City Council - Regular Meeting

Call the regular city council meeting to order. Today is Monday, May 18. It is 06:02PM, and I wanna congratulate all of you on finding a place to park and

or walking to tonight's meeting. Appreciate that.

So

we're

gonna

go ahead and start

with the pledge of allegiance, and I'm gonna ask Steve Roland, who's the chair of our pool advisory committee, to lead us in the pledge, if you would. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Well done.

We are gonna start with our public forum, and I'm going to sort of read the read the rules for public forum. This portion of the meeting is when members of the public can speak to the council on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. If you'd like to speak on a matter that is on the agenda, please reserve your comments for when that agenda item is called. The purpose of public forum is to provide the public with an opportunity to be heard. However, if your comments do not address the topic that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or if your comments are disruptive, I will provide a warning.

If the warning is not followed, I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. Each speaker is usually given three minutes. This time may be adjusted at my discretion based on the number of speakers or number of items on the agenda. If you ask a question during public forum or during public comment with respect to an agenda item, those questions will not be answered during your allotted time. However, a member of the council may, at the conclusion of public comments, direct your questions to staff member for response. Pursuant to state law, the council may not discuss issues brought up at public forum, but council members or staff may provide brief responses to statements made. I'm checking with our assistant city clerk to see if we have any members of the public wishing to comment.

Yeah. We have one speaker

in the chambers, Anne Marks.

Great. Hi, Anne. Welcome. Hello.

Thank you so much. If you

can make sure you're green is

I think I'm green.

Perfect. Thank you.

It's not easy. You know what, I'm done. That was great. Ann Marks, I am a government affairs representative from PG and E, and so I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello. I'm new in the role, and just really happy to be able to work with you.

I just met Chief Brannigan, and so I think he and I share some similar desires to avoid fires. So I just wanted to remind folks that we are in graduation season, and graduation gifts are great. Except for Mylar balloons, that's a terrible gift. Do not give anyone a Mylar balloon. We already had an outage just last weekend in our county when a Mylar balloon got stuck on a wire, so please avoid Mylar balloons.

One last thing about fire season, we have more outages as we roll into fire season. And so for your sake, to be aware of what's happening, you know, I would go ahead and check. No matter who your power provider is, PG and E is your billing source. And so you want to go to PG and E and make sure that your cell phone number is updated there so you get the alerts, so you know what's going on. Thank you for the time.

Great. Thank you so much. And it's so nice to meet you. I really appreciate you coming to the meeting and look forward to working together in the future. Any other speakers for public forum? Okay. I'm going to

go ahead

and close the public forum and we are going to turn to our presentations for this evening. Our first presentation is a proclamation for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So I'm going go ahead and read proclamation. It is a little long, so hang in there. There's a lot to say, which is good and important.

Okay. City of Piedmont proclamation. Whereas Asian American, native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage month, which is shortened to AANHPI, is a time to reflect and celebrate the important role that the AANHPI communities have played in our shared history. And whereas California is home to more than 7,000,000 individuals of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders hold the fastest growing population rate among all racial and ethnic groups in our country, And whereas the AANHPI community has a long and rich history in California, migrating during the Gold Rush era and planting their roots in the San Francisco Bay Area ever since, brave immigrants who motivated by the promise of possibilities picked up their lives and built new communities. And whereas this year's theme, Power and Strengthening Communities Together, highlights the collective impact of AANHPI communities throughout through resilience, advocacy, and shared purpose.

And whereas while we celebrate the immense contributions of AAN HPI communities, we must also reckon with a history of systematic violence and xenophobia, including the 1882 Chinese exclusion act and the wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans and discriminatory citizenship laws that endured for decades. And whereas despite navigating these profound cultural and systematic barriers, the AAN HPI community has demonstrated extraordinary perseverance and hope, enriching our society through leadership and innovation in education, science, the arts, public service, and the military. And whereas notwithstanding these invaluable contributions, persistent racism and a rise in hate crimes continue to threaten the safety and well-being of AAN HPI families, leaving deep seated trauma across generations. And whereas since 1987, the Piedmont Asian American Club has served as a vital forum and resource, fostering cultural engagement and educational activities that strengthen the fabric of our local schools and communities. And whereas it is our collective duty to confront both past and present injustices, ensuring the safety and inclusion of our AAN HPI neighbors while honoring their essential role in the fabric fabric of our vibrant fabric of our nation.

Now, therefore, I, Betsy Snegle Anderson, mayor of the city of Piedmont, proclaim this month, May 2026, as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Thank you. Okay. Our next presentation this evening is a rep public recognition and appreciation of the members of our community pool pool. Forgot the p there. That's an old joke. Who put the p in our oo. Okay. The community pool advisory committee members. I know it takes a minute.

I would like to recognize chair Steve Roland who's here. And maybe when as I recognize you how about this? As I recognize you, you stand, and maybe I can ask the vice mayor The hood one?

To get

to hood, yeah, to hood people. To give you a present. Okay. So first, I wanna recognize chair Steve Rollins. Steve has been on this project since since the very beginning and appreciate your service to the community. And what we're handing out are Piedmont City hats that you can wear with pride. And if you don't mind staying standing, and then we'll get the committee up here, we'll do a photo with the hats because that'll be super cute. Okay. Also wanna appreciate, Marsha Lane. Where's Marsha?

And two cute adorable kids with her. Sarah Olsen Main. Carolyn Pan, and the other person who is here, but actually her son is getting an award tonight over the high school is Sarah Ironside. So we'll make sure she gets her hats after. And if we I just wanna take a moment and just appreciate all the hard work you did.

Obviously, the pool is open now. I've seen some of you there swimming. So I know you've been enjoying it. Hopefully, you've all checked it out. And more importantly, our community and our surrounding community have been using it a lot. It has been very, very crowded on hot days like today, and it just makes me so happy, and I'm sure it makes the whole council happy to know that people are using and enjoying the pool that you all helped us achieve here in our community. It's been a heavy lift and you helped lighten the burden or share the burden I should say as we all move this project forward and for that I know we're incredibly grateful. So thank you. Okay. Let's do a photo.

And I think that means you're formally excused as committee members, maybe more importantly. So nice to see you, and we'll see you over at the pool. Okay. We're now moving on to our consent calendar. We have five items.

Yes. Five items on consent. We have approval of the minutes of 04/20/2026 and 05/04/2026. We have adoption of a resolution to enter into a master's program funding agreement with the Alameda County Transportation Commission, ACTC, for the receipt of Measure BB, direct local distribution funds. We have adoption of a resolution authorizing the state administrator to enter into a funding agreement with the state water resources control board for the what seems to be never ending phase six, sewer sanitary sewer rehabilitation project.

We have approval of city council policy number 35 disruption of remote access to public open meetings of the city council pursuant to state law. And the final consent calendar item is item number five, approval of the acceptance of improvements for the 2025 pavement rehabilitation project. I'm looking at my colleagues. Do we have any corrections and or anything you want to pull from the consent calendar at this time? I'll move consent. Great. Do we have any public comment for any of the items one through five? No public comment on consent. No. Okay. Do my colleagues have any comments? No. So a motion from the vice mayor, a second from council member Long. And let's go ahead and vote.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Consent calendar passes unanimously. We're now moving on to our regular agenda item number six, which is a study session on housing element program three g inclusionary housing and program three e affordable housing fund. And I'm delighted to turn this over to our city administrator and then our interim planning director, Jeff Bond.

Thank you, Mayor Anderson. So we have quite a bit of material to get through with counsel today and to present to the community. This is part of a large body of work that the city has been undertaking for quite some time tied to our housing element. And for today's centerpiece, we have a discussion that really is focused on inclusionary housing and the affordable housing fund. What we'd like to do is walk through a presentation and if along the way you have questions, it is a bit of a lengthy presentation, we'd like you to pause and we're happy to pause and take questions at that time because there is some length and depth to the content.

So please feel free to interject along the way. And with that, I will hand over to Jeff Blom.

And if I can interject, is it split into sections such that we could pause and ask for questions? Would that make sense to ask questions kind of as we go at the end of each section?

I think so. And and we can always go back again if you wish. Again mayor anderson council members my name is jeff bond I' your interim planning and building director it' a pleasure to be here this evening to work with you on this agenda item. This is an informational item with your feedback staff and our consulting team will work with the city attorney to bring forward a draft ordinance for further consideration in the near future. Before assisting with me this evening is senior planner pierce mcdonald and drew hill with consulting firm diat bahtia and jason booty with the consulting firm economic planning systems eps.

Before I turn it over to andrew for the presentation I would like to note as a practical matter this inclusionary ordinance discussion would not apply to the Moronga Canyon project think of it as applying to other portions of the city. For Moronga Canyon

'

the specific plan itself which you' already approved plus there will be other agreements that go into place with that project. As a practical matter although it might be tempting to focus in on Moraga Canyon because it' a big future project it' more applicable to the other projects that could emerge in the community. With that I will turn it over to andrew I will pull up a presentation.

It is, I'm green. Good evening. As Jeff said, my name is Andrew Hill, I'm with Dieton Bacho. We're the planning and design firm that's assisting the project the city with the expanding housing options initiative. And Jason Moody from EPS is also is also here.

So, next slide please. So, the expanding housing options initiative involves studying options for implementing a range of programs from the city's general plan housing element, which was adopted by the city council in March 2023. There's two key items being two key items in that range of programs include a potential inclusionary zoning program and an affordable housing fund. And those will be the focus of the study session tonight. In order to set up for the discussion, I have a presentation to provide an overview of the expanding housing options initiative and to introduce some key policy considerations for both the inclusionary zoning program and the affordable housing fund.

