Community & Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting of Tuesday, June 9th, 2026. The time is now 1.37 p.m. and this meeting may come to order. Before beginning, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one in to myself or a clerk representative no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time. This meeting came to order at 1.37 p.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after making that time 1.47 p.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council Member Fife excused. Council Member Ramachandran.

Present.

Council Member Unger.

Here.

And Chair Brown. Present. Thank you, we have three members present, one excused, five. Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

Yes, thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for everyone for joining the committee meeting today. I look forward to a very good discussion on the multiple items that we do have. And then I did want to make an announcement for anyone who is interested. The Peralta Community Colleges Board will be deciding on the merging of Merritt College and Laney College this afternoon at 6 p.m. And so if that's something that you are interested in and want to weigh in, that's at 6 o'clock for their board meeting. So I just wanted to make that announcement. Thank you.

Thank you. Starting off with item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of May 26, 2026. We have no speakers on this item and just need a motion.

Excellent, thank you.

I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting of May 26, 2026, also noting the presence of Council Member Fife at 1.39 p.m. On roll for the minutes, Council Member Fife. Aye. Council Member Ramachandran. Aye. Council Member Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item one passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes from May 26th, 2026. Item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we have one speaker on this item.

Perfect, thank you so much. Committee members or the administration, anything to add for the pending list?

Through the chair, no.

Excellent, thank you so much. We'll hear the public speaker.

Calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number two, Mrs. Sada-Olivalla. Okay, all names have been called. We just need a motion.

Excellent, I'll entertain a motion on the pending list.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. On roll, Council Members Five. Aye.

Ramachandran.

Aye. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item two passes with four ayes, so accept the pending list as is. Reading in item number three. Adopt an ordinance authorizing the city administrator to negotiate and execute the following, sorry, a lease and management agreement between the city as landlord and Sharks Ice LLC as tenant to operate the Oakland Ice Center for an initial five-year term with four five-year extension options at a rate of $335,000 in base rent per year, less an annual capital contribution by the city of $100,000 with an annual tenant capital contribution of $100,000 and percentage rent of 7% of annual gross revenue above $4.3 million. B, an advertising revenue sharing agreement with the tenant retaining the first $100,000 and the city receiving 50% of the remaining net advertising revenue for a five-year term with four five-year extension options. C, the use of $1,344,910 in capital reserve funds and up to $500,000 in anticipated net revenue in fiscal year 2025 to 2026 to reimburse Sharks Ice LLC for losses realized under the current management agreement and the disbursement agreement with the sharks ll sharks ice llc in an amount of 10 million dollars of measure u bond funds for a new refrigeration system and related capital improvements and two making findings that the lease for below fair market rental value is the best interest is in the best interest of the city and adopting appropriate california environmental quality act findings and we have a number of speakers on the side.

Excellent, thank you so much. I believe we will hear from our EWD team on this one. Thank you, Brendan.

