Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. And our first business is roll call and let the record show that all five members are present. And then item B is minutes for approval of minutes of the regular planning commission meeting of August 12th, 2025. Can I have a motion? A motion to approve. Okay. Let the record show that a motion was made by Commissioner Becker. I'll second and a second by Commissioner Aguular. All those in favor? I. Let the record show. The motion passes with all eyes. Item C, written communication. No written communications this evening.

Thank you. Okay. So, we will close written communication on to oral communications. Members of the public are invited to address the planning commission on any items not listed on the agenda. Public comments are generally limited to five minutes per speaker. Please note that the state law prohibits the commission from acting on non-aggenda items. Are there any people wishing if No. Okay, we will close the oral communications and we will move on to public hearings and there are none. So we will move on to staff reports. Item F1, housing element progress update, inclusionary ADU and tenant protections from housing policy and program manager Michael Colum and associate planner Joseph Balabat. [Applause] Thank you, honorable chair and city planning commissioners. My name is Michael Kulum, housing policy and programs manager with the community development department, and it's my pleasure to share with you today progress with our housing element and forthcoming actions for uh planning commission and city council action. This is the September 23rd, 2025 planning commission meeting. You are here to receive anformational item concerning a forthcoming accessory dwelling unit ordinance, forthcoming anti-displacement ordinances, and forthcoming inclusionary housing ordinance. Joining me this evening is Mr. Joseph Balbot, associate planner, who will speak to our accessory dwelling unit program. And also present this evening and available for questions, our community development director, Mr.

Steven Turner, and deputy director, Mr. Artiano. I'd like to begin this presentation with some highlights from the city's 2023 2031 housing element which succeeded the city's fifth cycle housing element and the 2021 2023 affordable housing work plan. As you know since 1969, state law has required all local governments to adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community at all income levels. Local governments meet this requirement by adopting housing plans into their general plan every eight years. City Council adopted Newark's 2023 2031 housing element in October of 2023, wherea after the state department of housing and community development found it compliant with state law in December. Relevant to this agenda item, the housing element includes programs H2.7, H4.1, and H5.3, all of which concern supporting the development of new affordable housing for the New York community. In assisting uh our residents in staying in their homes um and avoiding displacement from our community. When reading our housing element, you'll notice that each program has a quantified objective. Quantified objectives are like smart goals. They are specific, achievable, and measurable targets used to assess the city's progress in implementing each program. Furthermore, quantified objectives are time bound, meaning the city should take some kind of action to implement them on a specific time frame. Many of our programs have timelines for immediate imple implementation, midterm implementation, or by a specific date, as this housing element is for the 2023 2031 period or past the immediate stage, but not yet to midterm. Program H4.7, for example, calls for identifying housing opportunities for those with developmental disabilities. The quantified objective for that

program is creating 20 units for people with those disabilities. And the timeline calls for the city to coordinate with housing developers and community partners immediately by June 30th, 2024. This is a program that we're doing very well with as the Saha Thornton Avenue Apartments project is proposed to have 10 units for households with intellectual or developmental disabilities. So, we're about halfway through our goal, but only about a third of the way through the planning period. Tracking and measuring this kind of progress is very important. HCD will begin monitoring our progress in July of next year. Demonstrating our good faith efforts to meet our goals is essential to maintaining our housing element compliance. If we're not able to de demonstrate compliance, HCD could mandate further programs beyond those supported by our community and approved by the planning commission and council or at the more extreme end revoke housing element compliance. One final reminder before we launch into the meat of this presentation is this slide that I shared with you at the July 8th commission meeting. These are the four four of the driving policy rationes for much of contemporary housing law and our housing element programs. You'll see these graphics at the top right of the slides for each program that Mr. Balapag and I uh present just as a little reminder as to why we're doing it and what we're trying to achieve. For the first the blue arrows, you can think of this as building more housing faster. We have a significant housing shortage at all income levels and the longer someone has to wait for affordable housing, the long the longer they go without affordable housing. Second is our green thumb. These are programs geared at sustainability and using housing as a strategy to address climate change. Third are those gold coins. California is one of, if not the most expensive states to build housing. If we can make uh the construction of housing more affordable, we can build more of it. And fourth and final is this little orange person. Our housing shortage means that