And then I'll finish off with a look ahead to next steps after we hear from the council tonight. Next slide and the next one. So, the expanding housing options initiatives involve studying options for implementing 11 different programs from the housing element. These programs represent different strategies the city can take to expand housing options for people of all incomes and abilities in Piedmont consistent with state law. Next slide please.

The initiative focuses on strategies for promoting housing types that cost less to build, buy or to rent for making it easier to build on small odd shaped lots in Piedmont, for funding and financing affordable housing and special needs housing, process for subdividing land and also for potentially setting up a tenant matching program in Piedmont. And so tonight's study session focuses on the first and the third of these of these five focus areas. Next slide. So the overarching objective of the expanding housing options initiative is to study options for implement implementation that could lead to zoning amendments or to new city programs. Each of the focus areas that I just mentioned for each of them, we will identify key policy considerations and bring forward recommendations that are based on research into best practices from peer communities, interviews with developers, design professionals, property owners and staff from peer communities and study sessions with Piedmont decision makers including the planning commission, the budget advisory committee, and the city council.

We'll frame all of the options using case studies or illustrations as appropriate And we'll use the feedback that we receive in the process to tailor the specific recommendations to Piedmont. Next slide. So, the initiative kicked off last summer and through the fall, we focused on gathering data, reviewing best practices and developing options. We held a series of study sessions with the planning commission and with the budget advisory committee to review and refine the options. And so the purpose of the study session tonight is really to report out on progress, to present the recommendations that have emerged from the work to date, and then to receive a feedback and direction from the city council on next steps.

If appropriate, based on the feedback we get tonight, we'll draft code changes and formal program recommendations and we'll bring forward we'll bring them forward to the council for consideration at adoption hearings in the fall. Next slide. So I'm going to start with the inclusionary zoning. It's our first topic and let me start with a little bit of background. Inclusionary zoning is a regular regulatory tool that cities can use to help ensure that housing is provided for all income demographics in the community as construction happens.

It's used to promote mixed income neighborhoods and expand the local supply of workforce housing. It can be implemented in a variety of different ways. It can be implemented as a set aside requirement. So a certain setting aside a certain percentage of units built in a project for below market rate at below market rates. It can be implemented as a fee that's imposed on development projects or it can be implemented through incentives such as density bonus granted in exchange for a commitment to set aside units for lower income households.

Whatever the method though, inclusionary zoning relies on private development to produce affordable units. And it typically works best in markets where housing is profitable and developers can absorb the cost of providing below market rate units. Next slide. So Piedmont zoning code already requires the construction of an accessory dwelling unit on single family lots over 5,000 square feet in size when a new or remodeled home is proposed. So those units can be smaller and more affordable by design, but that doesn't necessarily mean that ADUs will actually be affordable to lower income households.

And so the city's housing element includes program three g which calls for studying options to implement a potential inclusionary zoning requirements which would be designed to expand the supply of affordable housing in Piedmont. Next slide please. In designing a potential inclusionary program, there are several key questions to consider. The first of them is what income categories to target with inclusionary requirements? What type of projects the requirements should apply to, whether to offer incentives for deeper levels of affordability, whether to offer alternative compliance avenues, and how to administer and manage the program.

So I'm gonna walk through each of these topics one by one and lay out some specific questions that we'd like to hear from the council on. And after my presentation, I'm happy to take questions or we can pause, you know, at anywhere in the presentation to answer questions as they come up. Next slide. To help illustrate the policy choices, we developed case studies from peer communities that have successfully implemented inclusionary zoning requirements. There are really dozens of communities throughout California that have these requirements in place, but we selected three in particular that have well established programs.

They're all from peer communities that offer potential lessons for Piedmont. And so we looked at Mill Valley and Marin County, Santa Cruz and Foster City. Next slide please. So the first consideration is which income categories to target. And in California, communities typically align their inclusionary zoning requirements with state income level limits in order to demonstrate compliance with regional housing needs allocation obligations.

Most communities specifically target low and moderate income households, but some cities also target very low income households. And very low income households, if you can see on the screen are those that make less than 50% of the countywide area median income. Piedmont's allocation in the current cycle has a very high share of very low income households. And so it could make sense to target this category in particular either with requirements or perhaps with incentives. Now, very low income units require a deeper level of subsidy from the developer and this puts a greater financial feasibility burden on the project particularly for smaller projects.

And so, in view of this, based on discussions with the planning commission, the planning commission recommended taking more of a carrot than a stick approach with very low income. And so the recommendation was to provide incentives for very low income households rather than strict requirements. Next slide, please. So, a second consideration is

Excuse me, sorry, we do have a question.

Yeah.

And this is more for all of us, we talk very low. Can you give us an idea number wise of what very low is?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, let me start with low. So, low is 80% or less of the area median income. But, that could be a school teacher, you know someone starting out in their career possibly you know more of an entry level public, you know a police or a firefighter, that kind of that would be lower income. And then very low income is less than 50% of the area median income.

Those are often they often go well, on the lower end of that there may also be supportive services required that may be extremely low as less than 30%. That's when definitely you have supportive services required. But the very low would be somewhere in between. So it could it would be yeah, so not your regular workforce housing, but requiring a deeper level of subsidy than general workforce housing, if that makes sense.

Mayor Anderson, if I may. So as an example, the two person household in Alameda County for low household income for the year is $100,000 Very low, which Andrew is referencing is almost $64,000 for two people. It scales up and down depending on the number of people in the household.

Okay, awesome. Thank you, Bill.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah. The second consideration is which projects the inclusionary requirements should apply to. And here I think there are two interrelated questions. The first of them is what is the minimum size of project the requirement should apply to? And the second is what percentage of affordability should be required?

So Piedmont has very few large tracks of land that are available for development. And most of the projects in the city are likely to be smaller in scale. The housing element in fact identifies only about 12 sites in the whole of the city that can accommodate more than 10 units in a multi family project. So that strictly thinking about multi family projects, the the potential for inclusionary is is small. But there is significant interest in the community in developing SB nine projects that allow for the subdivision of a single family parcel into two parcels and construction of up to four units over the over the area of what was formerly one site and those units could be single family, they could be duplexes or they could be ADUs.

There's significant interest among homeowners in Piedmont to develop those SB nine projects. And so there's a potential to consider those in the as part of an inclusionary zoning program. Whatever the case, in Piedmont inclusionary requirements will likely be most effective if if they apply to projects of a scale that is likely to be built in the city and if they apply to both rental projects and for sale projects. Next slide. So as I said, however, inclusionary requirements place a higher burden on smaller projects and deeper levels of affordability require the greater subsidies from the developer.

So in view of those considerations, a tiered approach to inclusionary could make sense like the one that Mill Valley has implemented. So this would involve having one set of requirements for smaller projects and a different separate set of requirements for bigger projects that can better absorb the costs of providing inclusionary housing. So for example, in Piedmont that could look like one tier that would apply to projects of between four and ten units. They could be required to set aside one of the four units for below market rate or pay a fee equivalent to the to the gap between equivalent to the subsidy that the developer would need to apply. And then for projects of 11 or more units that are better able to absorb the cost of providing, the requirement could be to build on-site.

And so if it's a rental project, the requirement could be to set aside 15% of the units for low income households. If it's a for sale project, the requirement could be to set aside 10% of the units for moderate income households. In the case of the second tier for larger projects at the city's discretion and in lieu fee could also be allowed if the project was able to demonstrate through pro form a analysis that there would be that inclusion requirement would render it financially infeasible. So that would be an option. But the and this these two tiers could make sense.

The in lieu fee option for the four to 10 units and requirement to build on-site for larger projects. Projects of three units or less would be exempt from inclusionary requirements and any project with a development agreement that addresses affordability such as Margot Canyon would be exempt from these requirements. And so the question is, if you could just go back one slide, a question for you all when it comes time to discussion, we'd like to know, do you think a tiered approach makes sense and is a minimum project size of four units appropriate in Piedmont? Next slide.

Thank you. Why did you start with four here? I mean, was there a reason for that? And does that match the other jurisdictions?

Yes, it matches Mill Valley and it aligns with where perhaps the sweet spot of development is in Piedmont, an SB nine project involving four units. It would apply to it would capture some of the SB nine projects. And the intent would be, I think as we as I showed on that slide, there's relatively few larger sites that can accommodate multifamily units of 10 or more projects. And so just typically inclusionary projects apply to multifamily projects. But in Piedmont the universe of potential projects is so small it might not make sense to move forward with an inclusionary zoning focused that way.

And so the idea was to try and capture smaller projects as well where there is more development potential. And that does, as I said, mirror what the experience of Mill Valley.

On the 11 plus units, we know from the reading that 15% is kind of the higher end of the limit on what we can ask for, for feasibility, correct?

So 20% is not uncommon. So 15% is reasonable. I think what we have seen more recently particularly throughout California as the cost of development, the cost of labor, the cost of materials is rising. There's more and more discussion in the community and some communities are that have had like for example, the communities that I put up on the screen all have all had an inclusion program for more than twenty years and some of them are considering scaling back those requirements. And so 15% is in line with the current state of things.

And I have a little slide later that gets it. EPS did some preliminary calculations of what 15% looks like on a per square foot basis and you can see that it's well within the range of other communities in Alameda County.

Thank you. And then also the 15% low and the 10% moderate, is that and or is that or, 11 plus units?

So it depends the 10 or the 15 depends on whether the project is providing rental units or for sale units.

Okay.

Whether it's you know, it doesn't matter what the size of the project is, 15% would apply if it's a rental and 10% would apply if it's moderate. And that's because of the different cost profiles involved in those types of project.

