and it needs to go to landlords and that needs to talk about what are the basic health and safety standards that you know tenants can expect and some owners may not know there's an issue. Um and I'd rather see those those funds spent on bolstered code enforcement. I think there were 100 code enforcement cases on safe housing over the last two years. That's roughly 50 a year. I'm sure there's probably more out there. Uh, how can we create a better process for code enforcement to deal with the unsafe housing conditions in the city? Rental registry, I think, is is maybe putting the cart before the horse when we don't have policy of how we're going to utilize this data. I encourage you to continue discussion and um and maybe uh explore alternatives. Thank you.

Thank you. Can you read the names again? Alan Hutkin, uh, Garrett Filman, Tyler Williamson, and Anne Hodes. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Alan Hutkin. I'm a rental property owner here in San Bispo. I'm also an attorney whose firm represents property managers and owners of thousands of rental units across this county. Before you assume I'm here to protect landlord interest, consider this that I prosecuted this city's first slumlord case back in the 1990s based on a referral from Rob Brin. And I also most recently served as lead plaintiffs council on the slumlord case in Pasaroba's the Grand View case which we settled for over $4 million. So, I am care deeply about safe, affordable housing, and that is precisely why I'm here urging this council to pause tonight. This council is at least I've heard three different different goals, which is safe housing, providing providing housing, and making it affordable. And this registry does none of those. This market is already responding to make more affordable housing. Calpali is adding 3,500 to 4,000 additional beds on campus. The city's permitted thousands of units under the current housing unit or housing element cycle with 474 additional below market rates units. The people self people self-housing blowing the name has thank you has instituted a lot of new housing. We've got HLO's building a bunch of affordable units. So the court this not the court the city council should consider what it what the absorption of these additional housing units are going to provide. We've also got the California tenant protection act which is actually discouraging a lot of my owners and property managers from remaining into this business because it's so difficult to be a landlord these days. So, if we're going to layer additional issues on top of our registry um regulations on top of what's already there, it's going to discourage people from providing housing. And I will add additional point. I know

the mayor, you brought up the issue about whether this stuff is discoverable, and it is actually. If something goes to court and somebody makes a public records request, yes, the city can say it's confidential, but if it gets challenged in court, there's been court decisions where this information is disclosed. And then you add that on top of it to the fact of there's obviously data breaches we read about all the read read about all the time. So I think these are legitimate concerns that should be considered. And then I think the city has brought up or the report brought up a number of issues regarding what would be omitted, what would be dropped if we went forward with this. And I think a lot of those address affordable housing that the city should consider and decide is that more valuable than having a registry, which does not address any of the three goals that you've talked about. It doesn't make safe housing. It doesn't encourage affordable housing, and it doesn't encourage landlords to provide more housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Dear mayor and city council, I'm torn uh had a speech um and my parents are landlords. A lot of my good friends are landlords and um I hear some things from landlords tonight that are things that I can nod my head with. But there are also some things that are said that um feel kind of disingenuous in that element of fear that I think Carrie was talking about. Um so I just want to address a couple of those. Uh it's been talked about passing along costs to tenants as this big scary thing. Uh standalone rental registries are $25 to $50 per unit per year. um taking that $3,700 a month average rent and slow we're talking Okay, so that's $2 to $3 a month, it's less than a cup of coffee. Uh and also that's one 1,000th if we want to put it into numbers of their of their monthly rental income. So it's kind of like putting a beware of dog sign on the on somebody's u fence and then you open the door and it's like this little cute Chihuahua. It's like meant to scare and intimidate, but the real numbers, it's not big. Um, thinking of uh the previous speaker mentioned that the TPA applies um that we have those protections, but they don't apply to single family housing. And so that is what a majority of the units in slow are. And so that just does not apply to the majority of the renters here in Slow. Another speaker mentioned that they don't want empty units. Um and so you would think that they don't want to evict, but in places that have passed um tenant protections against evictions, they have seen a uh tenant

representation go from 2% up to sometimes 25% in New York City, for example, and then the eviction rates dropped by 50%. And what I believe it was Carrie said, um that her rent had been raised up to $1,200, I think it was, over seven years, 14. Um my mom has a rental unit that she rents out her and my dad below market and every time it came up for um a new tenant to come in, you know, they had some property managers come and look at it and say, "You should be charging more. Why aren't you charging more?" And my mom came to me and was like, "I feel stupid." And it's really challenging to have something that's a basic human right be looked at as something as just a way to make more money. And I understand you have to cover costs. I get it. Housing like fire insurance is going up, cost of labor, but 14 extra $100 a month, that's absurd. And I think to rely on some of the landlord arguments that say we are going to take tenants best interests in mind, not all of them. Not all of them. I agree with Graham on the element of doing some mediation and getting support, but I think we have to question some of the speakers genuiness in what they are saying and how good their hearts are.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Stewart and council members. My name is Tyler Williamson uh and I serve as the mayor of Monterey. Thank you for the opportunity to share um our experience as you consider a rental registry in St. Louis Abyispo. I want to focus first on the most important question, the why. In Monterey, roughly 66% of our residents are renters. Yet, prior to our registry, we did not have a complete reliable picture of our local rental market. We were making policy decisions without comprehensive local data. A rental registry at its core is about information. It is about understanding your housing stock so you can govern responsibly. Some have asked, isn't the data already available? The answer is no, not fully. Platforms like Zillow or Rent Cafe mainly capture units that are advertised online. Many small mom and pop units landlords never list their units publicly. Without a registry, those units simply don't show up in the data. If you're serious about informed policymaking, partial data is not enough. In our first year, we did require general fund support to launch the program. By year two, ongoing cost were aligned with program revenues. Our annual fee is $50 per unit, about $4.17 per month. When people argue that this will be meaningfully drive rent increases, that's simply not consistent with the rent fluctuations we see in the rent market. There were concerns about publishing rent information that neighbors might compare rates and create conflict. We heard that as well. Since implementation nearly three years ago, we have seen those concerns not materialize. There were also fears that a registry was a step toward rent control. After two years, our council has not broached that conversation. In fact, staff's early comparable data analysis suggests rent decreased compared to our first

year. One issue we are still working through and I share this candidly is data consistency. Some of our data sets are unit based, others are property based. When one property has multiple units, that can create mismatches. If you can if you move forward, be intentional from the beginning about how your data is set as aligned. We initially exempted landlords with three or fewer units. In year two, we require them to participate for completeness, but we did not require them to pay the fee. The balance allowed us to gather comprehensive data while being mindful of small operators. It's also worth noting that before the registry, Monterey also required landlords with 10 or more units to pay a business license fee. When we reviewed compliance, we discovered that about 50% weren't paying due to a lack of enforcement. We hired a code enforcement staff member to address that gap and that position paid for itself. That experience reinforced something important. Sometimes better systems and better data simply improve accountability. A registry is I will end there. Thank you so much.

Thank you. If you wouldn't mind, you've stayed so long. Can you just stay in case we have any other questions as we get into the deliberation conversation? Thank you so much. After Annne Hodgeges, our final four speakers are Tyler Corey, Joselyn Brennan, McGregor Lang, and Marcus Heicks. Hi, I'm Anne Hodes. My problem is is I don't know the problem you're trying to solve. I've dealt with registries in city of LA and it doesn't ask for tenants names, phone numbers. All it asks for is the type of the property. It asks whether the landlord pays the gas, water, and electric, and parking. So, it's registries are kind of like out there. What are you trying to solve? And will your registry do that? Do you still have the information? You know, do you have the information in house? Can you spend that money better elsewhere? You know, you have parks that need help. you have you landlord tenant, you know, a landlord tenant court or something would go a great ways. My daughter works at uh Paulie and her students are totally totally ignorant of what their rights are because nobody has taught them and their parents are probably homeowners. they get thrown into a an apartment and they don't know what their rights are. $150,000 instead of buying software to educating our our our citizens would go much farther on getting problems taken care of. And you know, this isn't just, you know, you have your 150, you said 150 to 300,000

for the software plus three positions. Are you getting any bang for your buck? You know, you talk about tracking evictions. What does that have to do with property conditions? Are you persecuting a tenant or are you persecuting a landlord? You know, there's you got to narrow your vision. What are you what's the problem you're trying to solve? Are you trying to produce a housing element? That's one thing. You don't need tenant names for that. But if you're trying to do rent control or uh database for better easier housing, those might have different criteria. And that's I think you're just boom boom boom. And people in the audience are boom boom boom because they think they're getting uh rent control or better landlord relations, you know, landlord tenant relations or maybe they're going to be taxed more. you know, they don't know. And I think the council needs to say our focus is this and this is what we're trying to accomplish and maybe it's not. You sound like you've gone down a rabbit hole on city ra on registry and you've lost all vision that you had. I'm up. Thank you. Thanks. Tyler if you press the button with a little person on it. Thank you so much.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Stewart, members of council, staff, and members of the community. and welcome to a city council meeting where we are exclusively talking about a rental registry as set forth by the city's financial plan and major goals. Uh I am a resident of the city of St. Louis Abyispo. I a recent graduate from Calpali um and I do other things in this community but tonight I'm here uh solely as an individual and not um as part of any other role that I may hold. I would like to do a few things in my brief time with you. I am going to try and retextual recontextualize this conversation. Uh we've heard an opposition that is uh framing this conversation in a what I would consider a neoliberal deregulatory way. Um and I'm going to talk a little bit about the stat the status quo and the reality on the ground and why uh this was incorporated into your major city goals. I'm going to briefly touch on my MPP thesis as it intersects with our conversation here this evening um and give a little look ahead into a future where together with all of us in this room and more people as well we're going to be build um a safer, healthier and more affordable community. First and foremost, we are here because there have been people coming to you for many years, even before my time in this community demanding that something be done about these rents that are completely out of control and conditions that are un unhabitable, unsafe, and insecure. Uh we are here because human beings, people who are not driven by profit motive, have come before you time and again, whether during these uh council meetings like this one, out in the public, via social media, um through all channels and and and through all animals of history. Uh we are also here because this is something that was uh brought before you all um to be considered as part of the major city goal process. As I mentioned before, uh my own graduate research was

constrained uh uh in which I studied 35 LA county cities um and their rental protection regimes. It was constrained by the fact that there is um a gap in the data that a registry like this would fulfill. Um, I found that variation in implementation and enforcement, not just po policy text on paper, is what separates effective tenor protections regimes from ineffective ones. Finally, our way forward. We are not going to get out of this crisis merely by establishing a rental registry. doing some of the things like were mentioned before including establishing a smoke smoking free multif family um housing policy among many other things are going to be paramount to uh the future of our community as well as building more truly affordable multif family housing. The tenants union will not be going away after this meeting. We will come back and we will be demanding things just like that again and again with our allies and with other people in the community. Yes, we are going to come back and ask for more housing to be built as well. So you can look forward to that. Thank you for your time again. We will be back.