many members of our community are at risk of being displaced and having to leave Newark or of becoming homeless because there simply isn't anywhere else for them to go. And with that, I will turn it over to my colleague here, Mr. Joseph Laput. [Music] All right. So, accessory dwelling units have many names and they are not an entirely new concept. Depending on where you live, you might also be familiar with a secondary unit, a granny flat or in-law unit. Maybe you call it a backyard cottage. All of these are what are more commonly referred to as an accessory dwelling it dwelling unit or ADU. So, what is an ADU? An ADU is accessory to a primary dwelling and is has complete independent living facilities for one or more persons. An ADU can either be detached from, attached to, or located within the proposed or existing primary dwelling. A junior accessory dwelling unit or Jedu is an ADU that is 500 square ft or less and contained entirely within the single family dwelling. ADUs have been California's housing success story since major state legislation took effect in 2016. A series of gradual reforms year after year, while fatiguing for planners have kept the momentum growing from 8,758 ADUs permitted in 2018 and 28,547 in 2022. In fact, HD just reported that over 30,200 ADUs were permitted statewide in 2024, a record high. Part of why ADUs have been so successful is that they are significantly cheaper

to build than other housing types. A UC Berkeley Tenor Center study found that the average cost to build an ADU was $150,000 compared to $480,000 for a subsidized unit in a multifamily building. It's no surprise that we've seen the number of ADU applications and permits continue to increase even as other housing starts fault have faltered. 80s offer an affordable or more accessible housing option in more expensive areas serving an important need. Newark is part of the of that ADU success story and program H2.2 uh focuses on keeping the momentum going by making it cheaper, quicker, and altogether easier for homeowners to build an ADU on the property. The city has been making progress of facilitating the development of more ADUs for more people. In 2023, the city issued building permits for nine ADUs. In 2024, the city permitted 29 ADUs. And as of now, in 2025, the city issued building permits for 27 ADUs. That means we've nearly reached last year's record and still have full quarter left of 2025. So far, the city is on track to meet, if not exceed, the number of ADU permits issued since 2024. ADUs are becoming an important and valuable stock of Newark's housing stock, and homeowners clearly see their value. The ADU program is made up of quantified objectives to assist with meeting the goals of accomplishing the number of ADUs to be constructed during the

housing element period of 2023 to 2031. That number is 160 constructed ADUs and as of now the city has had 39 constructed ADUs since 2023. The quantified objectives of the program include the ADU ordinance update and ADU incentives, the Alama County ADU resource center, and the pre-approved ADU program. The city is working with a consultant, urban planning partners, uh, to update the ADU ordinance to comply with state law, which continues to evolve, and to implement the programs and policies in the housing element. Some of the state law includes SB 1211, which increases the number of ADUs on multifamily lots, allowing up to eight detach ADUs, provided the number does not exceed the existing units on the lot. Another is SB897, which allows attached ADUs to be up to a height of 25 ft or the height limitation that applies to the primary dwelling in the underlying zoning district, and allowing detach ADUs to be up to a height of 18 ft if the ADU is within a half mile walking distance of a major transit stop or high quality transit corridor. And the other is AB345 which requires a jurisdiction to allow a deed restricted affordable ADU built or developed by a qualified nonprofit corporation to be sold or conveyed separately from the primary residents to a qualified buyer. Qualified buyers are defined as low or moderate income households. The city is also working to develop incentives to encourage ADU development. The incentives will be incorporated into the ADU ordinance update and such incentives could include but are not

limited to height allowance, size limitations, parking requirements, and reductions in impact fees. The draft updated ADU ordinance with the ADU incentives is anticipated to be introduced at the October 28th planning commission meeting. As for this quantified objective, the city has collaborated with Alama County to launch and promote the Alama County ADU resource center. The purpose of the resource center is to provide resources that make it easier for homeowners to build an ADU in Alama County. Some of the helpful resources include an ADU guide book which provides a step-by-step guide to building an ADU, a process at a glance, which gives an overview of the entire process to build an ADU in the local jurisdiction, an ADU calculator that provides an assessment of estimated cost and fees to build an ADU, and a can I build an ADU tool, which provides an understanding of the type of ADU you can build on a property. The Alama County ADU resource center is live and available to use. Residents can find a link to the resource center on the city's ADU web page or directly at adu.acv.org. Lastly, for this quantified objective, the city has developed a pre-approved ADU program in accordance with AB 1332. Information about the program is available on the city's website. The program streamlines the permitting process for detach ADUs by providing ready-made pre-approved architectural plans that homeowners can use to accelerate housing development. Instead of developing its own plans, the