Thank you.

I I have a question that I think is more specific to Piedmont. If I remember correctly, there was a housing inventory that did, like, an inventory of sites available in the city. And I'm curious if we have numbers for how many sites might be in that four to 10 unit potential range. And I understand we might not have this at our fingertips today. And how many sites might potentially allow for the 11 and over number of units

including like if that even if that's a I forget what you call it consolidation of like merger of lots.

Oh, I see. The 11 and over is the easier answer. There is 12 sites identified in the housing inventory that can accommodate 10 or more units. So it's actually I think it's about 10 sites including the Moraga Canyon that could accommodate 11 or more. The question of four to 10 is a more difficult one because so many single family properties in Piedmont are potentially eligible for SB nine. So it's hard to I could give you a very big number like every single family property in Piedmont is theoretically available.

Is there a lot size? Like how small does the lot have to be?

Yeah. There are lot size requirements. I think it's about the minimum resulting lot size is I think 1,200 square feet. So it's pretty small. And there's some other considerations as well, right?

You have to be outside of for example, geological constraints. And so it's not every single family lot in the city because you'd have to look at where those environmental constraints and other considerations that are in the law for historic resources for example and exclude those. But we could we could come up with a number. It would be a bit of a guesstimate, but it's quite it's it's quite a large number, which is why potentially including SB nine projects in an inclusionary zoning program could make the whole thing more viable in Piedmont.

And can I ask one follow-up question? So that would be triggered when a homeowner sells their property and somebody buys the property and says, I want to subdivide and build out this lot.

Or if a homeowner decides to proceed with an SB nine project and proposes four units, at that point it would be triggered. So not just an outside developer coming and buying the project, but a Piedmont homeowner who may want to pursue an SB-nine project.

And can I and one

last follow-up question about ownership residency requirements? So is the owner required to live on-site in one of those four units? Correct. So it wouldn't be like some big corporate developers coming in and like building all these housing units and doesn't care about Piedmont at all?

That is correct. There's an owner occupancy requirement.

I just wanted to add that that requirement is for three years and it's a little bit hard to enforce when that timeframe begins and when it ends.

So it could like the in theory, the time frame could begin when they close on the sale of the home. It takes three years to do the construction. You're living there for that three years even though there's nothing there to live

in. Right.

Potentially met that requirement?

Right.

Because state law doesn't have teeth on that requirement. Okay. Thank

you.

Yes. So a third consideration would be whether regulatory or fee based incentives in exchange for a commitment to a greater level of affordability. So Piedmont's RINA allocation for the current planning period as I mentioned has a very high share of very low income units for households making less than 50% of the county wide area median income. But providing for very low income units requires a deeper level of subsidy from the project proponent. So an incentive based approach could make sense in Piedmont.

Some communities offer relaxed design standards for affordable units, but waivers and concessions are already available through state density bonus law. And so that kind of relaxed standard might not make sense in Piedmont. And anyway, the intent is really to ensure that the design and the location of units mirrors that of market rate units in Piedmont to the extent feasible. So therefore, maybe the following regulatory incentives could be offered. The first one would be for any project that constructs inclusionary units on-site, we could offer a reduced landscape coverage requirement.

And then additionally for projects that set aside some of their units for very low income households, there could be additional incentives. And so those could include a further reduction in landscape coverage requirements. The code currently requires 30% landscape coverage for projects that construct at least one very low income unit that could be reduced to 10. In terms of unit mix, currently the code requires two bedroom units at least 50% of the units in a multifamily project be two bedroom units, that could be reduced to 20% for that could be waived altogether rather for projects that offer at least 20% of their for very low income households. And then a third regulatory incentive could be regarding front setbacks.

So the requirement could be reduced to a 10 foot front setback for up to 50% of the street frontage in a project that offers to make at least 20% of the units available for very low income households. Now all of

these What is it currently?

Yeah, what is the current setback?

Pierce, do you know?

20. Okay.

Thank you. So all of these are intended to provide more flexibility in design and that would translate into cost savings. So that's that would be the reason for offering these incentives. Again, they would be tied to they would only be available for projects that offer very low income units recognizing that that type of project requires a deeper level of subsidy and also trying to incentivize that type of unit to help the city meet its very high share of very low income units. Another option is to consider a local density bonus that would be available on top of any state density bonus that the project may qualify for.

Again, this would only be available to projects that make a commitment to building very low income units. The bonus could be one additional market rate unit for a project that commits to making 50% of its units available for very low income households. And this would be perhaps particularly attractive for those smaller SB nine projects.

On the unit mix, the way for the requirement for two bedroom, what do mean to make it one bedroom?

Yes. So right now the requirement is that 50% of the units in a multi family project be two bedroom units and the intent is to try and require family size units. But it's it anyway it could be an incentive to waive that requirement for very low income units.

Okay, thank you.

Can you explain a little bit about, I don't understand what you

mean when you say allow an additional market rate unit as a local density bonus. I don't Okay. Understand

So for example, if a homeowner wants to subdivide a single family lot and build an ADU on part of their lot and a duplex on the newly created lot. If they commit to making two of those four units available for very low income units, they would be allowed to build five total units. So it's a bonus of one unit on that site, one market rate unit.

Okay. Thank you.

A question on My name is Tom. It seems to be a theme here tonight. A question on state requirements. Is anything in here duplicative or duplicate state requirement? And are we allowing any double dipping? I mean, somebody pick this and then pick this on top? Is that how that works? Could

you Right. Explain The inclusionary requirements will trigger state density bonus. And so depending on this tiered depending on what the project is proposing, they become eligible for either bonus density or waivers and concessions. So it is additive. And that this local density bonus would be over and on top of that, But it's specifically, again, it's specifically targeted to very low income units. So it goes to the planning commission sort of recommended approach of carrots over sticks. It's not a all none of these are a requirement. These are items on the table for for discussion and feedback.

Did you bring up these four options with the planning department folks?

Yes. Yes.

How did they respond to them?

So they were we heard again last week that they the the only thing that they had comments on comes on a later slide about alternative Thank you.

On first bullet point and third bullet point, landscaping and front setbacks. Is there are there any requirements that take into consideration context? Or are all these just focused just on the lot? I'm thinking about a zero or a 10 foot setback next to 20 foot setbacks along an entire street. I'm thinking of no 10% landscaping next to 30% landscaping right next door. So is there any consideration of context or is this just looking at the individual lot?

We could look at that. But I think that if we think it would be a more limit the application would be much more limited if we had to consider context. If we think about where the sweet spot of development is, it's likely going to be on SB nine projects which are in single family neighborhoods. So you're likely going to run up against the very scenario that you're talking about on most of the projects. And so limiting it to areas where a similar setback already exists might effectively preclude the incentive.

One comment on where my head is, is that the 20 foot setback in all of our planning codes is almost sacro anct. Fences, I mean it's regulated you can't have, I mean it's just, it's a disproportionate amount of regulation on that 20 foot setback. That's very important in this town.

So might not be a carrot, it might be like the whole carrot cake.

Whole carrot cake?

Yes,

yes. That's right. Okay.

So these are ideas?

Correct.

And they are kind of semi vetted it sounds like from through our planning department. Have they gone to planning commission? Yes. They have. Okay. So we should let you continue.

Did you have a question or? No.

Okay.

Next slide please. And so a fourth consideration is whether to offer greater flexibility and allow for alternative avenues for compliance with inclusionary requirements. And so based on a case study of peer communities, three potential options were identified. The first of these would be to allow off-site construction of the inclusionary units. So for example, a project of you know 10 for sale units would be required ordinarily to make set aside one of those or one of those units for moderate income households rather than well, maybe that's not a good example.

Maybe let's say 20 rental units, 15% of them should be set aside on the site rather than setting aside those units on the site. This alternative and Foster City for example allows those units to be built on another site in the city, a non contiguous site in the city. And that provides flexibility That it could be the project proponent could find an affordable housing developer who to work with to construct those units on another site in the city. This is an avenue that allows flexibility. Foster City and other communities have used it.

The planning's the planning commission's opinion on this is that the preference is to have mixed income projects, to have the affordable units integrated into the into the fabric of the community and so this was not a recommended alternative, but it is an option. A second alternative compliance again in the interest of allowing for flexibility could be to allow for the conversion or rehabilitation of existing market rate units into affordable housing. Foster City and Santa Cruz both allow this option. However, in Piedmont, there's a very limited supply of existing multifamily housing. What exists is probably in pretty good condition so the opportunities for conversion or rehabilitation are pretty limited.

But it could still be an option to include. And the third one would be land dedication. In this case, Mill Valley for example, allows a developer to to buy another site in community and dedicate land to the city for the for the construction of affordable housing. So in this case, there's metrics for determining the value of the land. It would need to be equivalent with the value of the inclusionary units that they're not constructing.

Mill Valley allows this. In Piedmont, I think this would be particularly difficult because there isn't a lot of land for purchase and it probably doesn't make sense. So that was the opinion of the Planning Commission is that the potential for these is relatively limited. And and then in the case of off-site construction, it it probably doesn't make sense. The one thing I would say about off-site construction though is there are churches and synagogues in Piedmont that have expressed interest in potentially developing affordable housing on on some of their land.

And so this option, providing this option would provide an avenue potentially for a developer to assist the church or the synagogue that wants to build affordable housing on on their on their land. So it it this that option could actually have a you know, an applicable case in Piedmont.

Can can you explain that a little further? You mean, like a developer wants to develop a multifamily unit on a on a existing lot instead of having to do the one quarter of the units low income or extremely low income, instead they help the church do an extremely low income development on the church's property?

