City Council - Regular Meeting

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I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council. The City Council is conducting this meeting from the City Council Chamber. This meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the City's website. As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting, I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process. For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on the item. Thus, if you desire to speak to an item on the agenda this evening, please hold your comments until the City Council considers that item. Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled Public Communications. which is for public comments for items not on the agenda. Any comments during public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this evening. Consistent with Section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be initially allocated for public communications for items not on the agenda. Additional time for public communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to provide a public comment, please complete a speaker identification card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait your turn, and then when you approach the lectern, please state your name and city of residence for the record. You will have two minutes to address the city council. Please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting. The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that meetings are conducted efficiently and effectively and that all members of the public have a full, fair and equal opportunity to be heard. The City Council Handbook outlines decorum expected in the Council Chamber and can be found on our website. All remarks should be addressed to the City Council for public review and are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read into the record. All right. Good evening. I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, July 21st regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council. Pursuant to California Government Code Section 54953.4 or SB707, we'll also have remote public comments via Zoom. If you're participating in the meeting via Zoom and would like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand feature or press star 9 if you're calling during the item in which you would like to comment on being heard. All right. Thank you. And City Clerk Susie Martinez, can you call the roll, please?

Council Member Darling? I am here. Council Member Devaney? Here. Council Member Silva? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Here. Mayor Welker?

Here. All right. Our first item is a proclamation for Park and Recreation Month. And I invite Chris Farrow and the Arts and Recreation Director and anybody else you'd like to bring forward for the proclamation. And I'll read a little bit of this here, that Parks and Rec, is an integral part of communication throughout this country, including Walnut Creek, California. And whereas park and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being, and by alleviating illnesses like depression, attention deficit disorder, and Alzheimer's. And whereas park and recreation programming and education activities such as out-of-school time programming, youth sports in the Edinburgh community, and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors. And the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Park and Recreation Month, and Walnut Creek recognizes the benefits derived from park and recreation resources. And therefore, I, Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council, do hereby recognize July as Parks and Recreation Month.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and City Council. On behalf of Public Works and our arts and rec departments, we appreciate Council's recognition of July as Parks and Rec Month. This recognition is especially meaningful to me personally because parks and recreation shaped my life from the very beginning. Growing up in the Oakland Hills, the Montclair Park and Recreation Center served as my second home. Countless hours were spent in camps and classes and on courts and fields. Looking back, I realized those experiences built my confidence, fostered my independence and creativity. So many others who show up every day because they believe in creating meaningful spaces and enriching opportunities for our community. So on behalf of both of our teams, Rich is on vacation, otherwise he'd be here, we want to thank you for recognizing the work, for supporting Parks and Recreation, and investing in places where memories are made, communities are built, and lives are changed. We are proud to serve the city of Walnut Creek.

Well, why don't we take a picture up here?

Thank you.

All right, next. a very exciting recognition of Odyssey the Mind by the Buena Vista Elementary School team. And I invite the fifth grade team from Buena Vista Elementary School forward to accept this certificate of recognition. This team has shown exceptional creativity and teamwork, having worked together since first grade. This year they earned first place regionals and second place at the state championship. That is really impressive. They proudly represented California at the Odyssey of the Mind World Championships at Iowa State University in May, where they placed second in their division. Their dedication, imagination, and longstanding collaboration are truly inspiring. So why don't you all come up here and love to hear a little bit about what that was.

You can come up here, sure.

That trophy looks as big as you are.

Hello, Mayor Wilkin, council members. We are Tao, Karen, L, Nathan, Rocco, Jacob, and Owen. We just finished fifth grade in Buena Vista Elementary, in Buena Vista Elementary School in Walnut Creek.

For the past five years, we have been competing in Odyssey of the Mind, a program where teams from around the world find creative ways to solve problems. Our team has been together since first grade.

This past May, we came to the city council to share that we had qualified to represent Northern California at the Odyssey of the Mind World Championship held at Iowa State University. Many people donated to our cause to help us pay for our trip to the World Championships. Thank you so much to everyone who donated.

We are grateful to the people of Walnut Creek who donated to our school district and principal who helped us raise funds and especially to our coaches.

We are so proud that we won second place in our division out of 51 teams from across the country and even across the world. We competed against kids from the United States, South Korea, Poland, Hong Kong, China, and Mexico.

Thank you so much for your time and recognition. We are proud to have gotten to represent Walnut Creek at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals.

We are so proud of our kids and the hard work they put in this year. Thank you so much to everyone who donated and supported us this year.

If you would indulge me one favor, could each of the boys come up and just tell us who you are, just briefly. What's your name, who you are, and maybe what school you're going to this next year.

My name is Nathan, and next year I'm going to be going to WCI.

My name is Tao, and next year I'm going to be going to WCI.

My name is Owen, and I'm going to go to WCI next year.

when is that going on in the end of the recent managing and i'm also going to do we see texture uh... i'm skew them and i'm also going to do you see actually this championship team is staying together all right well why do we all take a picture together

Oh, thank you so much.

Was it one problem or more than multiple problems?

It was one problem, but then at regional, state, and world, there was a separate problem. Well, congratulations. Next year, we're gonna hear how you guys do.

Now, we know you all love to stay for the consent calendar and everything else we have going for you. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Two more weeks, right? And our donations really took off after we came here. Oh, good.

Okay, that is definitely gonna be the highlight of our meeting. So, next we do have the consent calendar. And does any member, sorry, in order here. Does any council member wish to pull an item for discussion? Or any member of the staff wish to pull an item for discussion? Actually, I will pull an item, which is item G, 2G, just to discuss.

I'll pull item H. Okay.

All right. We have item G and H. Does any member of the public wish to provide public comment on the consent calendar? And if you are in person, please come forward. Do we have anybody online? Nobody's online either. All right Just to let people know that we since we do have zoom if you would wish to provide a comment on any item Be sure to call in and raise your hand feature on that item. So we have no speakers Do we have a motion in a second for the remainder of the consent calendar? I'll move to approve a through F second We have a motion a second Susie could call the roll, please. I

Council Member Darling? Aye. Council Member Silva? Aye. Council Member Devaney? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Mayor Wilk?

Aye.

Motion carries.

Okay, since I pulled G, I'll just take on G. I had thought that we had voted previously on a voting delegate for Cal Cities several months ago, and I couldn't remember that. Is this the first time that we've?

I went back and looked, and you appointed a representative to the East Bay Division, but not to Cal Cities as a voting delegate.

Okay.

On the assignments from December.

So I'm the voting delegate. Okay, I guess I'll make that motion.

I'll second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Mayor Welk? Aye. Council Member Darling? Aye. Council Member Devaney? Aye. Council Member Silva?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Francois?

Aye.

All right.

And then on Port Chicago, I just wanted to say thank you to Mayor and others for putting this on the calendar. and recognizing it because it is something that was overlooked in history and so impactful in the area. And I know that the children of the people that were affected by that really appreciate the ongoing recognition for. And so I will move to approve.

And I'll second that. And actually, this is the first year out of the last three or four that I didn't go in person to it. I just wasn't able to. But I will say that not only does Concord often have representation from their council members, But our Congressman Mark DeSaulnier has made it a point to always go there, and this is the reason why there have been the pardons that happened in Washington due directly to Congressman Mark DeSaulnier's efforts on that. So I'm happy to second that and take the roll, please.

Council Member Darling. Aye. Mayor Wilk. Aye. Council Member Devaney. Aye.

Yes, very enthusiastically also was very happy to see this on the agenda and the awareness that's raised about July 17, 1944.

Council Member Silva? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Motion carried.

Okay. Next on the agenda is public communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda. Under the Brown Act, the Council cannot act on items raised during public communications, but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed, request clarification, or refer the item to staff. Consistent with Section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be allocated at this time for public communications for items not on the agenda. Additional time for public communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the meeting if necessary. Written comments submitted have been posted to the City's website for public review and are included in the meeting record but will not be separately read into the record. At this time I'll note that the time is 618 and we'll take public comments on items not on the agenda until approximately 648 and then the remainder of any such comments at the end of open session portion of the meeting. If anybody is online, please use your raise hand feature or press star nine if you're calling in if you'd like to provide a remote public comment. And at this time we'll take in person comments and we'll then ask the city clerk afterwards if we have any members of the public who would like to provide remote comments. So if you are a member of the public to comment on something not on the agenda, please come forward now. Okay, nobody. Do we have anybody online?

We have no members of the public online.

This is a first. Okay, so we will move on to council member and staff announcements, reports on activities or requests. Do we have any closed session announcements?

No, Mayor, there are no closed session announcements.

And city manager reports? I do not have an update this evening, Mayor.

All right, then we have City Councilmember reports on AB 1234 activities, Councilmember assignments, and various activities and upcoming events. And why don't we start with Councilmember Devaney?

Just a few things to report. Let's see, Mayor Pro Tem Francois and I attended the Finance Committee meeting on June 23rd. Things are looking good. fairly fiscally healthy and we'll be discussing our fee study later tonight and we spent a fair amount of time discussing that and happy to see the way that's moved forward Also on that day, I was fortunate enough to attend a dedication at Sugarloaf Open Space, the Rotary Club. They built and dedicated two pergolas to a member of the Rotary Club who'd been very active in our community for a long time, that's Don Willoughby. So, you know, remembering him and so it was a special event to be there and those pergolas will hopefully be there for years for us to enjoy. I want to sort of apologize to the city of Walnut Creek. We disappointed a little bit this year on the cornhole tournament. We attended an East Bay Division Cow Cities cornhole tournament and competed against the other cities, and I really thought we had it. We were doing very well, and we lost in the semifinals. So we had one the year before, and I hope that we will come back and get them again next year.

Apology noted.

Yes. We got a little trophies, but it was a fun event. Locust Street Festival was on July 8th. That was a great event. I was fortunate to be able to stop by for a short period and just witness the attendance, music, food, wine, arts, activities. It was a great event, and we're looking forward to The next one, we had a Transpac meeting. We spent a good portion of the transportation time discussing the transportation expenditure plan process for Measure J to renew Measure J. And we're looking at what's most important for both us here in Walnut Creek as well as taking a bird's eye view of what's best for the region. And so that will be part of a public outreach process that I've discussed before as our representative to Transpac. look for opportunities to give feedback as to what the most important issues are for you as far as transportation goes, both locally and regionally. So we'll be looking to move that process forward and hopefully come up with an expenditure plan that's very pleasing to the city and the community so that we can renew Measure J. That's all I have.

All right. Thank you. I'm going to Mayor Pro Tem Francois.

Thank you, Mayor. A few updates as well. As Council Member Devaney mentioned, we attended the Finance Committee meeting in late June where we primarily talked about the Master Fee Study and the policies that are on our agenda tonight. So I won't belabor that because we'll be talking about that shortly. I also have the pleasure of attending unveiling of the city's mural grant program so this is money that the city has put forward to promote public art downtown and it was at zebra tattoo several of the murals are wrapping around that building and And then another one on Main Street near Main Street Kitchen. And it's really remarkable to see how it's not simple or easy to make these creations, but how it transforms kind of a space, uses buildings as a canvas. And I think it was really well received, adds vibrancy. to the downtown and excitement and people are interested in kind of their urban environment. We got a lot of great feedback and I want to thank Elizabeth Orcutt for preparing wonderful remarks for me. She was here somewhere recently. And then we had arts commissioners. Sarah Baltazar was in attendance and former arts commissioner Yasmany Klauber. My colleague Cindy Silva was there as well and Dan Buckshy. So it was great turnout and really fun activity to attend.

The ribbon cutting.

Okay. And there will be a formal ribbon cutting on July 30th at?

About 4 o'clock.

4 o'clock at... I'm a ventriloquist. He's my ventriloquist. At Zebra.

Yes.

Zebra Tattoo. July 30th, 4 o'clock, Zebra Tattoo. Really, really great program. That was it. I wasn't able to make our last Recycle Smart meeting, so I will let my colleague, Council Member Silva, give an update on that. I just want to remark on how nice it is to see the level of activity downtown with... the Locust Street Festival, uncorked, but just with all the activity that was happening in and around the World Cup too. We didn't have like what San Jose had with watching parties or things like that, but several of our local bars kind of served that function and restaurants, and it was great to see that level of activity downtown. Really fun. That's my update.

Great. Thank you. Let's go on to Councilmember Darling.

Thank you. And I had a great time. Mayor Kevin Wilk and I attended the Academy graduation sponsored by the Sheriff's for their Academy. And that was where we had four new police officers graduate from Academy. And they are now stepping into the FTO program. Exciting. And then the next one is Council Member Silva and I came and welcomed our new dispatcher. I think The joy that I see on the faces of our captains when they report out that they are milliseconds away from being absolutely fully staffed is just really good. The amount of great job they've done bringing in new recruits, laterals, filling the support positions like dispatcher. It's been really good to see that. And speaking of filling positions, Katie Burrows, I went to the chamber board meeting the other day, and we got to meet the new CEO for the chamber. I'm assuming you're here for the, we'll hear from you later. So I won't do the whole toot your horn here thing now, but Charles Ching and I went to the chamber, got to meet the new CEO. We're glad to see the chamber moving forward, and we're happy to continue to work in partnership. And now on to MCE, as I've been reporting over the last couple of months, there have been a number of things going on within MCE. As for those of you who don't know, it was formerly Marin Clean Energy. It is now MCE, and it represents electricity accounts in Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, and Marin County. amongst those accounts more than 50 percent of them are here in Contra Costa County and we have a broad group of city council and county representatives on the MCE board the MCE CEO Dawn Weiss who is the original creator of the agency her last day was Wednesday June 17th and the board is now appointed an ad hoc committee to begin the recruitment for a new CEO We are – there's information on the process coming out from MCE. And in the meantime, Vikin Kasajian, who has been MCO's chief operating officer since 2018, will continue to serve as acting CEO. MCE is committed to its mission and all of our Contra Costa reps are working hard to make sure that we succeed in our mission to reduce electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions, provide equitable community benefits, and cost competitive clean energy services to the customers throughout the area, including those here in Contra Costa. We are confident in the agency's ability to continue operations during this transition. And then speaking of transition, for those of you who haven't been following Marin County politics, the Marin County Civil Jury, Grand Jury, did release a report that included a number of findings about MCE operations. The MCE board has appointed a ad hoc committee to begin to prepare the response that is required by MCE in mid-September. I am on that ad hoc committee and I am confident we are going to continue to work together. Many of the questions raised by the civil grand jury we're already well aware of within MCE and we're working to make sure that we work through the issues that were raised. One of the bigger issues within MCE has been the relative value of short-term power contracts and how much they cost versus the impacts of the reduced greenhouse gases. MCE gets 50% of our power that we serve to all of you. from long-term contracts, 30-, 40-year contracts with different energy projects throughout the state. We get another 20% from existing PG&E clean energy resources, including their large hydro assets in the Sierra Nevadas and other projects like that. We do get 30% of our power that we supply from a variety of other sources, and we have held two technical workshops, and we are going to be working cooperatively come back to a workshop in the end of August to say what are the policy issues that come to rise about these short-term contracts and their benefits and their costs to try to answer some of the ongoing discussions that we've been having with a couple of the folks up in Marin County who are concerned about those. As those of you who might recall, in 2024, those short-term energy resources, the cost I forget if it's doubled or tripled for one year and then went right back down. And so MCE had to ride that out, and we're still working through the lessons learned from that. So that's the MCE report. The good thing is that... Every four years we have to report to the CPUC as all other load serving entities in California do and we have to prepare an integrated resources plan. We adopted that at our meeting well in advance of the deadline to submit it to CPUC and it shows that we are In a good position, we have the resources to serve us. I think we go through 2045 in that planning document. So amidst everything going on with MCE, that was a good thing to get through. And our staff is doing a yeoman's job at keeping things running in the meantime. So that is my report.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Silva.

Thank you. Council Member Darling, maybe at some point you could explain what the value of short-term contracts are versus long-term contracts.

How many hours do you have?

Well, that's why I didn't ask you the question now. I just thought maybe somebody might be interested in what that response is because there is a value of managing your portfolio.

Yeah, it's an incredibly complicated risk management issue, but I can all bring the after the workshop at the end of August. Great. We'll bring that back.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you for my colleagues. I have a lot to report since our last meeting because everybody decided to meet in the summer that I participate with. First will be that the annual meeting of the ABAC General Assembly was... at the end of june and i attended and voted both as a city council member on behalf of walnut creek and as an executive board member two things to note we approved and adopted the 2026-27 budget and there's a what i would call a minor cpi related cost increase in our dues the second was we elected susan adams who's a council member of rohnert park in marin county as president, and Wanda Williams, who is a Solano County member of the Board of Supervisors, as vice president for the coming year. And they will both serve for a year. Moving on to Recycle Smart, at the June board meeting, we received a presentation from representatives from Recology's Blossom Valley Organics Processing Center. So this, beginning next March when we come, new franchise agreements, Recology will be processing our organics, which is everything in our green bin will go to a site, a processing site, outside of Tracy. And I was able to visit it. also in late June, and it is an amazing facility, and boy, is it challenging, because they pour everything into these moving conveyor belts, and people are so aspirational about what is organic, you get tennis shoes in there. So please remember, people, organics is growing. Mm-hmm. in your yard. And it's not dog waste either. The other thing at the meeting in June for Recycle Smart was we received a report from the executive director and Republic Services on the status of their drivers. It takes to cover our six area six agency area in this district takes 202 drivers with two truck three trucks each i mean so we got three trucks that are picking up in front of our homes most of us and then the businesses and it takes 202 drivers well they lost six of them in march they had to let them go because Under the federal government rules. They wouldn't allow them to have driver's licenses anymore because they were Allowed to work in this country and they had work permits, but the licenses were lasting longer Than the work permit and so the DMV just was denied the ability to extend and and align the work permit with the license so six drivers were gone fortunately They, I mean, unfortunately lost their jobs. But fortunately they replaced the drivers within a month and we were back to full status and our missed routes. We had more missed routes in March than we were supposed to. And they're now back to normal. But it was an unfortunate situation. Councilmember Devaney mentioned the Cornhole tournament. I just want to elaborate just a bit. It's a way to enjoy a network with our colleagues from the cities in the East Bay, Alameda and Contra Costa. But it's also a fundraiser for what's called City Pack, which is the political action committee of the League of California Cities. The League of California Cities does advocacy in Sacramento and in the federal government on behalf of cities. But at times we have to advocate at the ballot box. And so we have to raise money separately from taxpayer dollars to fund those advocacy efforts at the ballot box. And that was what we were doing. And those activities and those fundraisers occur all over California. And there will be another one when we are in Anaheim in September. So that was the reason for the fun times. But I also mention this because last week was our summer board meeting for the League of California Cities. And we had a six-hour board meeting over two days, and a third of that time was spent on three ballot measures that are going to be hitting the ballot in November across the state. Now, our board of directors has 57 members representing all parts of the state and all different types of districts. people that work for cities. And our policy requires that a two-thirds supermajority vote to take any position, whether it's support or oppose, on a ballot measure. So that's why it takes a lot of time to talk about these. The first one we voted on was to oppose Proposition 43, which will change the voter approval requirements for citizen initiative local special taxes, and it was going to change it from a simple majority to a two-thirds super majority. So we voted to oppose that measure. We took no position on Proposition 45, which is an initiative sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and other business interests that would create an alternative environmental review process for what are called essential projects. There were many positives. There were many negatives, and we couldn't get a two-thirds vote on to oppose, to support, or even to remain neutral, so we'd have no position whatsoever on it. However, I come home to the headline in the East Bay Times that it's polling a very high percentage, so we are likely to have to be prepared to address the issue. And finally, we took a vote to support Proposition 1, which is the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026. If approved by the voters, it will create an $11.2 billion in funding for affordable housing developments. And it can be accessed by resources for community development and other local housing affordability providers. And they will be able to tap into these funds. Speaking of housing, I also attended the National League of Cities summer leadership meeting in Louisville, Kentucky two weeks ago. And there was much to discuss regarding the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. This bill was a, the National League of Cities was actively in the mix on that bill for over a year. They're highly approved by both houses of Congress, very bipartisan. It was enacted. It became law without the president's signature on Friday, July 10th. He just decided not to sign it, and it automatically became. Some of the things to note, there's 60 elements to this bill. It's not more funding. It's basically the first time in decades that this federal government has taken any action on housing whatsoever. But for example, currently, where the rules read for community development block grant funds we are only able to use the funds to maintain and repair affordable housing but we can't use it for new construction and this changes that allowance and we will now be able to use it for new construction another good element of it is that it basically is going to align if we have a project here that also requires affordable funds from the federal government, we have to not only take a project through CEQA, we have to take it through NEPA, which is the National Environmental Protection Act. It will now streamline this so that the NEPA aligns with the local, and that probably would have helped with Hope Solutions and those six units because they were having a problem with a drainage ditch that was a creek. And also the bill directs HUD to establish federal guidelines for ways to reduce the cost to build housing. For example, looking at building codes that are used across the country that if they can be simplified, for example, single staircase for apartment buildings and it will lower the cost of construction. So there are many good aspects to that bill. Three things I will mention in finality. Walnut Creek Historical Society celebrated their annual membership event last evening. And this is a reminder for everyone. This event was in the beautiful backyard at the Peniman House. And that is available for rent, weddings, receptions, family barbecues, etc. And so just look it up on the Walnut Creek Historical Society website. The Bedford Gallery's new exhibition opened on July 11th. It's a juried exhibition, the exhibition that celebrates the vibrant environment of our state, and it's called Cal Idoscope, and it runs through September 13th. And last but not least, the third of the Summer Sounds concert series will be Thursday, September the 30th of July at 5.30 p.m. on the plaza in front of the Lesher Center for the Arts. And it will be the Alpha Rhythm King band. And so you can go to the ribbon cutting for the mural program and then go to the Alpha Rhythm Kings. And then the Newsmakers has a speaker that night as well. So lots to do on July 30th. Thank you very much.