Good afternoon, Brenda Moriarty, Director of Real Estate and Special Projects within the Economic and Workforce Development Department. I'll do a brief presentation here to answer questions as well. We also have a longtime EWD employee who's been working on this asset for even longer than me, like decades really, so he's available for deep historical questions as well, and we have some stakeholders here. Why don't we go ahead with the slides then? And I'll first just say I'm really excited to be here. This is a long time in the coming. We've been negotiating this set of agreements as long as I've been at the city now, about six years. Let's just start with what the asset we're talking about, where we're looking. This is the Oakland Ice Center outlined in red. It's directly on the other side of the street from the Fox Oakland Theater in downtown. It takes up most of the block there. This is a city-owned facility. I meant to put a more current picture. Now there's this really beautiful mural on this side of the building featuring Alyssa Liu. This is her home training ice, our own Olympic gold medalist. There's a nice mural of her on the front there. Okay, so let me give a little bit of background on the asset and why we're here today. So this is one of the city's most heavily used recreational facilities. It serves nearly 137,000 visitors in a typical one-year period, driving foot traffic really at almost all hours of the day and night because of the high demand for ice time. There's a portfolio of community benefits and services that are provided through the ICE Center, including discounts for Oakland residents, about 27,000 served every year in that regard. Free programming for Oakland public schools, we have over 5,000 public school kids coming into the ICE Center every year. There's scholarships provided to young people as well. Employees Oakland residents, as I said, it's the home of Alyssa Liu. and also recently announced the new home for the upstart minor league Oakland Skates hockey team. They have a representative here today. The ice center is managed by Sharks Ice, which is an affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, the NHL franchise based in San Jose. And they've managed this facility since 2007, so deep experience and understanding of the asset. We have a management agreement that provides for them managing the asset on our behalf. So it's a fee for service kind of arrangement right now. And that runs through 2027 and there's an extension through 2032 if we'd like to exercise that. But there's some issues that have caused us to really want to rework how we structure this relationship. And that's what I'll present today. One of the key issues here is that the city is exposed to operational complexities and financial risk as a result of the way that things are set up right now. This is our asset. At the end of the day, the losses are the city's to bear. To that point, the Sharks are carrying about $1.8 million in losses on behalf of the city that were incurred really as a result of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, the asset was producing net positive revenue. and the city was realizing profit out of that on the order of $200,000 to $300,000 a year. The graph you see here is showing net operating income, not city's take-home profit, because in these figures, we actually have to subtract out the fee that we pay the Sharks to run the facility, we take out money we set aside for capital expenditures, that sort of thing. But anyways, you see the trend here that it was positive and looking good prior to the pandemic. It crashed. There were deep losses for particularly in fiscal year 21. And it's been recovering, but we're not yet at that pre-pandemic position. We're also challenged by what is really kind of an existential issue for this facility. It uses a refrigerant, R22, that is no longer allowed under international treaty because of its ozone depleting properties. So the international stockpile of refrigerant and supplies is limited. It's getting drawn down and there will be a point where it won't be possible to operate that system anymore. And it's also just old. It breaks down. It's problematic. The facility also is in need of a facelift overall. City Council in September of last year took an action to authorize the sale of $300 million in Measure U bonds that happened in December. The action was in September, the sale was in December, and City Council identified the projects that would get funded through that. This was identified as one of those projects. $10 million to replace this system. So what I'm presenting today is to deliver, put that money to work. So it's consistent with that earlier policy direction. So what is the actual new agreement going to look like? Now it would be a lease and management agreement. So rather than kind of a fee for service, you're working for us, you're running this on our behalf, it's rather we're going to lease the facility to the Sharks, we're going to share on the upside. It would be a five-year initial term with four five-year options, a fixed annual base rent of $335,000 with annual increases for inflation, I should flag here, that's 335 fixed, whereas today, again, we're not getting anything. We haven't seen profits since before the pandemic. So we go from zero to 335 in base rent, just on that bullet alone. In addition, there would be 7% of gross revenues per year above a threshold of $4.3 million. 7% of that increment above 4.3 would come to the city by way of revenue share. That threshold would increase by inflation every year, that same inflation factor. Just as frame of reference, the facility had 4.4 million in gross revenues in 25. So if that number held today, there'd be a moderate, about $100,000 revenue share that the 7% would apply to. We believe the numbers aren't in yet for this fiscal year. We believe it's gonna climb up to about 4.6. And as the facility's improved, that number's gonna continue to grow. So there will be some real revenue there for the city. the city would also get 50% of advertising revenue above $100,000 per year. Any naming rights sale, which the Sharks would have rights to do, subject to the city's approval of that specific naming, that would contribute to this number. So 50% of advertising revenue above $100,000 a year would come to the city. The city would provide that $10 million in bond funds, which are sitting in an account. Again, the sale happened in December. They're ready to be put to work. The project would be delivered by the Sharks as the expert in sort of ice center operation and capital issues. And it would be delivered by them with city oversight. The Sharks would then be responsible for the routine maintenance repair of the facility. That would just come out of their own operations, their own financial cash flow that they're generating off the facility, their responsibility. the city and the Sharks would both contribute $100,000 every year to a capital expenditure reserve so that there's ongoing just upkeep. So we don't end up in a place, hopefully, in years to come where we have deep investments that we have to make to modernize the facility. But overall, it would minimize the city's responsibilities, certainly with respect to day-to-day operation, but also in a kind of larger management sense. We would be responsible for upkeep of solar panels on the roof. We've just repaired those. They're in good shape now. We would be responsible for some code compliance issues if they arose, if we discovered any. And then we'd be responsible for extraordinary things, like if there was a foundation issue or a deep interior electrical issue. Almost done here. The arrangement would allow for Ice Center customers to park in the Dalziel Garage, so that's the basement garage in the city center complex here after hours. So that keeps that garage active when city workers have typically left for the day, and the Sharks would pay their share of what that costs. And then they would continue to be on the hook for providing a suite of community benefits, basically would look like what it looks today, but with a threshold now codified in the contract that says it has to be worth at least, those services have to be worth at least $325,000 a year. In reality, right now, they measure about $700,000 a year. Resolution management agreements, this would be terminated, existing agreement would be terminated on June 30th of this year. The new lease would take, would be effective July 1. We would wrap up that agreement so that the $1.8 million in losses that the sharks are carrying are settled. That would just use basically existing net operating incomes that are held in reserve at the facilities today to pay that off. So we have those net proceeds are sitting reserved for the OIC. They were generated from OIC operations. They were dedicated for capital expenditures. We're going to basically take that to settle out this agreement. Okay, so basically the final slide here. So staff does recommend that we go ahead with these agreements because it would preserve the ice center, would address that sort of existential issue with the $10 million capital repair. It would preserve its community and economic benefits as a driver of activity in downtown, a place where a lot of kind of community and athletic activity happens. It would remove the city from day-to-day operational complexities and financial exposure. It would establish a predictable annual revenue, so that's that base rent, but also establish upside potential for the city. That total consideration, when you look at the community benefits and other things, it does exceed the fair market value, fair market rental value of the site. so and then finally we think that's a fair resolution of the management agreement um using the remaining funds that are on hand at the at the facility to settle the outstanding losses so that is the presentation again available for questions thank you for your patience excellent thank you so much brendan for walking us through the details um so easily thank you um any questions um council member fife