Thank you.

Uh hello, my name is McGregor Lang and I'm speaking on behalf of Laura Alers's executive director slow climate coalition and renter and resident of slow of St. Louis Abyispo. Good evening, mayor and council members. I had planned to attend tonight's council meeting, but I'm unable to now. I'm writing in support of developing a rental registry and rental inventory system, although I know that the time to have comments added is passed. The city's climate action plan makes it clear that reducing building emissions and improving energy efficiency are essential to meeting our community's climate goals. But we cannot effectively reduce emissions from residential buildings if we don't understand our rental housing stock, who is living in it, what condition it's in, and where energy burdens are highest. Housing justice and climate justice are inseparable. Renters often have the least control over the efficiency, electrification, and resiliency of their homes that they live in. Yet they pay the utility bills and experience the impacts of poor insulation, aging appliances, and rising costs. For Slow Climate Coalition, a rental registry would allow us to better target our home energy advising program so that public resources reach renters and property owners who need support to lower use and utility bills. Good climate policy requires good data. And speaking personally, I rent a 500 foot studio in this city and I can barely afford it. I am well educated, employed full-time, professionally connected, white, and I carry many additional privileges. If housing feels financially precarious for someone like me, it is far more fragile for many others. A rental registry is about transparency, informed policy, and aligning our housing systems with our climate commitments. Slow climate coalition stands ready to partner with

the city landlords and tenants to ensure this tool strengthens both housing stability and climate resilience for our community. Laura Alers, executive director, slow climate coalition, renter and resident of San Louis Abyspo. Thank you. Thank you.

Our final two speakers are Jocelyn Brennan and Marcus Hicks. Good evening, Mayor Stewart and council members. I know it's getting late. Thank you for your patience. I'm Jocelyn Brennan. I'm the government affairs director for the St. Louis Coastal uh Association of Realtors as well as the Pismo Coast Association of Realtors. And I mention both those associations because they all do business in St. Louis Abyspo. And I just want to recognize uh many of them were here tonight in purple in our looks like Marty GR necklaces, but that's not exactly what they are for. Uh, and I they've been villainized a little bit tonight. So, I just want to say that they've made a career out of putting people in homes and they are industry professionals that uh, their passion is to work with people seeking housing and they do that every day um, with renters, with people who own rental properties, managing those rentals, managing complaints, and eventually uh, trying to help people into home ownership. So, I just want to acknowledge that they are here because they care. Uh we all share the same goal of safe, well-maintained housing. Uh realtors support that effort. Uh we support smoke-free multif family. Uh we support mediation. We support practical solutions that help tenants and properties owners resolve issues. Uh we do a lot of education. Our California State Association does a lot of education and we're happy to help do that here in St. Louis Abyspo. I want to say a big thank you to David and the rest of the staff who uh met with us many times and met with the property owners as well. Uh the real estate industry had over 20 meetings with uh tenants, with property managers, um with home seekers and uh with our colleagues. And these conversations were very valuable. We learned a lot and I'll go into that in a moment. But after all those meetings and truly listening and sitting here for quite a bit tonight, uh

we're still wondering why a rental registry. And I think that we're all having a hard time um identifying what the motivation is and what specific problem that we are solving for. Uh because the real estate industry wants to help be part of a solution in an effective way, but we cannot do that unless we have it defined. So through these conversations, we've learned something important. U of the roughly 8,000 uh professionally managed units. Uh we spoke with all of those larger property management companies and we did not include the nonprofits. I know that was asked earlier and and that did not include the smaller mom and pops. These are the larger professionally managed uh companies. Some of them ask their owners to get they all ask their owners to get a business license. some of them require them to get a business license. And so that's a big difference. So you have a lot of those 8,000 units that do not have a business license and we could help you work on that. Uh if the objective is data collection, there are much lower cost ways. I work in housing every day and there are several tools that I use and I can just about get any question I want answered. Uh and you can go into the county tax rules. You can download an Excel file with all the nonowner occupied units in the city and notify them of getting a business license. Thank you.

Thank you. Last but not least, it. Press the button. Thank you. There you go.

Um, hello, mayor. Hello, council. Thank you, uh, to the community for coming out. Uh, I appreciate hearing everyone's perspective on this issue. Um, I'm here, uh, as a member of the community who's grown up here. Um, a lot of people have asked, uh, why is this rental registry being considered? Uh, what benefit would it achieve? I think many of the speakers have enlightened uh, some of the issues that many tenants and uh, individuals are facing. And I believe there's a real issue of a lack of information, a lack of data that we would like to see collected. If that could be done in partnership as a part of a mandatory rental registry, I would like to advocate for that. Um I I would like to say also that the current system is broken. Uh it's clear that many people are being left behind. Um tenants fear retaliation. Um there's been a lot of talk about reporting, but a lot of people don't feel comfortable uh coming to council or to the official channels to to make their stories known. Um wages wages as we know do not increase 5% each year. Um p many people here are living paycheck to paycheck and have a real difficulty uh with cost of living. Um there was someone that mentioned indifference from KPOLI students as we can see by the individual that came representing the student body. Uh there is clear uh concern from the student body and uh our students and university u members about the cost of living um from those students. Uh currently as it stands, I believe we're kind of flying blind in some ways. Uh it's like we're on a plane, but we don't have all of our instruments up. So I would like to uh encourage the city council uh to adopt this mandatory rental registry in order to gather more information as we've heard from the mayor of uh Mora Bay. It has not led in two years to rent control. Has not led to that. It has also uh paid for itself or been sustainable in the way that he was talking about the financing. Uh so it's clear that there is a model uh there that uh is working and it's possible for that to work in St. Louis Abyspo as well. Uh I would like to thank the property owners, property managers and small operators for being here and uh

presenting their perspective. I think this this is a great opportunity to invite them in and have more conversation amongst everyone uh to come to a good resolution on this issue. Um I understand some of their concerns uh however I believe hopefully we have addressed some of those uh tonight. Um, I think we need to ask ourselves, do we see housing as an investment or do we see it as a need for people? Uh, right, it's at the bottom of Maslo's hierarchy of needs. Uh, everyone here needs a roof over their heads. It's very much in line with the city's goals on hous on homelessness and also the city's goal on housing. Uh, that's why I would urge you uh to uh quickly pass a uh mandatory rental registry. Uh, every month that we wait, more people are being pushed out of the area. I have a friend who unfortunately is having to move to Seattle. he lost his job in tech due to AI and he wasn't able to stay. Uh he's he was dealt with a lot of issues with his housing. So I want to thank you for being here. Thank you for your time and um thank you very much.

Thank you. Well, I first just want to say thank you to everyone who spoke today. Um I also want to say thank you to the um hundreds of people who have written us emails, social media messages, texts, um stopped us and talked to us everywhere in the community. And uh I truly mean that this is this is part of our job, our role, and it's why we've taken this job is we want to um help our community be able to have a voice no matter what uh position you're in, what level of power or leadership you have or you don't. Uh we want you to be able to share your share your input. So, thank you for that. Um there are so many things that um were said today that I think we may have some answers for, but I think that's a lot of it is also kind of why we're here today. Today we are here I I know I said it in the beginning, but I I will remind us all um it's a study session. So, one of the most awkward parts about a public public meeting like this is it's not like a conversation you have over the dinner table or over the coffee table or adult beverage table. Um, it is it's not where we get to have that easy conversation back and forth. And so, some of the wise and hows that have been said before um today you're kind of coming in on page 83 and maybe feeling a little bit like where is this coming from? So, one of the things is this is a a very long conversation we've been having about how do we help our community live like literally have a place to live, have a place to live within their means uh financially and that means um expanding the ladder of housing that is here that is um the very low to the low to the m middle to the working workforce to um and and beyond. So the other parts of this has been conversations around yes code enforcement but even before you get to

that code enforcement case um the safe and healthy housing that we do and do not have. Um, we also were talking about the fact that we don't have the data and one of the reasons we wanted to have this rental registry conversation is that the data just add a few more questions unfortunately isn't as easy as we wished and so we wanted to be able to kind of share what we can do and what we still have questions about. So I thank many people for for provid providing solutions of um other options that we might include in this conversation. So I just wanted to kind of start with that. Um, I wanted to ask staff if they have any updates to anything they heard from the public comments of over 96 minutes. Um, I'm seeing shaking heads of no. All right, perfect. So then I'll bring it back to council for either questions or deliberation. Uh, Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you so much, Mayor. Um, if it's okay, I would love to ask a follow-up question to Mayor Williamson while we have him here, if you're willing. Mayor Williamson. Not the mayor. Not the mayor of I'll take it. It's okay. Coming all the way down from your fair city of Monterey. It's all central coastes. So Monterey Mayor Tyler Williamson also has rent control and we'll be sharing some answers. Or not rent control, but a rental registry. Sorry. Rent registry. Not rent control. Just to be so sorry. I don't want tomatoes thrown at me today.