And there's a lot to do in Walnut Creek. So I'll wrap this up. A few things here. We heard from some of my colleagues. There is a lot happening downtown. And I hear from council members, mayors, and staff members of other cities around the region. They talk about how Walnut Creek is just killing it when it comes to the events happening in the summer. So we heard about the Locust Street Festival that was on July 8th. And there were thousands. I heard there were 4,000 to 5,000 people that were there. I'm getting nods from the Chamber of Commerce, so I'm happy I got that number right. And with dozens of booze, entertainment, dining, there was a petting zoo, for crying out loud. And for those of you who watch the Mayor's Minutes, and evidently we have 100,000 views a month right now on the Mayor's Minutes. So I filmed it at the Locust Reef Festival. You can see the vibe itself. It was also the launch of our new Entertainment Zone District, which not only came off without a hitch, it was talked about in the media. It's just a great, it was just a great event. And you have not missed out if you didn't go there. Because on August 5th, we're doing it again. It's the first Wednesday of August. So come on out. Starts at 530. Goes for about three hours. And you'll see it for yourself. The weather is terrific at it. As we heard from Councilmember Silva, with Summer Sounds being on the Lesher Center Plaza, the Rudney Plaza, on this past Thursday night, and again on Thursday night in a couple of weeks, the Thursdays after that, we've got the Broadway Plaza music programs and events on their plaza that happened in August, culminating with an ABBA tribute band on August 20th. So the music continues, the entertainment continues. Kids are back in school early August 6th, though parents definitely have an opportunity to come out, but everything is great for families. There's so much going on. One thing that also happened is that with our 250th anniversary as a country, America Discovery 250 Relay took place here on July 7th. It's a relay walkers going across America. I wasn't sure I was going to be incredibly impressed when the kickoff happened, but we were at Heather Farm, and there were people that were walking from Heather Farm up and over Mount Diablo, ending up in Pittsburgh in one day. So this was just our portion of the relay, amazing. We heard from Councilmember Darling about the Police Academy graduation, which was terrific, but I also wanna mention the reason that we're able to hire these people full-time is because of the decisions the council made with our budget, with ARPA funds, and with Measure O funds. that go toward paying for additional police officers, and we are continuing to staff up. It's constant recruiting because police officers can get injured, they can retire. There are police officers that for some reason may transfer out of Walnut Creek. I don't know why they would, but it does happen. So as our police chief would say, we are doing well in the staffing department, and this is because of the budgets that we have decided upon at council to ensure that public safety as one of our top priorities continues to be so. And lastly, I'll mention that as a County Connection liaison, we have had youth ride free for the last, it's been about a month and a half now, it started on June 1st. The latest youth ride free numbers are 11,600 since the beginning of June, which is 3,000 more than the beginning of June in 2025. And as we talked about earlier, looking at the general plan update and what do we need to do, transportation came up, And as we continue to get used to riding on public transit, the hope is that they are familiar with that and continue to ride public transit, even after they have a driver's license. So again, getting cars off the road. We did end up having some cutbacks in our budget and county connection, but the cutbacks are coming in the administration area, not in service. So again, continue to take the bus, take BART, take public transit, and help our roadways. With that, let's move on. We will move on to our next item. And our next item is a public hearing. It's consideration of the adoption of a resolution levying annual assessments for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District for fiscal year 2027. I want to take a moment to explain the process for public hearing item number 5A. In an order for the city to levy assessments for the Tourism Business Improvement District, or the TBID, The City Council must first conduct a public hearing at which it must hear and consider all protests against the levy of the assessments. If written protests are received from the owners of businesses in the proposed area, which will pay 50% or more of the assessment proposed to be levied, no further proceedings to levy the assessment shall be taken for a period of one year from the date of the finding of a majority protest by the City Council. If there is no majority protest, then the council may adopt the resolution confirming the assessment report submitted. Written protests must be received by the city clerk at or before the time fixed for the public hearing. And at this time, we will now open the public hearing for item number 5A for the Tourism Business Improvement District. And I invite anyone with an undelivered written protest to present it to the city clerk immediately. And no further written protests will be accepted. And now I'll invite Mike Neiman to introduce and provide a brief presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council, members of the public. I'm Mike Neiman, your Economic Development Manager. And as mentioned, this is the public hearing portion of the TBID assessment. We were in front of you on June 16th where TBID has provided its annual report update and has noticed the public on the continuation to levy assessments. So this is the second phase where you would adopt a resolution levying annual assessments for the Tourism Business Improvement District for the fiscal year 26-27. And to date, we have not received any protests. And this concludes my presentation, thank you. Okay, great, thank you.

So do we have any questions from council? Seeing no questions, do we have anybody from the public that has a comment they would like to make? And you'll come up and have two minutes to speak. I don't see anybody in person. Do we have anybody online?

No one online.

And nobody online.

Okay. I will move to adopt the resolution levying the Walnut Creek T-Bid Annual Assessment for FY2027. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Susie, could you call the roll, please?

Council Member Darling.

Aye.

Council Member Devaney. Aye. Council Member Silva. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois. Aye. Mayor Wilk.

Aye.

Motion carries.

All right, moving right along. Next is item six, the consideration item, titled Provide Input and Direction on the Proposed User Fee Cost Recovery Policy and Proposed FY27 Master Fee Schedule Updates. And I invite Administrative Director Kirsten Lacasse forward to provide the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Wilk, members of council, Kirsten Lacasse, administrative services director, and this evening I'm going to walk you through our proposed user fee cost recovery policy and fiscal year 27 master fee schedule updates. We also have our consultants from Matrix who have joined us remotely and they'll be available to help answer any questions you have. So tonight I'm going to start off with some background information and then walk you through the key components of the proposed user fee cost recovery policy as well as the updates to the proposed master fee schedule and then we will talk about next steps. So what we're asking of you today is to review the draft user fee cost recovery policy and the proposed master fee schedule and provide input and direction to staff. So back on June 2nd, staff brought forward the citywide comprehensive user fee study results and recommendations. As a reminder, this is the first citywide fee study since 2010 and included fee-based services across all departments. In fiscal year 2026, fee-based services Cost approximately 33 million to provide. Current user fees recover about 21 million of those costs, resulting in an overall cost recovery rate of about 65%. The remaining 12 million is subsidized through other general fund revenues. Over time, fee adjustments have generally not kept pace with inflation, contributing to a growing gap between the cost of providing services and the revenue generated from those services. It's important to note, however, that full cost recovery is not always the goal. Many services provide broader community benefits and may warrant some level of ongoing subsidy. The city's fiscal year 26 general fund revenue budget is approximately $105 million. User fees account for about 20% of total general fund revenues, while general revenues comprise the largest share at approximately 71%. As a reminder, general revenues are derived primarily from taxes, including property tax, sales tax and transient occupancy tax, and are used to support a wide range of city services. The remaining 9% represents other department revenues that are not generated through user fees. These revenues include sources such as business license tax, development impact fees, lease revenue, and reimbursements for damages to city property. As I mentioned on June 2nd, staff brought forward the results and recommendations from the fee study to counsel for feedback and input. The direction we received regarding a proposed policy was to adopt a citywide cost recovery framework based on the level of benefit city services provide. Include a resident discount as part of the fee schedule for those fees where it's applicable. Include a phased implementation of significant fee increases. And your council was supportive of annual fee adjustments to keep pace with service delivery costs and continue market based pricing where appropriate. And lastly, evaluating housing division related service fees separately from impact fees and other development services fees around housing. So next I will go through some of the major components of our proposed user fee cost recovery policy. So this slide shows the key policy areas which incorporate direction council provided on June 2nd. The framework starts with the legal requirements that govern how cities can establish fees, the cost of service philosophy and methodology, cost recovery framework, fee setting considerations, subsidy policy, market based pricing, resident discount, fee review adjustments and implementation. So I'll walk through these in more detail on the next few slides. So the legal framework is the foundation for all fee decisions, establishing the rules and limitations that govern cost recovery and fee setting. Three key authorities guide this process, Proposition 26 and Government Code Sections 50076 and 65104. Essentially, government fees must be cost-based and can only recover the reasonable cost of providing a service or activity. Cities can recover staff time, overhead, consultant costs, and other service-related expenses. Cities cannot recover costs unrelated to the services or amounts that exceed actual costs. So generally, a city cannot make a profit on its services it provides. However, there is an exception for voluntary market-based services. These are charges for a service that is provided only to those who choose to use it and can be based on market rates rather than cost recovery. One of the key concepts in the policy is that not all services should recover the same proportion of their costs. The appropriate level of cost recovery depends on who benefits from the service, affordability considerations, and council policy objectives. So in general, services that primarily benefit a specific individual or user group have higher levels of cost recovery. Conversely, services that provide broad community benefit may warrant a greater level of public subsidy. As you may recall, the comprehensive fee study methodology of calculating the full cost of providing a service included estimating the staff time required to perform the work and then applying a fully burdened hourly rate, and that provided us with the full cost of the fee. The policy framework then helps determine what portion of that cost should actually be recovered through fees and what portion, if any, should be subsidized. When we brought forward the fee study again on June 2nd, we discussed three levels of benefit that city services provide. Since then, staff has refined the framework to provide more clarity around services that primarily benefit individuals or user groups. So we are now distinguishing between voluntary and non-voluntary services within that category. So for community benefit services, they provide a broad public benefit and support the health, safety, and welfare of the community. Community and individual benefit services provide a direct benefit to a user or participant, but they also create a broader benefit for the community. Some examples include recreation programs, arts and cultural activities, community events, and some housing-related services. INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP BENEFIT ON VOLUNTARY SERVICES PRIMARILY BENEFIT A SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL OR USER GROUP, AS THE NAME IMPLIES. THE PARTICIPATION IS VOLUNTARY. SO FOR THIS REASON, MARKET CONDITIONS AND CUSTOMER DEMAND ARE IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS WHEN SETTING FEES. EXAMPLES WOULD INCLUDE FACILITY RENTALS, PRIVATE SWIM LESSONS, CAMPS AND PICNIC AREA RENTALS. INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP BENEFIT that are nonvoluntary also provide benefit to a specific individual or group, but the service is required. So examples in that category include permits and other regulatory review activities. So essentially the distinction between the last two categories is really whether the customer is choosing to use the service or whether the service is required as part of a regulatory process. The cost recovery framework outlined in the policy establishes typical cost recovery ranges for different types of services. So these ranges are intended to provide guidance and are not specific rules. That's important because not every service fits neatly into a single category and in many cases that is by design. You'll notice that the recovery ranges in these groups do overlap, and this is intentional because many city services provide both a community benefit and an individual benefit. The framework is designed to offer flexibility, allowing the city to determine an appropriate level of cost recovery based on the specific circumstances of each service. For community benefit services, the typical cost recovery range is 0 to 50%. For services that provide a community and individual benefit, the typical range is 40 to 80%. FOR INDIVIDUAL BENEFIT SERVICES THAT ARE VOLUNTARY OR MARKET BASED, THE TYPICAL RECOVERY RANGE IS 70% TO MORE THAN 100%. AGAIN, THERE ARE LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE STATE LAW ALLOWS THE CITY TO SET FEES BASED ON MARKET RATES AND DEMAND RATHER THAN SOLELY THE COST OF THE SERVICE, AND THOSE WOULD FALL INTO THAT CATEGORY. Finally, for individual benefit services that are non-voluntary, the typical recovery range is 80 to 100%. Because these are general regulatory services, state law does limit the cost recovery to no more than the actual cost of providing that service. So those cannot exceed 100% of the city's costs. And these ranges are based on industry standards as well as other cities and then general best practices where those services exist. And typically they're modified or tailored towards a city. or an individual jurisdiction based on the specific goals and targets that are set so they can be modified. But again, these are typical recovery ranges that we are setting in the policy, in the proposed policy. So when staff evaluates fees, cost recovery is just one part of the analysis. There are several important factors that must be considered when developing or adjusting fees. These include the balance between community and individual benefit, as we just discussed, council policy objectives, equity and accessibility, demand, utilization, and market conditions, and finally fiscal sustainability. Fiscal sustainability is especially important because fee revenues help fund services the city provides. As we evaluate fees, we must consider not only affordability and community benefit, but also whether fee revenues are keeping pace with the cost of the services that we provide over time. And maintaining that balance is important to continue providing those high quality services while minimizing the need to subsidize individual services with general fund resources. So when determining the appropriate level of general fund subsidy, it's important to consider the purpose of the service and the city's policy objectives. The policy identifies several reasons a subsidy may be appropriate, including promoting affordability and community participation, supporting priority populations such as youth, seniors, advancing arts, culture, recreation, and education and community events. For some regulatory services, a subsidy may also be appropriate if it encourages compliance with health, safety, or environmental requirements, resulting in benefits to the community as a whole. Another component of the policy is continuing to use market-based pricing where appropriate. For voluntary services such as facility rentals, recreation programs, and arts activities, fees should not only reflect the cost of providing the service, but also market conditions. Staff also considers market demand, utilization levels, comparable agency pricing, and customer expectations when making recommendations. These fees should be reviewed periodically to make sure they continue to align with market conditions and city objectives. One of the topics Council discussed on June 2nd was the importance of keeping fees aligned with the cost of providing services and avoiding situations where fees fall significantly behind over time. So to address this, the policy includes provisions for annual inflationary adjustments. We also discussed that different types of fees are driven by different cost factors, so a single adjustment methodology may not be appropriate for every fee. For example, labor-intensive services such as permits, inspections, and plan reviews may more appropriately be adjusted based on labor cost increases, while recreation programs, facility rentals, and services with significant operating costs may be adjusted using a CPI. THIS APPROACH PROVIDES FLEXIBILITY TO USE THE METHODOLOGY THAT BEST REFLECTS THE COST OF PROVIDING THE SERVICE. THE POLICY ALSO SUPPORTS ANNUAL FEE REVIEWS TO HELP KEEP FEES ALIGNED WITH CURRENT COSTS AND AVOID THE NEED FOR LARGER INCREASES IN THE FUTURE. AS PART OF OUR EXISTING BIENNIAL BUDGET PROCESS, STAFF REVIEWS FEES MIDWAY THROUGH THE TWO-YEAR CYCLE AND BRINGS FORWARD ANY RECOMMENDED ADJUSTMENTS FOR COUNCIL CONSIDERATION. Finally, the policy recommends conducting comprehensive fee studies every five to seven years, including this guidance in the policy helps ensure fees remain aligned with actual service costs, council priorities, and the city's overall cost recovery objectives over time. So before we move into the Master Fee Schedule, I'd like to revisit a couple of areas where staff refined the policy based on this discussion that we had on June 2nd. The first is a cost recovery framework. So general, Council generally supported the framework concept, but we've refined the category since that discussion. Originally, the framework included three categories, but based on feedback and further analysis, Staff separated the individual benefit category into the two distinct categories I mentioned, the voluntary market-based services and the nonvoluntary regulatory services. So that provides better guidance for distinguishing between things like facility rentals, for example, and permit review services. The recovery ranges shown in the policy are intended to be targets and not prescriptive. They help inform decisions, but staff recognizes that not every fee will fit neatly within those ranges. The second item is a resident discount. Council expressed support for continuing to recognize the contribution Walnut Creek residents make through local taxes. Staff is recommending a 10% resident discount for applicable programs and services. in the proposed fee schedule you'll see both a resident fee and a standard fee so staff is proposing that the resident fee apply to all residents in the incorporated areas of walnut creek while the standard fee would apply to all non-residents including those who live in the unincorporated areas of walnut creek So before we move into more of the details on the fee schedule and those recommendations, I'd like to pause here and see if you have any feedback or questions on the policy framework, the recovery categories, or the proposed resident discount approach.

Thank you, Kirsten. It's a mouthful. It is. Do we have any questions on the policy framework? Council Member Silva. Any questions and any comments? Or... Because she's asked for feedback. Oh. Yeah, right.

Whatever is the pleasure of the council or we can wait until the end.

I mean, if there's any questions at this point, I was thinking and then we go from there. No, I have a question. How will it considering people are often signing up for things online? How are we going to know where the system will know if somebody is in the unincorporated area of Walnut Creek?

And I would ask Chris Farrell to come up and address that, please.

Chris Farrow, Arts and Recreation Director. Thanks for asking. Our current software, actually, we can lay a GIS map into the program, so it will know when the person's address is entered, whether they're in county or not. We're moving to a new provider as well, and we did verify with the new software provider that they will be able to do the same.

Okay. And... The other question I have then is, thank you, which proposed fee changes will have the greatest impact on residents and businesses of these categories? Did you have areas that you felt would be most impactful?

We actually have some additional slides further on in the presentation.

So I have a question on the resident versus non-resident. It's one thing to be able to discern where somebody lives. It's another to be telling them, oh, you don't live in the city, you have to pay a higher price because you live one house over from the city I mean the these lines are not as clean as one might think can we actually have a policy discussion when the time is appropriate tonight as to whether it should be just all this for zip codes or we really want to discriminate between can we have that conversation sometimes people say well I I've heard no before.

I agree. I think it's a good discussion. Any other questions from council?