Yes. Brendan, I think through the chair, we've been working on this the entire time we've both been here. So I just can't say enough about the work that's gone into this project in terms of being a win-win for all parties involved. I just wanted to get clear. I didn't see it, but maybe you can help me. The revenues that will come into the city, will they go into the general purpose fund or will they be set aside with the revenue sharing and all of the different revenues that are now going to be generated? Will they go to the general purpose fund or will a portion or can a portion be set aside for the operations in that general footprint? Because I do want to say that Glenn has been an amazing partner too. and has talked about supporting with just being a brain trust for First Friday activities. So I just wonder what that would look like in terms of the revenues.

Right. Good question. So through the chair, the facility was originally built using a loan of redevelopment bond funds. So because that was originating source of money to create this asset, the revenues generated off of it can't go to the general fund. They have to be dedicated for redevelopment purposes. So that means we can use them to You take care of our responsibilities at this asset. So if there is an issue with the solar panels, those revenues could be used. We could use it to address issues at the Fox Theater, the Scotland Convention Center, any redevelopment purpose. That could even include affordable housing.

So any redevelopment purpose through the entire city of Oakland?

Let me just confirm that.

Okay, got it. Who was that back there?

That was Jens Helmer.

I thought that was Jens.

You know that guy?

Jens, come on, man.

Huge credit to Jens. He's held this asset together for the city for so long. So the redevelopment, if we're going to spend that money on redevelopment purposes, not put affordable housing aside for a second, just other redevelopment purposes, that has to be in the central district of the city. So that's like Scotland, Fox, etc., affordable housing could be anywhere in the city, though.

Understood. So in general, it's the footprint of the facility, but if it's specifically housing, it's anywhere.

Housing can be anywhere. Affordable housing can be anywhere in the city.

And then, Chair, if I may ask if Jens could come up.

Hi, Jens Lemore, EWD.

Hello. It's been a minute. And I know we worked on something like this around the Marriott as well, just in terms of deferred maintenance and their need to keep up with some of the repairs that were needed. And I just want to be absolutely sure that if there are needs that come up, do the funds have to go into a specific line item?

No, they cannot pay for operations, but they can pay for anything else. So they can pay for capital improvements, which is what the money would be used for primarily. Capital improvements either at the Fox or at the Scotland or hopefully at the Ice Rink. That's where we would like to target those funds.

Is the paramount included?

The Paramount is in the Central District and would be a recipient, but the Paramount Board, I believe, is sort of self-managing that facility and has thus far not relied on any city subsidies for that project.

I feel like they've asked, but we can just talk offline about what the needs are in that particular footprint. Thank you so much for all your help.

Thank you very much.

Excellent, thank you so much Council Member Pfeiffer asking that question. That was one of my questions around where the funds go. So that definitely provided some clarity. I just have three questions. So one question that I had was what would be the impacts on services during the capital, like during the initial, the capital project that is being done?

I would want to defer to the Sharks because they have the operational plan there. But I do believe the facility would need to be shut down for a period of time. This is a pretty profound capital project. You drain the ice out of the rinks. You have to rebuild the piping underneath the rinks that run the refrigerant and provide the cooling, electrical systems, plumbing systems. And they can speak more to that. So if you're interested, we can call them up for that. John, are you available? Yes.

Hear me? John Gustafson, Senior Vice President, Shark Sports Entertainment. In response to your question, we would have to close the facility for roughly four months, and we would traditionally do that in the slowest ice time, so in the middle of the summer, to allow us to expedite all the construction process that we need to do so we're back up and running to hit when traditional ice sports is at its peak, which is in September.