I know. Not rent control. Just a rental registry. Thank you so much for driving all this way and for taking time with us tonight. Um, in some of my meetings with the Realtor Association with some other folks, uh, members who had attended the League of Women Voters uh, webinar that you were a participant in were incredibly complimentary of how you talked about your city's outreach um, program and how you engaged the public in the process. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what that process looked like and how long you spent on it. Just for context, we're um this was all established as part of our budget setting um in our last budget cycle. And so we're kind of as the mayor said maybe on page 86 here, but kind of looking at how many more pages do we need to write in this book in order to do it as effectively as Monterey did.

Absolutely. Um, I think it's important to recognize that this is one of those issues that it's like people have their position on. Um, and you might have some folks in the middle that that might be convinced one way or another, but it's uh, as you can see, it's it's it's a heated topic. And so, um, the approach that we took was we had a lot of council meetings on on it. Um, and there was uh a phase where we weren't going to move forward with anything and then the council makeup changed and and so there was deeper appetite there to have that discussion. So there were several council meetings and then in the end um what we agreed to with staff was to host a town hall and um and it was that one town hall that was outside of the chambers. Um it was it was at our conference center and open it up to everybody. we did an activity with the community um and and really that was it as as it relates to like in-person meetings. Um as it relates to the implementation um you know staff did mailers to every household um just to make sure that the word was getting out there that hey this tool is is available, it's out there. Um, so particularly for the renters that maybe had concerns around maybe some of the information not being accurate or or appropriately reported, um, that provided an opportunity for folks to be able to share share that information with the city.

And if I may just ask one followup, um, curious a little bit about, uh, how, you know, obviously before new programs put in place, there's a lot of trepidation um, from people who are for it, against it, all of the different things. Just a lot of questions out there. I'm wondering how the tone and and tenor has changed in your community around this now that you've had it in place for a couple of years.

Absolutely. Um I mean obviously this is a little bit political so I I I will enter the politics into the conversation and say that um you know as mayor my term is two years. Um, so we implemented this um before my reelection um in 2024 and the the my competitor ran on uh the fact that we implemented the rental registry and um and obviously I was successful in getting reelected. um and and and and and I I I say that maybe a little bit to be funny, but truly um I I don't think there's the concern that exists there. And and I think it's very similar what we heard tonight. It was very similar to what we saw in the city of Monterey. Um there's um generally speaking a coalition of um realators, property management companies, um landlords that um are generally against it. Um and I think that those concerns are well heard and and I will make a little bit of an asterk to my point and say we were intentional around listening to those concerns and try to address those and what we implemented. Um, so it wasn't just like a, you know, full steam ahead and we're just going to do whatever we want to do. It was really an opportunity to listen to everybody. Um, but obviously in the end we we chose to to to implement and um I think the voters residents um supported that because um they they supported um the the candidates that were running um to to continue in office. And forgive me, my questions have been sort of processoriented and I haven't really asked about sort of um outcomes yet and I've been really deep in your your staff report. So I feel like I have been kind of following how that has gone for you. But if you wouldn't mind um after having this in place for a couple of years, what are some of the outcomes that you're seeing? Uh do you feel like you're getting information that you

didn't have before? Are you happy with the fact that it's in place? Yeah. So, I spoke about earlier my biggest concern and fr frustration with the process has been some of the mismatched data and now that I have a little bit more unrestricted time here, um they we're using census data and I believe it was the census data that based off of the property as opposed to the unit. And then our registry is collecting data based off of the unit. So, when we're trying to compare that data, it's it's it's pretty challenging. Um and so, how do you get around that? I don't know. We're still kind of working through that that piece. Um but yeah, um the other thing I would say is our first our second year is ending in April. So I believe next month or or in April, we're going to be having a council meeting um because we have an annual presentation on on the data and and what that data shows. So it'll be our first time actually having comparable data. Um so we haven't really got to that point yet, but obviously here in in the next few months, we'll be we'll be having that discussion. And I think it's an important thing for you all to just kind of stay attuned to.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I have questions for you, too. Pretty pleased. Thank you. Um, so thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate that was some of my questions as well. And, um, kind of going back to the data. Um, you know, a lot of people have been asking what's the data do? And, you know, we're hearing about safe and um, sorry, public health and safety issues. I always mix those two up. um as well as kind of code enforcement issues which what does that have to do with the data? Have you do you have any answers for that in Monterey at this time?

I mean I have my own personal feelings about it but um I think as a way to try to keep the conversation somewhat simple because we kept hearing this tonight too which is like what's the purpose? Like why do this? Um and and I try to keep the conversation focused solely around the idea of information is power. Um, and so I know that sounds pretty simplistic and it doesn't sound like it's going to get to an end, but there's a lot of things that this data could be used for. And one of the things that actually I found to be interesting tonight was um, staff presenting on the idea of utilizing that data as it relates to your housing element. Um, and then the idea of kind of merging this information with business license fee requirements. And so there's there's a lot of of potential there. Obviously, health and safety and enforcement. I mean, you know, canvasing in Monterey. Um, by the way, Monterey, first city in California. So, um, excited had to stick that out there for you.

We're the 16.

Um, uh, so there's a lot of, um, dilapidated homes in Monterey, and I actually almost fell through a set of stairs when canvasing one year. And, and the problem is, and a lot of the speakers um, here spoke about it tonight, that renters are in fear of retaliation, so they don't really come forward. Obviously, this is um a vexing issue, right? Like, do you hold the individual responsible to say something even though it might be uncomfortable? So, I I I don't have that answer for you all, but um I think at the end of the day, it's about making sure that our community is safe. I I I'll give one more example. Um, we've had uh during Fourth of July one year, I had a military spouse come up to me and she had her baby in her arms and she said, "We have mold growing in our house. My baby's been to the hospital three times. I've complained to the landlord. They've done nothing." um you know there's this enforcement piece that I think um in as much as that might create concern around increased rent right which is a valid concern as it relates to having enforcing landlords to keep adequate housing I'm sure you have tenants that are like no don't say anything about the crack in my window or whatever it might be because I'm I'm paying lower rents um I can't as mayor say that it's okay for our residents to live in inadequate housing So, um, I I think we have a a moral obligation to be able to address some of those concerns.

So, it sounds like you don't quite have enough years yet of the data to be able to really give us that next step of what what's happening in Monterey with what do you do with that data. That's correct. That's correct. But fortunately, we're on Cal City's board together, so I can uh I can keep you posted. Perfect. I appreciate that. One last question. Um, there's been some conversation around names. Obviously, you heard tonight. Um, how are you working with the private data and and the concerns people have around privacy and their information?

Yeah, so we had a deep conversation about it, which I imagine you all will as well with your city attorney. Um, and we established that there was clear legal grounds to keep certain information private. Um, but it allowed us to make sure that we were being able to enforce the the registry. So there's some information that maintains privacy, but we have a publicly available system. So anybody can go online and look at the data that's publicly available.

And then I know I said one last question, but I really do have one last question. So you've heard us talk about the business tax license and or business license and um why not use that data um and why not just expand that process? What made you choose a rental registry and something like TLM like we are looking at versus expanding your business license process?

Yeah, so it it really just came down to the amount of data that we were collecting. So that was kind of how our conversation started was staff gave us a report and it was like you know 10 units or more you you paid the uh the business license fee. So there was even conversation around just lowering that to three um or maybe requiring it for all and and in the end it was like well it just makes sense to implement the system and and to staff's point that they shared earlier it's like it's easy to pull the data and like interpret it in different ways by just implementing the system. Perfect. Thank you so much for your help. Council Shoresman,

I just have one. I've been curious ever since I saw it in your policies and procedures about this about the um excusing of the fee for three and under. How did you come to that number? Maybe kind of a detail question, but why not two, why not one, why not four? Like how did you get to that?

Yeah, there that's an interesting question. I think a council member threw it out and it just kind of stuck, you know? Uh um uh but yeah, just to kind of uh re reiterate a little bit too um the the idea was and and and in fact staff told us at the beginning what you want to do if you're going to do this is um go as big as possible because then you can scale back if you need to. Um but we didn't have the votes for that on the council. And so what we did was say, hey, we're going to create an exemption for mom and pop shops. And what that did was they were still required to um register, if you will, but they were registering for an exemption. So they weren't providing all the information. So we were still collecting some level of data on on those units. Um and then going into year two when we had the presentation about the data from the first year, um the votes changed. There was a council member that decided it was it was worth collecting all that data, but we kept the exemption for the payment. So, they don't pay the fee now. Um, but they have to provide all the data.

Okay. Thank you. That's super helpful. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for coming all the way from Monterey. We really appreciate it. We know it's late. St. Elizabeth's beautiful, but you know, I have an affinity for Monterey. So,

um, I don't see any other questions at this moment. We're going to do a quick fivem minute break and then we'll be right back. Well, hello everybody. Thank you so much for the quickish break. Uh we have heard a lot of um very helpful information from staff, from community members for and against and um again today we are not making a decision of anything necessarily. We are purely giving guidance on to the next steps of what happens. So we're not voting on an ordinance. We're not u making rental reg can you just thank you rental registry uh happening tomorrow uh but we are having that conversation so um with that I asked for the focus questions to come up here to the screen so thank you very much for that is there interest in moving forward with the registry just as a whole if so what option warrants further study or consideration and is there additional data or analysis that would be beneficial to to determine next steps So um at this oh we have one more so sorry and if there is interest in moving forward what is the timing ah what is the timing and the next steps thank you so with that um I don't know if we want to take it all together or if we want to have any of these issues separated. Um to me it seems like we could just probably just do each of us answer all the questions at once and then if we want to come back to it then that works. Sound good? All right. So, I'll open it up to my colleagues. Who would like to go first?