Well, it's related to Council Member Silva's point. At the Finance Committee, and I guess I'll ask it in the form of a question, but if staff can confirm that this is appropriate or correct, that The difference between the resident rate and the non-resident rate is that if you apply for a program online, essentially a swimming class or some of the other things that you could do online, it'll tell you the rate. The software will figure out whether you're a resident or not and say, okay, it's $11 if you're a non-resident. If you sign up as a resident, it comes up as $10. I don't think... general public will that it's here and it's public in terms of what the different rates are but they won't know that their neighbor that's in the city is paying a dollar less for the class because they're a city resident don't we post prices someplace in a cat and they even an online catalog but there they will be posted this is it so get out your reading glasses and

Wait, you mean I sign up for a class without being able to see the price? I don't think so.

Prices are also indicated in the activity guide, but I'll defer to Chris.

So there are actually state laws about price transparency. So the prices will be a good thing, whether you're online, whether you are doing it in person, whether you're doing it over the phone, you will be told the full price and it will list both the resident. Well, The discount and the standard rate both will be evident. To Mayor Pro Tem's point, if you were to go in, you already have an account established. It knows you're a, let's just say resident in this case, and you click through. The price that you would see would be the resident because the system knows to charge you that. So I think that's what your point was. If you are a non-resident, the system would already know that. I think the only time that you might really, it might jump out to you is the first time you're setting up your account. You might not see that screen till the end, perhaps, and the new software, I'm not quite so sure. But for transparency, if you were just scrolling through the list of programs available to you, you would see both price points. So you're not selecting it, the computer's selecting it for you, but both price points would be visible on the screen when you are viewing that course.

So it's appropriate for us to have this conversation.

It's council's pleasure to have that conversation.

Chris, while you're there too, in terms of, so the distinction is that essentially for classes that require basically online registration where the software can easily distinguish between a city resident and a non-resident, those programs were the ones that staff's recommending, some of them, not all of them, a differential, a discount for city residents.

Right. So there were some operational examples where we wouldn't be able to apply the discount because we don't know people's address. So, for example, if you were to go to the pool, you're not taking a lesson or taking a class. You're just there to do recreational swimming. We do a point of sale transaction when you enter. So we're not entering your personal information, your address and things like that. So operationally, we can't. discern who is a resident and a non-resident. So to answer your question, we are applying it where it is operationally available to us to apply it.

Okay.

Thank you.

We could still have the conversation.

We'll still have the conversation.

Of course.

All right. It looks like that's the questions that we have from here. So I guess we'll continue.

Thank you. So next I will go through the proposed master fee schedule updates for fiscal year 27. So our master fee schedule contains over 700 fees. However, the fees that were included as part of the comprehensive fee study were just over 600 fee line items. And so of those fees, the fee amount is going to be unchanged for about 257. And to further clarify that, the 164 have no change at all, and the other 93 are administrative or wording changes. 285 are proposed to be adjusted and there are 74 new feline items. So I'm going to go into these last two categories in more detail. in the next few slides. So for the proposed fee adjustments, the most significant fee increases really are generally concentrated in the lower volume specialty services and complex regulatory applications. And so examples of those include building valuation schedules, complex planning applications, specialty administrative fees, and premium rentals, so based in some market-based services. So that's where you'll see the significant fee increases. The fees most commonly paid by residents, such as recreation programs, aquatics, common residential permits, and community services generally reflect more incremental adjustments. The largest dollar value adjustments occur within the Community Development's valuation-based building permit schedule. And the largest percentage increases generally occur on lower dollar administrative or specialty fees where the proposed fees move closer to the cost of providing the service. And some examples of those are return check fees, arrest record reviews, record sealing. So there are some administrative fees like that within the departments. So for our new fee line items, of those 74, approximately 68% are associated with the affordable housing agreement administration and compliance activities within the housing division. Although these activities are now being identified separately in the fee schedule, staff is recommending they continue to be fully subsidized, resulting in no charge to customers at this time. As a reminder, these costs are unrelated to impact fees or other housing related development fees. Approximately 21% of the new feline items are associated with arts and recreation services. Many of these are related to recreation service categories that are being more clearly defined and separated within the fee schedule rather than representing entirely new programs or services. Examples include pool rentals, picnic area rentals, private swim lessons, arts programming, and public art activities. The remaining new fee line items are largely administrative, regulatory, and support services. It's also important to note that some of these entries are a result of reorganizing the fee schedule for clarity and consistency. In some cases, fees were moved into the citywide section from other areas. and then consolidated there. So this slide categorizes the fees proposed for adjustment by theme and benefit category. So about 73% of the fee adjustments are tied to either market-based services or cost recovery services, where the framework generally accepts users to pay a larger, or sorry, expects users to pay a larger share of the cost. The remaining 27% are in areas where affordability, participation, and community services remain important considerations. In those cases, staff is recommending continued subsidies to help balance cost recovery with the broader community goals. So when we look at all of the proposed fee recommendations through the lens of the policy framework, about 77% of the fees fall within the proposed recovery ranges. So the majority of the fee schedule is generally aligned with the framework. About 18% of the fees fall below the framework ranges. These are primarily arts and recreation, cultural programs, recreation services and other community serving activities where the subsidy is intentional. In those cases, affordability, participation, and community access are important policy objectives. The remaining 5 percent of the fees fall above the framework ranges. These are largely existing market-based fees, such as certain facility rentals and other services where pricing is influenced by market demand. In some cases, reducing those fees would result in a loss of revenue and could affect fiscal sustainability, so staff is not recommending reductions of those fees at this time. The first, sorry, the proposed fee changes are driven by four primary factors. The first category is cost recovery alignment. So these are generally permit, review, inspection and other regulatory fees where the cost of providing the service has increased over time and fee revenues have not kept pace. So staff is recommending adjustments to move those fees closer to cost recovery. EXAMPLE INCLUDE MANY BUILDING PERMIT FEES, PLANNING APPLICATION FEES AND OTHER REGULATORY SERVICES. THE SECOND CATEGORY IS INFLATIONARY ADJUSTMENTS. SO THESE ARE GENERALLY MORE MODEST INCREASES INTENDED TO MAINTAIN CURRENT RECOVERY LEVELS AS LABOR, OPERATING AND SERVICE DELIVERY COSTS INCREASE OVER TIME. THE GOAL IS NOT NECESSARILY TO INCREASE COST RECOVERY BUT TO AVOID FALLING FURTHER BEHIND. Examples include recreation programs, camps, swim lessons, and other services where the city is maintaining an intentional subsidy but adjusting fees to reflect rising costs. The third category is market-based adjustments. These are voluntary services where pricing is influenced not only by cost recovery but also demand, utilization, and comparable agency pricing. Examples include facility rentals, theater rentals, and other services that operate in a competitive market environment. The final category is rightsizing adjustments. These occur where existing fees no longer align with the service being provided or where the fee structure itself needs refinement. In some cases, that means increasing fees and others decreasing fees and then some creating more transparent fee categories. Examples include separating facility and rental components, creating more specific rental classifications, restructuring certain recreation fee categories, and reducing fees where the study found existing fees exceeded the intended recovery level. So the next few slides provide a general overview of the changes in each of the functional areas that we've talked about. And the first one is arts and recreation. Essentially, the proposed changes are balancing affordability, access participation, and cost recovery. Recommendations include selective fee increases, a resident discount of 10% for applicable fees, and continued market-based pricing where appropriate. Some facility rentals and programs may remain above cost recovery ranges where market demand supports pricing and revenues help offset subsidies for community serving programs. Fees that are changing, examples would be swim lessons, camps, pool rentals, and facility rentals. Next, we have the planning division in the community development department. In general, the adjustments are addressing significant cost recovery gaps. Planning fee adjustments are primarily focused on improving cost recovery for applicant-driven services with fee increases in key application types. Planning services currently recover substantially less than the cost of providing the service, so proposed changes better align the fees with those service costs. Adjustments affect entitlement, discretionary review, and development application fees. These adjustments will reduce the subsidy for applicant-driven services, and some of the changes include permit, plan check, and valuation-based fees. In the Community Development Department Building Division, in general, fees are being right-sized to better reflect the cost of service. Building fees contain some of the largest proposed adjustments in the fee schedule. Increases are concentrated in higher value and more complex projects that require greater staff time and technical review. Some fees are reduced where existing fees exceeded intended cost recovery levels, as I mentioned earlier. OVERALL ADJUSTMENTS IMPROVE COST RECOVERY WHILE ALIGNING FEES MORE CLOSELY WITH ACTUAL SERVICE COSTS. SOME OF THOSE CHANGES INCLUDE GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENTS, CONDITIONAL USE PERMITS, AND SIGN PROGRAM REVIEWS. The final community development division is housing. And this is, as I've mentioned previously, it's a new section in the Master Fee Schedule. These services are primarily related to the Affordable Housing Administration, housing assistance and compliance monitoring. And as I mentioned earlier, they're evaluated separately from private development-related services. And so although the fee study did identify the cost of providing these services, staff is recommending they continue to be subsidized because they support broader housing affordability and housing production objectives. So as a result, no fees are proposed to be charged at this time. Engineering is one of the areas with the fewest recommended changes because many existing fees are already relatively well aligned with the cost of providing service. The recommendations focus on targeted updates and administrative refinements, which is essentially rewording names to make things more clear where that was needed. Engineering will also continue to rely on actual cost and deposit-based billing for more complex projects where level of effort can vary from project to project. A few examples include encroachment permits, site development and subdivision review activities, traffic and transportation reviews, and engineering inspections. In open space within public works, the fee adjustments essentially improved cost recovery while encouraging compliance. Many fees increased moderately rather than moving immediately to full cost recovery, which could be phased in gradually. Recommendations seek to balance affordability, compliance, and cost recovery. Updates are proposed for tree permit, arborist, and open space related fees. Police services continue to be primarily funded through general tax revenues because public safety provides a broad community benefit. The proposed fee adjustments are limited to licensing, permitting, regulatory and administrative services that directly benefit individual applicants. Some increases are moderated below full cost recovery to reduce customer impacts. recover more of the cost of applicant-specific services. And some examples include massage establishment and technician permits, public entertainment permits, citation sign-off, and record review requests. So this slide talks about the revenue impact considerations. So the proposed fee adjustments are intended to better align fees with the cost of providing services and improve cost recovery. If service demand remained consistent with fiscal year 26, the updated fees would generate additional revenue. However, as reported with the third quarter revenue projections in May, fee revenues were projected to finish approximately 1.7 million below budget due to declining activity. As a result, the proposed fee updates are expected to primarily offset those revenue declines and maintain current cost recovery levels rather than generate a significant net increase in fiscal year 27 revenue. As part of the fee study, we also compared the city's fees with those charged by comparable jurisdictions. Overall, the proposed fees across all departments are better aligned with neighboring jurisdictions. Most regulatory fees fall within the range charged by comparable agencies. Building and planning fees generally remain at or below market while improving cost recovery. Arts and Recreation reflects market-based pricing for premium facilities and programs. After we receive your input direction this evening, we will return to your council on August 18th for the adoption of the fiscal year 27 master fee schedule and user fee cost recovery policy. Additionally, we will bring forward fiscal year 27 budget adjustments related to sales tax projections and vacancy rate adjustments as needed to balance the general fund budget. Staff is recommending that adjustments to the fee schedule take effect on January 1st of 2027 in order to allow time to communicate with stakeholders and account for any necessary implementation changes. So our recommended action this evening is to review the draft user fee cost recovery policy and the proposed fiscal year 27 master fee schedule updates and provide input and direction to staff. And with that, we have the consultants as well as staff to answer any additional questions that you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Kirsten. That's a lot to go through. So let's start with or any further questions here. Let's hold off on the residents that are in the unincorporated area for the commenting afterwards and when we have after any public input as well and we'll have that part of the conversation. But so let's have other questions that relate to this right now. Council Member Darling, you are ready to go.

I'm ready to go. Thank you, Kirsten. That's a lot. It's a lot, and I really appreciate the way you displayed it. It has made it easy to look at. My question is more for those, I know we have been working very hard on our, how we process building permit applications, engineering and stuff like that. So when it comes to the adjustments to those, we've not only made sure we're being as efficient as possible in how we're issuing the permit, and now we are aligning the cost with that more efficient process. Is that correct? That is correct.

And I would ask if Erica could come up, one of our members of the development services team, and help answer that question around the efficiencies.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. I'm Erica Vandenbrand, Community Development Director. In answer to your question, yes, there have actually been three different initiatives since the original fee study for the current fees were done. So in 27 and 2018, there was the first version of Blueprint for Success, and so that made changes. And then whenever during COVID, there were additional changes which were made to create efficiencies to put more permitting activities online and make it easier to customers and then we're now currently as you had noted going through a process of lean process improvements and so that is still relatively new so we haven't been able to fully capture the benefits of that but we will be able to do so in the future okay thank you and I think that hopefully that will reassure people that we're working to make this as efficient as possible

I had one that didn't occur to me until after the Finance Committee. On nonprofits, do we have a policy? I've noticed there's a nonprofit discount for certain facility rentals, but I'm not sure I saw something in the user fee cost recovery policy indicating what that discount is.

So we don't have anything specific in the policy. We could certainly add that. We do have some indication of what qualifies as a nonprofit, but in the sports and camps area. But I would ask if Chris could come up and help address that question.

Your question is very timely. I just met with staff to discuss this today. So currently, we don't have a set policy. But we do, by practice, allow anyone with a 501 status. So that could be a C3. It could be a C7. All of them qualify currently. But that's, again, not written. So we will be codifying that.

And is the numeric discount 10% or is there a standard?

I don't know the percentage off the top of my head, but it is in the fee schedule that comes forward. We do include that as a separate price in the published fee schedule.

Can I build on one more question of this arena? What do you do about social clubs? There are some longstanding clubs in the community that never... filed a charter, bylaws. They don't really have a bank account. Somebody is taking money from their members and putting it in their personal checking account and paying the bills. They don't have a tax ID number. How do we categorize those and wean them off of this habit?

So we encourage them to get a Social Club 501, which I believe is a C7. Okay. But we do have a – we're working on a process for all of our grandfathered organizations, and I'd say there's probably five, six of them who have been renting from us for, let's say, 20 years. And they've paid a discounted rate, which was loosely based on our nonprofit rate over the years. So we are developing a phased-in approach. We're looking at probably a five-year plan to get them up to the appropriate fee structure. So we'll be working on that in the next few weeks. So our goal is to get everyone caught up. Maybe some of those clubs will decide to get a 501c7. and then they would qualify for the nonprofit and those that don't they will have a phased in approach to get them caught up to the fee schedule there's also the option this is not so much for social clubs but just to more broadly answer the question there are some folks who I just lost my train of thought it's not social clubs I used that term loosely. It wasn't meant to be.

But it reminded me of something. I wanted to talk about MOUs.

So we do have some organizations who have MOUs with us. And that's usually a little bit of a give and take relationship. So for example, our Little League in Walnut Creek does not pay the standard published rate. But we have a signed MOU with them. And that is because they are also giving us something in return. so for little league specifically they're doing a lot of the field maintenance where they're playing they're doing the field prep so they're doing some of the work so we then go and we codify that in an mou to say here's what little league is going to contribute and then the city is going to give you a price break because of that so that's where we would like to to sit moving forward is to get out of some of these grandfathered relationships and get us into official mous that are on record and then to get everyone else to the published approved fee schedule.

So maybe you can help me understand it. I don't know which page I'm supposed to be on. I saw it and then I lost it. But there seems to be a resident and a standard rate being proposed for groups. So how do you tell if a group is a, let's take a service club, one of the animal clubs. And how do you know if it's a walnut, how do you know if it's local? Sure.

So there's a couple. Ways to do that. So it's ultimately a council decision. What staff are recommending is that it would be based on the percentage of residents that were either members or on rosters, etc. So it would be 51% or more Walnut Creek residents, again, whether that's a member or a team player, etc., then they would qualify for the resident discount. Okay.

So you're going to have to have rosters because you're not able to, you're going to have to trust the roster. Correct. By the way, the post office moved half of my daughter's third grade soccer team to Alamo, but never actually moved them. They just changed postal addresses. So the U.S. Postal Service seems to reign supreme sometimes.

Okay.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Chris, I just had one more. And this was from a resident who is a recreational swimmer. And it asked about kind of the rate, our rates for swimming compared to other cities. And just if you did the market research on that and can let us know where we stand.

Sure. So. THERE'S A COUPLE DIFFERENT WAYS TO COME ACROSS WHICH CITIES YOU USE FOR COMPARABLE STUDIES. AND THAT PHILOSOPHY CHANGES DEPENDING ON WHICH RATE YOU ARE STUDYING. SO, FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT A FACILITY RATE FOR SOMEWHERE LIKE OUR NEW HEATHER FARMS, You're going to have a wedding there. Well, people aren't necessarily looking for a wedding venue that's within 10 minutes of their house, right? They're just looking for a beautifully aesthetic pleasing place that meets their budget. They might be willing to look 50 miles away. So you use comp cities for that specific purpose, knowing where people are willing to drive. Somewhere like a pool, you're going to tighten that distance a little bit. We're not competing with people on the peninsula, for example. Are there some exceptions? Sure, people who commute or whatnot. But for the most part, for those types of classes, we're going to comp against people that are probably a 15-minute distance. drive from us, our neighboring cities. So that is what we did. We looked at Concord, Pleasant Hill, San Ramon, Danville. I think we went as far as Dublin, Pleasanton, moving in that direction, and then Antioch and Brentwood moving east from us. So that was the areas that we looked at. So in that, we are right in where we should be. We're not the highest and we're not the lowest, looking at aquatics specifically. Passes are a little bit harder to compare because you don't see any consistency with how cities do passes. So some cities might bundle them in groups of 10. Some might say it's unlimited for the month. Some might say if you only use it on the weekend. So it was really hard to find comparable pricing for passes. So we stuck with looking at comps for the gate and individuals and then just applied kind of logic when using the gate fee, multiplying it out to get past numbers.

Thank you. I appreciate you doing that investigation.

Absolutely. Mayor, can I? Don't leave. One of the fee areas that I mentioned in our June meeting was that we have picnic areas in the Arts and Recreation Department and we have picnic areas in the open space. That is not user friendly because people go in looking for a picnic area and they may land in one or the other but not be able to say the full offering. Is it feasible, and I'm asking you to play nice in the sandbox with Mike Vickers, is it feasible to, I understand that Public Works is running the open space and you're running the recreation park ones is it feasible to offer them as for service that you buy them and you can see and compare what you're paying for and what your options are as if they were in one city

we've already met so rich and I had a conversation and actually just earlier today Mike and I had a conversation so you'll have to know that we're actually already using the same software platform so we're going to look at a way to display that information that is more user friendly but the conversations have begun so that means the fee schedule should basically cross-reference the two and they should be able to be compared yes one written

One side is listing at large down to many, and the other side is listing it small to large.

Work in progress, but we are heading in the right direction. Great. Thank you.

OK. Councilmember Devaney.

And I think am I the last one with questions? Yes. Because mine might start blurring into comments, so.

Well, let's focus on question, then we'll go to public comment, then we'll go to comments.

Oh, we're going to go to public comment. OK. On the second, I think it was like the second to last slide, there was maintaining current service delivery was mentioned as a goal, and there was like a $1.7 million deficit. Did I interpret that correctly?

There was, when we came in May to report on the projections for fiscal year 26, we were projecting close to a $1.7 million deficit on the revenue stream from related to fees.

And the deficit is benchmarked against the current service delivery? What we're currently delivering, the cost of delivering that, and what we're expecting to reimburse with fees came in $1.7 million below target or below estimation?

It's actually below what our estimated revenue budget was. And so we're really just comparing to what the budget was for those fees and then where we're projecting to end the year. And that difference was about $1.7 million. Okay.