Sort of, almost. So for example, we take this example of a project wants to is proposing to build 20 units. They would be required 20 rental units. They would be required to set aside 15 of those units on their site for low income households. But instead of building on-site, they would take the funding that would have gone towards those sites and pool it with a church or a synagogue that's already planning to build multi family housing.

Maybe the church of the synagogue doesn't have the means to construct the housing, but they have the land. And so this option would allow the housing proponent to to assist with the construction of the units on the church or the synagogue property.

How can you inform that seems like it'd be really hard to make sure that all of those things happen simultaneously and that

There would have to be an agreement in place. It would be it would be part of it. And my you're you're giving me a good segue into my last administration, but it would be like

I think that is a good segue.

Okay. So next slide please. And so the fifth consideration has to do with how to administer and manage the program. And one of the best practices is to require an affordable housing agreement. And so this is at the time the project is approved, there's an agreement that would go into place and it would define the parameters for the project including the term of affordability, the income certification process, any resale controls, and ongoing management.

And in the case that the the city wants to offer an alternative compliance method and the developer decides that they wanna use that and partner with a church or a synagogue, all the terms of that would be included in the affordable housing agreement. So how it would work and it would need to they would need to provide evidence that they have a partner and that there would be a legal contract between them to stipulate how that would work. You're right. It's sort of an edge case. It's not I wouldn't expect that you'd see a lot of this.

But, you know, because there has been expressed interest from the faith based community in Piedmont in doing that and one of the things you see statewide, you know, when when the church or synagogue wants to do that is they often don't have, you know the the financial wherewithal to do it even if it's within their mission. And so providing an avenue for that kind of partnership you know might be something that someday somebody pursues in Piedmont. Next slide please. I also wanted to just take a minute to for context, EPS did some preliminary calculations to give a sense of where the in lieu fee would likely be set in Piedmont based on some representative projects in Alameda County. And I think this gets at an earlier question.

So an in lieu fee is a one time fee charged on new housing projects at the time of approval. The fee set at the level equal to the developer subsidy that would be needed to build an inclusionary unit. So for example, considering the cost of providing one low income rental unit versus the maximum rent that could be charged for that, then the fee would be set at the gap between those two prices, the affordability gap. So next slide please. So for example, if inclusionary requirements are set at 10% moderate for sale projects, the calculation would be about $33 per square foot for ownership projects or in the case of rental projects, 15% low requirement would be linked to a fee of $45 per square foot.

And these fees fall within the range that's in place in both Berkeley and Oakland, which for comparison is between $15 and $63 per square foot.

And are these do these change yearly?

That's a good question. I think it would be set in the enacting ordinance, but you may make a provision to revisit them periodically. Thanks.

Just as a follow-up to

that, how is that normally calculated? Like is it a how do you determine what those numbers are?

Right. I might ask Jason to come up and he's going to be a better place to answer that question than me.

Thank you. Jason Moody with EPS. Nice to be here again. It's a calculation that says if let's just for example 80% of area meeting income is a house can afford a certain price. That price you calculate by 30% of your income for housing and you do how much for taxes etcetera, then how much you actually can pay to afford a house. That's just house that costs a certain amount. Well, cost to build that house is x amount more. So that's essentially how you calculate what the subsidy is to to sell a house at one price to to actually provide it at another price, that's the gap. So there's a bunch of calculations that go into that that would determine what the fee amount is. And and the question about whether it changes on a regular basis, Well typically you do two things.

One, you would just do a CPI index on that fee so over time, but then you would update it maybe every five years to see how the market has changed. Those relationships can change over time, the cost of development could go down, the AMI average median income can go up, can reduce the gap to some degree and so you want to recalculate those fees but you might do that about every five years.

I was just curious the

cost of development, does it ever go down?

Well, maybe relative to AMIs. So there's two things that are affecting the equation.

So how who is determining that cost of development? That seems like

You calculate the fee, you usually hire a consultant to do a calculation do the calculation for you the first time around. You calculate a fee and there's data on. It's not like you would do every single project into the cost development. You do an average. There are some developers who benefit, some might go higher, some might be lower. You calculate based on the average cost of building a single family unit or a multi family unit, which is data on that. It's not a project by project calculation. Okay,

thank you. Yeah,

next slide please. So that was for the inclusionary and the next section is on the affordable housing fund which is linked to the inclusionary because it's a potential repository for any in lieu fee that is generated if the city adopts inclusionary program and if it involves an inclusionary or an in lieu fee. So an affordable housing fund is a dedicated locally controlled funding mechanism that supports the production, preservation and rehabilitation of housing that's affordable to lower income households. There's a number of communities throughout California that have affordable housing funds notably the cities of Napa, Palo Alto, Santa Barbara, Laguna Beach and Beverly Hills all peers to Piedmont. Typically, the fund is capitalized through ongoing revenue sources that could include in lieu fees, impact fees, commercial linkage fees for communities that have hotels, transit occupancy taxes, document recording fees, or regular general fund set asides.

Additionally, the fund could receive grants or philanthropic donations. So, it has a wide variety of potential contributing sources. Next slide. Potential uses, really it's a flexible gap financing tool that can be used to subsidize affordable housing developments that would otherwise not be financially feasible. And the funds can be used to support projects with low interest loans, deferred payment loans or even grants.

And those monies could be used to support property acquisition, long term land banking, site preparation and construction costs for affordable housing, supportive services on-site, matching funds to support grant applications or even to subsidize the provision of deed restricted accessory dwelling units. A wide variety of potential uses. Next slide. And the administration, typically this would be established by resolution, which would define the eligible uses, income targeting and administrative procedures. It would have a minimal annual administrative cost for reference probably less than 3% annually.

And most cities administer the funds themselves, but some smaller cities form rely on a non profit or maybe they form a consortium to administer the fee collectively and reduce the costs. And so an example is from Orange County. There's Neighborhood Works in Orange County, is an example of smaller communities banded together to implement this type of fund.

Yes. You know or does anyone know if there is if there are existing type funds locally that could potentially join?

Yeah, the city has been talking with Silicon Valley Housing Trust as a potential partner for that is one example.

So I'm assuming there are multiple options.

I think there's more than one for sure, but that is one that the city has actively been engaged with to consider. And then finally just to wrap up, I wanted to just give you a look ahead to next steps. So we have our study session tonight based on your feedback. We would take your guidance on whether to move forward with either or either of these options. And based on your feedback, we'd go ahead and draft a resolution in the case of the fund or an ordinance in the case of the inclusionary zoning.

It would be reviewed with the Planning Commission and then brought forward later in the fall potentially for adoption hearings if that's the route that you want to go. So I'm happy to answer any more questions or clarifying comments or

Great. Thank you so much. That was very thorough presentation. I just want to make sure this is an informational item. I know staff is looking for direction from us and so I just want to make sure we are providing the direction that you seek.

So what I've written down is you would like direction from the council on the tiered approach versus kind of a flat percentage requirement of affordability. And the slide presentation had it it was showing us a tiered approach, but obviously there we could do restructure it sounds like in a variety of ways. I think you also wanted our feedback on incentives to incentivize owners to provide deeper affordability for developers. You also wanted some feedback on alternative compliance options if you're interested in any of those, including off-site construction, conversion rehab or land dedication. And then the creation of an affordable housing fund which is obviously linked if we had did an in lieu fee to create funds for that or other philanthropic donations.

And then questions about kind of

how to

manage, how to implement the program. I'm not sure the council is in the best place now to provide direction on how staff should implement it, but we could certainly talk through some options. Is that the universe of what or is there are there other things you're looking for feedback from us this evening?

I think that's a great start if you could work through those and

Okay.

We can we can come back with a range of options. If you if you have reached a consensus as a group, great. If you have different opinions, can shape kind of give you bring back one more than one option and or bring back more research on a particular item if you just want to Great. More background information or more examples from other communities.

Yeah, was just looking at agenda report page four and there's bullet points there and just wanted to confirm because that seems like different questions than what was before us in this presentation. So I just want to make sure I'm not leaving anything out.

I think it would one of the things that you didn't mention and wasn't really discussed in the presentation is the number of years that the units would be restricted typically fifty five years or more was was one of the items that I think will be important to have some feedback. Easy to adjust if you want to over time, you want to change that as we're developing the ordinance, we could change that. But if you have an initial reaction to it, that would be great.

Okay. Okay. So with that, we're going to start with questions from the dais and then we'll go to public comment and then we will bring back for discussion on these points that we have identified.

Great. Councilmember Long. Thank you for the presentation. I I think it would be helpful to kind of orient myself and and obviously colleagues in in public. I know we're not talking about Moraga, but it seems to me that the path that we choose will be dependent on how aggressive we feel like we need to be for this very affordable group of housing.

So I don't know who could speak to sort of where we are, what we have in the specific plan, and then also if there are any other very affordable that we have in the city currently, I think that would be helpful or maybe we don't have any. Yeah, obviously not as part of inclusionary, but do we have? Yes.

I can answer part of that question and I think I' need Pierce McDonald' s help. With respect to the specific plan there' a minimum expectation of 60 units and whether there' more or not would depend on a lot of factors that will be evolving over the coming months. As for what's available in the community today, I'll and anything else that Peter just wants to add, please go ahead.

Good evening, city council members. There was a slide that showed the overall arena for the very low income. Perhaps we could look at that slide. The city doesn't have any active projects that are providing very low income.

Okay.

We've identified a few potential sites where it may occur, but there's there's nothing currently under construction. So that 163 number, you can reduce that by 60 potentially from Moraga Canyon leaving a 103 that we still have yet to to to build or produce.