Who wants to go first? But, uh, looks like there's a little bit of a block here. All right, Vice Mayor,

I will, uh, try and get us going here. Um, so I wrote out some thoughts because I I actually had to do quite a bit of research in preparation for this. You know, I've been a renter. I've been a landlord. I'm not currently a renter, but um when I moved to this city, you know, we spent a long time looking for housing and were pretty shocked by the state of a lot of the housing in town. And then in 2022, um I knocked on thousands of doors and um saw some pretty shocking conditions across the the city. And what I heard unequivocally from all of the renters that I I talked to was that what they wanted to see first and foremost, and this is probably the most common feedback I got was that they wanted to see the city do something to help address the the conditions that they were seeing on the ground. Um, and honestly, I really have not felt comfortable pushing any specific policies so far. And the reason for that is I don't feel like I have the the data to understand the the landscape or the trends in our housing inventory. What are we actually dealing with? So the thing that really has hung me up about the rental registry is that you know I am really wary about creating another bureaucratic hurdle. Um I don't want to make it harder in a housing market that's already constrained. I really, you know, we are a pro-ousing community. I am deeply proud of being a pro-ousing community. So, I did what I always do when I'm uncertain. I dug into the research and I looked at examples from all across California and all across our country. And I read perspectives and studies from planners. I read our beautiful staff report as an awesome launching point. And I actually came away pretty surprised by what I found because I actually had a lot of the questions too. What can a rental registry actually help us do? Um, so as

somebody that believes that housing is a human right, I believe that building more housing, both market rate and affordable, is essential if we're serious about addressing affordability and homelessness. And I was actually struck that many of the strongest uh proousing advocates from, you know, Matthew Desmond to Jerusalem Demsus also support rental registries. Um, the National League of Cities writes that rental registries are key tools for understanding a city's housing landscape and a strong foundation upon which programs aimed at safeguarding people living in rental housing are built. These are just a few of the many examples of folks who are out there calling for rental registries because you can't manage what you don't measure. Because at its core, a rental registry is a data tool. It tells us how many units we actually have, what types they are, where they're located, how many bedrooms they contain, who owns them. It allows us to track changes in our housing stock over time, understand patterns in ownership, a question I have so many questions about. Who actually owns the houses in our community, including absentee ownership, which is something we're going to have a hearing on in in May coming up, some of our issues with code enforcement. So, right now we're making a lot of our most consequential housing decisions without a complete picture of the rental side of the market. And I don't think that's really good governance. It's just kind of guessing. So, I I've heard, you know, folks talking about um you know, there's not that many cities in in California that do this, but there are quite a few cities across the the country that are, you know, and in in California, we have Davis, we have Fresno, we have Selenus, we have Monterey, um we have Boulder and Fort Collins and Grand Rapids that are similarized cities outside of um outside of California. These fees that are put in place um are often pretty modest. Uh many cities assess something in the range of $50 to

$100 which is as we heard like $4 to $8 per month. Um and what this can do is really help us uh improve accountability and communication. So, I really think that this is a practical and powerful tool to give uh us the ability to send out mass emails in emerging issues, uh changes in law available in rental assistance, um helping to get disaster information out, public health guidance. These are things that uh rental registry would also assist us with beyond just the data collection. And finally, I I really think that Monterey has offered us a pretty compelling model. um they have not just put their rental registry in place, but one of the things that they did was they paired it with um a uh really robust uh rental assistance program. And so they targeted rental assistance to folks who needed it most and have used their rental registry data to kind of help figure out where those needs were. That's not something we're talking about tonight, but I would really like us to explore as we get more data and start to understand the rental landscape, what are the tools that might be most effective in um helping us help the folks who need the most assistance in our community. A registry once it's enacted can become a tool that we modify and adjust to meet emerging needs in our community. So coming around to the focused questions that we have. My goal in establishing a rental registry is to create a reliable comprehensive data foundation so that we can design smarter housing policy. Um I wanted to address gaps in our information, improve accountability, uh help with communication and support enforcement of our existing laws. Uh and then hopefully enable targeted rental assistance down the line to better understand ownership patterns as well and displacement

pressures. Um, I really want to see us focus on the option number three, which uh is our full and robust uh rental registry. I think it's kind of an all or nothing really. Like if we go any halfway measures, we're not going to get the information that we want. So, I would like to see us do the uh the full option. Um additional data or analysis. Uh, I really think we need to finish conducting an outreach process. I love the idea of a town hall is kind of our next step. Bringing in the community, having an organic conversation around this. Um, and if we're during that process learning more about other options, other tools, folks are offering all sorts of uh cool ideas out here. I think it's worth exploring those and making sure that we're not missing anything as part of that process. Um, and finally, is it timing? Is that our last one for focus questions? Okay. Yeah, the bulleted list that you provided us of the existing work plan items, those are incredibly important. There's not one on there that I want to to kick to the side, but we did just set aside some money with the intended purpose of hopefully being able to get some stuff moving. And so I would love to, as we talked about earlier, bring on a consultant to help kind of ceue up the next steps, particularly community engagement and program design. Um, I know that there needs to be a little bit of research to figure out what that looks like, but I think that we need to get this ball rolling as soon as possible. And, um, I think that that's our obvious next step. So, I'd love to see that happen.

All right, I think that pretty much sums up.

I think so. Thank you so much, Council Member Boswell. Uh thank you. Uh first uh uh he's left but I just wanted to thank Mayor Williamson for uh coming up to our meeting. That's uh wonderful. We'll have to figure out a way to pay that forward. So um uh Vice Mayor Francis, just to add another expert, Shane Phillips of the Lewis Center at UCLA, who I believe is speaking at the state of the downtown next week, uh is really one of our top experts uh on housing in California. also supports the use of rental registries and data collection to assist local governments in making better decisions. Um yeah um the question of why rental registry I still feels still a little backwards for me. Um, I'm a little agnostic as to what the thing actually is or what we call it, but I kind of know what I want to do. And if the best way to do that is something that looks like or is called a rental registry, then fine. If there's some other way to accomplish the same things, then uh that Oh, he's still here. Thank you. Uh, then um I'm happy to do that as well. So, let me just mention um a few things. Uh, first of all, um, I I'm I'm not I've not been convinced of any any arguments about the cost of this. And, uh, if you pay attention to anything I talk about on council, I talk about co cost a lot, and I'm often worried about cost. Uh, but here, I'm not so much. Uh, why is that? Well, this is, uh, we're talking about 60% of our community. We have $17 million general fund budget. I think we can spend $300,000 a year on 60% of our community. Um, and if we decide we need to offset some of the costs with a with a fee, which we don't have to do, by the way,

we can make it free. Um, but if we decided to do that, um, certainly some of the costs we've seen that in the more comparable communities and the things that we want to do, uh, would be insignificant in the overall cost of housing. Uh, you know, part of trying to figure out what to do tonight, part of the challenge was there was data I wanted that we didn't we don't have and I'm saying our like it's even hard to make this decision because I don't have the data. Um, I spent a lot of time really trying to figure out the ACS and the Zeil data. Um, which is both problematic in terms of actually understanding what our average rents um in this community. Uh we know we know Zilo is not tracking everything. We know a lot of people don't uh put their information don't put their listings there. And we know the ACS is problematic uh for a variety of reasons. Um if if people that are in rent cap units report their rent, but that's not what we're trying to figure out. We know what that is. Um, and I'm pretty sure I've seen indication that the question in the ACS survey gets misered a lot of times because people think it's asking about how much they pay rent, not what is the rent on the unit they're in. So, we know ACS and Zilo data is not very good for really letting us understand the cost of housing um, in our community. I also did some rough calculations and it was interesting to hear one of the public comments but according to ACS ACS data uh in the city u the average annual rent increase since 2016 was 5%. Which as we know is the maximum allowed uh only 3.1% last year and 3.8 according to Zilo. Uh but again um maybe that's good information and maybe it's not. So that's part of our problem. So some things I want um I certainly

there's some data we need to have. I I figure core things that are absolute musts are things like um well the number of units uh the actual cost of rent and ideally by different unit types um the location of rentals and I'll say more about that in just a moment uh would be another important one and that's probably at a minimum that we can know. There's a list in the staff report and others have been mentioned. There's a lot of research out there we can look at on other things that can be collected. Uh but as I've said at the previous meeting, every single piece of data we decide to collect, we ought to have a clear justification for why we need it and how it will be used. And if we don't need it and we don't know how to be used, we don't collect it. Um the uh uh second thing people keep asking why do you want to know all this information? Uh I'm this is a short list. Uh I have a much longer list but I'm going to go through a few things. I do want to know what's the average rent in the city by type and location. What is the actual affordability gap uh and the percent of renters who are cost burdened? Because if we don't actually have good data from ACS then we don't know the answer to this question. And with stu, we know the way that data is collected on students in the ACS can really kind of confuse things because they're often shown as having zero income, but that's not actually the case. Um although when I was a student, it was pretty close to the case, but um I I want to know how many and what kind of units are being converted to rental housing and from rental housing in the city. I want to know how many how much of our rental demand is now being met by ADUs. Uh I want to know what we know about the differences between college versus non-ol student renters and their rental

experiences. My rough estimate is uh based on again incomplete data uh is that about half the renters in the city are students and half are non- studentents. Um I want to know the spatial distribution uh uh rental rates and characteristics of single family residential conversions that are now effectively operating as many mini dorms in city of San Louis Bispo and that's uh Berkeley actually officially city of Berkeley officially calls them categorizes them and regulates them as many dorms that's their term so I took that uh what parts of the city have in effect been upzzoned through increased occupancy and conversion particularly of these R1 neighborhoods. Um I have many more questions. I'm a professor, sorry. Uh I have a lot of questions. Um but those are just some examples. Um I'm I'm open. We we've heard some suggestions that we could get this kind of information and data through other means. Great. I'm very open to that. Um maybe through self-reporting. Uh we've heard um I think I heard the property owners um offer to be cooperative and self-reporting, maybe through data scraping, property assessors and water bills. I was just looking at a paper about how utility data can be used to estimate a whole lot of things about the occupancy of uh units. um a professional samplebased survey of the city, that could all be information. Um but again, um if if if there's some other way, great. And if there's not, if the rental registry is the right way and the most cost-effective way, then that's uh what I would be supporting. Um I am interested in the potential for