And that is subsidized by the general fund?

Correct. And in the case of the third quarter report, it's also subsidized. It's subsidized by the general fund, but it can be a combination of other revenues or higher, or we have savings on the expenditure side.

Okay. That'll be it for my question, then. Great.

All right, then. Thank you. I have a couple on there.

A couple of other questions.

Okay. Bob, okay. Go ahead.

So this is one to the housing division. Every time I see the housing division fees, I'm afraid the public may be confused that we're talking all housing and not affordable housing. Without having heartburn, is there a way to change the nomenclature slightly so it's clear that we're really talking about affordable services?

Hello. Erica Vandenbrand, again, Community Development Director. And the answer to that is yes. We can be clear with how we describe it.

And a rose is because our housing division isn't dealing with market rate housing proposals.

Generally not. So that they're dealing with market rate developers who are required to provide inclusionary housing and below market rate housing. Right. OK. Thank you. Thank you.

And I noticed in the policies and in the phrasing, both the term discount and preferential pricing has been used. Were we meeting something different? And I can't precisely say what page it was on, but it was in the narrative of the policy. Or do we actually just interchangeably use the term discount pricing?

The only difference may be related to the nonprofit and military rates, may be a preferred pricing versus discount, but we can certainly make that consistent within the policy. CHAIR YELLEN.

And maybe we can talk about which term we think is the better term? CHAIR YELLEN. Yes. CHAIR YELLEN. Okay. Thank you.

CHAIR YELLEN. Okay. So now, why don't we open it up for public comment. And if we have anybody from the public that's here in the Chamber, please come up to the dais and you'll have two minutes to speak. And if there's any member for the public that would wish to make comments remotely, then please raise your hand or press star 9, and we'll put you in the queue for that. So let's first come to the Chamber here. Do we have anybody that's going to be speaking in public comment on this item? I see none. Do we have anybody online? We have nobody online. So we'll close public comment, come back to the Council for comments, and we can have the discussion on... residents of walnut creek versus residents of the unincorporated area of walnut creek as well and actually councilmember silva why don't we kick it off with you since that was your topic so my gut tells me that we shouldn't be treating people who by virtue of where they bought a house or where they decided to rent an apartment different from our regular residents

who are in the incorporated area. Our unincorporated residents pay as much sales tax as our city's residents because the stores are where the stores are. What they don't pay is property tax, and that's it. And so I just feel like if we're going to be inclusive with our group, it's easier just to keep track of it that way, and it's preferred pricing for Walnut Creek residents It's as simple as that.

I have a question on that. Do we have any analysis of what our revenues are from unincorporated Walnut Creek residents? Do we actually have a number? I guess that's what I'm looking for. Do we have an idea of a ballpark figure that we're even discussing here? Is it $1,000 or is it $50,000?

We don't actually have the data at that level of detail. So when we look at, for example, our sales tax data, it really is based on Walnut Creek.

Can I also point out that if you ask for the Creekers, they're going to apply as a Walnut Creek group to use the ball fields, but they're not going to be able to tell you that Mike Howard lives in unincorporated on Timuron and Joe Blow lives. I mean, that is just getting down to the level of detail where the bulk users are coming in as Walnut Creekers.

So what would you, and then we'll go to Council Member Darling, what would you propose as the way to then unravel it so that all Walnut Creek City, I'm sorry, all people that have Walnut Creek as an address then would qualify for the discount? Would it just be purely on zip codes?

That's all it takes is to do four zip codes, but I don't know if the software supports that.

I assume it would support zip codes if it supports detailed addresses, but okay, I'm getting a nod.

I mean, there are people that live – I live on Glenhaven, and there are people that live in – half of Glenhaven is in the city and half is unincorporated, and they don't know where the line is. Right.

Okay, Councilmember Darling.

Yeah, I, too, live about 10 feet from the boundary, and our elementary school population is split. And, you know, so after we had this big discussion the last time, I went through and asked different folks, do you know if you are the city or the county? And they know. There are people here in our unincorporated areas who might not know, but the first time they call for law enforcement, the first time they have any other kind of service request, they know. So my research within our community is that Not everybody, but a lot of people do understand. If your street sign is not green, you are in the county. And if we start saying, well, if you live in the county but you have a Walnut Creek address, then the situation you were in with your daughter's sports team, the same thing could happen. The post office periodically, they changed a bunch of people that were Walnut Creek, unincorporated. into Alamo and so in my mind the hard and fast thing that we control is who pays property tax that help us with our general fund and if you are somebody that pays property tax that benefits your the general fund you can have a discount on these fees because your property tax is coming to us So that's my thought on it. I know it's complicated, and I know it's going to be – I recognize that the staff implementing it are going to have challenges with groups. It will be an automatic – if somebody is reserving a room and it costs less for a city resident, they will – but the same thing has always happened. The people that wanted to go to our elementary school found a grandmother who lived in this service, and so there's – We recognize it's not clean cut, but I think which city you're in as an official resident paying property tax to is a concrete thing that doesn't change without a lot of process.

Yeah, you know, I had initially kind of wrestled with this issue as well, given my neighborhood as well has a lot of city and county residents. And I just from an administrative ease of implementation. And then also, you know, 62% of our city residents are supported measure oh and in my mind this is a way a small way of saying thank you for that here's another benefit you get from supporting measure oh is that you get a city discount and i recognize that the tech the sales tax burden is shared by more than just city residents but the property tax burden isn't it so i would be inclined to just leave it at city residents i don't think it affects i could be wrong i don't think it affects that many fees at that huge of a level other than maybe some facility rentals but that's kind of the conclusion i reached on it i would leave it at the discount for city residents um councilmember do any of the thoughts on this one yeah i think i'm still where i was last time which is

giving the discount to the folks that are paying property taxes in Walnut Creek. I understand the argument to expand it to all of Walnut Creek. I understand the sales tax. I think last time my counter was, yeah, but other folks in neighboring cities also come here and buy things and pay sales tax. And so how is that much different? So I would continue to support it the way it's written right now.

I guess, and then we'll go to other comments beyond this. For me, I'm weighing slightly on the side of if they have Walnut Creek as an address. And the reason is because I think that in many cases, whether people live down one of the streets off of Walnut Boulevard or Homestead, suddenly there's, like Marshall, is suddenly an unincorporated area street. There's actually one in Rancho Paraiso that just one street is unincorporated. And I think there's enough feeling sometimes of disenfranchisement, which is why I was looking to see what are we talking about in terms of dollars here. It just seems that the risk-reward here is we get a lot more reward for people feeling like, hey, I live in Walnut Creek even though I'm not in the incorporated area Walnut Creek recognizes me and really what is it going to end up costing us a few thousand dollars but all of Walnut Creek is included and welcomed in this versus people feeding again a bit disenfranchised and boy Walnut Creek doesn't even value value me I'm gonna go shop somewhere else or whatever else they do so it just seems to me that the the reward here is out uh outpaces what the risk potential would be on the downside i mean i could live with either i guess that's how i'm leaning though on that one um so that's my my feelings on that uh before we go to any kind of a uh a vote on this let's talk about any other comments that we have in any other areas of the presentation so why don't we start with councilmember davini on this one

Okay. Yeah, first I want to thank Kirsten and Administrative Services, the Finance Division, all the departments that participated in evaluating their fees and the fee study because it certainly looks like it was a lot of work. So thank you for that. appreciate the adjustments that were made from the last time we talked creating the four categories I think that that reads very logically to me I like the the breakdowns I agree with the rough you know numbers as far as trying to fall within a certain category of subsidization I continue though to have I feel that we should still have something in this policy that really is looking at it from an even higher level of what what is so that's why i was asking about our goal um you know we were we were subsidizing at approximately 11 million dollars a year i think from the general fund to support services so recovering approximately two-thirds of that through the fee model and we could have done this study and perhaps at the end of that arrived at like 40 percent subsidization or 10 percent and i i would like to see us have some sort of goal as to as our philosophy as a city it could be in section three um where it says cost recovery philosophy what is our philosophy like are we are we um intending to subsidize approximately 1 3rd or 60 to 65 percent or 75 65 to 70 or what what is our sort of our philosophy as far as You know overarching so it doesn't maybe it would creep outside of that goal And then we might have to start looking at how to keep it like more in line with with our with our goals and one way we could do that is is through You know a percentage The other way we could look at that is through this is the amount we want to subsidize from the general fund could fall within a certain number. Now, I originally looked at that thinking that's sort of challenging because they're not necessarily direct costs, percentages of an employee's time, things that might be hard to measure. But then when I heard at the end the goal of maintaining the service delivery model and we had a $1.7 million deficit and the general fund was referenced, I don't know, maybe that's the area to target as far as having that language. think the percentage would be a little bit easier i think it also supports what's written in the policy statement in you know purposes and policy objectives 1.1 the third line is maintain transparency regarding the use of general funds or other non-fee subsidies so we're being very transparent as to like this is what we're subsidizing from the general fund so let people know like that's that's the way the structure works not only do i think it's good from a transparency standpoint and just sort of a policy standpoint but i also think it helps with public you know like a public narrative and messaging because so often we hear things like oh well yeah you just want to put in more parking meters so you can make money for the city or there's this concept that that fees are sort of just like this profit center and if we could plainly sort of point to actually know our philosophy is to subsidize these services by 30%, and this is how we did that, I think it would help with those conversations as well.

Just I'm curious, Council Member Devaney, you gave a couple of different ways of how we could accomplish that, but do you have a specific proposal in terms of what the policy would be?

Well, I'm curious where it falls right now.

as far as percentages I know you said it aligns better with other cities and what they're doing do we do we know about what that percentage wound up being so initially prior to the fee study we were at about 65 percent citywide and so now we're closer to between 70 and 72 percent and again that's kind of comparing it to fiscal year 26 information that we have but so would be going up about five to seven percent based on the proposed fees so we'd be subsidizing about 28 percent of

um looking forward you know finance question is um like do we anticipate that percentage going up or or down um

think that partly depends on kind of what happens in the economy and how our costs change over time but I think it's certainly something we could evaluate during the upcoming two-year budget process and really look at what the effect would be of having you know a set percentage because we won't need to keep in mind that each of the fees have different cost recovery levels and so really looking at what the effect of that would be but we can certainly look at that during the budget cycle and does it make

sense from the way you follow the fees and calculate the budget to look at a subsidy from the general fund as a As an indicator of how much we're subsidizing the fee the the services provided by the fee schedule or Does it make more sense to look at a percentage? since I Since that last goal kind of spoke to the general fund and looking at subsidizing through the general fund. I

So just my initial thoughts on that as part of this conversation would probably be looking at a percentage, just because that would be something that would allow us to, you know, the ultimate revenue impacts would be changing depending on that percentage versus a set dollar amount.

Okay. Then I guess maybe between, we'd want to subsidize between 25% and 35% of fees. And then now we've got some sort of... boundaries beyond which if we start to stray, we have to look and go, hmm, wow, we're not in that range anymore. Are we outside of a range that we want to be in?

No, I appreciate that, and I think it's a good conversation. I remember asking the city manager about this and hearing that there's really not a set metric, and that makes it difficult, I think, for me to go, okay, that's what we're shooting for, to quantify it, right? Because there's qualitative standards here that say, If it's an individual that's benefiting more, we should recover more. And if it's a community that's benefiting more, we're open to subsidizing more. Not that we will, but we'll have that conversation. And then also asking and hearing that even that 65%, I think we did look at our comparable cities and found that we weren't an outlier, that we were in the middle, but some sort of an examination as part of the... think you do this anyway I don't know if we need to codify it but if we if we feel we need to to work into the cost recovery philosophy that we will consult with an examine kind of our neighboring jurisdictions to make sure that we're within no more than a five to ten percent deviation from what their cost recovery percentages are or something like that or so can I chime in here when you're done also Yeah, I mean, I welcome kind of other input on it, but that's where I struggled with kind of setting a standard because there really isn't one is what I was told. Yeah.

What you hear is Walnut Creek is different. We offer more services. And what that number of 65% includes the police department and the building and planning departments and the housing division, which are more standardized city services. So the only way I could imagine us doing a cost recovery comparison is to isolate The community services that are truly arts and recreation and public open space and figuring out what that cost recovery is and comparing it to like the Pleasant Hill Recreation, it's not a department, it's a district, and the Hayward District where you're really looking apples to apples, not apples to apples. spread because when you take a full service city, many of those services that we have in the police department aren't supposed to expect to get recovery percentages and they're pulling our percentage down. So if we wanted to set a standard, I think we have to consider what business that would be in and find our parallel Partners in that and do it that way as opposed to thinking about Concord That doesn't have a leisure center for the arts doesn't have his robust of these things Because when we're drawing any further comments and by the way, so You're not looking for any kind of a boat.

This is just direction tonight, but obviously we still have to come to probably have to have an internal vote on direction for resident versus non-resident fees, but other than that you're just getting some indication and direction from us in general.

And then we would incorporate that into the policy for the next meeting.

Okay.

Thank you. So I've thought a lot about the consistency and I agree that it is always better to have something that's clearly articulated and yet then I start trying to lump and split and and it becomes more difficult. So I think including a narrative goal, that our goal is to make, to ensure that we are within the mid-range of our adjacent cities and a cost comparison for, and I'm assuming the staff is not looking at, you know, take a Silla Lesher compared to something in Concord, but they're looking at swim lessons in Concord, swim lessons in Walnut Creek. So we could include a narrative description that says, We strive to be comparable and competitive with our neighboring jurisdictions. And then on the cost recovery, because there's some valuations implicit in it that are difficult to put numbers on, like, yes, is teaching a child to swim and saving their life worth 33% subsidy compared to, you know. So I agree with you that finding a way to be more consistent is good. I struggle with whether or not we can do it right now. But having that out there is something that over time we're going to be working at better articulating this. And if we get to the point where we feel comfortable putting ranges in there, I think you're right. That will help us identify when we need to go back and revisit something because we'll have gotten so far afield from what we said we were trying to do.

And I would agree with that. At least it gives us leeway there. We don't have to come back every single time we come upon one of the margins that we were talking about.

Just to be clear, I am talking about the totality of all the fees, not individual fees. I don't want to get into the weeds and start policying individual fees. There's a lot of thought that goes into this. But just the idea of having some sort of... yes the range that we'd like to be in that is part of our policy so we can like speak to our policy of what we intend to subsidize and so forth we say language like oh we're just trying to be like other cities and fiscally responsible and it just doesn't kind of come across the same way um right so do you need more clarification that on that portion i do think it'd be helpful if

your council would like to have an overall cost recovery target as a percentage of the budget effectively. And then really a two-part question, if you would, whether you're looking to have that incorporated now or allow for more time for research to incorporate it as part of the next fee update when we come back as part of the budget a year from now, we could go either way on that. You know, and just a couple additional thoughts. I mean, it really depends on how you want to go. The way that Fees have been crafted and proposed at this point as more of a grounds-up approach and looking at what the market is, looking at it by segment, by different type of service that is provided, what the comparables are, where there are comparables, what the market's like, where there is a market, and trying to be at a reasonable level point. And that's how we came up to roughly being in the 70% to 72%. I also do understand the point that Council Member Devaney is making in terms of overall budget management. Do we want to set a target for how much we're going to recover from fees as more of a budget policy? If we go that approach, we'll likely have to do some reconciliation in the future because in order to achieve a certain target, we may have to adjust some categories and some fees in order to get there. It obviously depends what that target is, whether it's higher or lower than we're at currently. That's obviously manageable, just a consideration. So it is really more of do you want to continue with more of a grounds-up approach in terms of setting the fees or more of a top-down with having an overall recovery target as a budget policy?

Let me try this one because I think Council Member DeFinney has a good point, but I think we're at a point where we're not – I do support using the ground up because it gets into the granularity that is important to understand, but I also understand having an overall goal. And so maybe what we do this time around is say, this has got us to this percentage of overall cost recovery and the council feels comfortable that that is appropriate We are going to be working to clarify policy on that as we go through the budget process in time so the next fee study we can decide whether or not we have some other metric. Use the ground up method, but then just double checking the ground up to make sure we've gotten to where we want to be. But I think I'm hearing from staff that doing that right now would be difficult. It's a worthy goal. Not quite there yet.

Yeah, I mean, I like that. I don't think we want to say we aim for 100% cost recovery except as specified below. We're at 70% to 72% now, or we're at 60%. something percent now and we're going to 70 to 72 percent so it's going in the right direction maybe we just want to embed that we want to be cognizant of what that percentage is and see it move more that way than that way i mean it's i could write it more we could also ask staff for options when you know this comes back to us if that's not creating a big burden to investigate and

So I question what you're really looking at. Okay, I've been through the budget process 10 times in the 20 years I've been on the council. And I've seen budgets where by department you look at cost recovery. And you have to start from that perspective because you cannot charge more for the Lesher Center in order to improve your cost recovery in the police department. That's kind of smacks of being against state law. And so you're running different businesses here. It's almost like being in a shopping center and a shopping center with different stores, each doing a different type of work, and they're going to have a different cost recovery and margins and markups and all of that. So I don't caution this, but I think we're trying to think of it too simplistically. And so maybe staff can come back to us, because I'm not sure what you're trying to do. in achieving this a subsidization percentage or a cost recovery percentage because you cannot charge more for parking tickets, which will only go into the parking fund anyway and go to the courts.

Well, I mean, what I hear, and I think it's a valid concern too, is that ongoing, you know, budget, not crises, but kind of challenges, and recognizing that this area is one where theoretically for some fees we could charge 400% of what the cost of it is to us and making sure that we're cognizant of it and recognizing that there is a subsidy that's happening there a fairly sizable one and that we're seeing it and touching it and feeling it every time that we're changing these fees and recognizing we're making that policy decision to allocate budget funds towards these fees, that we're aware of it. We're not just blindly adopting it and that we have something codified that says, are we measuring up to that standard or not?

I think we have to look at it in these by department and ask for them just to take a look at it that way because we haven't looked at it that way in a long time, and it is an eye-opener. So let me try again.

So it would be useful for all of us to know the percentage cost recovery in this one, how much of our general fund dollars we're putting towards bringing these fees forward and then have as a worthy goal to come forward with a more new continue to use the bottom-up mode but then say we want to have near full you know by different areas

So if this is agreeable to the full council, we can continue as we are as proposed and come back if it's suitable during this next budget cycle with more information about a cost recovery target. whether it's part of a fee policy or part of an overall budget balancing policy, to look at how that may function. What makes this difficult to an extent is this is completely discretionary. You can set fees at 0% or to a full 100% cost recovery, and as noted, even in some fees higher than that if they're market-based. So there is a lot of subjectivity here in setting these, even though we're trying to create suitable guidelines for charging and the way it's structured currently it's at the service level it's not even at the department level it's at the the program or the or the grouping of services that are available that we're setting those targets away it's basically in those four buckets that we outline currently but we could continue to study that if that's amenable to the group and come back within this next budget year sure

I think that makes sense.

I do, too. And I think it's consistent with what we do. Like, the capital budget has a specified percentage. That got said before I was on council. I'm not sure what it relates to. I know some like 2%. But I think it lives in the overall budget as opposed to maybe this policy in that we address it kind of holistically that way.

Yeah, I think that works for me. It gets us... broader recognition that as we put our budget together, here's how we are allocating our general fund. We are subsidizing things at about this level. But I think that is where it belongs.