And and we are tracking, I I guess, I know we had discussions about the ADUs and really understanding how people are using them. I think we did a survey or I'm not sure what other mechanisms if there are any that we might be employing to determine that they either exist or don't exist.

That's correct. We'll be bringing forward the housing element annual progress report soon. Uh-huh. And we'll be able to report out the number of accessory dwelling units that have been built. Okay. And under state rules, we can now count a few of those. A certain percentage of those is very low income. Still it's going to be like a handful of new units. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Can I follow-up

on that?

Yes, please.

Pierce, I have another question for you. Do mind staying for just a second? This isn't our first housing element, our sixth. What have what have we met our very low income housing threshold and have we?

We did not meet it in the fifth cycle, although we we overproduced housing in almost every other category. We did not meet our very low category in the fifth cycle and

Do have any memory of what happened in the fourth? Did we have an allocation of I I do remember Yeah. The very low in the fifth and that we hadn't met it, but we did overproduce. I'm just wondering, you know, what the trade offs are because I there there has to be I'm assuming there's experts here who can tell me I'm wrong, that the very low income housing comes with services that we can't easily provide, and and so that would be my concern.

Yeah. I can I can note that when we completed the site's inventory, there were certain criteria the sites had to meet to meet HCD standards? Because it's so difficult to produce very low income units, they required the sites for very low income to be half an acre or more, and we had just a handful of half acre sites. So that's one of the trade offs in identifying your housing element sites to meet that very low income arena category. It has to be a really large site so that many units can be built and there's an economy of scale. So I I can look up the fourth cycle. I don't don't have that number.

That's okay. But just fifth, we didn't meet it.

We did not. A

follow-up to that. Could you remind us what services are required for very low income housing?

I don't know how many are like services are required, but it is a best practice to provide services with vulnerable communities.

Council Member Ramsey, if I may, in my professional work I recently completed a project of 62 units in the community where I worked and that was a project that had a half time in house service provider in addition to project manager. And then there were also city funded assistance as well. So the city had a that we were funding through our joint wells through ARPA funds. But at this point, I think it's through general fund, who is providing additional counseling services to residents. So, you know, half to full time equivalent.

And those are best practice for larger, it sounds like developments, required.

That's correct. But it is for many of the residents at very low income for they need that support and to make the project successful, it's definitely a best practice.

Pierce, while you're here, I had a question. So we used to have a program in Piedmont that linked the deed restriction to parking. You explain a little bit more about how that worked, whether or not that was successful, and then what happened to that program?

Certainly. The the city actually in 2015 won an award from the American Planning Association for our incentives for ADUs to increase their affordability. So the city's award winning program was to grant a parking waiver for those ADUs that had a rent restriction for ten years because it's kind of an early early program, and also allowing sizes, unit size to be larger if there is a rent restriction. We still have the size incentive, although it's it's very, very rarely used. The state passed laws in 2017 that no longer allowed us to require parking for ADUs.

And so there was no longer an incentive for a rent restricted ADU due to that change.

Great. And the rent restrictions at the time, do you remember if they were very low or low or how did we tier them at that time?

Sorry. I don't remember. That's okay.

Yeah. But it was to try to increase affordability.

I believe they were very low because I did track a few of those when they were constructed.

Yeah. Yeah. That's my recollection as well. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

And and just for clarification, this half acre requirement applies to, I'm trying to get, SB nine or it's like totally separate or is there overlap like?

The half acre requirement was during the housing element when we presented sites that we felt had the cap capacity to build and produce housing. We could not identify affordable units on sites that were less than half an acre because the state sees them sees sites less than half an acre is not feasible for multifamily development densities enough to make it make them affordable to to low or very low. So it was it's not having to do with SB 9. It's a way to kind of highlight the practical limitations on sites in Piedmont that are large enough to, you know, be developed at very low incomes.

And did we have do you have a sense of what that number is? Like how many lots we're talking about?

There was a slide. There may be a dozen.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. You said?

A dozen.

A dozen.

A dozen.

Yeah. Thank

you. To your memory, why couldn't we meet our very low income allocation in housing element five?

In in the fifth out fifth housing element?

Sorry. I said it backwards.

Yeah. The the city's production of ADUs has greatly increased since the fifth cycle. And so we were relying a 100% on ADUs in the fifth cycle and there just weren't enough ADUs being built. And the the zoning changes that were put forward in the sixth cycle weren't in effect. So there wasn't enough of an incentive to build in general.

Thank you. Yeah.

Great. Thank you so much. Have one. Other questions at this time?

I have one point of clarification Oh, yes. If I Just jump in.

Were two.

Thank you. Two comments, sort of comments or questions about services and very low income units. I wanted to point out that for example if the city enacts an inclusionary zoning requirements with incentives for very low income housing, the requirement would be for the developer to build those very low income units in order to take advantage of the incentives and also to provide the services. So the city wouldn't be responsible for providing services to go along with the very low income housing units if they're provided by a developer. The only way the city would be involved in providing those services is if you wanted to use, if you also establish the affordable housing fund and wanted to support the development of very low or extremely low housing income housing with affordable housing funds.

So just to make that clarification that inclusionary is generally it's on the developer to provide the housing and the services.

I I have heard that. But my question is is how do we know those developers are gonna be around for any significant period of time? Do they have to bank money somewhere that would, you know, allow a drawdown to provide the services into some

So period of that would also be established in the affordable housing agreement and through the administration if the city for example were to partner with the county housing authority to track the affordability and the maintenance of those agreements over time, then that would be through that agreement that it would be enforced. Does that make sense?

Yes. So I'm able to wrap my head around the larger developments and how this would work. But let's just talk about SB nine project for a minute and say we are setting this up to incentivize that a developer that comes in and wants to develop SB nine whether or not they are an owner developer or a new owner. They want to do four units and we have incentivized them to do one very low income unit. What does the scale look like on that? I mean is it feasible for that developer to have one unit that they're going to provide services for?

Well, again services are not always required with very low income units. In a smaller development like that you could imagine a junior accessory dwelling unit like maybe a garage conversion for example to provide you know housing for maybe someone who works you know as a nanny or a home helper in the community for example. I could imagine that type of person fitting into the slot of a very low income household. They wouldn't necessarily need you know supportive services. So, in that scenario I could see it playing out.

Okay, so it's not a requirement.

It's not a requirement and I think over and if you know if they're going to provide that deeper level of subsidy and then they would be required to provide services on-site for one, it doesn't financially I just don't think it would pencil.

I think oftentimes the support services arrangement is in a higher density residential facility. And

I'm still trying to do the math here on the 163 number and even with all of these inclusionary options that we're talking about, I mean, the likely, given the current state of community, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that these are gonna probably be individual homeowners who are converting properties unless we think some developer comes in and starts buying a bunch of homes up. Right? So I guess the question would be, if if that's a correct assumption, then what are of these mechanisms that we've been talking about? What do we see as the most feasible and and best incentives for individuals to use as they're considering these project?

I think the most likely so for SB nine development, I think the most likely scenario is that the project proponent would elect to pay an in lieu fee and it would go into the affordable housing fund. I think that's the most likely scenario and it'll take time for the fund to accrue to a level where there's sufficient funds in there to support you know whether it could be many of those options, right? It could be to support deed restricted ADUs elsewhere in the community for example. It could be as I mentioned to support faith based housing. So I think it's going to take some time for the fund to accrue to a level where you know you've got critical mass to support some of those projects.

But I think over time it that could be a significant generator of funds and it could make a difference. Now is it going to get a 103 units built in six years? No, it's not. But it's going to help over time.

I'm follow-up to that.

And I'm thinking of is there a probability that there is an unintended consequence that by trying so hard to encourage with incentives very low income, We might be producing less results with those incentives as opposed to say concentrating more on low income, say the low income category that might help more teachers and people in that category. Are we is there a risk though of that unintended consequence that trying so hard for the low income, we might be disincentivizing for the very low income, we're not incentivizing the low income enough.

Right. That's a good question. An approach could be to take a tiered approach to provide some level incentive for low income units and a deeper level for very low income units. That could be an approach. What I would say is that so I think the Planning Commission did think about that scenario which is why they're recommending a carrot over a stick approach with respect to the very low income units.

Another consideration I think in the context of SB nine projects, a knock against inclusionary zoning requirements typically is that you know they might render a project financially infeasible. But I think that that applies particularly for you know inclusionary zoning typically applies to large scale multifamily projects, right? And it could have a take a hit you know cause a hit to the financial feasibility of a large multifamily project. Those are typically built by you know a developer identifies a site in the community, retains an option on the site or purchases the site and then proceeds proceeds with the project. In those kind of cases, land acquisition represents a substantial part of the equation.

With an SB nine project, it's typically in Piedmont, it's typically the homeowner that's proceeding with it. And so they either they own the property or they've been paying down the mortgage for years. And so land acquisition is not really at the same level of significance in terms of the overall calculus, which means that an inclusionary in lieu fee is perhaps not much of a burden on a smaller SB nine project in a community where the homeowner is the project proponent. And so that's a consideration as well. I think that the inclusionary requirements in the Piedmont context might not be as onerous as they are in other communities or in other contexts.

Can I ask a follow-up question to that? Do we have numbers on how many SB nine projects we have approved or that are underway like in the past year

and how much would and in lieu fee be to go into that fund?

Pierce is probably better. He's got the numbers.

I mean,

had we had an in lieu fee and had the folks elected to pay that fee instead

of Yes.

That's what you're saying,

if it Yes.

Low income. Yeah.

Okay.