city is soliciting architectural plans from third parties. The program provides homeowners with a cost-effective pathway to building a detach ADU and provides design professionals with an efficient permitting process and a way to find future clients. Overall, the city has been making progress on fulfilling the quantified objectives to meet the goals of the ADU program. With the ADU ordinance update and the ADU incentives, it is anticipated that the production of ADU in new work will grow. for this slide. This includes links to the relevant web pages with ADU resources such as the current ADU ordinance in the municipal code, uh the city's ADU ADU web page and pre-approved plan web page and the Alama County ADU resource center. Now, I'll turn it back to Michael. [Music]

Thank you, Joseph. The next group of programs are focused on preventing displacement and entrances into homelessness. The legislative actions for implementing these programs don't concern the zoning code and so we don't anticipate holding a planning commission public hearing for these items, but rather they would proceed directly to city council. staff have done extensive community and stakeholder engagement work on this subject, both during the process of drafting the housing element in 2023 and more recently as we figure out the details of implementing individual programs. During both of those outreach periods, community members emphasized concern about their neighbors being displaced and the number of people at risk or experiencing homelessness. We don't always talk about displacement and homelessness at the same time, but in an extremely tight rental market like ours, they're two sides of the same coin. Being displaced from your home isn't as easy as just going out and finding another one somewhere else in town. You can't do that if there is no other affordable option. And so, for that reason, displacement, major life disruption, can very quickly turn into homelessness or set someone on a downward spiral towards homelessness. And so this next group of programs and its corresponding goal to help people stay in their homes and communities is really about helping people stay safe and safe stay safe and stably housed in protecting their rights as tenants. Staff are preparing to bring a package of anti-displacement recommendations to city council concerning five different programs. You'll notice the little orange person at the top of the slide signaling to you that this is about displacement. But thematically, you might hear these types of programs referred to as tenant protections, tenant and landlord relations, or homelessness prevention programs. Specifically, these programs, H4.1, 4.3, and 4.6, as well as three other new programs that we'll recommend based on research and community and stakeholder engagement, um, will all be part of that

package. First up is program H4.1 which commits to developing anti-displacement programs for the Oldtown specific plan area. This program has two quantified objectives. The first is adopting and applying a local preference policy to new below market rate homes or BMR in the plan area. BMR means any home that is restricted to lower inome households or moderate income households. The city's preference requirement would apply to any BMR unit that the city is supporting financially or that the city entitles. Even though the city has not adopted this as a policy yet, we have applied it in practice to projects throughout the city, including the affordable units that would be built as part of the Leaki homes project on Thornton, the Saha Thornton Avenue Apartments project, and the Timber Senior Housing project, uh, which I will give another little fun preview for at the end of this presentation. Uh staff's recommendation to city council will be that they adopt an ordinance requiring the city preference to be applied to all new BMR units citywide, not just in Oldtown. This recommendation is supported by a study that the city commissioned in 2022 showing that lower income households in New York are at particular risk of displacement and a local preference for new affordable housing would help to keep those people in our community in safe, stable, and highquality homes. There is a second quantified objective for this program that we're not advancing at this time because it has a later deadline. That's to design a larger anti-displacement program for Oldtown, including commercial displacement for commercial tenants. We will get started on that program, but it's not part of this current package. Program H4.3 commits to codifying certain sections of Assembly Bill 1482 or AB1482, which was passed as the Tenant Protections Act in 2019. Really, this is about incorporating state law into New York's municipal code