Okay. All right. Before we finish up this item, then I'm going to give Council Member Silva the floor to discuss the final piece of this, which is do we want to include unincorporated Walnut Creek residents into the discount the we're just going to be taking the straw vote on this one right now it seems like it's we're split on this so again i'm leaning i'm leaning toward walnut creek residents oh i'm sorry walnut creek unincorporated residents as well just because i don't think the cost is going to be that great but the benefit is going to outweigh the risks but councilmember silva

So my preference is to do all Walnut Creek residents in all four zip codes because these are individual services. When you get to the groups, the soccer club, the Rotary Club, it's going to be assumed that they're Walnut Creek. They're not going to be asking for rosters. And if it's Concord Rotary, they're not going to get the local discount. they're going to have to pay the standard rate. That's my preference, but I will live with it either way. And we'll all say the same thing. We'll live with it either way.

All right. So I'm going to agree on this. I think that we should just keep Walnut Creek residents, whether they're unincorporated or incorporated, together on this for a discount. It makes it easier. People are going to feel more welcomed and not feel like the... to use a bad phrase, the red-headed stepchild.

I am going to continue to look for people that live in incorporated Walnut Creek getting the discount because the same challenge will happen with an Alamo soccer club that has 11 of the 20 kids are actually Walnut Creek residents. And they say, wait a second, just because our address is not Walnut Creek, we have Walnut Creek kids. And I can live with whatever, but my preference is, I like...

Incorporated.

Incorporated.

Incorporated, all right. Incorporated. Correct. All right. That's it. Unincorporated residents, we tried.

Can we finish a couple of comments? Sure. In the policy, it lists consistently under the police department a series of business licenses, and then it says bike licenses. Can we not list bike licenses as if they're similar to a massage permit? yes we can read flat in within the building department when I was looking at the schedule there's something doesn't look internal consistency of how it's being looked at but the housing affordable housing discount i think we should consider pressure preferential pricing as opposed to resident discount but it's just a nicer way to say it and i think we need to be sure that we're by equity we're also including treating like-kind residents or like-kind users or like-kind groups the same. Our best friend whose club has had a discount for 20 years doesn't continue to get the discount. I mean, we have to treat our customers equally.

I want to go back to what you just said. You said preferential pricing versus resident discount.

Resident preferential pricing versus resident discount.

It's just it was it both terms or phrases were used I think preferential pregnant pricing may be a nicer way of saying it then wouldn't we have a problem of people that are not residents of the city of Incorporated City of Walnut Creek saying why don't I get preferential pricing? Does that just lend more questions?

It could it's used both ways and

I would prefer discount just because, all right, it makes it clean. You get to discount your resident since we're already going in that direction.

Okay. Then we have to clean up wherever it says preferential pricing. Yes, we'll make sure it's consistent. Thank you.

Okay. Any more input needed on this one? Anybody need a break?

Yes.

Okay, let's take a 10-minute break until 825.

Thank you.

Thank you. ... ... ... Thank you.

All right, next on the agenda is a consideration titled Receive the Election Code 9212 Report Regarding the Walnut Creek Senior Housing Transit Village Initiative and consider two alternative resolutions to either place the initiative measure on the November general election ballot or adopt the initiative measure as proposed. And before we turn it over to our assistant city manager, I'd like to ask our city attorney, Steve Mattis, just to give a quick overview of exactly what it is that we're looking at here.

Thank you, Mayor. The item before the City Council this evening arises from the fact that the proponents of this initiative measure Went out, they drafted a measure which involves amendments to the general plan, the north downtown specific plan, the zoning code. So various land use documents that the city has. They went out, collected signatures, and as it turns out, they collected the required number of signatures. And so when that happens under California law, the council has two choices that are available to them. permutation of that, but the two choices are the council can either adopt the measure as it is drafted, so you cannot change it. You simply adopt it as it's drafted, or alternatively, you can place the measure before the voters, and then the voters will determine whether it's approved or not, and that requires a simple majority vote. The slight differentiation to this issue is that those elections code provisions also provide for What's called an elections code section 9212 report which is part of your agenda tonight and that's a report that the Council can and did ask for which talks about. The measure and how it in how it may impact a series of fiscal and land use planning issues that's what state law requires and the Council also asked for some additional information. So in a larger sense, the council is going to hear the election code section 9212 report tonight. You're going to then decide whether or not you wish to adopt the measure or place the measure on the ballot. and that's the overall scheme of what will happen tonight. There are, if you do place the measure on the ballot, there are a number of issues that are associated with that that will be present in Charles' presentation and that we can talk to the council about as we go through.

Great, thank you. And with that, we invite Assistant City Manager Charles Ching forward to provide the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, Charles Ching, Assistant City Manager. The City Attorney pretty much summed up the actions that are in front of City Council tonight. So all of it is in relation to the Walnut Creek Transit Village Initiative that was submitted to the City in March of this year. So the two actions that City Council will be doing tonight are Two things, one is receive the elections code 9212 report regarding the initiative, which was authorized by city council back in April. And the second would be to consider two alternative resolutions like the city attorney mentioned, either to put the measure on the November general election or to adopt the initiative measure as proposed. So to do the presentation for the 9212 report, I want to bring up Jim Simon. Jim is the president of RSG Solutions, who is a consultant that the city hired to provide the report.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. Jim Simon with RSG. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. Just to kind of a little bit of background, I'll just try to touch briefly because some of this has been mentioned already by two people now. So I'll just touch on it just again. The elections code report has a window of time that it needs to be prepared within and we are within that window of time. It's a 30-day window from when the clerk recorder certifies the initiative petition. So we're here tonight within that timeframe to receive and discuss that report. As was mentioned, the initiative involves a couple of property or two addresses but about two, what amounts to about 2.4 acres or so on the northeast corner of North California Boulevard and Ignacio Valley Road. It does several things. It changes the general plan designation for that property from office to mixed-use residential emphasis. The initiative would also amend the north downtown specific plan by changing the office designation for the property to mixed-use residential emphasis. And would, third, update the zoning code by creating a new mixed-use residential senior commercial district, MURSC, as it's called in the ordinance. which would also by extension amend the mixed use R district to allow for 0.6 FAR for commercial uses on the site. The land use changes that are all underneath this would facilitate the allowance of a senior residential project that's been proposed in the ballot measure or a senior mixed use residential project which include a commercial component. And these would both be by right with the passage of the ordinance either by the council or if passed by the voters. So as I mentioned, the property in question is located here across from the BART station. We mentioned where it's located already. The current use of the site is a two-story office building, which is adjacent to other office buildings. There's also a portion of a parking structure. There will need to be a lot line adjustment if and when this property ever does develop as well as demolition of those improvements to facilitate the construction. As for the elections code report, as was mentioned, city council on April 21st directed staff to proceed with the preparation of this report and include additional information as permitted by section 9212 of the elections code. THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE ELECTION CODE CONTENTS CAN INCLUDE, DON'T ALWAYS INCLUDE, IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THE FISCAL IMPACT OF THE INITIATIVE, THE INTERNAL CONSISTENCY OF THE INITIATIVE WITH CITY PLANS AND POLICIES. the use of land and housing, funding for infrastructure, community's ability to attract businesses, attract and retain businesses and employment, impact of vacant parcels and developed areas designated for revitalization. Some of the additional areas that the council had directed staff to include in the report include numerous ones which are contained in the draft that you have in front of you in the council packet. Those include providing high level environmental analysis, impacts of land use change focusing on traffic and view corridor impacts. Address which discretionary or ministerial approvals would be required for a future senior residential and commercial development at the property as outlined in the initiative. Address whether the initiative precludes a property A project at the property from going through the city's normal entitlement process. Address whether the initiative precludes a project from using the community benefits provisions that are contained within the north downtown specific plan. IDENTIFY HOW THE PROPOSED NORTH DOWNTOWN SPECIFIC PLAN AND ZONING ELEMENT, ZONING CODE CHANGES IMPACT THE CITY'S AVAILABLE HOUSING SITES AS IDENTIFIED IN THE CITY'S SIXTH ROUND AND CURRENT HOUSING ELEMENT. AND WHETHER POTENTIAL SENIOR RESIDENTIAL UNITS COUNT TOWARDS THE CITY'S CURRENT CYCLE, RENO CYCLE. In addition, the council asked that the report identify the inclusionary requirements and analyze inclusionary housing requirements, that is, and analyze whether such units would be required to be constructed onsite or whether a potential development offsite could be used to satisfy the requirement if the applicant or developer, I should say, were to pay in lieu of fees and build only market rate units. Identify any CEQA exemptions that could apply to a future senior project development on that site. Address the impacts of Measure A, which has height limits that the city has on code. And whether those height limits would be consistent or inconsistent with the north downtown specific plan and zoning code. And analyze the potential demand for senior housing on the property. And finally, identify whether initiative allows the applicant to develop 100% residential project with no commercial use on that property. So that is the scope of what's contained in the report. Let's talk a little bit about some of the assumptions that we used when we developed the report because this report looks primarily at fiscal impacts and some of these secondary issues. And any time you look at those things, you have to understand what's the presumed development that's anticipated. The initiative does not require future development on the property, first and foremost, or detail any specific development plans. So in communication with the developers of the property owner's attorney, we developed some assumptions which involved what we called a lower impact assumption, basically lower impact just simply based upon the number of units. That entails 225 senior units and no commercial space on the project. And a second scenario, which we called higher impact, which has 280 units and an additional 60,000 square feet of presumably ground floor commercial space. JUST TO SUMMARIZE THE FINDINGS OF THE REPORT, WHICH WE'LL GET INTO AND ELABORATE ON ONE BY ONE THROUGHOUT THE PRESENTATION TONIGHT. THE INITIATIVE WOULD OBVIOUSLY CHANGE THE SITE'S LAND USE DESIGNATION IN THE GENERAL PLAN, NORTH DOWNTOWN SPECIFIC PLAN AND THE ZONING CODE FOR THE PROPERTY. THERE WOULD BE A ONE-TIME COST TO THE CITY OF APPROXIMATELY $250,000 TO IMPLEMENT THE ORDINANCE IF ADOPTED BY THE COUNCIL OR PASSED BY THE VOTERS. WE'LL TALK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS IN A MOMENT. THE INITIATIVE WOULD ALSO OBVIOUSLY POTENTIALLY FACILITATE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT ON THE SITE WHICH COULD ADVANCE THE CITY'S PROGRESS TOWARDS RENA GOALS, MOST LIKELY IN A FUTURE RENA CYCLE. I'M ASSUMING IT'S NOT GOING TO GET BUILT IN TIME FOR THE CURRENT RENA CYCLE. AND ALSO ADD AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS IF THOSE HOUSING UNITS WERE BUILT ON SITE AS PART OF THE INCLUSIONARY COMPONENT OF THE PROJECT OR BY PAYMENT OF THE IN-LIEU FEE WHICH COULD BY EXTENSION BE USED TO BUILD SUCH UNITS OFF SITE. in terms of the fiscal impacts future development uh may increase the city's annual tax revenues depending on the scenario from anywhere from approximately 257 000 annually to 552 000 annually that gap is primarily driven by the commercial component of the project that is included in the high impact scenario as we call it uh future development may cost the city in terms of service costs anywhere from approximately 66 000 to 83 000 again depending on the the size of the project um in annual operating costs so overall it would be a net positive fiscal impact to the city on on on ongoing recurring basis The project would also, by virtue of the fact that it becomes a residential project, would have available, and staff will certainly elaborate on this later, access to the California Density Bonus Law as any residential project would, which allows for standard development waivers in exchange for a developer agreeing to build affordable housing in the project.

All right, let's get into the details.

So, first and foremost, those one-time fiscal impacts. This slide generally describes the types of impacts that we've discussed with staff and legal counsel. They've been itemized here on the slide, so I won't read them to you. But in discussions with staff, based upon the staff's cost rate of about $250 an hour, THE AMOUNT OF STAFF THAT WOULD BE REQUIRED TO DO THE VARIOUS ACTIVITIES TO IMPLEMENT IT, PLUS LEGAL FEES AND POTENTIALLY CONSULTING COSTS. THE CITY WOULD BE LOOKING AT APPROXIMATELY A ONE-TIME COST OF $250,000 THAT WOULD REALIZE OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL MONTHS OR A YEAR, HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES TO GET THOSE ACTIVITIES DONE. NEXT IS THE ONGOING FISCAL IMPACTS OF THE POTENTIAL FUTURE DEVELOPMENT IF A PROJECT WERE TO DEVELOP ON THE SITE AFTER THE INITIATIVE IS EITHER APPROVED OR PASSED BY THE VOTERS. I WILL GO THROUGH EACH ONE OF THESE. All of the assumptions you see here are assuming these are in 2026 dollars. We obviously don't know when development may take place. So if the development takes place in three years, you can presume those figures would be higher. If it's 30 years, it would be even higher. But these are in 2026 dollars just so you have kind of a relative understanding of how much it is relative to your current budget. SO UNDER THE PROPERTY TAX, THE OFFICE BUILDING, THERE IS AN OFFICE BUILDING AS I MENTIONED ON THE CURRENT PROPERTY. IT IS ABOUT 13% OF THE TOTAL OFFICE SPACE THAT'S ON THE LARGER PARCEL THAT THIS 2.4 ACRES LIES. AND SO WE MADE SOME ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE THAT WHAT PORTION OF THAT ASSESSED VALUE THAT WOULD COME OFF THE TAX THE LAND IMPROVEMENTS FOR THAT PORTION OF THAT BUILDING AND THEN THE NEW IMPROVEMENTS WOULD BE GOING ON TO THE TAX ROLL BASED UPON CONSTRUCTION COSTS FOR A SENIOR PROJECT, A MARKET RATE SENIOR PROJECT. WE ESTIMATE THAT WOULD BE ANYWHERE FROM 123.8 MILLION TO 187 MILLION DEPENDING ON THE SIZE AND SCALE OF THE PROJECT. THE CITY'S SHARE OF THE 1% TAX LEVY IS ABOUT 9.4%, AND SO THE CITY GETS 9.4% OF THAT AMOUNT, AND WHAT WE'RE SHOWING HERE IS THE NET INCREASE OVER THE CURRENT ASSESSED VALUE OF THE PROPERTY. IN OTHER WORDS, THE NET NEW DOLLARS HERE. Similarly, the city gets, I love this one, property tax in lieu of motor vehicle license fees. We love California, how we move money around in the state. This is essentially another form of property taxes. I could bore you with the details, but I won't bore you with the details. on how that's calculated but suffice to say um for the last 20 years or so the city's been getting some additional property tax through a scheme that was engineered by the legislature some years ago in lieu of getting VLF. Yes, yes. We just can't keep things simple in California. Sales tax, so we looked at sales tax a couple of different ways here. First, obviously, when you bring new residents in, that's bringing new demand for new consumers into a market. And so we looked and did an analysis at that, following some typical practices that we have on how we do those analyses. That's contained in our report. We took into account what we expect to be the nature of the housing, the fact that people don't necessarily the economic development directors over here, so pardon me here. Not everybody's gonna necessarily shop within the city. We want everyone to shop within the city, to be clear. So shout out to your economic development director. But we assume some portion of that activity will not actually occur within the city limits. And so the majority, which we assume to about 70%, would be captured within the city. And then basically did an extrapolation based upon their household income and what they would have disposable income to be spending on goods and services. So that's how we did the residential spending component. um there is one uh i think it's a bakery that's on site today on the property so that bakery would obviously with the demolition of the property and redevelopment would be obviously you would lose that that revenue and in its place you would get anywhere between zero and an additional amount which we've shown here on the slide for for the new commercial space that's getting built, the 60,000 square feet of commercial space. WE ALSO HAVE SHOWN IN BRACKETS THE SERVICE COSTS THAT I MENTIONED EARLIER. THOSE SERVICE COSTS PRIMARILY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH LINE ITEMS IN THE CITY'S SERVICE IN THE BUDGET WHICH ARE MOST PROMINENTLY AFFECTED BY INCREMENTAL CHANGES AND SMALL INCREMENTAL CHANGES IN POPULATION. THIS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A LARGE CHANGE IN POPULATION. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 200 OR 200, 300 UNITS IS NOT A HUGE CHANGE. BUT WE STILL, YOU KNOW, OUR PRACTICE AND WE DO LOTS OF THESE TYPES OF STUDIES FOR NOT JUST ELECTION CODE REPORTS BUT FOR DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AS WELL. WE TYPICALLY ALWAYS SEE AN IMPACT ASSOCIATED WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT, CALLS FOR SERVICE AND THINGS OF THAT SORT. WE'VE ALSO APPLIED INCREMENTAL CHANGE TO SOME OF THE COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CITY'S DEPARTMENTS OF ARSON RECREATION AS WELL. AND YOU SEE THAT IMPACT ILLUSTRATED ON THE SLIDE HERE. The next few slides kind of go through some of the other impacts that were brought up by council. And I'll just kind of run through these. We see the land use and availability obviously this is the impact on land use and housing that is obviously this is a single parcel change that we're making so that would be made so they're they're not a wholesale change in land use throughout the city. Multi-family housing development certainly supports the city's progress towards being in this arena obligations. The funding for infrastructure, there's no impact obviously with the just passage of the initiative in and of itself. But if a development does take place, there would be increased property tax and other revenues, tax revenues that may assist in the funding of infrastructure and ongoing service costs such as maintenance and those types of things. Again, the passage of the initiative doesn't change the city's ability to attract or retain businesses. The building is actually not especially well occupied right now, which I think we've addressed in the report. so the tenancy is rather low at the moment and but the mixed-use development obviously could bring in the opportunity to bring back some employment and business activity within the property vacant parcels obviously the property is not vacant so there's really nothing to address on that And then utilities and infrastructure, the potential increase in demand for public services and utilities and other infrastructure was noted in our report. Air quality, as is customary through any kind of construction activity, there will be temporary air quality impacts from the demolition and retrofitting. of the parking garage which has been potentially anticipated um and just general construction activity that that may be taking place in the site the same certainly would be true with noise um the uh transportation and circulation uh obviously residential land uses generally reduce overall traffic volume uh as compared to commercial uses so there was anticipation of the overall reduction in in vehicle miles traveled as a result of this project. The view shed, and staff can certainly elaborate on this further, but the visual character of the property may change obviously with the form from going from an office to a, you know, anywhere from 220 to 280 unit apartment building. BUT THE EXISTING URBAN CHARACTER OF THE AREA IS SUSPECTED TO REMAIN GENERALLY THE SAME AS IT'S ENVISIONED THROUGH THE DESIGN GUIDELINES OF THE GENERAL PLAN AND THE LIKE. EVEN WITH THE AMENDMENTS THAT ARE PROPOSED. Okay, consistency with the city's plans. Obviously, the measure is not consistent with the plans, but it does address and itemize several changes that we've made to the general plan, specific plan and the like. There may be the potential that as we will talk about a little bit later that the project could be entitled to receiving a density bonus and so some of those changes would be carried over there as well. All right. Measure A is the city's limit on building height, which maxes out at six stories and 89 feet, and it's applicable citywide. The initiative does not amend or change that cap on this property, but of course, a density bonus COULD BE USED BY ANY RESIDENTIAL APPLICANT AND POTENTIALLY IT COULD RESULT IN A CONCESSION IN EXCHANGE FOR PROVIDING AFFORDABLE UNITS ON SITE WHEREBY THAT 89 HEIGHT LIMIT COULD BE EXCEEDED. We've illustrated the potential inclusionary units that could be provided based upon the city's inclusionary housing ordinance, depending on whether or not it's a 225 or 280 unit project. And you see the numbers of units there. We haven't speculated on whether or not it's rental or ownership. We're presuming it's going to be a rental project, however. And if for some reason the developer opted not to build units on site, they would be obligated to pay the in lieu fee, which is estimated to be between $6.4 and $7.7 million, which would go to the city's IN THE HOUSING FUND WHICH COULD THEN BE USED FOR BUILDING OR SUBSIDIZING AFFORDABLE HOUSING ELSEWHERE IN THE CITY. THAT'S APPROXIMATELY $27 PER SQUARE FOOT TODAY. As was mentioned earlier, the North Downtown Specific Plan provides a community benefits program whereby applicants can increase the development intensity in exchange for providing community benefits. Generally, and I do a lot of community benefits work myself, but generally those types of things work in commercial areas and not so well in residential areas because the density bonus law effectively is the community benefits program when it comes to doing that. So it's likely that an applicant, and this is true in other places we've seen this, will likely look at the density bonus law and the more favorable concessions that they can get there. versus what they can get out of the community benefits program that is embedded in the specific plan. In terms of project entitlement and CEQA, The future development will depend on the specific details of the project. If it's consistent with the land use and zoning standards and, you know, as proposed in the initiative, the entitlement process may be very streamlined. However, of course, there's no specific project that's been outlined in the initiative. So there may be some elements of it that are going to be subject to CEQA review. But there's also the ability, given the nature of the project and location, for multiple CEQA exemptions that could allow ministerial review process without even a CEQA study being conducted. And finally, there was the question about the demand for senior housing. We evaluated the current inventory of housing that is income restricted within the market and within a two-mile radius of the site that may include properties outside the city limits. And you see that, you know, about 3% of the total housing stock is presently restricted for households ages 55 and older. And, however, there's a fair number of units that are in construction, so that would increase to about 5%. There is a disproportionate increase going in in housing towards seniors, although I think more broadly I think it's generally known that the lack of incentives for senior housing and other factors that have come into play have really created a huge demand for senior housing. That's not just a local issue, it's something that the whole nation is facing. That concludes my presentation on the report. I know there's other elements of this that staff was going to address, but I'm happy to answer any questions about the report itself that you may have.