Excellent. And since you're there, I think my one of the questions that I had, maybe you can answer it. This the report mentions that the sharks will basically choose the vendors to do this work. And then I had this question around, like, is it kind of more of a niche project? And so will we be able to select a local vendor? Or how does that work?

So the ICE system in itself is very, very specialized. So we've used a company out of Minnesota, which, again, specializes in this, and we'd want to bring the very best to make sure that we get all the things that we needed.

Okay, excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, and then my last question was just from the PowerPoint. Brendan, you mentioned that There is a reimbursement for losses that we would need to do. How much is that?

In total, that is $1,844,910, up to that amount. We actually... Actually, that's the authorization for funds that we can use to pay it down. Let me see if we have the actual number of losses here. It's on the order of $1.8 million.

1.8, okay.

All right, thank you.

Colleagues, any questions? Okay, we can hear the public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three in no particular order, you can come up to the podium, state your name for the record before beginning, or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified. Karen Kiki Flatterty, sorry if I am mispronouncing your names, Zach Sayre, Arthur Liu, John Gutterson, Asada Olavalla, Daniel Witt, and Glen Martin.

in view of Newmont's bankruptcy as the comptroller and caller in Del Monte, I, Princess of England, chose to challenge Carl Mazzetti in the view of the right of the ownership agreement as the two principal owners of the Seattle Kraken, and in this bid, have challenged the right of review as the ownership group with Edward Foley and Michael Johnson. for the view of the lease agreement. I wish to propose an application to move into theater a request for an Oakland hockey team called the Oakland Dragons as an ECHL of validity. As a private individual within the allocation of the Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Melinda Gates is buying of my 51% ownership of the Seattle Kraken, the complimentary term of the indictment or the agreement was to look at the JW Marriott building as a potential home for the ECHL expansion. I am interested as the fiduciary agent comptor controller of bringing in what is known as the Oakland Dragons as a parent team in to England upon arrival as the next monarch. I am asking that in view of this proposal, the city considered a tax abatement where this is a bond proposal and a expansion using the tickets as a freeway to use the bus on the back of the ticket in a way to drive economic revenue downtown where the playing field as the center is where they practice and there's a little bit more community outreach for the school system

Thank you for your comments, your time is up.

Good afternoon. My name is Kiki Flaherty, and I've been a resident of Oakland for 22 years. I'm also a member of the Dire Wolves, which is a hockey team that plays on Sundays at Oakland Ice, and I'm also a player and president of the San Francisco Earthquakes LGBTQ Plus Ice Hockey Club. The Earthquakes are a diverse, all-inclusive hockey team welcoming LGBTQ and other players who traditionally have not played hockey. We create a safe, inclusive space for all to enjoy the recreation, inspiration, community, and just plain fun that hockey offers. Oakland Ice Center has welcomed my team for two of our marquee events, which were generously funded by the Sharks Foundation. The California Pride Invitational, which brought over 80 players and fans from throughout California to the facility and to downtown Oakland for the entire weekend. And Hockey with Pride, which is a hockey outreach scrimmage and mixer to bring even more hockey players from Oakland and the East Bay to our team and let them know about the programs that Oakland Ice offers. Without this facility and the shark support, we would have had to look beyond Oakland for ice for these events. And we were so welcomed and supported by the staff at Sharks Ice in Oakland that we decided to locate our next team in Oakland at Oakland Ice. But we can only do this with ice. And the refrigeration system, as you know, is a necessary and big deal. So your support to make this happen would be very greatly appreciated. The facility badly needs the capital improvements, as you know. On a personal note, I had the fortune of being in Milan and seeing Alyssa Liu skate. Talk about a fantastic representation of Oakland. And special thanks to Councilmember Fife. Sorry about that. Councilmember Fife.

Council members, good afternoon. I'm Arthur Liu. I'm the proud father of Alyssa Liu and four other wonderful children. I can't forget about them. Well, Alyssa and all my children grew up in the Oakland Ice Center. Alyssa started skating there at age five, and since I'm a single father, so when I go, I usually bring all the kids there. So Oakland Ice Center is our second home. So I'm here today to ask for your continuous support for Sharks on Ice and the Oakland Ice Center. It's so very important. Without this facility, I would not have been able to raise an Olympic champion. So thanks to your support and also thanks to Sharks on Ice. They have treated us so well. Thank you so much.