It does not exist I'm

just wondering what the

I'm wondering what the data is. How do we exist? Yeah.

If if.

If if.

Yeah. If if.

That's a great question. There approximately six to eight applications that are approved or under review just in the last couple of years, and it seems to the trend seems to be accelerating.

And can I ask Pierce, how many units are do they even qualify? Because I think this if we adopted this Mhmm. The way it's proposed, it's saying four or more versus three and under, so.

I don't have that number at the top of my head, unfortunately. Some of the sites are constrained, and so although it's an SB nine that would allow up to four, they build to Yes. Just because of the site constraints. Okay.

Alright. Thank

you. I'm aware of two having four units. Okay. Thank you.

And how much would an in lieu fee be for, like how is that calculated? It's by square foot. So,

so let's say one of the project is required to dedicate one unit for lower income households. The fee would be $45 per square foot. So, if it's a 1,000 square foot ADU, 45 times 1,000, so $4,500 And

it's a one time fee?

Yes.

So we're talking like $9,000 in the past two years?

45. Yeah, 45,000. Sorry, 45,000 would be the fee. Okay.

90,000 in the past two years. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So any other questions before we go turn to public comment? We can keep asking questions, but

go ahead.

Just just one more about the housing fund. It seems like we've been having conversations with a particular fund. Is there anything that we've learned about the functioning of the funds or how they've been applied that maybe maybe this is just the starting point, but if there's something we should be thinking about in terms of, the housing fund how it can be used, who to pick, that would be helpful.

At this point I think it's pretty straightforward to just create the fund, have a basic resolution that sets some standard parameters on that. And then given that it's in resolution form, it's easy for counsel to evolve during as opportunities present themselves or financial constraints present themselves. You can adjust the application of those funds over time. So it's pretty straightforward. There isn't a lot of policy variables at this stage in the creation of the fund, to be honest with you.

A follow-up to the funding So I remember in the past with A1 funding, was some discussion about setting up a fund before. And I remember at that time the administrative costs were just so overwhelming that it took up a high percentage of that. And I'm curious how this fund now bypasses that and if you could define what minimal cost is because I'm thinking about all the different programs and all of the work we are putting on our staff. You know, is it is it minimal when you just look at the is that or is it still minimal when you add it up to everything else you all look at?

It's minimal in the sense of the cost of the accounting of the funds. Now, if you use the funds to establish and manage a program, there can be administrative costs for that program that can be significant. But you have now in the city more than a handful of different funds that you used for, you know, different tax measures, for transportation, so on and so forth. Every department probably has a handful of different funds. So initially, at least, it's simply creating that accounting system within the city's financial system to separate and manage the funds to make sure they're not intermingled with something they shouldn't be and that they will eventually be applied to a housing project or to a housing

But am I right? Is that for use of these funds, though, some of these might be connected to some development agreement?

It could be. Right. It could be eventually.

Just as a point of information, one of the options the city had considered for measure a one funding was a low interest loan to ADUs that were rent restricted, and that did have very many administrative costs associated with running a loan program. And the housing element references that loan program as one possible use of the affordable housing fund, but it's not the only use that could be applied.

Okay.

Can I

just make a comment on the affordable housing fund? It's a pretty common fund that cities set up and allows cities to take advantage of grant funding put out by the states. If there's an affordable housing bond, the city becomes more attractive for

those types of

funds. There's no requirement. It's it's good practice that it has a a regular funding source. Mhmm. There's there isn't a requirement on the city to have to do that and keep it up.

Meaning that if so for example, if we had a project and then we didn't have another project for two more years, then it would be fine to keep those funds where they are and

okay. That's correct. Can we invest them?

It's okay. We'll just invest.

And I have to look into that.

Okay. And then also No.

We're gonna have to decide. Anybody can

be. Oh, Bitcoin. And anybody can contribute that? Or it can the funds can come from multiple sources or from grants? Or how does that work?

They usually the fund is usually it usually has some ongoing funding source, linkage fee, an impact fee, things of that nature. I haven't had experience with leveraging it with private dollars or community dollars.

It just varies. There are some grant programs that will want to have their grant in a special fund that makes it easier to track. There are others that, if we're collecting, say, an in lieu fee, we need to appropriately audit that. But it can I believe it can be mixed with other sources of funds as long as those other sources don't have unique strings attached? So if, you know, the city wanted to set aside, you know, well, not the city, but if there was another agency that wanted to help contribute a nonprofit or something that wanted to help contribute to funding projects in Piedmont, you could put all the funds in one put the monies in one fund.

And I think I guess part of that question is likely private folks would not contribute to just a general housing fund. They probably would come into play if we have particular programs, or do people just generally contribute to a housing fund that has no particular

Yeah. It's pretty I would be surprised. Yeah. They would want it to be contributed they want it to be monitored and reported.

Exactly. So I think, you know, if we got to that stage of the proceedings that it would be clearer about what we're using the funds for why it would be appropriate to partner with any particular group or entity. Yeah. And

is the city does the city have capacity to manage a fund versus using one of those other organizations where you're pooling funds or whatever? The way

it functions in the short term is literally it's an account number that receives and carries a balance over time. So I think we do have the capacity of given direction to create an account number to carry a balance. I mean that's the way that it would function once Yes. An in lieu fee were

And I think we're talking at two different levels. One is just what you said, which is the accounting level. But I think we're also sort of jumping ahead and saying, okay, let's assume we have the accounting is done appropriately with the different codes, which we're not a part of anyway. But like, then what are we doing with the funds? Which I think is the different part of the question, which is how would we administer a program that went to a specific thing that, you know, that's another layer that I don't we're not deciding right Yeah.

But it would take staff time? Yes. Okay. Public comment. Do we have any public comment on this informational item this evening? Great.

We have one speaker in

the chambers.

It's Ryan Dickey.

Ryan, welcome.

I had some comments, particularly regarding the incentives that were provided. Great. So I do think that the front removing the frontage requirement and some of the more like, I guess, Byzantine requirements in Piedmont for zoning, would be attractive to developers. However, the mix units where, if you provide 20% very low income, you don't have to, have two beds, feel like is kind of contrary to the community that Piedmont has really pressed for, which is a very family oriented community. And having a, having that many units or such a strong incentive to produce units without, the capacity for families seems a little, doesn't seem very applicable to Piedmont.

And, I also, I agreed with councilman, Ramsey's assessment about that, if we strongly focus on very low income, we might be alienating some of the low income, buyers, who provide essential services to our community, like teachers, because it is very biased towards very low income, our HNA allocation. And, yeah,

thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your feedback. Do we have any other public commenters at this time? Okay. I'm going to close public comment and this portion of the meeting is where we get to discuss the ideas and thoughts that have been put before us and potentially provide direction to staff. Does anyone want to start our discussion?

Can you orient us again?

Yes, absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay. So first I think we were asked to weigh in on this approach of an in lieu fee, this tiered approach. If we can look at Slide, it would help us to orient if we actually looked at the slides with respect to

I believe you're referring to slide 15.

Yes, 15. Thank you. Okay. So I think Steph was hoping for feedback from us on this proposal.

Okay. I'll start. Number one, in a very general context related to this, I agree with the Planning Commission that carrots are much better than sticks. And we're really bad at sticks. So we should stick with the carrots. That's the first thing. The second is that these comparisons and everything else is really set up for large cities with large sites. We're not that. We're more difficult to build anything in. So yes, I think the tiered approach makes a lot of sense because we're going to get a lot more in that lower category than the higher category.

So putting those high category restrictions in the low category doesn't make sense. And I'll leave it to the expert on where that cutoff is from four or three or 10 or 11 or 12. But yes, I'm

So just to be clear, so projects of three units or less can be built without any income restrictions, right? And projects with the development agreement like Moraga Canyon specific plan is also exempt from what we're talking about. Okay. So where this would kick in is if we have projects in town between four and ten units, there would be a requirement of some sort to which the person developing it or corporation developing it could do an in lieu fee option. Is that correct?

That's correct.

So what is the proportion we're looking at for four to 10 units? I see it for 11 plus units,

but I don't see

it for the four to 10 units unless I'm looking in the wrong spot.

I thought it was a quarter. Is it a quarter?

I don't know.

Thought I said 25%.

It's percent, I believe is

Okay. If you have four units, it's going

to be Is that how that works? Round up?

So it's rounding. Yes, that's rounding up.

So with 15 and if you had 10 units, you'd have two of those units would be. And in this case, it's which income level for the four to 10?

Typically, we'd see a mix of income levels. Andrew, you can But

what would the requirement be for which you could pay the in lieu fee? Like what's the default? If you're not going to pay the fee, what's the status?

Right. We in the presentation, I didn't say that because we But, hadn't specified I think and going back to I think the most likely case scenario for, you know, an SB nine project is someone would opt to pay the fee. But the staff didn't want to preclude someone who wanted to you know dedicate one of the units Of course. Making them that way. So, I think maybe the one way to do it would be to say, you can build one unit which is either moderate or low income on-site or you can pay a fee that's equivalent to 15 percent low income. Do you see what I mean? A fee.

Versus very low.

Sorry? Versus very

low income.

Where does the very low income come into play?

Oh, the very low income is only an incentive based.

Okay. I guess I'm still sort of head scratchy between the moderate and the low because it seems like if it just depends on it seems so project specific.

So it is. If the if like let's take the SB nine example. So the project is constructed like four total units. One of them would be a rental unit, and they would have the option of making one of those units either affordable to moderate or low building it and making it affordable on-site to either moderate or lower income household or paying a fee that's equivalent to 15% of the cost of a low income unit on-site.