All right. Any questions on the report?

Thank you very much. And it was much easier following your presentation. Can I have your slides as well as the written report? I would take you to your table of the summary of the fiscal impacts. And I had two questions. It may only be one, but two questions. Since this is proposed to be senior housing, Did your assumption of $44,500 per person in retail sales, or is that per household?

Per household.

Did that factor in that seniors spend less than my daughter does?

Yeah. This is a market rate project, so the presumption is that the seniors will be paying market rate rent. These are not income necessarily, any fixed income or income restricted units.

Yes, but senior households have lower fixed incomes then. Yes. So they have less, but they're not buying a lot of clothing for work. They're not spending, discretionary spending is lower.

I agree with you on that, yes.

Does this $44,500 factor that in for these households since they-

Well, again, I mean, these are market rate apartments, so there's income restricted for seniors, but those seniors could be making, even if they have fixed retirement incomes, they're not on, I say fixed income, I'm talking about Social Security and government subsidy, period. My mom. So, you know, there may be folks that are making quite a bit of money still or have resources or have accounts and things of that sort, and they're able to make that kind of spending. Okay.

So you're comfortable with what you've presented?

Yes.

All right. Thank you.

Yeah.

And you might not be the person to ask this, but on the density bonus and that it could be used on this, is there a difference in how the density bonus could be used with the designation as senior housing compared to the current land use designation on the property?

um i can let staff trust that i can answer a lot under the density bonus law senior housing projects themselves are entitled to a density bonus of 20 without providing any affordable housing if you layer on the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and if they were to provide affordable units they could actually stack density bonus on top of that so you can get above 20 percent

So by the fact that it is senior housing, they can have some density bonus.

Just senior housing, all market rate, they're entitled to 20% density bonus.

That makes sense to me. Thank you.

Is that factored into your higher density scenario, the stacking?

No, we did not factor that in. We alluded to it in the report, but we did not address that and quantify it.

so to the city attorney on the stacking it's 20 is the base without providing any affordable what what could it go what's the maximum it depends on what percentage so after the 20 then you look at the the tables for density bonus loan depending on what percentage of either very low or low or whatever they would be entitled to additional density bonus associated with that if if they're providing on-site affordable if they're providing plus the senior thank you okay

And then, I'm not sure who's the correct one for this. I'm trying to, I've looked through the initiative measure a little bit, but trying to understand what this new zoning code district, what the development regulations are in terms of density, FAR, and height.

I think that's, I'm going to defer to Amelia on this one.

Hello, everyone. Maylee Sheehan. I'm the Assistant Director for Community Development, and I apologize. I'm going to request that you ask one more time.

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Just trying to get an understanding of this new zoning code because it doesn't currently exist and what the development regulations would be for this property under this code in terms of density, height, and FAR.

Sure thing. So yes, in the actual initiative itself, it does propose development standards. And so just one moment.

I apologize. I left all my papers behind me.

I'll write that to you if you want to follow the same page. So the development standards in the initiative start on the initiatives page 59. And so under that, the density proposed is one dwelling unit per 425 square feet of net lot area. And then it goes on to provide a height regulation that matches with the downtown, north downtown specific plan, which is 89 feet in height. And then, of course, as mentioned in the report, And in the presentation, should a project come forward requesting a density bonus, then there are waivers and concessions that could exceed the Measure A height limitation.

And the 1 to 425 help me because I'm more used to seeing it expressed in terms of dwelling units per acre. What does that translate into?

Sure. So in the 9212 report, they effectively take that amount and they provide the – I believe it was 200, sorry, we'll get it exactly here. 225 to 235 units without a density bonus for the 2.4 acres.

Okay, not per acre then for the entire... That's for the 2.4.

My apologies, I don't have it per acre.

So is it similar then to the MUR density? Okay.

Yes. And... If I may, it is. They do define net lot area differently in the initiative measure. So it's a more expansive definition of what counts as net lot area. I see.

Yeah, and I can expand on that slightly. So the initiative does propose revisions to the definition of net lot area specific to this new zoning designation, where the public right of ways. So future streets or any shared, you know, bike ped paths and private easements or any easements necessary for the property would not be counted towards that acreage. let's see the other one was far is that staying the same as under the current MUC so for the far again the revisions come in the north downtown specific plan let me see where the proposed plan is at 3.5 to 4.5 3.5 base and 4.5 maximum FAR that's right and then the commercial is point in the typical MU it's 0.3 and in this one it's 0.6 on the commercial then the let's see

The other question I had was about RENA counting the units for RENA purposes. And just wanting confirmation that these senior units would be treated as multifamily units for our housing element.

That is correct upon construction. So because this property is not site identified in our housing element, just the zoning alone would not count towards our RENA figures. But should a project come forward, permitted and constructed then those units would count towards our total arena upon building permit issuance essentially correct okay wait a permit or construction upon permit I think that's all I had for now since you're up there that the new land use designation mursc is only applicable on this particular parcel correct the initiative only makes it applicable for the 2.4 acres of the initiative area however should the initiative pass then that zoning district does exist city-wide it wouldn't be applied to any parcels unless an applicant or a property owner came forward requesting to make amendments to that zoning.

So if somebody else said, oh, I've got a parcel, and I want to build senior housing, and applies for a zoning change to MURSC, When I was reading through the development standards, are those written in a way that it would be simple to apply it to another? And this has nothing to do with you guys' project. I'm just trying to envision what's going to happen in the future. It seems like it would be a little complicated to figure out how those standards work.

so I to another area the development standards would work on any property if it had that zoning assigned to it where you know just overall land planning or or development planning could be challenging is whether those development standards are compatible with the surrounding area okay okay there's also language in the initiative that creates a

certain exemptions that are specific to this 2.4 acre lot. So the MUR zone, as Maile's indicating, the zone itself could be picked up and put somewhere else, but there are exceptions written into this initiative that apply just to this 2.4 acre initiative property.

Yeah, and I guess I'll add to that as well. There are several aspects of this initiative that are revising the North Downtown specific plan, and of course, you know, any properties outside of the specific plan boundaries wouldn't you know, those revisions wouldn't apply.

Okay. So a couple other quick questions. One is the 2.41 acres are not all one parcel and are not 100% of each of the parcels from what I can tell looking at the map. So in order for this zoning to take effect, they're going to have to apply for a change to their parcel map?

Ideally, the property lines would align with the zoning designation. And Steve, please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't believe there are legal requirements for the property lines to match the zoning district.

So you can have a parcel that has 50 feet on the west side of it zoned one way and the other? I believe that is correct.

You can. And it wouldn't necessarily require a parcel map. Either you could do a lot line adjustment. So if you have a commonality of ownership and whatnot, you could do lot line adjustments to create new boundaries. When this develops, it would be optimal that the parcels that are developed all be set parcels within that zoning district. We do have other properties. Even, frankly, even this property right now has part of its measure A high limit is 89 and part of it is 35.

Yeah, I've seen parcels where it's one part A and some of the other. But this is the first time I thought, oh, that's really weird. So then... Because this is now changing the specific plan, if we were to amend the specific plan in the future for this parcel, we couldn't amend that specific plan without going back to the voters, correct?

I believe you wouldn't be able to amend the portions of the specific plan that this initiative would be revising without the voters.

Yeah, I would supplement that, that they've written into the initiative that if, If the property owner asks for an amendment, that could be processed and changed, but that would require the property owner to be asking for it or alternatively vote or approval for the portions of this that are set forth in this initiative.

But the converse is also true, that if we needed to change the specific plan for other parcels other than the subject of this vote, we could still do that. You could still do that. Correct. Yes.

I'm looking at page 13 of the initiative. And there's a sentence beneath the diagrams. And I think this is what you might have been looking at as well. It says that we're readopting that this initiative is readopting what this is in the diagram and therefore is subject to the initiative and I read that I would interpret that that somebody is going to argue that we have to go to the voters to amend the north downtown specific plan these 2 diagrams.

They are they're very specific in the initiative. about what is specifically being adopted as part of this versus what is included in it simply for information purposes and not being readopted. So for instance, the diagrams that show the actual 2.4 acres are being adopted. But to the extent that they show areas outside of the 2.4 acres, those are not being adopted at this time. They're only in the initiative measure for illustrative purposes. They're very specific in the measure about it. The Proponents Council can also speak to this issue, but the wording is very specific in the measure, and it's very focused.

So why are they using the word the max FAR and max height for the initiative amendment in figure 3.1? OK, so that's where they're referring to the phrase.

Right. And it's not just diagrams. I mean, the zoning rights that are created for this district on the 2.4 acre site are actually being adopted. And so those would require either a request from the property owner for a change that the council could then approve or voter approval. So it is, to be clear, it is tying the hands of future councils for the things that they are in fact adopting here.

So if we were to decide in 10 years nothing had happened and we were to decide to change the max far and the max height, the base FAR and base height for all of the parcels in the north downtown specific plan, would we be precluded only from the 2.4 acres would have to stay where they are today and we could just draw new ones around it? Or would we have a problem with the whole block?

No, it's the initial characterization. So the only thing that is protected is the 2.4 acre, not the north downtown specific plan. And even with the 2.4 acre, again, I would just remind the council that there is a provision that says that if the property owner requested so if you were for instance hypothetically doing an update to the north downtown specific plan and the property owner whoever owned it at the time says supported the change okay then you could go forward without it going back to the voter so up zoning is probably okay i would defer to the app to the components on that issue all right thank you thank you okay that's okay it's it's kind of a complex elephant we're trying to make sure we understand it all um

so looking at the development standards it appears that this idea of a primary and secondary frontage is and the fact that the setback is different on primary versus secondary is one of the bigger changes to the development standards for the setbacks yes so the in the north downtown specific plan there is language regarding

uh front setbacks and the initiative proposes that additional language is effectively added that defines primary and secondary frontages with different regulations for each okay and then the secondary frontage is california the primary is ignacio i believe it's defined as the primary frontage is where the building entrance is so oh so we don't know which one is determined yes okay um

And then the same thing with the step-back that comes out of the north downtown. They are saying the development standards for this don't have a step-back requirement. Correct.

Okay.

All right. I'm good. Thanks. Sorry.

thought of another one too so obviously this is the initiative it's not an application we don't have elevations or a site plan or anything like that but kind of are the scenarios that were run are they realistic development scenarios under the development regulations that we discussed or are there any deviations

No, they're realistic assumptions. I mean, it's, you know, in that 80 to 100 DU per acre, so that's kind of a common prototype that's getting built today. So it's a realistic assumption in terms of that.

So the 280, which was scenario two, is a little higher than the 20% density bonus, if I calculated it correctly. Or maybe...

I'd have to go to the report. There's a reference to how we arrived at the 280 that we addressed in there, and I'll just point to where that is in the report. Let me find that. So if you go to... If you go to page six and seven of the report, that's how we get into the analysis on the units. And you get up to 282 units with a 20% density bonus. We used 280 because I think that was consistent with what the applicant's attorney had drafted. So that was a nominal difference. But otherwise, that's where it comes from.

OK, thank you.

Second line. I'm not sure who's going to answer the question. So the 2.4 acres doesn't seem like it was precisely located, but are you able to determine exactly where the boundary lines are? I won't call them parcel lines, but they're boundary lines of what will be applicable to the 2.4 acres and what will be outside the 2.4 acres?

Well, there are not. There's not a specific. You're correct. There is not specific boundaries set. We were provided information, you know, through the through the initiative proponents about what they believe that to be. But it's not a site plan. So we had to make some assumptions around what we understand it to generally be.

And tell me how big these units are that you're assuming at 80 to 100 per acre.

How big the units are in terms of square footage, you mean? Yes.

I mean, is it the size of my kitchen or is it?

No, no. I think we addressed that in the report, too. I want to point you to where that is. I think we were saying it was, I want to say, 290,000 to 350,000 square feet of gross building area, depending on the two scenarios that we were looking at. So I'd have to do the math in my head to how many average square footage on each unit, but. Those are not small units, so those are not micro units.

So they're not all dorm rooms?

No, no.

Okay. So what section of the initiative, where in the initiative does it say that this is limited to senior housing? There's a lot of language about we'll allow for, we'll encourage, we'll facilitate. But are they limited to senior housing if this initiative passes?

Sure. So again, in the initiative, looking at the proposed development regulations, or excuse me, the land use regulations table, let's see here, it is page 40. It begins on page Sorry, 47. So the land use table identifies that multifamily residential, residential care home, supportive housing, and transitional housing, and congregate living facility and group residential. So those are all the different residential classifications. that would be permitted by right. If you look at the second column that's next to all those land uses, there is a use regulation. There's an item called L22. When you go to L22 on page 56, it states that uses that allow persons to reside in the use, so residential uses I think is an easier way to state that, are limited to those serving primarily as persons 55 years of age or older. So I would I mean, to me personally, I don't think that's only 55 years of age or older since the word primarily persons there is is written. But, you know, I I'm sure we could address that with the proponent as well.

So what happens, what would be the process, this might be a lawyer question, if 10 years from now it doesn't look like senior housing is going to be marketable and they decide they just want to make it regular housing, no age restrictions? No age restrictions. What would be the process required if this initiative passes?

We don't have an application before us. But if you take the hypothetical that they have invoked the senior housing designation for purposes of density bonus, then there would be deed restrictions on the property that would associate with that to give them the benefit of the density bonus provisions. So that would likely be the mechanism that we would use to enforce that. And if in 10 years it wasn't working as a senior housing development, we would still be able to enforce that. Or they would have to come back in and try to amend that senior housing deed restriction that they would have on the property.

So what if it happens before building? Can they come in and ask us to change our minds? What's the process?

Well, if they don't seek any density bonus at all, then the zoning controls that it needs to be senior housing. That's the approved use. That's the district that it's in. But to be clear, the changes to the North Downtown Specific Plan and the General Plan don't specifically say, Only senior housing. It's the zoning that says that.

So what if they came in and they said they wanted a zoning change to allow them to not build senior housing? Would that be?

Well, right now that would require an amendment to the zoning for this property. So they would have to come back to the council for a discretionary amendment. The initiative allows them to make those kinds of requests, but they wouldn't have that right. It would require discretionary action by the council.

Does that mean the council at that time would also, if that was to be asked, would they have the right to change the development standards as part of that discussion? Because the building isn't there.

I'm saying that's... Yeah. That would be harder because the initiative is locking in a number of the other requirements, and so... If they're voluntarily asking for it and the council is voluntarily agreeing to it, yes, they could make those changes. But if the council just wanted to impose it upon them, then the council would be bound to the initiative provisions that were previously adopted. So for instance, if you wanted to change the FAR or something like that and the applicant didn't agree with it, then you would be more restricted. You would be restricted, actually.

but they would be restricted from changing to non-agricultural?

They couldn't just voluntarily change it. If they voluntarily change the development standards, assuming they don't go through another initiative measure, they would have to come back to the city council for that. Come back to the planning process, ultimately to the city council, because it would be a legislative action.

So let me make sure I've got this, because I think this really helps with one. Sorry.

Is that okay? No, go ahead.

So the way the development standards are written in the initiative, they appear to me to go with the MURSC designation. If they came in to the city in the future and said, we want to switch to MUR or MUC without the SC on there, we would have an opportunity as the city to say, or whoever is on council, say, yes, we agree, or yes, we disagree. And then if they switch to a different designation, those development standards in the initiative, would they still apply? Because they're associated with that zoning designation.

If the council, if they came in, whoever the property owner is at the time comes in, and makes a voluntary request to change the zoning to just MUR, if you will, and the council agrees to it, then you would change it. And the senior district would no longer apply. You would have just MUR there. But if a city council in the future wanted to change it on its own volition, you cannot do that.

That's what I thought. OK, great. Thank you.

in regards i should be clear that cannot be done without voter approval yeah it can be done with voter approval in regards to the 55 um we just talked about primarily that word but what what does that mean does that mean greater than 50 percent what does it mean if you don't invoke a density bonus law that deed restricts is is it really that uh yeah so it would it would track

Essentially, you would follow the wording of the ordinance itself and what Amelia has put up on the screen right now. So you would apply that from its reasonable interpretation of what primarily means more than 50%. You would think of it, from my experience, what you've seen in senior housing complexes before is sometimes you have You know, the primary residents in the units are seniors or people over 55, but they may have caretakers and whatnot who are under 55 who live with them on a permanent basis. And so if the primary residents, the primary residents in the facility are over 55 years, that would be what would be the standard. I would say also if they do invoke density bonus, then you'll have tighter language than what's here because you'll have a deed restriction on the property which would set out

exactly what that means and we would probably follow that you know the state density bonus law standards and definitions for what that means okay and then um we've talked a bit about the changes to the north downtown specific plan but just to clarify there are only changes to allow this new designation we're not changing anything that applies to the rest of the north downtown right

That is correct. So the proposed revisions to the specific plan are specific to this property. However, you know, again, if for some reason another property within the specific plan also got this designation, then those revised changes would apply to that property as well.

Okay. And then earlier, and we were talking about the size of the units potentially and I heard two different things. So I heard one of there would be approximately one unit per 425 feet, which sounds fairly small to me. But then I heard you say also that that they wouldn't be that small. And so were you using the same calculations, the two of you when you were discussing the size of the units?

let's see when I get to part of the report where we address that so you can point you to that it's the 425 square feet is the one residential unit per net developable area is that's this square footage I think the total square footage of the building area can be very different however so you you have different things going on so you have So under, for example, a density bonus, you could have the 280 units, 350,000 square foot building allowed. So we've assumed, you know, a 350,000 square foot building that's 280 units in it. So that's how we develop the analysis based upon that.

And that includes hallways and public areas.