for two reasons. One, it makes it more obvious and easier for Newark residents to know their rights. and two, AB1482 has a sunset clause, meaning it will expire from state law in 2029 unless extended by the legislature. If the legislature doesn't extend AB1482, but city council adopts um similar provisions, just cause eviction protections would still apply in Newark. Through this program, we're hoping to help 15 low-income renter households to stay in their homes each year. There are three main provisions to AB1482, but Newark is really only focusing on the first two. The first one is those just cause eviction protections. Um, just cause means a landlord having legitimate grounds for terminating a teny. Relocation assistance concerns when just grounds are are found for terminating that ten that teny, the landlord is required to provide some form of relocation assistance to the tenant in finding um a new home. And then the third is rent control. Um, which is somehow stabilizing, controlling or regulating rents of privatelyowned and operated rental housing. We are not pursuing rent control at this time. Uh, when we talk about just cause, we're really doing so in the context of eviction. Legally, an eviction is known as an unlawful detainer and is something that is heard by a judge. Many evictions never make it to a judge because the tenant agrees to leave before the unlawful detainer is filed and makes its way to court. Of evictions that do make it to court, tenants are typically much less wellresourced than landlords. The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority recently published a report on evictions in the Bay Area, finding that 37% of eviction lawsuits in Alama County resulted from a default judgment, which means uh the court upheld the eviction because the tenant didn't respond to the eviction notification or show up to

court. Many tenants may not respond because of fear of engaging in the legal system, showing up to court, time constraints due to work, lack of child care or other barriers, and simply lack of understanding of how harmful an an eviction record is. This is important because an eviction really is a scarlet letter in our real estate system. It ruins your credit and landlords are often reluctant to rent to someone with an eviction history. As a result, there are very few housing options for people with eviction records. In order to avoid these negative outcomes while still protecting um the rights of property owners, AB1482 establishes notice noticing requirements and processes that landlords must follow when terminating a teny so that tenants know their rights and um may not be arbitrarily evicted. Moving on to program H4.6. This program commits to developing an ordinance outlining minimum lease terms and relocation assistance. Relocation assistance is a component of AB1482 as I just said, but our housing element calls it out as its own program. When doing community outreach for this program, community members noted stress around security deposits, but had less interest in minimum lease terms. Recent legislation makes minimum lease terms less relevant. AB12 limits security deposits to one month's rent in most cases and AB1482 has also made the 12-month lease the industry standard. So for that reason, this program and staff's recommendation will only focus on relocation assistance, requiring it in the event of a just cause no fault eviction. To make up for not proceeding with minimum lease terms and to respond to community input in need, staff will recommend three new programs. The first is an emergency rental assistance program or which would provide small grants to households that are struggling to pay

rent, utilities, or other housing related expensive expenses. RAP grants are typically a one-time grant for a few thousand. This was a very popular proposed program among both landlords and tenant stakeholders and is one of the most effective and financially efficient ways of keeping people housed. It's much more expensive to get somebody housed when they're already homeless. Newark has experience with e-rap during COVID. The county created an e-grap program to to support tenants in staying housed during that public health emergency. At that time, many people were unable to go to work and make an income, including service workers whose jobs were closed and those who were especially vulnerable to CO like older folks and folks with health issues. There is still a small local program offered through the county um that offers emergency rental assistance, but it only has funds for 20 households a week across the entire h the entire county. It's not enough. So staff's recommendation would be for a Newark specific program and to contract with the service provider to design and administer that local program to keep families housed. The second new program is a rent review immediation program. This program would entitle tenants to request a third-party review um should their landlord propose increasing the rent over 5% during a 12-month period and to request mediation with the landlord. Tenant and landlord stakeholders saw this saw value in this proposal as an additional opportunity for dialogue and to avoid miscommunications. If the landlord refuses to participate in the mediation, the rent increase would be invalid. The outcomes of mediation, assuming both parties participate, would be non-binding. The city would likewise contract with the servic service provider to conduct rent reviews and mediation. Lastly, staff will recommend council adopt an anti-harassment ordinance outlining inappropriate actions and