a required checklist uh submitt. So I'm kind of curious what that might look like. Um, I'm curious about what it might mean in terms of empowering um, uh, both potentially landlords and tenants. Um, and there's been a lot of talk about more education. Well, that's what I always hear about, and I'm an educator, so I like more education, but it's always like, we just need to educate more people. Well, why are we doing that now? There's nothing stopping anyone. uh tenants union, the realtors, the property owners association. Uh we could certainly do education. Uh but in my world, uh when you get educated, you're also held accountab account accountable for that education. And so, you know, if we're going to say education is the answer, where's the accountability for that education? I want to see the outcome metrics. I want to see that that that education worked. Uh that it served its purpose, not just that we did it. Oh, we've sent a bunch of flyers. Great. What did those flyers do? What was the outcome of those flyers? Uh do we see uh uh any change in our community? So education has to be paired uh has to be paired with metrics. So again, I'm open to ideas around there. And I have one other idea, but I'm going to hold that uh till a little bit later. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Shoresman. Uh, thank you, Vice Mayor Francis and Council Member Boswell. Uh, you all brought up some really valid and important points and so did all of the speakers that were here tonight. There were some common messages that we heard, but some uh different things coming um from different people. Uh there was one thing that was clear is there's a lot of passion in the room about this topic and uh one thing that I definitely heard throughout of you know all the different types of folks in the room were uh a desire for sta safe safe stable housing for everybody. I heard that pretty uniformly from a lot of the speakers. We all care about the folks that are living in our neighbor uh neighborhoods um next door to us and and are um everybody that's in our community. We want everybody to have safe, stable housing. I'm I'm going to go back to how we got here to this study session just for a a second because we are having this study session because it was identified as something that we wanted to do as part of our two-year financial planning process where we established our major city goals. and we talked about rental registry and safe and stable housing and uh security and safety measures on uh people on rentals and we talked about all this kind of stuff sort of um interrelated to each other and and staff has kind of divided this out tonight and for for great reasons. Um, I'm going to be honest. I thought coming into this that we were going to talk a little bit more about how this could get us safe and stable housing. And as some of our our commenters have noted, I've come to realize that this really the the rental registry alone is not how we're going to

get sta safe and stable housing. It's going to give us really important data if we move forward with it. Um, and it will help answer that question. Well, the real question of, you know, how what's what's the point of this that I heard many people ask is, you know, why do we need it? Well, we need it because we don't have data on a lot of these things and it's really hard to make good policy decisions without data. Um, it doesn't uh it doesn't stop us from having to do the other things. uh namely we need to continue to move forward as a pro-ousing city trying to just create policies that help us build more housing because rental protections are not the way to get more housing in our community. More housing is going to help sort of help uh defer some of the other problems that uh that we hear about anecdotally from all of our community members that have talked to us throughout this process. Um I think going to the study questions. Um in our packet, one of the questions was um what is the goal of establishing a reg a registry? Um and should we move forward with a registry? I think clearly it's getting data. It's not creating safe housing. It's not um uh stopping rents from going up. I it's it's getting the data to help us make better policy going forward about zoning changes or uh housing element changes or where we need to put uh housing in the community and what types of housing need to go there. So I I think that that that is important enough to to take this process to the next step of the rental registry options. Uh I I

think I kind of tend to agree with the vice mayor. I don't I I as much as I like the idea of a voluntary registry, I I just don't see it being super effective at getting what we need, which is the the complete data. I would love to have a carrots and sticks approach um to this and I'm open to ideas on how we can do that. You know, I I love the ideas from Monterey about, you know, taking away the fees for the uh property owners that have a certain number or under. You know, make it make it let's make it easy for them and let's not make it prohibitive to um to to stay a landlord. We don't want to lose housing in this situation. We want to support the the small uh owners who are using this as their investment income or their I'm sorry, their retirement income. Uh, and so I I would be supportive of of something like that, but I just and I just don't see that we have the capacity to update our business license system alone. I think we would benefit from having all of the aspects of a program or a software system that really the software system isn't the big expense. 10 to $50,000 a year is not a lot of money. It's really the staff that it takes to operate and I think it would be a big a much bigger lift to try and revamp our existing system and it would put the wrong people too in charge of the system. Our business license system is managed by our finance staff and our housing programs are managed mostly in our community development. So while I know they work together very well, it it takes the responsibility and puts it in the wrong spot. So, uh, I would be probably I see the only way that it really working is through a mandatory system. Um, are there additional data and analysis that would be beneficial to

council in order to determine next steps? I love the laundry list um by our professor over there. He had some really great suggestions that uh he threw out that I would love to see. And uh a couple of things that I wrote down were just more concrete information on costs and the revenue neutrality of the system. I think uh our staff mentioned that they would need to do a little better, more detailed cost analysis of how we could make this costneutral. I I disagree with the idea of trying to fund it um completely ourselves and make it free just because we're looking at budget reductions in the next, you know, we've we're going to have to cut somewhere else if we give this system away for free indefinitely. I would be okay with considering a a tiered approach to that uh and incentivizing adding yourself to the registry at first or something. But I would really want to see how we implement this come out of discussions with the community. What do they want to see in the registry? How would they how would it be least impactful to property owners? Uh, as far as an implementation pathway, um, should we re-evaluate and postpone the work plan items in the current 2527 financial plan to accommodate implementation of a rental registry. Uh, you know, we we spent a lot of time and energy and a lot of community feedback uh, in developing our 2527 financial plan. So, while I completely recognize the importance of getting data, more data soon, I there's a lot of things on our list already that I'm we told the community that we were going to do. And I feel like it's not really fair

to move forward with something uh without going back to the drawing board and maybe doing this at in in conjunction with the 2729 financial plan. I'm not a big fan of changing course um mid uh midstream in the middle of the financial plan. I'm also not super interested in dedicating or directing staff right now to set aside any of the funding that we talked about saving last uh meeting specifically for this because I'd really like to see what comes out of the May study session on safe housing. Uh, I just think it would be irresponsible to and putting the cart before the horse a little bit by making a decision right now and directing staff to put money into this until we've had a chance to have that discussion and weigh if there's something else in that study session that that warrants funding. So I guess that my answer to number to the last question is should should staff develop future work program items for the 2729 financial plan uh to implement a rental registry. I guess that's where I lean the most rather than setting some things aside. All those things that you mentioned that we would have to choose from are all really important things that the community is really looking for us to do or that we know we need to do. And so I'm hesitant to do that, but would would welcome ideas for work plan items in the next financial plan. And I'll leave it there for now.

Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Thank you. And thank you everyone for your um uh your comments. Really incredible. Um I I want to quote the uh the mayor of Mterrey saying that uh information is power and um I'm going to couple that with uh a question. What is the value of ignorance? All right. So right now we are operating under what I'm going to call the cloak of ignorance about our housing stock about the rental the rental housing stock. Um, and I I feel strongly that we we need to have more information and more data so that we can make responsible policy decisions that are based in fact, not um, uh, on supposition or guessing is what uh, what uh, Council Member Francis was calling it. backing up um uh gee 10 10 uh years ago um in 2016 2017 so I guess it was nine years ago that um uh people decided the coun this council decided to repeal the rental housing inspection program and instead launch an education program. We even funded a staff person to operate that education program. Guess what? That position never got filled. It's sitting there. It's been budgeted. It's sitting there. Check it out. So, um, essentially what we've done is just reverted to the status quo. Um, and during that time watched

the rents go up. um either by one-third or possibly double or maybe even more than double. We don't know because we don't have the data. But um uh the big issue that was that did become politicized was that uh that uh people were willing to frighten the tenant population by saying that your rent's going to go up if there's a rental housing inspection program, which is just the checklist. We have the I have it actually here. Um it was put together by a very competent uh staff member who's now our our city clerk. Um uh so you know the checklist exists and all that but just kind of getting lulled into oh well status quo it nobody's really happy but um we're pro housing uh city and we're a pro business city. And to what extent are we putting the value of of promoting business over the value of the responsibility that we have toward 60% of our of our residents in terms of um really looking at uh looking at our housing stock. It's our housing stock, right? It's our city's housing stock. The other thing that's happened is that the quality of because the city has not stepped up and in my opinion not taken responsibility to um address uh the fact that the housing stock in general with a lot of

exceptions but in general and this is what people who are canvasing the neighborhoods have experienced it's gone down. it's gone down because if your main goal in owning uh real property is to make money, then anything that helps you make money is good and anything that makes you spend money is bad. And so people who are looking at it purely um not as uh providing a utility, providing a place for people to live, but looking at it purely as a cash cow. those people are very happy with the status quo. And uh so I I want to say that we're not talking. I was disturbed to hear people say that um some people in the real estate community saying that they were feeling punished. They were feeling targeted. They were feeling um uh that the city was going to try to do something to them. Well, what are we trying to do is hold them more accountable. I think it's very important to have a fee of some kind. Doesn't have to be huge, but that that also goes along with accountability. Um, they can't just hide out the way that they're doing now. So, I think we um we need to get the data. Uh, and I'm h gosh I just want to say some really good ideas came up um uh from the real estate community. Kpali needs students need better education. That's not the city's job. That's Kpali's job. Uh Long Beach uh CSU Long Beach uh has uh provides all