And public areas and things of that sort. So whether the actual units are as small as 425 square feet, I think would be probably a bit of a stretch, because the amenities are probably not taking up half or more of the building. Thank you.

so i have one last series of questions okay the north downtown specific plan which former council member lowella haskew and i were the two council representatives on that committee and of course planning commissioners darling and francois were also privy to this a big focus was actually mobility and there was a large tranche of money that came from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the form of a grant to improve mobility. And there was a lot of discussion about setbacks in order to allow for the bike ped access, and now this is two critical areas, North California and Ignatia Valley Road, that have actual diagrams that specify the setbacks, et cetera. Is this being impacted by that? I can't tell because they didn't change the drawings. They just put the drawings in the initiative, and they said nothing changes, but yet there is language that makes me think it might be changing. So can you clarify what's happening with the proposed North California cross section, which is 5.6b in the specific plan and 5.10b, which is the Ignacio Valley Road?

Yes. this uh this is not quite the figures that you just mentioned but just very quickly this comes out of the north downtown specific plan um where the green lines are identifying and i'm i wish Is this how this works? Oh, sorry. That's exciting for me. So that's the project site, or the initiative site, I should say. No project. And so that lighter green, and this is really teeny tiny, so I did blow it up, is showing as moderate 5 foot to 15 foot setbacks. So that is in the specific plan now. and there is no proposals to change those dimensions. However, on the right-hand side, there is new language to one of the design standard guidelines where, as we discussed earlier, we are identifying the front setback in a different way, or the initiative is identifying the front setback in a different way. They're identifying it based off of a primary frontage and a secondary frontage. But again, even here, you'll see that the primary frontage, whichever one that might be with the building entrance is still a five foot to 15 foot setback. And then the secondary frontage is still a minimum of five feet. There is no maximum, however, with the proposed initiative language.

So what happens to Ignacio Valley Road in North California?

Yes, no, wonderful. Sorry, I want to lay a little base there. No, no, I just, I mean, there were many, many discussions on these diagrams. Sure thing. So again, assuming a future development is still maintaining that 5 to 15 foot setback, the building setback is still the same. On the screen now is out of the specific plan, the future proposed cross-section of for north california where we are hoping to add shared use paths so adding a ped and bike path that's kind of identified in the blue and between the trees there with this initiative there is a revision to propose a three-foot public right-of-way dedication essentially maximum if you will for those improvements um oh i'm sorry i thought i had one more slide um And then if you read a little farther, it's bold, but it's not colored and it would be eight foot on Ignacio Valley Road. So the proposal from the initiative identifies that this is still consistent with the plans proposed in the North downtown specific plan. It's effectively stating that there wouldn't be any impacts. I would just add that as cities get closer to actually designing and constructing and engineering the streets, sometimes those amounts do change. right, is three feet really going to be enough when we put pen to paper? I couldn't fully commit to that. I'd probably want to defer to a civil engineer. But the language is hoping to stay within the figures proposed and not impact the mobility plan within this specific plan.

So where the diagram says 5 to 15 foot setback, the hatched pink, they're saying it would be 3.

So they're still going to meet the 5 to 15 foot setback, but they would only be dedicating 3 feet of right-of-way to the city for future build-out.

Okay.

At least along North California, 8 feet along Ignacio Valley Road. All right. Thank you.

Are more presentation coming? Okay. On to the next chapter.

All right. Now, so on to the next portion of this item, which is where council decides on two options regarding the proposed initiative. The first option would be to place the initiative measure on the November ballot. and if desired, specifying procedures and processes related to ballot arguments opposing the measure, which will entail designating two city councils to do so. Or alternatively, the city council may decide to just adopt the measure as proposed without alteration. So before council decides, I wanted to share some information and updates on a proposed measure. So... You know the information on the signature counts on May 4th the proponents filed the petitions with the city clerk shortly thereafter the city clerk completed its initial review of the petitions and sent the the petitions to the county to conduct their verification process. And on June 26, the county did conclude that there were 5,000 valid signatures, which was more than the 4,987 that was required to put a measure on the ballot. In the event of a measure, what you see on screen right now is what the ballot language will look like. I'll not read the whole thing, but this is what the voters will see on the ballots come November.

this is different than what this was updated from what we had in the agenda packet I'm looking at Steve it should be it's drawn directly from the okay thank you

And in terms of ballot arguments, this is something that is not required, but if city council desires, city council may authorize council members to submit ballot arguments opposing the measure because this is a citizen initiated measure City Council is limited to arguments opposing the measure in the event the City Council does decide to put put an opposition the arguments will be printed in the voter information guide So timeline for placing the initiative on the ballot, August 7th is the deadline for council to adopt a resolution and submit the ballot measure to the county. Shortly thereafter, August 19th, the city clerk will file preliminary arguments with the county. In the same day, the city attorney will prepare and submit an impartial analysis directed by the city council. August 24th is when rebuttal arguments must be filed, and then November 3rd will be election day. And before I bring it back to City Council for City Council action, I want to hand it back to the City Attorney to talk about some details around the item.

Yeah, Mayor and Council, I wanted to bring one item to the Council's attention that relates to this measure. The Elections Code Section 9280 provides that With a ballot measure, as we're all familiar with when we read ballots, you typically have the voter pamphlet, for instance, that has the full text of a measure. The city is not required to include the full text of the measure in the ballot itself. Instead, under Elections Code Section 9280, the city can direct that it's not going to do that, choose, if you will, elect. And then the city attorney's impartial analysis has to have very specific wording that includes a statement that a copy of the measure is available to be sent to people just simply upon request of the city clerk. And we wanted to raise that issue. Right now, the resolution that is before you assumes that we would print the full ballot measure, which is all 60-plus pages of it. The council should be aware that when the election costs are calculated and identified to the city, they're really broken into two parts. And I would ask the city clerk to supplement this if there's anything that I leave out. But there is a basic per voter charge that all cities are imposed for elections. And then there are direct costs associated with an election that costs that are charged to the city itself. And so, for instance, if you're thinking about the publication cost of this very long ballot measure, as well as the translation cost, because the measure will have to be translated into another, at least one other language, those are costs that the city would incur. And the elections code allows a process where if that full measure is not included in the ballot pamphlet, the sample ballot, if you will, the ballot measure, then there can be a statement in the city attorney's impartial analysis that tells a voter how to get a copy of it. they can provide a copy at no charge. And so we just wanted to bring that to the council's attention because the resolution that's before you tonight assumes that the full ballot measure, the full initiative measure will be included in the ballot materials. We do have some alternative language that could amend Section 2 of the resolution if the council wanted to consider this issue further. And this wasn't referenced in your staff report, but we wanted to. Bring it to your attention because there are cost implications associated with which direction you go, assuming you place it on the ballot.

I have a question then. So what is the range of cost to the city if this were to go onto the ballot?

Low to high. I don't think we have a specific estimate right now, do we, Susie?

No, I mean the county had estimated $30,000 to $35,000, but I don't think they were taking into account the $65,000. pages translated into also Spanish and Chinese.

Which would be more then. And just what you were talking about then, Charles, can local citizens file a ballot argument?

I would defer to Steve on that. Yes. The elections code allow a number of individuals, entities, if you will, associations to file them. And then the elections code sets a priority, and as Charles was indicating, on a citizen-sponsored initiative, if the proponents file a ballot argument in favor, they're the likely entity that would do that, their ballot argument gets first priority for the argument in favor. Similarly, if the council files a ballot argument against, and then some other groups file a ballot argument against, the council's ballot argument would be the one that would be included as the a ballot argument against it. And I want to be very clear. Charles was very clear about this. The council is under no obligation to file a ballot argument under either way. This is within your discretion. If you wish to do it, you can. If you don't want to be involved in the ballot argument process, you can simply tell us that, and we'll pull that language out of the resolution, assuming you're going to place this measure on the ballot. But then if we do not file a ballot argument, then a citizen still could. citizen and then again there's a priority I think there are associations first and then individuals so they're there there's a priority listing that the city clerk has to follow when she's selecting the ballot arguments here so I have a quick question on ballot arguments for and against

And I'll preface this by saying this is a very complex measure that you guys have put together. And so could the city elect to file an argument? It would have to be an argument against the measure, but really just to really crystallize what this does compared to the normal process.

I'm going to answer that and then expand a little bit. So if the council were to write a ballot argument that's a ballot argument against, they can write really anything that they want to about the measure. So you can formulate what you want to say in whatever manner you think best communicates to the citizens. There will be an impartial analysis. The council's likely going to direct that if you place the measure on the ballot. The impartial analysis has to be just that. It has to be an impartial analysis. It's 500 words and it's written by the city attorney. It has to impartially describe the measure. And that will be in the ballot packet regardless of whether the full measure is in the ballot. So what you would be thinking about is the ballot packet includes arguments in favor arguments against if there are any of either one of those the rebuttals to both of those the impartial analysis and then the last thing is the measure itself if you choose to put the measure in so that the voters get the entire measure in their voter pamphlet so i have a question to add on to so let's say the council chooses not to

write an argument against. Does that preclude any of the five of us deciding to be part of somebody else's argument against?

It does not. The difference is that if the council does not designate that they're going to, doesn't authorize some grouping of the council to write the ballot argument against, then that wouldn't be given the priority. So it's not simply that a council member has signed on to the ballot argument, it's the council authorizes a valid argument but thank you no council member would be prohibited if the council elects not to do anything then it would just council member could sign if they wanted to the initiative you know the 60 page initiative and there's discussion of whether we would distribute that with the voting material

He said, if we don't, then we would distribute language that tells the voter how to obtain the initiative if they want it. I know there's the 500-word impartial analysis, so that's there. But if we were to opt not to send out the entire initiative, is there a summary version of that, or is there something besides the full 60 pages? And I'm thinking this isn't the first time there's been an initiative that's so long it's beyond the common person's consumption. So how does something like that address?

Correct. So the state law that allows this option to not include the full measure specifically requires that the city attorney's impartial analysis say that the above statement, so the impartial analysis, is an impartial analysis of ordinance or measure X, whatever it is. If you desire a copy of the ordinance or measure, please call the elections official at, and we put the city clerk's telephone number in there, and a copy will be mailed to you at no cost to you.

Okay, so there's no summary of it.

There isn't a summary, but from a practical standpoint, the impartial analysis is a summary.

So let me, can I add on to your question?

Yeah, and I'm not quite clear yet, but... There isn't. So if I may, pardon me for interrupting. There's not a separate summary that is written in the ballot materials. So the only thing that would be in the ballot materials are the impartial analysis, the arguments for or against, and whether or not you include the full measure.

Okay. And then is mailing it to you the only option, or is it posted on a website that people have access to?

There's nothing stopping the city from posting it on a website and making it available that way, but the elections code is written that it would be mailed to them. But the city can do more outreach than that if they want to, and the proponents can do more outreach too.

Are we allowed to have you summarize further than 500 words in what is not in the ballot book?

Well, the council's allowed... to direct me to write anything you want me to write. But what can be published is limited to 500 words.

But not published, I mean, and can that be attached to the 65 pages navigational tool?

No. You're supposed to present the measure as it's written to the voters. The council can't change that in any way. And the other things that I've talked about, the impartial analysis and the ballot arguments, The ballot arguments, even though they're even more limited in words than the impartial analysis, are intended to allow the proponents on both sides to make their arguments about what it means and what the impact is, however they wish to characterize those.

Are we done with that portion?

Yeah. So that concludes my presentation, but I want to bring back the slide up to show City Council the two options that's available to you.

Do you want to open up public comment? Yeah, I do, but I was waiting for these two options to come up.

Well, those options are Mount Diablo or downtown.

No, I understand, but okay. All right. So now let's open it up to public comment. If there's anybody from the, that's here in the chamber that would like to speak, come on up. You've got, well, I guess actually in the developer's instance, you have 10 minutes, I believe, on this one, since you're representing that. If we've got anybody else, they will get two minutes. Do we have anybody online? Nope. So, all right. The floor is yours.

Mayor Wilk and Mayor Pro Tem Francois and City Council. I'm Mark Hall. I'm here tonight in my capacity as the chairman of the campaign committee that has been pushing this initiative forward and I'm also the principal owner of the Ignacio Center site here in Walnut Creek which is I think most people are aware it's the largest single office complex in the city of Walnut Creek, just across the street from the Walnut Creek BART station. I just have a few comments, and then there's a lot of technical questions here that are great. You're digging into the detail. And we have our land use lawyer here, Cecily Barclay, with Perkins Coie, who was... instrumental in drafting this and frankly understands this, I think, probably better than anybody with the possible exception of Steve. And so she's available to answer those technical type of questions. Before I make my comments, I just want to also thank Steve and Susie for their assistance over the last few months. in helping us navigate this process. This is a first time for me, for our company, in running an entitlement of this type. California is an interesting place, always changing. And it has opened various avenues to proceed. differently on a project approval than we have typically done in years past. And as a property owner, we've just simply been evaluating and looking at our alternatives and trying to figure out what makes the most sense from a cost, from a timing standpoint to move our objectives forward. I'd like to just make a simple comment here There's been a lot of discussion around the impacts, and I would say that those impacts are very, very narrowly analyzed on this little 2.4-acre parcel of a larger 6.8-acre block in total, the block of which has three significant office complexes that total about 550,000 square feet. I don't think it's any surprise to anybody that the office market in Walnut Creek coming out of the pandemic has suffered a major debilitating blow. We purchased this property just over a year ago and we bought it from a partnership of perhaps the largest and most prestigious office building owner in the country together with one of the top three investment funds on the entire planet that owned this property and we bought it for roughly 40 cents on the dollar of their cost and this is not inconsistent with any major building sales that are changing hands right now so property taxes are dropping under reassessments across the board right now in a significant way. And I would just point out that our project is not just a senior project. It's a way for us to figure out how do we benefit our entire block. And in so doing, I believe, benefit the entire north downtown specific plan area. of Walnut Creek, particularly around the Barch Station, all of these office complexes. The plaza in Grower Square, located on the south side of town, closer to the retail district, closer to the pedestrian retail area, commands rents that are about a dollar and a half a square foot per month higher than the properties that are up at the Walnut Creek Barch Station. And these properties that are closer into the southern side of town, are virtually full, whereas the entire Walnut Creek BART area is about 30% vacant across the board. Now that $1.50 is a gross rent. By the time you subtract the operating expenses, it translates into about 40% net rent that is going to support the value of the building less at the BART station. And this is a location that is a primary transit-oriented district that has access to BART, that has better access to the freeways, but yet it commands rents at roughly 60 cents on the dollar net compared to what the market generates in the south side of town where there's amenities, where there is a place to walk to have lunch, to shop a little bit. And we don't have that. in the north downtown area. We've never really had that. And the Waymark Project has made an effort, but the truth is, in my opinion, and I'm a guy that's developed a lot of shopping centers over the years, that's not really very good retail space. That's similar to what the county did up at the Pleasant Hill BART station. There is no good surface convenience parking for that retail that attracts the best retailers there. We have a 750 stall parking garage on this block that is five stories tall. And what I'm trying to do is figure out how do I feasibly push that underground? How do I get that underground? If I can get that parking garage underground, I improve the marketability of a whole lot of office space in that complex. that looks directly into a five-story concrete parking garage on roughly half of the floor plate of the office buildings there on the interior side of the block. I also open up the middle of that block and allow a large area that can be used for an internal street through the block and a lot of surface parking in that area to help support retail and commercial space. Sounds like I'm developing a retail project as opposed to a senior housing. Well, no, it's senior housing. That's the economics that drive this whole thing, that make this all possible. But if we can get a mixed-use project here that works really well, this is going to be really important for the whole north downtown area to support values for all of those office buildings. that are right across the street for amenities for the office space to make it a little bit more like the south side of Walnut Creek, bring those values back, get those property tax revenues up. That hasn't been analyzed in this impact analysis as to what this does to the entire local economy if we can get this project going forward. So tonight is a first step. Either way you go, whether you put it on the ballot or whether you Adopt it. I don't know if that's even got a discussion. Probably not. But it's a first step, and we're hopeful that eventually we'll get there. And so anyway, that's the extent of my comments. If you have technical questions, we heard a lot of things. We were over here listening and thinking, that's a little off. That's not quite right. And we could comment on some of that if you want. But it's up to you. And as I say, Cecily's here to make comments.

OK. want to make sure we don't have any other public comment here nobody else is online so we will then bring it back to council we can ask any questions of staff any questions of the initiative group and make comments.

Mayor, I think it would be appropriate to have the proponents correct whatever they think. Give them another 10 minutes to answer the questions that they don't think we have the technical answers.

I agree. That was going to be my question is if you think there are technical things that we didn't get right or didn't interpret correctly.

that you think are important to share those with us but let's not ask the questions again let's let's just let them go give us the answers what do you think that's fine yeah we don't even need to have that on the clock

uh good evening mayor mayor pro tem and council members and staff my name is Cecily Barclay and I am the land use attorney and also a rep of the landowner but also representative of the campaign committee here this evening and I don't want to over I actually I appreciated Mark's comment when he said well with the exception of Steve there might not be anybody else in the room who knows this initiative as well as Steve does, because I think as the conversations continued, even though we were doing a little bit of, oh, what about this, what about that, more information came out as you guys discussed it. So I don't think we have a lot to correct. I actually think we were able to get to the bottom of it. There were little things like at some point Mr. Simon said you get – you know, the 20% affordable housing, we don't, we get the 20% because it's senior housing. But I think as time went on, it was clear that we don't have affordable, we don't have to have affordable housing to get the 20% density bonus. The, you know, the zoning, I mean, I do agree as it all came out that we basically took the MUR zone and incorporated those to the property here but we've restricted it in the l-22 note to seniors only and primarily seniors again i think mr mattis explained aptly that under state law there are certain protections for senior housing under the density bonus law senior housing is defined a certain way and there are these words like primary i actually think that there are places in the code that talk about 80 percent think it depends how it would get applied to their specific site but primarily seniors means it's a senior community but there may be a caretaker or a surviving spouse who may be able to live there but those should be the exceptions to not the rule and um again i think that like with the bike plan we're not trying to modify the bike plan we were or some of those street sections they're in there and then the only thing out is to say and they apply to this zoning code so sometimes we're just taking what was already in the specific plan and but making it clear that those specific plan diagrams, just as the city wrote them, the only thing being added on those pages are language that says, and this applies to the MURSC zone. So I don't know if I actually have... Oh, just, okay, just get correct, thank you. So I just, to help be really clear about this. So... way the city's mur zone works even without us just right now it there's actually one unit per 425 net square feet that's of the land so you take a 2.4 acre parcel which has 43 560 i think it's about a hundred thousand square feet for 2.4 acres so if you have uh Well, I'm going to take that comment out for a second and just say if you've got 100,000 square feet, you get one unit per 425. That's not going to work for me. Divide it by 425. You're going to get about 280 units. excuse me, 230. Sorry. But what I wanted to say is it's the net number though. That's why you're seeing some of these ranges. Is it two 25 or is it two 35? Because we have to take out any of the public easements or frontages that can't be calculated in the net number. So that's why you saw in Jim's Simon's presentation, The low was between 225 and 235, because we're not really sure, but he used the low of the 225, and then the high is actually 235 plus 20%. So what RSG was doing is kind of taking the lowest of the low and the highest of the high and using the 225 to the 280. actually took 225 and you added 20 that wouldn't get you to 280 because we're having to also use some variation in what the net developable area is which we won't actually know until a project comes forward and we work with the city on exactly where the setbacks are and the street lines and get you know the ALTA detailed surveys out there. Can I jump in and ask you a quick question?

Yes, of course. I just want to make sure I've got this. So when you're talking about the 425, that's of the lot itself. Yes. The units, however, are bigger.