Pretty hard to follow that. John Gustafson, Senior Vice President of Shark Sports Entertainment. First off, I really want to thank staff. Jens and I have had the opportunity to work together for 19 years. And of course, Brendan, for bringing this forth, because this is truly a big thing for our organization. During that time that we've been operating, we've worked together to create a facility that serves thousands of Oakland residents and families each year through youth hockey, figure skating, public session, learn to skate and other recreational opportunities. We're proud of what we've accomplished together and we remain committed to providing these opportunities for years to come. The lease agreement before you today represents a significant commitment by the Sharks organization to Oakland. Not only does it secure our presence and operations at the Oakland Ice Center for up to 25 years, but it also provides the framework for the much-needed infrastructure and facility improvements that will allow this building to continue to serve the community well into the future. the long-term partnership provides stability for our customers our employees and many youth and community programs that rely on this facility each and every day we respectfully ask for your support staff's recommendation and approval of the lease agreement before you today thank you for your time consideration and of course i'm here to answer any questions thank you very much

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Daniel Witt. I'm an Oakland resident with two kids attending Redwood Heights Elementary, but today I come before you as a co-founder and president of the Oakland Hockey Project and Oakland's newest sports team, a hockey team called the Oakland Skates. We're launching this year as a semi-professional team rooted in Oakland, built to reflect the diversity, energy, and pride of this community. Our goal isn't just to compete, it's to create a new, accessible sports culture in Oakland, one where families can easily afford to attend games, where local youth can more than just see themselves on the ice, and where hockey can once again become part of this city's identity. The Oakland Ice Center will be the home rink for the skates' inaugural season starting this fall, and for this reason and many more, that's why I'm here in strong support of the proposed lease and capital investments that are under consideration. This investment takes the ice center to the next level. The upgraded facility will allow us to host regional tournaments, and within the next few years, the playoffs for the Mountain Hockey League, which is the league that the Skates will be joining for this inaugural season this fall. This means bringing visiting teams, families, fans from across California and beyond, filling hotels, restaurants, and shops, and generating new revenue for the city. It also positions the Ice Center alongside other successful sports catalysts we're seeing in Oakland, helping to anchor continued economic revitalization, specifically in downtown. The San Jose Sharks have been a strong and consistent supporter of the skates during our launch and of the community with their management of the rink to date. Their leadership and investment in East Bay have helped to expand access to on ice sports and passing this measure will ensure that future growth is both sustainable and community focused. I respectfully urge your support of this item and I invite each of you to join us for your inaugural season starting this fall at the Oakland Ice Center. Thank you.

Hopefully I can bring it home for us. I'm Glenn Martin, the general manager of the Oakland Ice Center, council member. The Ice Center celebrates 30 years this year of serving Oakland. It's fitting that we take the important step to secure its future in asking for approval for the term sheet between the San Jose Sharks and the city of Oakland but three decades now the ice center has been a community cornerstone bringing families together developing athletes who represented Oakland on the world stages including Olympic gold medalist Alyssa Liu along with many other skaters hockey players and even curlers who proudly call the facility home Approval of this term sheet also creates the opportunity for modernizing the renovation of the facility for 30 years of service that it's provided. This is badly needed. The investment also preserves the community asset, supporting future generations and ensuring the Oakland Lake Center continues as a source of pride for the decades to come. Thank you.

so it's a good thing that you have this facility but everybody can't use it uh it works for certain people if you got money so the sharks agree to pay for field trips for at least a thousand oakland stu uh school district students as well as offer every student enrolled in after school programs free ice time is that in the new contract that was in the old contract The old contract said that you would supply $100,000 annually for maintenance. The new contractual arrangement says that you have $100,000 for capital reserves. What does that mean? It's good that you have a commitment for capital projects related to this facility. You still haven't made a commitment to the Oakland Police Administrative Building related to the necessity of that capital project being put in place. You need to make clear how the free parking is paid for. When I read it, I assumed that the city was paying for free parking. There's no way in the documentation that I read that said the free parking will be paid for by the Sharks organization. You also have something that said how we get revenue. Previously, the SHARC managed rank had a fee, did not pay a fee, but would pay 70% of all revenues would go to them and then we would get some kind of revenues. I think it's different now. What is the exact amount of revenue we're gonna get? It's not clear, okay? So I'm concerned about clarity of the maintenance that they're gonna take care of. They say solar, panels, and foundations. Lastly, you advertised for the hiring of a refrigeration engineer who paid for their salary to take care of whatever needed to be done related to the

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item.

Excellent. Thank you so much. So definitely, I'm happy to support this item. Thank you so much to staff and everyone that had a hand in bringing and working on this comprehensive agreement. And I will refer to Council Member Fife, since you've had the opportunity to work on this item.