behaviors by which a property owner could engage with a tenant. like the just cause eviction ordinance. Much of this ordinance will replicate state law and support tenants in understanding their rights. Examples of harassment under the ordinance could include, but are not limited to interrupting, failing to provide or threatening to provide threatening to fail to provide housing services under the lease like utilities, abusing or otherwise impro improperly using uh the landlord's right to access the property or interfering with tenants rights to organize as tenants. staff would have already shared a draft of this ordinance with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission who have confirmed its alignment with what other jurisdictions are doing and general regional policy direction. Now, to round out this presentation, I'll speak to our last category of recommendations which concern housing production. Goal five of the housing element is to increase access to affordable housing in New York. Later this fall, we hope to present to the planning commission recommendations on how to adopt council's direction for amending the city's affordable housing program. The quantified objective for this program, 5.2, is to support the financing for 778 new homes during the housing element cycle, including through the expenditure of housing impact fees. The program, which is part of New York Municipal Code 17.18, currently requires housing developers to pay a fee to mitigate their affordable housing impact. As an alternative, developers can build affordable units to meet this requirement. Council have advised and staff will recommend inverting this requirement to prioritize on-site construction of affordable units with payment of a fee as one possible alternative. Council's direction also aligns with policy H5.4. Four, we have both policies and programs in our housing element which commits to updating the affordable

housing program to require residential project applicants to deed restrict a portion of their units to very low, low or moderate income households. This requirement also known as inclusionary zoning or inclusionary housing because it includes the affordable units in the same development as the market rate units. Staff's expectation is that the city would continue implementing program 5.2 in utilizing housing impact fees to finance new affordable homes through something like a notice of funding availability as we did with the SAHA project while also generating new affordable homes through inclusionary requirements which would be built without city funding. Taking into account state law and the challenges of real estate development, staff's recommendation will include alternatives to those on-site inclusionary build requirements, including payment of a housing impact fee. Finally, inclusionary requirements will be regularly reassessed to ensure they neither become an impediment to development nor leave affordable homes on the table. State law requires cities to study the impact of inclusionary housing policies on the financial feasibility of new development. And so to that end, the city contracted with Community Planning Collaborative and Century Urban to model the financial feasibility of various inclusionary percentages on new development. The study included quantitative analysis as well as stakeholder and expert opinion from developers familiar with working in Newark and the surrounding region. The final study will be presented along with staff's recommendations at an upcoming commission meeting and subsequently to city council. And so for next steps uh regarding accessory dwelling units, staff anticipate convening the planning commission for a public hearing as early as October 28th to consider amendments to New York Municipal Code 1726040. Thereafter, or on the same date, staff anticipate convening the commission for

a public hearing to consider amendments to 17.18, the affordable housing program. And later this fall or winter, staff anticipate convening a public hearing of council and late uh to consider ordinances and resolutions related to eight programs H4.1, 4.3, and 4.6, as well as those additional programs I shared with you to prevent displacement and homelessness. Lastly, before I turn it over for questions, I'm very excited to share the good news that Timber Senior Housing, the new uh affordable senior housing community at 37660 Timber Street, is now accepting applications. Timber Senior is a 79 unit apartment community for extremely low and very lowincome uh households over the age of 55. Uh for reference, that's a minimum income of $2,692 a month or just over $32,000 a year for a single person and up to about $72,000 a month for a threeperson households. Timber is the first project for which a live work preference like I talked about with program H4.1 is being applied. There are 40 units for folks exiting or currently at risk of homelessness or who have a housing voucher from the county. Uh the county is responsible for filling those 40 units. But for the remaining 38 units, um the application includes a question whether the applicant lives or works in Newark. New Yorker community members will be ranked highest in a subsequent lottery for leasing those units followed by applicants who live or work in Alama County and then subsequently by a general population. Applications are due this Friday, September 25th by 5:00 p.m. You can see the link on the screen there to housing bay area.tc.ca.gov, but you'll also find a link um to uh to this information featured prominently on the city's web page as well as

housing.orgca.gov. gov. And with that, um, Mr. Balopad and I welcome your questions. Thank you, Michael. That was very, very precise. Very well done. Any questions from Commissioner Fitz? Yes. Uh, on that timber senior housing, they seem to really build that thing really fast. Uh, it's amazing to me. Are they when when is the occupancy? Are they going to have a a grand opening or anything like that coming up later this year? Yeah, thank you for your question. Um, the latest that we've heard reported from the developer is that provided everything goes smoothly with PG&, the building will open for occupancy in January. Wow.