I think I'm following that. I guess what I'm not following is why wouldn't the person developing always go with the moderate? What would incentivize them to go with the low versus the moderate?

Well, that's probably correct. They would probably choose to provide a moderate income Especially if they're renting it, right? Yes, yeah. And so then we get to the question of do you want to offer incentives for low and greater incentives for very low that could be an

approach.

I think without even getting into the very low, just as between sort of not understanding the decision point between low and moderate if they're being put together vis a vis the in lieu fee.

Would it just impact how much the in lieu fee was if it would if we prescribed low or moderate?

Yes, it would well, yes, it would be a different

But on a four unit, we don't really want to do that, right? No. Right.

I think yeah, I think it would be simplest, like to keep it simple. I think as a basic rule we'd want to establish what the in lieu fee is and I think that most projects would elect to go with the in lieu fee. But we don't want to preclude the option of somebody who wants to build an affordable unit on-site. So we'd make a provision for that as well. But I think by and large most project would opt to pay

the I'm just going to interrupt. Some of the units you're talking about are pretty small, I mean potentially. So I don't know, it might not be that unattractive to have it be a low or moderate income designation because if we're talking about JADU or a small footprint ADU, that might be the market you're looking to house anyway.

Right.

Right?

Yeah and it could be the other thing is that whether it's moderate or whether it's low income, it does trigger state density bonus and so that is probably not going to result in more somebody asking for more density, but they might ask for waivers or concessions and they could get more waivers or concessions if they offered a low income unit versus a moderate income unit. So, that might be another reason why somebody would opt for a low instead of a moderate?

If I may, Mayor Anderson, I think what I'm hearing is we should bring back to you some math on this.

That would be extremely helpful.

And that we we can when we bring back a draft ordinance or perhaps before that, but just a more detailed example because this really is maybe the the sweet spot of of the important policy decisions here this evening. This might be

How about this? Can we agree on some general parameters? Can we agree on the fact that we are open to further exploring the in lieu fee scenario to build the housing funds that we talked about? Okay. And we are we generally in alignment that there should be a delineation between sort of the four to 10 units and then 11 units and above? Or do we feel like that's arbitrary? That's what's been suggested to us, but

It's already limited by what's available in town. Right? Didn't we say that the 11 plus units, there's only 10 sites including Rock Canyon. So I think it's fine to leave it as a separate because the possibilities of it happening

are not that great. Mhmm. Okay. So we're okay with that?

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Okay. And anything anything else kind of big picture with respect to that tiered approach vis a vis that idea concept of in lieu developer fees?

I think your questions have helped that will help us frame what we bring back to you. That if there are any if there's anything left for you to give guidance on, we'll have more detail for you to work with.

And I do I do think I mean I would generally agree with Councilman Ramsey is that we want to encourage housing full stop. Right? All housing is good housing. So I don't want to see a situation where we inadvertently are stymie or dampening construction of new units because we're making it too difficult with our parameters for very for low or very low income. So we just have to think about that.

I think that's important. And what you brought up with the size of the units, the two, I mean, a small ADU is by default affordable, not as affordable as the standards. So we don't want to discourage that.

That's right. Okay. And then you had to ask those questions about the incentives for deeper affordability for very low income. And I know councilman Ramsey had some thoughts about our 20 foot setback that we have really upheld over the course of our various housing efforts over the years.

And you can imagine like a long street with one house. Right.

I mean people do love living in a leafy green residential community. So setbacks are important.

I think the and I think from some of our conversation too, this is additive on state law. So You

could end up with nothing.

Yeah. I mean but I think the response though too is that if there is a way to take into consideration context for those, I'd be interested in hearing if that's possible.

I guess my only I mean this would be for staff to answer objective design standards right so are we allowed ever to take into contact into account context or is it really just

I'd like to research that with the city attorney that's a tricky tricky area to both legally and then how to administer it but I understand the question and concern and we can bring that back if I just to confirm this is specifically related to the 20 foot setback or all of the incentives

Just the 20 foot suspension. And

then question about the 20 foot because there wasn't there something recently with the ADU change about the setbacks, but it wasn't Can you refresh our recollection about what that recent change was? The state Some of this might be Invited. Yeah. Did we say

you could have something in the front of your house? That's a change to recent state law with no setbacks.

We the city council did, just as a point of information, recently amended the ADU ordinance per state law and state guidance that ADUs are permitted in the street yard setback under state law. And so yes.

So this is null and void because state law says you can already do it. Is that right?

Yes.

I thought there were some it it was more it wasn't just a general it had to meet certain requirements, but I can't remember the fine

your recollection is correct. The ADU can be located in your front yard.

If it meets the objective design standards

That's as

a yes.

It has to meet both.

That's a big if.

Yeah. That that was yeah. I knew there was a caveat.

Thank you.

You're picturing storage.

That's what I Yeah.

And and yeah. Go. Go.

I just wanted to float the possibility of like, we were talking here about the setback going from 20 feet to 10 feet. And I don't know if a smaller difference would be something that would be of any incentive and if so, where our threshold is in comfortability in changing the setback.

Yeah. And I think you were gonna research sort of your point. I think the other question is just examples, like, there are examples of where the setback is different, other communities who are already employing some of these incentives, it would be helpful to have visuals, I think, if it's coming back anyway.

Yeah. I think what we can do is actually do some site testing. So pick some typical sites and design out what that would look like with, you know, a 10 like ten, fifteen foot. And as you say, compared to other comparable communities to see what, you know, front setbacks they have or if any have implemented this type of incentive, we can do that for you.

And and I'm also thank you. I'm also, you know, the unit mix, while I, you know, know our ultimate goal is families, but I also think, you know, we wanna have diverse, you know, residents. So some may not be families. So I think that this unit mix could be

Mhmm.

You know, something of value.

Can I I'd like to agree with that because I'm also thinking there could be seniors that live there? It could be, as we said, single teacher married teachers. Right? And I think that that's fine if we think that is a good incentive.

And there are currently families in that demographic living in large homes in Piedmont already.

Mhmm. I'm also curious as between one and two bedroom units, is there kind of a max occupancy? Do we have that or is that not a thing?

There are some habitability standards. It doesn't really enter into the realm of planning and zoning.

Okay.

And it's generally one resident two people per bedroom plus someone in the living room. The number of people you can for to meet habitability standards is quite high. So wouldn't I wouldn't expect that that would be a constraint that you would have here in Piedmont.

And this could also be a studio. Sure.

And I think we're potentially it becomes challenging for neighbors is with cars. If everyone in every one of those units has their own car, which often people do, if we're not allowed by the state to require any kind of parking and I understand that. But it's just it starts to create some congestion and potentially issues for our fire department with respect to narrow windy streets and cars being parked. So but we don't have any I don't know why I'm talking about this because we don't have any control over that. So okay. So okay. So landscaping, let's just go through these. So how do we feel about landscaping?

I mean, think again, just giving us examples, I think also our fire chief has spent a ton of time. We're trying to reimagine landscaping for other reasons and so this could probably fit in that. I'm open to

You make a good point.

Yeah. I mean, I'm open to taking a look at what it could look like and and also being very, you know, mindful of how we're attempting to be fire safe.

I think it's possible to reduce the landscaping without changing the front setbacks too provided it could be done on the site.

Agree.

Unit mix, I think there is does it sound like there is general agreement that we would be open to this incentive? Front setbacks, we want more information. That's kind of where we are on that. We are open to thinking more deeply about that. Optional local density bonus.

I don't think so.

Yeah, I'm sort of I have a hard time just kind of wrapping my head around the current density bonus on the state level and how that applies to the work that we've already done. It sounds like it may apply to some of what we're talking about tonight. Maybe if you could speak a little bit more about that.

Sure. Maybe it's helpful to say, for example, I worked in the town of Ross in Marin County and one of the things they one of their housing element programs was in the interest of promoting a diverse, more diverse type of housing. They went they took SB nine and they went above and beyond and they provided exactly this type of essentially a local density bonus. If in exchange for a commitment to make some of those units available to in their case it was lower income units, then they would provide one additional unit for one additional market rate unit in an SB nine project for commitment to make one unit available to lower and they provided two additional market rate units in exchange for a commitment to make one of the unit one of the units available for lower and one available for very low. So maximum they went from four that's in state law to a maximum of six units over the over what was formerly a single family lot, but only in exchange for a deep commitment to affordability.

One of the six units needs to be for lower income and one needs to be for very low income. So again, it was it that's Ross. Ross I think has I mean people have some big lots but Ross has some really big lots.

Every lot is a big lot in Ross.

Right. So it's a little bit of a different context there but it was specifically targeting the arena.

Could we say for certain lots we would be willing to entertain.

Like above a certain square footage Yes. Of

Excellent. That's the only way I think it

would That's a

great idea.

Okay.

Alright. So, the next category was alternative compliance options, off strike construction, conversion rehab, land dedication.

I mean, for that, it seemed like tying it to the faith based communities would be the only feasible option.

For the off-site construction. Is that right?

And I I think off-site construction and land dedication. Right? They're sort of

similar or could be similarly

So when I think of off-site construction, I'm thinking of modular units. Am I am I thinking about this? What am I No.

It just means, like, instead of me building my house, my affordable unit here, that other lot over there is gonna build the affordable unit.

Oh, I see.

Okay. And and we have isn't this the god in my backyard, do you and don't we have our churches and synagogues already as part

of our housing element saying that they it's possible

to build there. Mhmm.

I guess that But this would provide an avenue for financing

Right. Potentially. So it sounds like

it's possible. I said have to see a use case. Like, I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the how this would apply in in our town with with the constraints that we have on land and mean I'd love to see this because it sounds really creative but I'm just I'm wondering if you could give us an example of how it could how these things we could use these things to incentivize.