kinds of education including legal services for its students. Calpali is also happy with the status quo. Um the cheapest source of housing for Kpali students and Questa students is off-campus housing i.e. the city of St. Louis Abyispo. Um so I think we need to just acknowledge that there is a tremendous power balance between um this the tenants and the landlords. And when when uh people are saying, "Well, the tenants are scared." Of course they are. We have almost zero occupancy rate here. Tenants uh especially if they're young, maybe don't know much about living in neighborhoods, um they're scared of losing their housing and they don't want to get kicked out. And so, uh it's a phenomenon and this does play into other major city goals. people mentioned DEI in terms of um looking at it from the point of view of uh what the city can do to protect vulnerable people. Um and uh I think that that's uh how do I say in my mind uh if I haven't made it clear option number three the mandatory rental registration we could call it something else if we wish uh is very important toward um the goal of improving the fairness and the power balance by making sure that landlords are accountable not just to their pocketbooks but also to the city of St. Louis Abyispo. We have a duty. I think we need to step up. The city has a duty to at least know

what we're dealing with. The other question is climate protection. If we are uh if the continual um continual pattern of rents getting higher and higher continues, what we're doing is forcing the people who actually work here out of the city. And so that is more commuting, more um pollution. And in terms of our climate um protection goals, um it's it's not good. I also want to just mention that um Kalpali is uh going to be increasing its enrollment. So there's going to be even more pressure brought on on the city. I think that we need um the data to determine uh the best ways to take the next step and figure out how the city can uh move into um creating safer safer housing. And let me just see what else. Um, oh, in terms of what could be postponed, I I think myself looking at section number uh question number six uh on our agenda correspondence 1A was to organize a focus group to explore barriers to residential infill. I think that could be postponed. I think that conducting an educational forum um to uh improve implementation of below market rate best practices to market and streamline the process that could be

postponed. I'm not saying get rid of it. I'm just saying that to me to me the rental registry is a higher priority. Um I think we need to not postpone the strategic plan for safe housing program. Um and we need to not postpone the study session on code enforcement that we have scheduled for May. Um, in terms of the issue of the checklist for um that has come up, I think that um it's something that could be required in a rental registry program. Um, we could require that landlords at least attach it to the lease when they sign a lease with these um, you know, with the the tenants. Every single landlord is going to have a lease somewhere. We could require that um, the checklist and we could use the old checklist from the uh, rental housing inspection program or update it. Um so they would have to as the landlords would have to as part of of the registry process um just sign under the penal perjury or how we want to how we want to put it that they have given the tenant uh this checklist. It could also be something like when you purchase property, you get a disclosure. Um, you know, uh, you you actually get a property disclosure that, um, I had one here. Actually, I tried to buy

uh, see, I don't have it here anymore. Yeah, here we go. like um you could have a some kind of a disclosure pro process. The tenant would have to um uh sign or in some way indicate that yes, I got the checklist and yes, the landlord is saying yes, the roof does not leak. Yes, there's a smoke alarm all the way going all the way down and like that. So, the tenant would have that information and uh I think it could be handled that way. we cannot go back to the uh proactive uh rental housing inspection program, but I think we can do a lot better for our tenants than than we have done. Um, in terms of the additional data or analysis, I think that what um council member Shoresman and Boswell brought up is is perfect. And then what else? What other options?

Timing.

Huh? Oh, timing. I think we should uh proceed on this. Now, I think we should proceed right away and not defer it to the next um uh next budget session, the next goal setting session. I think we should get going on it now and then we'll have some data so that when we um get to the next budget goal, a major budget goal setting uh process, we'll have some data. we'll know what we're talking about. We It may may help us refine some of these goals that we need to set. I'm going to stop right there. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you to my colleagues for all of your input. I really appreciate it. Um I think as always, we have some things we all agree on and some things that we don't. Um, I think that a rental registry and getting us the data has been something that's been pretty clear that we needed. Um, people often ask me the city needs the city needs to make efficient datadriven decisions. They need to act like a business, but no, we're not going to give you the data. So, that seems to me a juosition of where we're at right now. And what I heard in many emails and what I heard today is people have access to the data that we don't have access to. Um, so I' I'd personally would love to see that happen. I would love to have that information shared with us. I'd love to get going on that first because it sounds like it's something that they could get to us pretty quickly and pretty easily. So if that's the case, let's do that. Like let's do that first. I don't know why we even need to wait for registry if they're willing to help

us right now. So, I'm first wanted to say that um I I think that we need the data for our housing element. We need the data for our loose um back to what rentals are where um Council Member Boswell, I very much agree with you in the sense of is all of our zoning correct? Um does does do we maybe need to change things in different places? I don't know. I don't have that answer. part of the challenge. We don't have the data. Um I think though, sorry. Um not even sure what I wrote there. Okay. Um I think that one of the things I heard from staff was the software might create well does create the dashboards, the reports, the information quicker. And so that's one of the things that makes me wonder, can a local consultant get that information for us? That'll be that'll be the question that I think that we should be asking them is, hey, can we get this? How soon can we get it? How can we get it in report form? What does that look like? Um, I also when I think about the why, why do we want the data? We want to create safe homes for people. Back to housing is a basic right. Absolutely. We are spending a lot of money and a lot of time trying to help people get out of being unhoused. What is being unhoused? It's not having a place to live. I mean, I know that sounds obvious. So, I'm looking at where is the data to understand where people can live, whether they are unhoused, very low income, low-inccome, working, all the different levels. And we don't we don't have enough of that information. So, I think we have some I think we have some work to do. Um, what I did hear though, I heard two things consistently tonight that

I don't think we'll get from a registry. And that is code enforcement issues. There is the imbalance, no question. There's fear of getting evicted. There's fear of having your um rent increased. Um, there's fear of not having the um actual work done on your home. as most of my life growing up and most of my life now I own which is fantastic but most of my life as a non-owner as a parent a parent with kids and my husband we were renters and I'll tell you that not every property manager is and not every landlord is as kind and wonderful as some of the people we heard today and so we're trying to figure out how do we help people and hold people accountable. And um so if we can help improve accountability and transparency, that's what we're trying to do today. I think there's some steps that can be done before we get to full registry. Um or if it's that we do that carrot and stick more. I think that if we're asking for data because we want the data, then it should be free. I I just don't think it's logical otherwise. Um, I think in the long run, if we find the data super useful, then great. Um, it's 25 bucks, $50. I mean, most of these rental registries haven't been very expensive. So, I'm I I don't see that we're going to lose so many dollars in the beginning. We're trying to we'll have to work through the issues. I mean, I don't want to charge people for the data that they have and then say, and now let's work through the issues together. That sounds horrific. Um, and I think if it's free, we can get a lot of the good actors, as people are saying, um, quicker versus, um, fighting and digging feet in to not pay $25 or $50 because

that's really what it's talking we're talking about. And I think, um, as the renter, if you're getting charged $2 more, yeah, okay, that's going to get passed on. We heard that numerous times. Um, so in the what are we trying to solve? We're trying to create safer homes, healthy homes. We're trying to get to the point where we can create or help create more homes. So in the realm of what we want to do faster, I do not want to get rid of 1A. I can't even fathom the fact that we might be considering that from the dis here because residential infill development is how we're going to get more homes sooner. So to me that seems wild that we would put that aside. Um BMR, our emails should be clear of the amount of nightmare that the BMR has been. So I can't imagine pushing that back again. that's homes for people who do not have as much money um to either be able to pass on their home or to be able to get the home. So to me, I do not want to see that go to a later time period. Create a plan for strategic plan for the safe housing program. Of course, yes, keep moving with that. That is by default kind of what we're already working on. And conduct a study session with council on code enforcement priorities. Um I can't see how we can move. I think uh council shoresman putting the cart before the horse. Absolutely. We need to understand the code enforcement and the livability completely back to we're asking for data. We're going to be getting some data in a way in May from our staff and I think that's important that we get that to make that decision on how we move forward with rental registry. So, um I will say from my point of view, um I there's been a lot of concern from emails that we're jumping to rent control tomorrow. That's not the plan

for me. That is not the plan um that we've been asking for. We just said, how do we get the data? And that's what the rental registry is. Is how do we understand where everything is and how do we make the best decisions? So, I really would love for us to be able to keep focused so that we can actually finish this conversation because right now is page 86. We're going to end up on page 125 and then stop stop reading the book as half the students do in my classes and look at what then we can't finish. And so I really would like us to kind of stay focused on the conversation we're having because one of the things that was asked to me by other um community members was again a layer of regulation, layer of money, a layer of rules. This may not have to be forever. We don't know. And that's part of the conversation is let's continue the conversation with all of the stakeholders we've been talking about, the renters, the property managers, the landlords, um the public health agencies, and the tenant protection groups and code enforcement. What are we missing? How do we fix things? And how do we keep going and how do we move forward? So, as far as the um business tax, that's the other part that I keep coming back to is I I feel like we have to look at this holistically and that's kind of why I know it sounds unfortunate because this kind of moves us into the next financial plan. But one, we promised our community the priorities we did. Two, we could look a little more holistically if we have the time. We have business license fees we're talking about. We have rental registry we're talking about. and we have short-term rentals. We have this constant conversation about compliance, accountability, and trans and transparency and cost. So, to me, as the VBO um people are very happy, look at we help tourists get into this community