Um, and then they'll probably have a grand opening event in March or April. Um, could be a bit later. Affordable housing month is in May and sometimes they like to, you know, align um these events with affordable housing month which would also be an exciting activity for New York to participate in. Yeah, it was a great project. I can remember going to the groundbreaking ceremony, too. That was good. That seems like record time to build something like that. So, good. It's all I have right now. And does um Newark actually do the vetting process for those 38 units?

The city does not. Uh the application process is very closely managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, our regional government. Okay. Um they um operate a program called Doorway um which is a regional listing service. So anybody who's interested in seeking affordable housing opportunities throughout the 9ount Bay Area can uh visit this housing bay area.tcca.gov website to see available units and add them their names to weight lists.

Okay. Thank you. couple questions or comments. Um, starting with the the inclusionary h housing component of the by the way, excellent presentation. Um, and starting with the inclusionary housing component, I what I do appreciate is as we update our ordinance, having this build first um, revision to it to where we are promoting a developer to come in and effectively build the affordable homes um, in conjunction with the overall project. But I also appreciate the alternative means of compliance. you know, as we look at the timber senior housing project, I believe that was through affordable housing dollars collected through Enlies. And so, an example of when we do collect those fees and have a bucket of proceeds, we can then issue a notice of funding availability and see a project like this. So, I I like having that flexibility of both the alternative means of compliance and then also inclusionary um for when projects are built. On the ADU side, fantastic update. Um I see that we we do are we are attempting to meet that uh threshold of units or ADUs provided by 2031. If it's not already, is it something that because I uh saw we have a website that gives ADU information. Is this something we could promote on our city's social media pages just to get word out and the information out there? Um it's common that we are asked uh ADU information. Uh, I think Art has probably received a few emails from folks that have reached out to me of, hey, go reach out to our planning department. They can give you information. So, the more we can promote this on our social media, our city websites to get word out, the better.

That's all. I do have a couple questions. So, uh, regarding the, um, the rental program, you talked about the non-binding arbitration component. So, if I understand it correctly, it's non-binding. So, as long as the landlord is willing to go through the process, in other words, they can go through the motions. As long as they do that, they can just ignore the mediator's finding and do what they want to do. Is that at the end of the day, is that really what could potentially happen? That is correct, sir. Yes. Um, the mediation is non-binding.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Aguular, he um started talking about the inclusionary housing and those changes. Um, I remember a time when there was a requirement that they be built. Then I remember a time when we were emphasizing being able to basically, you know, make a payment uh in lie. So, it sounds like we're doing kind of a um a combination of that now. So is that correct or am I missing something? So we want to encourage them to build on site but if it makes the project infeasible we want the housing built but we'll allow them to make the inclusionary housing payment in lie of that.

Well I'll answer that in two parts if I may sir. Um, regarding the first part of your question on on the history, um, uh, you would be much more familiar than I, um, but in so far as I have found in my research of the history of this policy in Newark, yes, the city has vacasillated, um, every certain number of years between this build first requirement and accepting the fee. um that is not uncommon being that the real estate market changes regularly and the goal the ultimate goal of this program is to build as many inclusionary units as possible. So there may be times when the market is good and it is possible for projects to include those inclusionary units. Um and there may be times when um it may be necessary for a project in order to be financially feasible to have the certainty of a fee and being able to pay that fee. Um that's what our inclusionary study has evaluated and those are the um um specifics that we look forward to presenting to you later in October or November. Um um regarding the the alternatives, as you all are very familiar, land use, housing, development are all very fickle and change very regularly. Um and so it's important that whatever the city's requirements are, they are responsive to the current market. Um and um and so our recommendations um we expect will also include a provision that um the inclusionary requirement is revisited and reanalyzed um in a certain number of years subsequent to its adoption.

Thank you. That was no criticism by the way. I think this approach, the hybrid approach is the better approach. It gives I think staff and the council um a lot of flexibility to make sure it happens. So thank you. Um the priority system for team uh timber senior housing, you said that um those that live currently live and work in the city of Newark will be given a higher priority. How does that work? Is it a point system?

It's it's a ranking system. Um and so the way that it will work is that um all of the applicants are entered into a single Excel spreadsheet and then they are randomized and selected via lottery. um once those um the lottery spits out um those applications, a ranking will be applied. And so I don't know if there's a specific number of points. Um but um if there were, we could say that Newark community members, those who live or work, would receive five points. Alamina County community members would receive three. And then that general population would not receive any points. So that moved you up, correct?