So do you mean an example where there's been a cooperation like an off-site cooperation where a project, you know, partnered with a church to build affordable units on church property, is that what you mean? Do you mean looking at how to fit the units on a Piedmont?

No, I mean I'm guessing looking at Foster City and I'm looking at Santa Cruz and looking at Mill Valley, these are all way bigger communities than ours in terms of just land available to do projects. And I think when there's more ability to do project, there's more ability to do kind of creative swapping of resources.

And there's Corpus Christi, the Piedmont Church, the Synagogue,

And the one farther up.

So they're four, but and they've all said or at least They've all said yes. They've all said that they would be amenable to construction of housing on their property. So that's but presumably, they can't just pay for it.

So I think in this scenario so for example, you know, because we think this is likely homeowners, the this scenario, does this anticipate that this is an individual owner versus a developer who's coming in and saying, I'm gonna do some whatever. Maybe it's the 10 to 11 unit situation, and then they're saying

That's that's the likely

Okay.

Use case. It's for a larger project that would be required to build, I don't know, say four units on-site.

Yeah.

And instead of building them on-site, they could partner with the church and build four units, you know, on a on a available land on a church or synagogue property.

Mayor Anderson, if I may, on this one, there may be this might be a situation where it can be framed at the city's discretion only, so that you when the time comes, you have a chance to think about whether you want to accept this as an alternative. Because I can imagine you could think through all sorts of scenarios, some of which you like and some of which you don't like and then you have to it will be a complicated ordinance to frame it just right. But if we leave it to our discretion, then you feel like it, you can take it.

And Councilor Pillai raised kind of timing question of are you doing these both developments at the same time and how are you linking them and how are you legally binding one to the other. So yeah, I do think it would have to be very much an individual case.

I like the in our discretion.

We want that.

That what should ask our attorney? Is that

Okay? When the time I that's When

mean, I think that yeah.

No. We don't want to add that. At our discretion. No.

And again, this could be something that we get a little bit more information when when you come back about each of these conversion land, dedication

options.

Yeah. I mean, again, I'd say that all of these are very edge cases, you know.

So

But if even one if it happened once Yeah. In the community, that would be huge. Yeah. You mean? So if we can provide for it, I think it makes sense.

We want to encourage creativity.

Yep. Right.

And encourage housing. Yep. Those two things. Okay. So next is this affordable housing fund. It sounded like we were all very excited about that. We have some trepidation about how much staff time it's going to take, but that would be dependent on a program that would come as a result of funds that have been created, right?

And that's a there'll be a programmatic decision when we're

Okay. And then you had asked our opinion about restrictions. So if we are in a situation where we're asking developer or individual who's doing an SB nine project to enter into our either low or moderate deed restrictions, there's a question about timing. And I think some communities that started their way ahead of us on inclusionary housing started this in the 70s and you were sharing with me earlier today that some of those restrictions are now coming. I mean they're going away and the state of California is saying, okay, how are you going to replace those units?

So we don't have to set it. We don't have to set a time limit. We could do it in perpetuity. Right? So and then you don't ever have to replace those units as they turn over. It's an idea.

You want

to talk us through a little bit more how that would work?

I can offer. The rule of thumb is fifty five years and the reason for that is the state considers you can count a unit that's deed restricted for fifty five years towards your lower income arena. If it's forty five years because some communities previously did forty five years, you can't count it towards lower income arena. So fifty five is kind of the minimum threshold. The consideration there are communities that do in perpetuity and that's open.

The question is, would that become a constraint or an impediment? You know if the land is if it runs with the deed and forever and ever it must be affordable, does that impact, you know, the ability of the homeowners Yes. Options to sell the house. That's that's a consideration.

Yeah.

I think that's the that's the knock against it. But but other communities have done it. Right.

I guess it depends on your vision of time. 55 feels like forever.

Well, I think for a large development, it makes sense, you know, but if somebody is doing to the tenant home, I don't know if anybody would.

Yes. So maybe do that tiered also. I think

our minimum is 55 is what I've heard.

So it has to

be Yes. Minimum 55, but the question is whether you want to go over with some other some properties

Right.

Like a large development.

Yeah. If it's only applicable to, again, projects that are 10 or more. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I see. Would that work to say

I think it can work. That would be a question for the city attorney. Can you

And maybe not in perpetuity. But

I'd have to look into into because there are some deed restrictions that expire after a certain time limitation. Mhmm. So I'd need to look into how this interacts in the affordable housing context. Okay.

And maybe not go all the way to infinity, you know, 75 or a 100. I don't know. Which still seems like More. A really long time.

Lot, yeah. Somebody is

saying why did they do that? Right. Okay.

Some of the other questions that appeared on agenda report page four are the minimum size of the project that the ordinance applied to and I think we talked about this kind of below four, four being minimum, okay. Required percentage of affordable units typically in the range of 10% to 15%, think we're talking about 15%. Qualifying household income levels, we wanted a little bit more information about that. Number of years, we are talking about 55 as being kind of where we're leaning. Types of development the ordinance applies to such as rental for sale and or senior housing, I think it would apply to all.

Right? Unless you wanna not have it apply at all. Is there a reason, I guess I should ask, is there a reason to have it not apply to all?

No, think it generally applies to all. Sometimes senior housing is treated a little differently because of the services that are sometimes provided but

I do not want to preclude senior housing. So if there's a reason to accept senior housing meaning that I want if a developer wants to build senior housing in Piedmont I wouldn't want to have a rule that would disincentivize that.

It's not so much and perhaps you've wrestled with this issue of the cost of housing when there are services built into the kind of the care services built into some types of whether it's food service or assisted living. It gets really complicated.

One way to get around that is we have said that any project that's subject to a development agreement can be exempt. And so that could be an option, know, if you have a an affordable or a senior project and because of the services provided in the context, they can't make it work to provide you know units, affordable units on-site or even to pay the fee, then they could enter into some development agreement that would make alternative arrangements and that could be your get a jail card for that.

Yes, I'm thinking about the in home care like the, I do know there's these small care centers, not so many in Piedmont I don't think if we have any where they have sort of a limited number of seniors that they're caring for in each room and again that is a lovely model that I think is really attractive to a lot of people for a variety of reasons and I wouldn't, again I don't want to disincentivize that model because I think it would be nice to have that.

And I think you're saying we could just say that like those type of projects would be subject to an agreement so that it would be exact. Is that what is

I'm just wondering if that that it's not usually a developer it's usually someone who has has changed their home into

Oh. That's probably an existing residence that wouldn't be triggering inclusionary. What I was envisioning is a new construction senior housing project a development agreement might be the mechanism to establish what agreements with the requirements would be and you figure out what the proper rent should be and then you add on the supplemental services that are often a part of senior housing on top of that.

Okay. Well, it's just something to think about.

Another so Jason just mentioning that another incentive for senior housing, the waiver of the two bedroom requirement in multifamily would be a big incentive for senior housing.

Sure.

Okay just marked into the list here. We've talked about alternative means of compliance such as in lieu fees, land dedication, offset development of new units and offset acquisition of existing units. But that would all be within Piedmont. Limitations and procedures for the sale of owner occupied affordable units, what does that refer to?

I think that's part of the development agreement, right?

Well, this would be the scenario where that if it's a for sale project, a qualifying household purchases the unit and then over time they want to sell the unit. How is the equity what's the equity arrangement? Where are they selling it at a low income price? Where are they selling it at market rate and then returning the equity gain to the city to reinvest into housing or some other sometimes there are kind of silent second mortgages on on the residents so that when they purchase it, they have the silent second mortgage. When they sell it, they have to pay off the mortgage.

Lots of different I've seen lots of different ways of dealing with that. We can bring the we didn't really flesh that out here tonight, so we can bring that back.

And that sounds very complicated.

It it it is. But it there there are different models. I've seen a few different models on on making that work and it's

I also think it's not maybe not necessarily something you need to decide in the ordinance, but it can be some it needs to be something that's decided in that affordable housing agreement, but leaving open options for the project proponent to bring forward how to comply with that requirement. Making sure that is a requirement that's codified in that agreement but letting them decide what works best for there. How to meet that requirement in a way that works best for them.

Last two bullet points here on the staff report, exemptions and waiver criteria.

We didn't really talk about that.

I think that's something to work with the city attorney on just to ensure compliance with some of the state law and case law about having a safety valve, a hardship safety valve for the very unique cases that might come along.

Okay. And then program administrative procedures and that was the one.

Again, that's another one where that's just for us to

So the next steps would be with are we gonna have another kind of informational meeting or or are we just gonna jump straight to the ordinance and and what's the thought about kind of next steps?

So my my suggestion would be that we come to you with a draft ordinance with some legs in it Mhmm. And we work through the final form in that meeting. We can flush out the framework with the city attorney's office to the best of our ability based on the feedback that you've given.

Okay. And if we feel like we still aren't understanding it in that meeting we don't actually have to adopt the first reading or whatever the We term word can continue to another. Continue to another meeting.

If I may ask in terms of that process, would you like us to vet it with the planning commission first before you see it again or would you like to take another shot at it first?

I don't know if we have the window for the planning commission but you know, I don't know what the timeline is.

To I think that

I mean, it's all within what they've already seen. Yeah. They've done the heavy lifting.

Yeah. I think they've done the heavy lifting too. Yeah.

We we would keep them informed one way or the other. Okay. So they would be in the loop as just whether it comes to to them first.

We could keep it here. Yeah. I mean, unless.