I would like it to be stated for the public about the participation of of the public school youth um at the oakland eye center and how that's going to work moving forward i do know several schools in west oakland that utilize the center so if staff or maybe someone um glenn or john could speak to that i would appreciate that

A question specifically around will OUSD students still have the ability to access the iCenter?

Yes, they will. Nothing changes going forward.

Can that be confirmed from staff?

That's right. Through the chair, we're taking the existing set of community benefits required in the management agreement, which includes that as well as a whole bunch of other things, and we're moving it into this agreement, too.

Thank you, and through the chair, Dan, if you could talk about the Oakland Skates program, because I know that's something we've talked about in the past, about accessibility for Oakland residents to participate.

Yes, so the Oakland Hockey Project is technically the parent organization of the Oakland Skates, and that's really meant to be indicative of our sort of entrenchment and commitment to the community through the nonprofit side of that entity. We intend to inject a lot of the revenues that we get from not just this inaugural season, but from continued seasons at the Oakland Ice Center to... address some of the cost barriers, not just for the equipment, but also ice to enable Oakland youth to access the facility more regularly. Going back to some of the recent studies that have been done about OUSD and specifically sports, we know that on ice sports, not just hockey by the way, are some of the most desired sports for Oakland youth. That is our sweet spot. That is where we intend to focus our time and attention.

Thank you for sharing that. And if you have not been to a game, I definitely encourage folks to go. Super exciting. I played hockey as a kid. And I think it's important for kids to have other opportunities outside of sports where they hit their heads and get concussions and things like that. So although this could happen in hockey. but we're gonna we're gonna keep it safe for our oakland youth so thank you for sharing that and i will make a motion to move this to for the first read um because it's an ordinance to the tuesday next tuesday city council meeting on june 16th excellent second thank you we have a motion made by council member five seconded by chair brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the june 16th 2026 city council agenda on role council members

Five. Aye. Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you. Item number three passes with four ayes to forward this item to the June 16 City Council agenda on consent. Reading in item number four, adopt an ordinance as recommended by the Planning Commission amending title 17 of the Oakland Municipal Code, updating the accessory dwelling unit regulations for consistency with state law and providing written findings pursuant to government code 66326B. Two, revising discontinuance standards for non-conforming activities. Three, removing applicability of S10 scenic route combining zone discretionary standards to ministerial design review for permitting recreational assembly activities in the Wood Street DWS 9 zone. five revising minimum front setback in d dash co dash two zone six removing a review deadline from development agency or sorry development agreement procedure in section seventeen point one thirty eight point zero three zero and seven seven revising utility screening standards in section seventeen point one twenty four point zero forty five Eight, incorporating conforming and clerical revisions. And nine, making a sequel findings. And we have two speakers on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much. And we will hear from staff on this item.

Good afternoon. Excuse me. on behalf of Strategic Planning, Planning Bureau. I'm here to present a summary of the proposed planning code amendments package. If I may ask to bring up the presentation. Thanks so much. Next slide. Okay, so I'll begin with the proposed ADU-related amendments followed by the substantive non-ADU code changes and then highlight some key conforming and clerical revisions and conclude with the staff recommendation. So, the city's ADU ordinance has evolved over time to remain consistent with the state law. The original ordinance was adopted in January 2022 and later updated in both 2024 and 2025. Most recently, in December of last year, 2025, the city received a findings letter from state HCD included with the staff report. In response, planning staff outlined the changes necessary to maintain full compliance with the state law. So following are three recommended minor changes that we're proposing. First one is a clerical change to update statute numbers to reflect the current statute numbers. Second is to remove subjective visibility criteria and third to remove subjective predominant criteria and replace it with more objective, similar with visually matching. There are also two HCD findings for which staff does not recommend any changes. So the first one, state HCD claims that the ATU regulations in S9 zone are inconsistent with state law and gives the city two options. one is to amend the ordinance to comply with state law and two to adopt the ordinance with findings supporting the city's determination that the regulations comply with state law so staff recommendation and response to hcd was that the city has already satisfied the second option by adopting findings supporting its atu regulations in the s9 combining zone The findings were adopted with the original ADU ordinance in January 2022 and then reaffirmed in ordinance adopted in June 2024. And therefore, city has complied with state law and no changes are proposed. Second, finding state HCD claims that creating a preference for ADU location other than the front setback first as specified in code section isn't confident with the government code, with the state law, because it precludes an ADU of at least 800 square feet. Staff recommendation and response in the meeting with HCD on April 20, 2026, planning staff clarified that the state HCD and state HCD acknowledged that while ordinance establishes preferred ADU locations, it does not prohibit front yard ADUs when no other feasible locations exist on the site. And the city is also making additional findings in the proposed ordinance to establish that ADUs are not prohibited in the front setback. And so the city is compliant with the state law. Staff also met with, as I mentioned, with the state HCD staff on April 20th and we also showed the HCD the existing findings for item number one. So I'll briefly summarize the proposed substantive and non-ATU code changes. The first change is to revise discontinuance standards for non-conforming activities. We propose to eliminate ambiguous purposeful abandonment standard in the planning code and establish a clear 60-day time frame for cessation of these non-conforming operations. Second change is impacting the S10 zone. Just to clarify that only objective standards apply to ministerial design review projects, but discretionary criteria will continue to apply to regular design review projects. Next proposal is regarding Wood Street, allowing recreational assembly activities such as plazas, community gardens, and so on in DWS 9 zone without a conditional use permit. Next change is regarding Coliseum, providing a consistent 10-foot front setback along the west side of Hegenberger Road. Next change is to remove a review deadline for development agreements that does not align with the DA approval process. See the final one, and I think the final change here is to clarify undergrounding and screening standards for utilities such as electrical transformers. So finally, here are just several examples of clerical and conforming revisions. These include revising maximum residential density in DDT height areas five and six in downtown and updating the maximum height in DDT height area nine. There were some errors made previously and we're just correcting those errors. I won't read all of them, just maybe one other. We were proposing to reintroduce economically feasible definition to maintain an existing cross-reference with Title 15 of Auckland Municipal Code. Other things such as replacing dwelling unit with living unit throughout the planning code in some instances to be more inclusive. This brings me to the end of presentation. I'll just leave the staff recommendation up here, and we'll welcome any questions from city council and public.