Potentially in the priority. Okay, great. Thank Commissioner Becker. Just a one other clarification. It's a live work preference, but it's live or work. So, you could either live in Newark and have that residential connection or work in Newark. And Mr. Quum, I don't know if there's a difference in point scoring in living or working, but you would be eligible if you do live or work. Got it. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, go ahead. No, you can on that. Just to clarify on that. So you said there's like a random lottery, but is the lottery picking people who only live or work first or if there's not enough then it is a random lottery adding people who don't live or work or is it random lottery and it's people who live and work and don't live and work altogether. My understanding is that um the lottery is that that randomization function is first applied to all um so whether they don't have to be or work in New York.

No, anybody is certainly eligible. The the specific provision of this policy is that we can't be seen to exclude um those who do not live or work in our community. And so, um, it's very highly regulated by Alama County and the state department of housing and community development. Okay, thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, thank you for your question. And then just continuing with just a couple of more. Um, do we know how many applicants so far? This is a question I was going to ask. Yeah.

Um, so as of a couple of weeks ago, um, we'd heard that they had received approximately 600 applications. Um, which was actually lower than expected. M um and so the application period was reopened and extended um and so we anticipate that we will receive more applications. Okay. And then um I know we probably should know this because uh we were involved in the approval of this. Is it a managed site? So you'll have manager manager on site. Yes, sir. There's a live property manager. Great. Yep. And there's also on-site services.

Okay. Excellent. Okay. Great. Um and then one my last comment is uh under the ADU provisions the goal is 160 ADUs during the life of it. So that's 160 divided by 9 years and you already you had 29 last year 27 so far this year sounds like a goal we're going to be able to hit right it seems so. Okay. Unless there's a complete drop off which I doubt. We're hoping it doesn't lead to that, but we're staying positive. That's all I had. Thank you. Any more from the commission? Any more questions?

No. Okay. Thank you. Right. And there's none from the public on this. So, commission, moving on to item G, commission matters, G1, report on city council action.

Yes. Uh, thank you, Chair Bogus. Just a couple of items to report from city council's regular meeting of September 11th. Uh one of the actions related to community development is that the council approved uh the community development block grant agreement uh with Alama County for fiscal year 26. So that helps to fund uh programs that we've identified uh through funds received from the federal government for the CDBG program. And then second, city council approved a minor use permit for an instructional service use or the dance studio at New Park Mall. Um, this was a use permit that was approved by the director, um, but was called up for review by the city council. Um, and council approved that permit on a five to zero vote.

Okay. Uh, no other actions to report on other than those. Thank you. Thank you. On to item H, planning commissioner comments. Any comments from the planning commissioners? Uh, just one comment. Uh did we were going to have a tenative meeting on November 14th. Is that still in play or is that been changed? We are looking at um um a revision of that uh of that date. Um it it appears to be conflicting with another city uh sponsored event uh on that date. I think it was November 12th,

Mr. um we were asking if anybody was available on November 12th. Um it turns out there's a conflict on that day. Um, so we're going to have to reschedu that to probably the following week. I'm looking at the 18th. I'm double checking that nobody else has booked this room on that day. Um, so let me kind of go through the making sure um that either that day or the 19th that um, you know, one of those days we can use and then we'll we'll follow up with you to make sure we have a quorum. Okay. Okay. But thank you. We do have quite a bit of items that are kind of piling up there. Yeah. That need to be heard. Any other questions or comments? to comment that I thought this the um housing presentation was outstanding. So, thank you guys.

Very nice. And New York Day seemed like it was a success. Very crowded. I walked there on Saturday, lots and lots and lots of people and I'm glad to see that the Lakes place is uh finally going to get repaved because their streets really need it. So, yeah, Community Development had anformational booth on Sunday at the information fair. Uh so we were able to present information on the ADU program as well as some economic development programs that we've been working on. And so it was a really good opportunity to connect with the community on Sunday. All right. Any other comments or questions? No.

Oh, go ahead. No. Oh, you said no. Okay. Thank you. All right. Meeting a journ. Excellent.