and yes, thank you. Um but you also stop people from having an a place to live. And so trying to find that balance of people who are really home and just, you know, out for a week or so and they want to rent out their place while they're gone for a week or a month or something, that sounds great. But when you're not even living in your home and someone else could be living in your home, that's my concern. So there's a lot of things because again this is a weird conversation that we're having from the dis which is do we want to move forward with something very specific and we don't have all the data to even answer that question. So, for me, um, I'm I'm kind of struggling on even the first one, which is how do we move forward if we need the rest of the data? And it sounded like from our community, now that they're being brought to the table, they're willing to help us get that information. So, let's do that. Um, so that would be my first step. Um, as far as what option warrants further study consideration, um, all of it. So, I think as far as how do we help get to compliance? How do we help um tenants and landlords both know their rights and responsibilities? Um you mentioned council member Marks about Long Beach. Well, Cowpali has the off-campus housing program. They have off-campus housing marketplace and off-campus housing certificate. Sarah Botio emailed us all about that. She's the off-campus uh housing coordinator. And one of the things that they do is help people help students know their rights and responsibilities. One of the things that I think that more students need to know about this program of course, but also can we bring that program into our community? And my understanding from um Sarah is yes. So when we talk about education, what does that look like? I think that options um that that warrants further study and consideration. And I know some people haven't been excited about

education, but some people really don't even know they can't be sleeping next to a water heater and that's not the room. So, how do we help how do we help people know what's allowed and what's not? Um, whether it's the landlord or the the tenant. Um, sorry, I'm trying to make sure I finish the last bit. Um, and as far as the uh checklist, I think that I want to be very careful that we do not end up taking over California's um job. You know, there's the California tenants protections and then there's if we're adding in the compliance checklists and we're adding that to the rental registry, do we then supersede California? And that's just one thing I know that we need to make sure that we're looking at as far as our rights and responsibilities as a city. The one thing that I think I've said over and over again, but again, it seems as though we don't have officially all of the data, but I don't see how we don't grow the housing enforcement staff in the future. I think the code enforcement seems to be the issues that we keep hearing whether it's what we'll hear more about in May um and livability or whether it's today with uh rental registry to create safe and healthy housing. We need to make sure that people are uh creating that safe and healthy housing and that is unfortunately it is through code enforcement and we don't have enough people to do that. So that's um where I'm at. I think I've answered all the questions. Do you need anything else, David or Timmy?

City manager. Thank you. I think maybe I'll jump in kind of summarize what just very high level where we have more on on the list to to talk just Okay. Okay. So, were you asking if we had questions? I didn't know if you had any questions about what I was asking. Okay. Got it. Thank you. I didn't know if you meant in total. Thank you. Okay. Because because we do in total. Okay. In total. That makes sense. Council member Boswell.

Yeah. Just to maybe try to help us think where we go next. Thank you for everybody's comments. Good good discussion. Um I mean it's it sounds like there's interested to move forward with option three for the rental registry. And so I'm guessing really the next thing that has to happen is staff has to prepare kind of a proposed work program. But I suspect the critical decision we need to make now or soonish is the timing. Do we want this to start essentially now or do we want this to largely start um during the next financial plan cycle? I think I've heard both.

Let's answer that question first.

Yeah. And then let me add one piece to that. I I mean obviously if we get started now, we get started now. Um if we delay until the next financial plan, um I do think there are some things that we could be doing between now and then, things that came up about a town hall. We heard that possibly for public engagement activities, a consultant might be able to help in that regard. and we did set aside some money working on some of these additional data ideas. We've heard I'm pretty sure I heard some volunteers tonight in the audience to help us gather data that could be happening. So, I think there's some things that could be happening if we wait. And I'm I want to hear from the rest of you. I'm not quite sure whether we should go now or wait, but I'm curious what everybody thinks about that.

Thank you. Do you want to just go down the line line, council member Shoresman?

Sure. Um, well, I think I I I don't Maybe I wasn't clear. I I'm not in favor of moving forward right now because I don't want to sideline any of the other very important things that were are alternatives that we would have to give up. I I don't see it as being a good alternative to trade this for something that would either clarify or make better our housing opportunities when really what we need is more safe housing. Um, so I I would rather us move forward um with some maybe intermediate steps as staff are able to in the interim to kind of, you know, gather some more data from some of the volunteers that said they had access to some of the data, seeing if some of that's reliable. Maybe we get enough data from the folks that are willing to help us that we don't have to go forward with, you know, as robust a program. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility. Who knows? Um, so and I'm and I'm not super interested, at least personally, in dedicating any of the funds that we set aside um last week or Yeah. was that last week? That was just last week. Um, to because I'd rather wait till we have our other study session and see if there's anything that comes out of that that we would want to put money towards. So, hiring a consultant right now at this point um today wouldn't be my option. Not saying that wouldn't be my proposal just because I'd rather wait until we've had the rest of our study sessions on these topics.

Thank you. And then we'll come back to you for the rest of your comments. Vice Mayor.

Yeah. On the topic of of timing, um I am I'm not eager to put aside any of the items that were listed there just because they all have to do with uh safe housing and improving our housing situation. But I am interested in I saw some head nodding that there are a lot of interim things that we can be doing. And I actually would be interested in putting aside some of the the funds that or using some of the funds that we put aside in order to start moving that process forward so we can get to the public outreach element, the town hall, define what the uh work item would look like, and really start to move that ball forward. So by the time we get to budget setting when we're talking about putting the funds there, we're hitting the ground literally running and we start that day one. So that's where I am.

Thank you. Do you want to add to that, Director Toy?

Yeah, maybe I can provide some context to just preliminarily I'm not no promises, but what I've been thinking about things that we could start doing without setting aside any of the existing work plan items because we are also excited to work on those. You know, we've been thinking about them. Um, but there are things that we could do within the current staffing that we have. Just off the top of my head, it's looking at these other data sources to see what's out there. Um, you know, going and talking to some of the people that were here to just gather more information of things we don't necessarily know about, reaching out to some of the cities that David has already worked with and just continuing those conversations. They might have RFP examples. They might have outreach plan examples that we can just start to gather. This is kind of a loweffort thing, but just things we'd have to do anyway. So to your point, Vice Mayor, it's getting everything ready so that if and when this is on the next budget, we hit the ground running. We're not starting doing that work then. So we're doing the things that we can do reasonably with our staff time meeting internally with legal and IT and um and planning and code enforcement of what are the things we need to think through for an RFP. what are our systems already doing? What would they talk to? You know, just get laying that groundwork too so that we kind of know what what we need to look for moving forward. Uh, you know, contacting potential consultants that do this type of outreach work just to see is this something you'd be interested in. Do you have capacity? You know, just so we know who may respond to when we're ready to hire them. Um, but there's a number of things that we can do to get us and the the big one would be truly honing in on the cost. That's going to be more conversations with these cities that have been through this in similar situations as us as well as talking internally about what different divisions and departments think they need and then we can present to you a

work plan that is fully baked and uh you know manageable and also based in a lot of background work. So that, you know, I I don't want to overpromise, but those are things that I think we can balance with this. Once we get into the actual outreach, the forums, that's going to be a little harder. That's where I don't know that we can balance that with the with the work plan items that we have now, but we can, you know, and this naturally will probably come up in the the budget items, um, and starting that conversation again in anticipation of that. So, I just wanted to offer that up of things we could do to move in that direction.

Thank you. That's very helpful. City manager, did you want to add to that?

Sure. Thank you. Um, I think, uh, we would include conversations with our finance department on the business license end of things. I know there are a number of things that we're already looking at and, you know, hoping to bring to you all at some point in the future in terms of cleanup and efficiencies. So, we would want to make those conversations work together and make sure that we're looking at them as a whole. the as uh direct director mentioned, I think if we get into doing actually conducting a lot of outreach to the community, holding a town hall, um getting a consultant and then onboarding them and h getting their assistance and holding something like a town hall or even um we've heard of others using mediators or facilitators during those conversations to try to really get our arms around what our different stakeholders are looking for or would be kind of open to. That's all work that we we do not have the capacity to do that. It takes we want to do it right and at least that's you know certainly what we would um want to put together in a plan in terms of what we think that kind of outreach would look like. Um but I don't we I don't believe we have the capacity to do that without taking things off of off of our list at this point. So if we're in terms of fully baked plan, it's more like doing the additional outreach to other cities, getting a better sense of the cost and what an RFP for a platform might look like. Um but the actually starting that level of outreach, I don't think we can do that now. Um so the the plan would change after we do the outreach, right? at least the scope of the registry program itself um likely would

change and should to address what we're hearing from folks and so it would take us longer. So what I'm hearing and have been talking about with staff is if we're doing this in the way that we believe we can do it under with our current work plans um and resources, it's probably it's going to take a couple more years to get it up and running. We we need to get through this current financial plan, do what we can, get through setting up a program in a way that we think is going to work well and even then take longer rolling it out in a way that we think is going to work for the community or based on feedback that we receive. I if if we're looking at trying to make that faster, we're going to need to kind of sweep the deck basically of uh what we've already lined out. Um, yeah. And potentially, as I'm Yeah. shortening and cutting corners in terms of the types of outreach that we might do otherwise

and having to onboard potentially additional staff members to make sure we're doing it well. I really caution against relying on consultants to do this work. We certainly would bring in help to facilitate conversations, look at program development. Um, but we we can't just hand that off to somebody who would then go run that completely without a lot of oversight and engagement from staff. Um, I don't think that would succeed very well. And so again, we're looking at the same folks who would are doing all these other items that we looked at earlier. Thank you, city attorney.

Thank you, mayor. I I just wanted to make sure I heard I think from three of you at least that there is an interest in um trying to get some of the information that was referenced from me from members of the audience. I heard the word volunteer and I didn't hear that offer made. So, I just want to make sure we're on the same page because what I heard I thought and if you heard something different, I just want to get clarity was that they believed that they could provide that service for cheaper than what was being proposed here for implementation of a rental registry. So, if there were individuals that council member Boswell or others of you heard were to be volunteering those services, that would be very helpful if you could point us in that direction. I didn't hear that. Thank you. I think just asking the question is all I was saying. Um, as far as uh, Council Member Marks. Oh, you've disappeared for me. There you go.