They could be as big as you. You could actually want them. There's no limit on how big a unit can be. And so the density that we're at is about how many? Well, you start with the square footage that gets you one unit for every 425 square feet, and that happens to be 235 units. Yeah. You also have a floor area ratio that limits how much gross density you can put on there. So, and then you've also got height limits. Now, if we do a density bonus, we're going to have the height limits, and you might not have as much of an FAR unit. You could end up with really big units. This assumption that has been done in this analysis assumes about 1,000 square feet, more or less. Those are kind of the units, which are not small units, by the way. That's a...

healthy size unit so thank you i didn't mean to interrupt i just wanted to i we're at a moment yeah so so so as a practical matter we don't know that until we do our market analysis until we design the project the 425 is the is what you divide into the land square footage to get the number of units to apply the density bonus to And then the FAR ultimately governs the scale of the building. But that's basically an envelope within which you've got room to size your units. And the reality is, as we do our market analysis, we're going to have a lot of different size units. There'll be a unit mix that will target different parts of the market. So that's coming down the road.

Yeah. Coming attractions? Is that what you're?

Yeah. So my important question to you is now, does that answer the question of the difference between the unit count and what the one per 425 means? Feel a bit about that. Okay. Thank you. All right. But we're here for any other questions that you might have. And I just want to echo Mark Hall's comments that we really appreciate the technical detail that you have all looked at and staff's ability, both Miley and Mr. Simon and Steve Mattis, to answer the questions.

Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all the work that went into this. So Council Member Silva asked this question earlier. I just want confirmation in terms of intent. on the initiative language on page 23 then, where we're dealing with the FAR table, you're recreating it from the north downtown specific plan and saying it's readopted for the initiative amendment area. And it's the proponent's intent that that applies to the initiative amendment area, meaning it can't be amended as to the initiative amendment area without the vote of the people, but we can, change that as to other areas that are not in the initiative amendment area without a vote of the people?

That is exactly the intent. Okay. Thank you. You do. And I'm the attorney for the campaign committee and the proponents.

My question is for Council Member Silva. Did that answer your question about the the bike sidewalk area that you expressed concern because you went through that process so you know well you were concerned that it would compromise that that walkability the bike ability that had been planned for did that answer your question about preserving that because i know we had frontage and and then side area is this something that we've clarified okay so then that's my question that was brought up uh there's there's um the diagrams that we saw that showed proposed sidewalk, proposed mixed travel area, bike. And I think there was intention in the downtown specific plan to have the ability to develop those areas. And is the proposed project potentially compromising that area based on where the frontage or the side area is? guess they're different it was a range it was like five to fifteen and so it made me yes think oh well it could be as narrow as five or it could be as wide as fifteen so

We're a team here, and I'm probably going to ask Mr. Davis to answer one question. But before we get there, on page 27 of the initiative, there's the proposed North California Boulevard cross section. And you'll note that we illustrate the picture. But then underneath it, we say it's amended to add the following text at the bottom of the figure. This figure applies to land zoned mursc so we're taking the exact cross section that's in the specific plan on north california and applying it to our zone On the next page, we do the exact same thing for Ignacio Valley Road. We make it clear that this also applies to the MURSC zoning code. So then there was a question about, well, why is the dedication then only limited to three feet? And that had to do with the amount of land that would be needed to create the minimum setback. we didn't and i'm going to now i'm going to let chuck either tell me because you're whispering to me and you'll remember this better than i did about on north california what the three foot limited on the dedication was because i don't remember where that text is in the initiative right off hand hi for the record chuck davis senior vice president development for hall equities group the cross section shows a half right away there there's a little bit of fuzziness and

things we've got about 50 foot right now from the center line to the edge of the current right away so we're identifying that we'll give the extra three feet to make sure that that cross-section can be built on North California and then from that point you have your setback of five to the the ultimate maximum depending on if it's a primary or secondary same thing on Ignacio Valley Road there's up to eight feet that's the cross-section that's in the North downtown specific plan and We're going to do that. That's included in what we would do in the project. And then it would be five foot up to the maximum as a setback from that point. So we're just making it clear because there were some exhibits and some of the things that were, let's just say, inconsistent. And these cross sections were the one thing that was tying down specific numbers. And we want to make sure that you know we're going to honor them.

Let me, before he walks away.

And you can come back up. And I just wanted to clarify.

So you have just said that this diagram requires three more feet in order for it to go from 49 to 52, because if you look at the current cross-section and the proposed, and that that extra three feet will be given, will be dedicated to this right-of-way necessary, and then the setback would start from there.

That is accurate.

And the same thing would be true on Ignatial Valley Road.

And if you look at the general plan and the North Dentown specific plan, they actually come forward and say, on different streets, that those are the anticipated dedications required by people who have properties there, not just here, but throughout there. We're just acknowledging that we recognize that it's in there. We're baking it in. And that would be nothing's changing.

Correct. Thank you. I appreciate that.

And I saw staff sort of Do you have something to add?

Yeah, OK. Share some space with you here. Just to echo, you called it out perfectly, that the existing width right now is 49 feet. And then I know it's a little blurry, but on the screen, the proposed is 52 feet. So that's where the three feet comes from. Same thing when you're looking at Ignacio Valley Road. It's about eight feet in order to get to the full proposal.

To get to those widths where you actually have people walking on the right of way and not on private property. Correct. They need three feet on North California and eight feet on Ignatia Valley Road.

That is correct. So the team here has effectively done the math. They've proposed the language to say that no more than those exact amounts will be dedicated. That's how I'm reading the language on the screen. And so the only thing I would put out there is the intent is to meet this specific plan. but being very particular about the dimension of dedication, depending on what that future looks like. Again, a lot of times when you put pen to paper, oh, it turns out it wasn't three feet, it's really five feet or it's, you know, it could vary in the future. I am not a civil engineer, so take a big caveat there. But they are meeting requirements that are outlined in the north downtown specific plan but having that very particular dimension does reduce some flexibility in the future and assuming this diagram is perfect i will not speak to that the sidewalk ends at 52 feet and then that would be potentially requiring

The building that would be proposed has to have some kind of setback from that edge of sidewalk then, or not? Correct.

Yeah, if the sidewalk is the property line, let's say, where the sidewalk is touching the green strip there, let's call that the property line, then there would need to be anywhere from 5 to 15 foot setback, depending on whether it's a primary or secondary frontage.

OK. But I thought they gave us another three feet and then started the property line. Is that what I heard? No. Yes. That there's the 52 feet plus 3. No.

No. So right now the width is 49 feet. And so we need three more feet to get to the 52.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So let me ask a question. Is the planning department, so assuming one of two things. Either we are adopting it or it goes to a vote and let's say it passes on the ballot. Our planning department is still working throughout the process, working with the developer and making sure everything adheres to what the plan is. I mean, it's not just like it's being built in our planning department. It's not involved.

that's crazy about for a future development for a future development yes correct okay I'll write your development would come back through the right for review so and it's also true that to the extent that there are other amendments that have to be made to conform to all of these changes that's why Mister Simons report was talking about the estimated cost of around 250,000 total because they're there will be other changes likely that may need to be made just to have internal consistency in the documents. And so that would have to happen too.

So we've been here for an hour and a half now hearing, asking questions, and we literally have a decision of either approving it as is without changes or putting it to the ballot as is without changes. That is our decision. We're not a planning commission. We're not going over all the details of any kind of changes.

I agree with that, and I'm not trying to belabor it, and I appreciated what Mr. Hall said. If I could ask you... question about your long-term vision because the part of this that you know it's not we're not voting on a project but the part that's most exciting to me is the potential for a commercial mixed-use activity center on the north downtown so realistically does that require and we know you you've had you got a successful track record in town you know we know where you not where you live but we know Is it dependent on taking that five-story parking structure and putting the parking underground to actually have enough space to do a commercial center? What is the likelihood that that will come to pass?

I think that's critical. I mean, my view is that has to happen to get the type of commercial that we would like to plug in there. You know, I would remind you that the north downtown specific plan has a an incentive as a community benefit to put a grocer up there. And there is a hole in the market. We've studied this just in from Sprouts and Lenardi's all the way down to Safeway and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. And if you look at where a lot of the recent housing formation has been in the city over the last 10 years or so, we've had quite a bit in the Ignacio corridor. We now have Waymark adding to that. And we're getting to an inflection point where, and I believe this project will be it if we can get this done correctly, that we can in fact do a real true commercial project here as opposed to sort of ground floor storefront that you see in what is basically an apartment building, which is what the Waymark is doing, and what has happened at Pleasant Hill Bart. I don't know if, I know Council Member Silver remembers this, that when we developed the, the sprouts on the old co-op piece years ago, that filled right away. And we got very good rents, very successful project. And at the same time, Pleasant Hill Bart was building those multifamily buildings with quite a bit of retail space, and they sat there vacant for years until they filled. And the rents were not that great, and the tenant mix was not that great. It just was a project that was designed at the Pleasant Hill BART with housing in mind, and commercial was an afterthought. And we've had a lot of experience in retail. And to make retail work, we have to have a certain critical mass of convenience parking. Not in a garage, not like Andronico's tried to do, which didn't work. We need to have convenience pull-up parking. And that means that garage has to go away. And we have to figure out a way to pay for that. That's expensive. And that's where this senior housing component is the part of the market right now that is working. A lot of the market is not working product-wise. Senior housing is. This is where the demographics are penciling right now.

He's looking at us.

I'm looking at all of us.

I mean, is it fair to say then your interest and investment in this property is long-term and applies to the entire site, not just the 2.4 acres?

Our investment is much bigger in the office buildings than it is in the 2.4 acre piece. So we're hoping to improve the value of the entire block. substantially with this project. And I know that for the very same reasons we believe that we can do that, that will flow across the street. What we're doing here will benefit our neighbors as well. And it will make that BART station district a much more desirable location for a company to come locate and create jobs in Walnut Creek. And that's an important factor.

Thank you. OK.

All right, so in front of us is basically one decision. Do we adopt as is, or do we put it to the ballot, which is what was proposed through the initiative process? Yep.

Steve? So you've said that it would take, well, the independent report said an estimated quarter of a million dollars to basically integrate all aspects of this into our general plan, north downtown specific plan, all of the zoning code, all the maps, et cetera.

That, correct, is an estimate, right?

We have to do that whether we adopt tonight or we send it to the ballot and it's adopted by the voters. We have to spend that money. Who pays for that?

Well, normally the city would pay for that, but there's nothing preventing from the applicant wants to pay for that. The applicant can pay for that, too. And I would say, I would modify a little bit of what you said. If it goes to the voters, you wouldn't start that process, obviously, until after the election.

No, but if the voters approve it or we approve it.

That's correct.

We have to do that action, which would have occurred through a normal entitlement process, correct? Correct.

That would have normally been paid.

And through a normal entitlement process, the proponent pays the fees to cover the costs of... That's correct.

Okay. Okay.

Do you have any comments?

Well, so I think we have a simple one or option door A, door B. I think right now I am inclined to vote to put this to the voters. I think there is enough here that's different from what we adopted in our specific plan that i would feel more comfortable if i took it to our voters rather since we didn't go through the normal process i want to make sure we don't lose the trust of our voters that we didn't do something that they hadn't seen further comments yeah you know

I tend to agree with that. I think that that essentially is the path that we've been going down is putting it before the voters. There had been the option of a ballot argument in opposition. I don't think that's appropriate here because I'm familiar with other ballot initiative measures where an initiative proponent will say a developer for its own purposes will want to amend the circulation element to eliminate roadways that they have otherwise have to approve and create new ones to make it benefit their development I don't there's a benefit to this property no question but I don't Like, that would concern me, that, hey, we had come up with a very comprehensive circulation plan and an EIR that looked at how the traffic was going to work. And that's the type of measure that I would be inclined for the council to weigh in and submit a ballot argument in opposition to, I think. This is just the natural outflow of an initiative process, which is allowed by our California Constitution. So I think we don't have control over it. We have those binary choices here, and I think that's a result of it being an initiative measure. You know, Council Member Silva raised the question, again, about the costs, and I think it would be nice for the proponents to, if they're willing to absorb those costs and not having the city absorb them but that's uh i know that's not something that we can force you to do but it's something that i think would be nice because it's something that we're incurring when we're not really we would recover it if it was going through the normal process and uh yeah that's all i got all right councilmember silva

I'm excited about what could be, but I'm not excited about the process that it's taken to get there. And I have a feeling some members of the public are going to feel that, wait, why didn't we get to come talk about it and really review it and experience it? So for those reasons, I think we put it on the ballot. And I would agree with Council Member François that I, or Mayor Pro Tem, sorry, that just stay silent on it and allow the process to run its course.

Council Member Devaney, any further word?

Yeah, I mean, I agree with the previous reasoning. It does seem like a process that was taken to the voters by initiative and that seems like the sort of natural organic end to it is to allow the voters to weigh in on it. Um, so, so that, that's how I would be inclined as well.

And I will say that, uh, Mark, the way you put that out there, it sounds exciting. There's, I think there's a vision here that sounds exciting that, uh, it can make that area interesting area I mean right now there's the Target I mean going to the store targets the clothes like it just seems kind of funny to think that's the grocery store in the area that is Target love sprouts hard to park there but love sprouts I know you've heard that before I just thought I'd throw that out there And as Ms. Barkley said, the last time that you were here, the reason you're doing the initiative is to, it's the way to make sure that you've got support from the community to move ahead with the project. So the fact that we're sitting here and talking about exactly that, I think makes sense to continue that with basically let's see if the community supports it. But I'm going to take it a step further than that. And I think that this will also help us, based upon the vote of the community, to help us see the city council to make decisions about in the future for similar projects and i think it will help direct how we vote in the future on some of these projects in that area but also in other areas of the city so based on the vote for this initiative so i like the fact of even hearing what the voters have to say on that and if this is something that passes overwhelmingly or or barely passes or frankly doesn't pass but i also agree i don't think that it makes sense to have a battle argument against it. We'll stay silent. You'll have your marketing and we'll see what the voters say on this. So yeah, let's see. So how this works for a future development.

Can you put that slide back down?

And Mayor, before you entertain a motion, one thing we would need direction on is whether or not you want the full measure to be printed on the

So absolutely. Well, I'll speak up on that. I don't think we need to have the full measure printed. I think that if we have it summarized and there's a link to where people can get the full measure, I think that would be fine and probably cost efficient for everyone.

And we still have to get it translated into the one or two additional languages and then make that available. I think the county's estimate of cost is.

So council, if... Any other further comments about whether you wanted the full measure? It sounds like I thought I was hearing a majority of the council at least saying they didn't want it included on there.

Yeah, I think what I'm hearing from my fellow council members is we want you to do the impartial summary, and we want the full measure to be available on the website and by mail if somebody requests it.

And to move to the ballot, yeah, is it?

the initiative stood so understood this is an opportunity do because we talked about this so there's 500 words and I suppose you would come up with a complete analysis in 500 words but is there if we're gonna put it on the website would be like to give you the leeway to expand on that with some sort of summary statement on the website, or just leave it at the 500 words?

Well, this measure isn't written by the council. It's written by the proponents. And so I think if the council wanted to promote what the measure says, if you will, just make sure the voters are aware of it, you could have on a website link, you could have the impartial analysis, and you could have the full measure. So that if people want to read it, they do it. Because it's not The council is not the proponent of this measure. So if the council wants me to write a broader, longer analysis, I can do that. But we're not actually the proponents of the measure.

Yeah, what I didn't mean is as far as being a proponent, I thought during the conversation earlier you were saying that not on the ballot, but if there's an opportunity, like maybe you feel like it's hard to fully summarize in 500 words. I don't know. Would that be something that we would want to put on the website, some longer impartial analysis? But it sounds like maybe that's...

no we we can we can do that i just would um if that's what the council would like us to do we'll do that um and and we would make that available on the website as well too we have to be we just do have to be careful that what we're saying is not advocacy one way or the other like we cannot do that with public funds the impartial analysis is not advocacy But if the council wants to say, you know, if the city attorney's office believes that they need more words to describe the measure, then we could create a companion document. It will be very impartial, though.

because that's that's what we are required to do in terms of expenditure of public funds I'm inclined to stick with the normal process with the impartial analysis and the full text on the website I that is the initiative process and so it's okay you're in our shoes now you get to read everything in the packet and decide yes or no and I I'm reluctant to stray beyond the normal process

And I'm of the same mind because the boundary over to advocacy one way or the other is really, we need to very much stay on the right side of that. And we will have an applicant who has chosen this interesting path to go down and has lots of opportunity to answer the questions that come up. What's a setback? What's a step back? Why are those different? am comfortable sticking with the 500 word impartial summary the full text of the initiative on the website and available to people if they want it with the translations I while I could see the value in the other one I think we're just we have to be so careful to stay on the line of impartiality yeah after actually after having

voiced it as a point of discussion i i agree with i agree with you and i agree as well also it doesn't open the the potential that we're accused of inadvertently causing it to fail or right so uh well i will so mayor if mayor if i may because we need to edit the resolution a little bit so if the council's okay i'll just read some changes into the record and Susie I am going to ask you to display that one change but we'll do this so first we're going to recommend that section 8 that is in the resolution right now this is attachment 3 the resolution to place the measure on the ballot section 8 which really relates to the ballot arguments simply be removed from the measure so there would be no authority we don't need to even correct it because the proponents can file their own ballot argument they'll have priority The second change we would suggest then is this is the first paragraph, as I recall, of Section 2. So it's just before the ballot question. And in the wording that was in your agenda packet, it talked about there being the full text of the measure in the ballot. This changes it to the process that we talked about earlier under Elections Code Section 9280, where we would create a summary of it. I'm sorry where where the voters would be told how they could get a summary of it and this would be the recommended change we would make to that paragraph and this is again in section 2 just above the ballot question and the resolution is there any point of referencing the direction I think I'm hearing from the council to also ensure that it is on the city's website online we can take that as direction from the council if you wish to put it in here you could we could add a sentence um it probably would make more sense to do that later on we could have a replacement section eight which just directs us the the the between the city manager and city attorney are directed to uh place the full text of the measure on the city's website for public review

And maybe the simplest way to deal with it, as long as we don't include it in the resolution, if you are confident we're not precluded from doing that, giving staff to do that in the future.

No, we can take that direction from you tonight. That can be part of your motion.

But I don't think we need to address it in there.

I just want to make sure. It does. A city can always provide public information, non-advocacy public information, educational information about a ballot measure. You'll remember We did that with Measure A and Measure O, sorry. And so that is something that we can do. And providing a copy of the ballot measure is not advocacy. So with that, the resolution is otherwise. So the motion would be. A motion to approve the resolution placing the measure on the ballot as set forth up there with the amendment to section two as was shown on the screen and the removal of section eight.

So moved.

Second.

Did you second? We have a move. Did you second?

I was thinking it was sections. I was confused between seven and eight. I will second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. If you could call the roll, Susie.

Council Member Silva. Aye. Council Member Darling. Aye. Council Member Devaney. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois. Aye. And Mayor Will. Aye. Motion carries.

Right. Before we adjourn tonight's meeting, I'd like to take a moment to honor the extraordinary legacy of Sue Rainey. Sue served our community for 13 years on the Walnut Creek City Council, including three terms as mayor. As a steadfast representative with a gift for making constituents feel heard and welcome, Sue is dedicated to the local political scene and the causes that she was passionate about she was our friend for everyone that knew her and none of us will certainly forget her annual mayor and council crab feeds at her house tonight we adjourn this meeting in her honor who passed away last month and with deep gratitude for her vision her service and her unwavering commitment to the people of walnut creek and with that we're adjourned