Excellent, thank you so much for the report. I know that it takes a lot of due diligence to bring the city into some of the state regulations, and so thank you for your work on that. Colleagues, any questions or comments? We can go to the public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number four, Victor Adjaye and Asado Olabale.

Good afternoon. Appreciate the opportunity to comment. We understand the city's interest in regulating legal nonconforming truck related uses, but we want to make sure the proposed legislation does not unintentionally penalize property owners who are acting in good faith to continue an existing lawful industrial use. Our comments are focused on the proposed changes to section 17.114.050.C regarding discontinuance of a nonconforming truck related industrial activity. As we understand it, the proposed language would provide that the right to continue a non-conforming truck-related industrial activity immediately expires if the use discontinues active operation for more than 60 days. Our property has historically been used for trucking related industrial activity. These types of industrial sites are an important part of the city's existing industrial land use pattern and help support Port of Oakland related operations, which are a vital part of the city and regional economy. The proposed language causes concern because in practice, a gap in tenant occupancy does not mean the owner has discontinued the use. When a tenant vacates or a lease terminates, that is often outside the control of the property owner. During that period, the owner may be actively marketing the site, negotiating with replacement tenants, making repairs, and so on. Maintenance, repair, and construction work are also part of actively operating this type of facility. These good faith activities are part of active operation of the industrial use and can easily take longer than 60 days. For those reasons, we are seeking confirmation that in applying the proposed legislation, the city would interpret active operation to include good faith efforts by a property owner to continue the same lawful industrial use, including retenanting efforts and maintenance repairs and construction. This confirmation is important because reinvestment in these properties often requires construction maintenance.

This is what I understood. You submitted some documents to the state and the state identified that you had, you needed to correct errors and inconsistencies within certain issues. had to be addressed. Errors, and it's a lot, it's a lot. One of the things that stood out to me around the free safety adequate evacuation in attachment C, staff identified that South Piedmont is served well with bus stops, and they identified buses 646, 652, and 682 Bus uses, those three buses are for the school district. They only operate to pick up students in the morning and drop them off in the evening. This is misleading. It's as if buses are available in case of an evacuation and that's not the case. So I'm concerned if staff was intentionally misleading or staff didn't know what the hell they were doing. One of the two, that needs to be corrected. You also had limited permitting with ADUs. The city must allow for conversion of, within certain scope of work, of garages. You can use garages now. It says that you have to create additional kitchens some kind of way, free safety parking compromise, ADU, Non-profit organizations have a different way that they can build. You have to correct that. You have to correct that you cannot be made to plant trees.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olavalla. Chair, that concludes all speakers on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much. Did the District 7 office have a question? Go ahead, Evelyn.

There you go. Evelyn Vega on behalf of, apologies, regarding his concern for this item of a setback of 10 feet off of Hellingenberger. He would like to hold on this item as he believes is their concern regarding the development in that area. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you so much for the comment. So I have two questions for staff. So the first one, can you, I guess I'll start with the District 7 office one. In my notes, I have it under... What is it, 17.101H.03, footnote number two, establishes a consistent 10-foot medium setback along Hagenberger Road, aligning with all other zones along this gateway corridor that already require a 10-foot... front setback, so Hagenburger Road and Oakport Street. When I talked to Councilmember Houston about this item, I think he was specifically asking, does the Port of Oakland also have those same requirements?