Oh, okay. Um, well, I think we're missing something um about if we would contemplate just relying on the data from the realators. I think there are a couple of things that we um are missing. One is, of course, the cost. I doubt these people volunteer for anything um that's within their realm. They probably coach soccer teams or something. But um if we if we got the data from their databases, then there's a question to what the heck do we do with it? If we don't have the software to input that data into, it's just going to be sitting there like a big a big mess. We need to have the software in order to import that data in order to get meaningful results out of the data. You can't just have it sit there. It has to be part of a comprehensive um software program. And that's the kind of thing that these um offtheshelf programs that we're talking about the software uh that they provide. Now the other thing that we're missing is that we need to engage every single landlord who actually rents to residents of our city. We can't just rely on the realtors like to say, "Oh, there are this many um uh rentals in the city. We need to connect with the landlords. We we've talked about accountability. We've talked about transparency. The landlords need to connect with the city because they have a civic responsibility. It's not just a matter of

um their little business. So the business license is one thing, but the other thing is connecting uh and how can we even do the research to the landlords? I mean the outreach to the landlords if we don't know who they are because they're hiding out. They're not doing the they're trying to fly under the radar. And these are probably a lot of the people who are not also not keeping up uh the maintenance of their houses. There's the business license, there's the code enforcement, and then there's the question of utilizing some of this information as we put together in the housing element. So the mayor of of Mterrey suggested or what what they did is they mailed all the city residents uh what was happening with the rental registry program and so tenants knew what was happening and um um landlords who lived in the city knew what was happening but how do we reach these people who are not connecting with the city at all and I think that that's absolutely crucial to beginning to address to get the underlying data that we need that's coming from the landlords. Not just totally abstract, but actually making them commit making them take 10 minutes to fill out a form, making them send $50 or whatever. Um, so again, I think what we're doing if we just say, "Oh, let's put it back a couple more years and maybe it'll take four or five more years after that." We're just essentially saying, "Let's endorse the status quo." And the status quo is not working for the renters who live in our city. It's

obviously not working for 60% of our residents. I think we owe it to them to move forward. That's my opinion. Thank you, Coun. I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you so much. Um, I know we kind of hashed over this a little bit, but um, you know, I'm hearing council member Marks and you we've been talking about this for a really long time and uh, I know that there's a lot of folks in the room who are are eager to see some action. I'm really glad to hear that there's some stuff that we can start to to tackle now. I also understand that there are some realities of we've got this list of five five items that um I'm not willing to cut any of them because each of them feels really important. Uh so I just am proceverating by way of saying if there's any way that we can kind of make sure that we're moving this forward as as fast as we can. I know you guys have very full plates. Um, but uh I know people are are eager to see action on this and I would love to to see that uh as as fast as possible this couple of years to get this thing rolling. I know outreach and uh getting people engaged is so so so important, but I know that we can also sort of do that to death. I want to make sure we bring people to the table, but I don't want to spend a couple of years trying to do outreach to get this thing perfect. There are other communities doing this. we can kind of mirror what's already happening and get it moving um in in their model and refine as we go. So, whatever we can do to really move that forward, I want to see that happen. Uh since I went first, there were a couple of things that um I didn't say at the beginning there. Uh and just to kind of really quickly summarize them, I was hearing in uh from all of our speakers today that there were a lot of areas of agreement. I was glad to hear everybody talking about funding mediation, which is something we just talked about doing and um excited to see some of that come back to our city. I I heard a lot of folks um from both sides talking about developing smokefree multif family which we can talk about in our code enforcement

discussion in May. And I s heard people from both sides talking about the self-insspection check list uh Allah Berkeley's approach and that was something that it seemed like everybody had a lot of buy in for. So would love to see us kind of get those things going uh maybe even uh ahead of our actual rental registry and then to answer the question what I want to see emerge from the data collection. I think there's going to be a lot of things that uh change as we go and once we start to understand what what comes out of that. But um you know we heard council member Boswell talking about uh looking at our zoning and refining uh refining that process if possible. So zoning evaluation refinement. I'm really interested in looking at our short-term rentals and trying to close those loopholes. You know, anecdotally, all of us know there's a bunch of illegal short-term rentals. It's taking housing off the market. Let's figure that out. I know this uh software is incredibly good at doing that. Compliance with state renters protections. You know, a lot of cities have found that in the housing that actually does have the state renters protections applying to it, something like 30% of that housing stock was uh being subject to illegal uh evictions or higher rent uh raises than they were allowed. So, let's let's look at that. Make sure that we can catch those situations. Identify problem properties and absentee landlords. Again, we're going to be talking about that stuff with code enforcement coming up. Uh but this is uh something that that uh software can help us do. And then better communication and transparency with landlords and tenants. I think it's going to be an amazing communication tool. We're talking about trying to get people engaged right now. Boom. Push a button inside of this software and we can suddenly have everybody get the same information at the same time and uh really engage them in things like this so that they can come to the table. So that's uh just to kind of circle back right there, the stuff I want to see emerge from this rental registry and let's get it going

as soon as possible. Thank you. And I, you know, I really appreciate um both retro and city manager in the sense of I fully understand the capacity is not possible at this point in time if we keep all of the rest and that's the whole trade-off conversation. I also very much read and heard from other cities when I talked to them that without a full robust roll out and communication and the roll out, it doesn't go well. So, I just want to make sure that we're prepared for that. But I don't think it means that we're going to just put it on the shelf for two years and not do anything. And that's what I what I heard from our our our staff as well is that there we're we can continue to move towards it um towards the registry without putting on a hold for two years. I just know that realistically to get the work done that we are already promising to get done, we have to do that. So, um, and I think the code enforcement conversation in May could lend us to additional conversations of what we can do to create safer and healthier homes quicker. And that's I think what we're really trying to get to. So, um, Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah, just to close that up, I think that that discussion will be, um, Sorry, what did you say? We have three minutes or a motion has to happen. Um, I was just going to say that I think that will be another opportunity to also talk about some of the other things that that came up uh from the public about education and um mediation services and how can we get kind of people on the same page. And if we need to make a motion, I will do that. I'll make a motion that we go um a a little bit past 11, but very little. Very little. I'll second that. Can we?

Yeah. Thank you. Council member Marks seconds it. Can we have um just a voice voice vote? Are you okay with staying just a little bit longer to finish this out? All in favor say I. Any against? Against? No. Okay. Well, sorry. Four and one. We're going to finish this out. Thank you. Um Council Member Shoresman, you said something that I wanted to add to and I just lost it. That's the problem with late

opport mediation. Thank you so much. Um yes I think that that is one of the parts that I hope that we can include in this in the long run as we talk about mediation is um even the expert sometimes kind of as you're mentioning around data even the expert sometimes if it comes from one p one party or the other is only trying to help that party and we've seen that happen so I just want to make sure that we're finding ways to help people get third party objection objective people to be able to be the experts. Um, Council Member Schwarzman.

Yeah, just to finish that thought on mediation, we will we do have money set aside in our budget every year for mediation services. We'll probably talk about that more um in the future, but it is something that we do despite and we also had a little another discussion about it last week, but um it it is there. So, it's something that we can um talk about expanding or adding to or doing differently in the future. But, um I'm ready to wrap this up if everybody else is. I'm ready to wrap this up as well. Um I know staff, you mentioned they may have some questions. You good now, city manager?

I think we're clear, which is the the direction is to move forward with the rental registry. we will put together a plan to make that happen uh as part of the next financial plan. So the goal will be to get us to the point where we're ready to put some projected numbers in terms of what we need um for resources and into the next financial plan. Um, and in the meantime, we will conduct the amount of research that we're able to through our colleagues in other cities, um, through targeted conversations with folks who were here this evening, you know, taking whatever kind of information and support they might want to provide us along the way over the next uh, several months as we continue building this out. So, that's what I heard and hopefully that kind of sums up. I know we did get a lot of information about the types of things that we're hoping that that the registry will do and I think we'll include that in in what we build into the plan and ultimate outreach into the community for setting up a program. Does that sound right? I'm seeing some maybe some hesitation.

I think that is make sure I think that's what the majority of the sta the council said. Yes. Okay. Uh, Vice Mayor, I'm sorry. I do have one very fast follow-up question. Um, I did hear some interest from folks up here in um being able to kind of hash out whatever we learn in May and potentially incorporate that into whatever our next steps are. And I know we set aside funds with the intent of trying to kind of move this whole thing forward a little bit. And is there a world where after May uh if we have more specific direction, we're then ready to maybe bring on a consultant and start maybe expediting that next step or is that

I just I don't really see a place where that's going to get us anything that won't also require actual staff on top of because I think we not just a consultant, we would need additional city staff to then oversee be a consultant and then help start start that outreach and building the program itself. And we're currently hiring additional planning staff. Is that right? Like new FTE positions, filling vacant positions.

One of one of the challenges is that um the principal planner role in the housing division is vacant. And so so actually one of the first things that I probably will do is make relaunch that you know because that will help right like that's a big step that we if we can get that settled in the next six months then we really can hit the ground running. And so that's something that you know

clearly that's a priority anyway. But hearing this conversation and the movement in that direction plus the housing element, I think we're going to relook at that and see how we can really get some targeted outreach and try to get some attention on that position and then build out this team to what it is before we even need to look at what else do we need. All right, so step one, tell your planning friends that we need them to apply for this job so that we can get this thing going. Thank you. Your smartest, most highly effective.

Thank you. Yes. The smartest, most highly effective. Yes. Um, thank you. I think that was um, a very useful conversation today. Even though it was very long and uh, a little difficult, I think it's it's the difficult conversations that get us to next steps. And some of the next steps is let's talk talk about that data and um, what is that data that we're missing? How do we get it? Um, and if people are not interested in in a registry and they have access to that data and they want to make it happen, then let's talk about that ASAP. Otherwise, we're kind of this must be the next step. So, that's where we're kind of in. Um, thank you so much for this conversation and we'll see you all next week on March 3rd for our regularly scheduled city council meeting.