So this only applies to a very small area because this is a, this zone, it only applies to the area, it's just south of the Coliseum on the west side of Hagenberger. And actually one of the parcels is owned by the city of Oakland itself. And then two of the other parcels already have developments on them currently. So that would not affect those parcels. South of the Coliseum.

And so is that the city-owned site, is that where youth, where there's a housing group? I'm blanking on their name. Yes. Yeah, Youth Spirit Artworks. Is that the site? Like, am I in the right area? Yes. Okay. So I'm not sure how the committee wants to take the feedback from the D7 office, but I think that my recommendation, if we move the item along, can Planning and Building be sure to meet with Councilmember Houston to kind of explain the specifics and why this recommendation is on the table, if that seems appropriate to my colleagues. And then the other question that we heard from the public speaker I believe that's on section 17.114.050C, and I'm thinking that the question is around, so it basically states, clarifies the standard when a non-conforming truck activities and it basically says it eliminates the undefined purposeful abandonment standard and establishes a 60-day time frame and I feel like the public speaker is just asking for some clarity around like I guess you know what is a true definition of I guess being active like versus purposeful abandonment that we are now removing.

Right, I can start and then maybe also our city attorney can add to that. But essentially this item stems from our environmental justice element that basically wants the city to look at non-conforming uses that are in residential neighborhoods causing harm of either pollution or lots of trucks going through residential neighborhoods. And so this is something that has been an objective of the city as well as the residents and was adopted by the city council. And so what previously had been done originally was there was actually a zero day standard for nonconforming uses in this and there was the purposeful abandonment was what was stated in that code section. and there was an appeal on that. It was decided that wasn't clear what purposeful abandonment meant, so that is the change we are proposing, so we are no longer talking about purposeful abandonment, but that after 60 days, that these businesses would then no longer be reinstated. This is similar to language we have for all of our other types of nonconforming uses, which we've had for years, and most cities have this as well. And so it's more that the use is not being used for 60 days and not whether a business owner or a property owner is still trying to lease the property for another use, because the purpose is that we actually want this use to stop in these areas.

I see. And then just to make sure I'm understanding it correctly, at first the standard was zero, was it zero day? It was zero and now it's 60. Now it's 60. Okay.

I don't know if Mike Branson wants to add to this.

I'll just add a little bit. Actually, several years ago it was 90 days. And then after the environment of justice element was adopted, there was a proposal to be a little tighter on that out of a concern about certain trucking uses near residential neighborhoods. So that's when it was revised down to zero days. Under state law, you need to have an intention aspect to removing nonconforming. So there was a purposeful abandonment language added, but it wasn't a defined term and it became very difficult to implement as we saw on an appeal at Planning Commission. And so the 60 days is really intended to continue to move in the direction that the environmental justice element directs, while also offering something that is a little bit easier for both staff and the public to understand what the expectation is around it. I know that there's still conversations perhaps about amortization language, and I'm sure that there will be further exploration around the topic of legal nonconforming, but right now staff needs something that can be more regularly implementable.

Excellent, thank you, thank you for that. So to the public speaker, someone from my team is happy to connect with you and then we can also identify if there's where the specific location is and we can connect you with the district team as well. And chances are they're probably there on the side there that they can assist you. So thank you so much for showing up and for the question as well. So colleagues, any, Council Member Phyfe?

If we could, through the chair, have the speaker tell us where the business is located and if you've contacted our departments, our staff yet.

Thank you. We're located at 4831 Tidewater here in Oakland. I think we contest that it's not driving through a residential area. It's very much an industrial road there and in the broader area. Thank you for the response. We are just trying to clarify as well what active operation means and i think our clarification here is that as property owners we are putting an investment into the building and that investment sometimes takes more than 60 days and so if you are clarifying that our active operation stops 60 days after we have a tenant in there that we feel is too restrictive

I understand, I just wanted to understand what district this was located and definitely encourage you to talk to those people over there.

Yeah, I think it's District 7, right?

Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Excellent. All right, any other additional questions or comments on this item? Okay, I'll make the motion to move this to the full council meeting June the 16th.

I'll second. Thank you, we have a motion made by Chair Brown, seconded by Council Member Five to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the June 16th, 2026 City Council Agenda on Rule, Council Members Five. Aye. Ramachandran.

Aye.

Aye. Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item number four passes with four ayes to forward this item to the June 16th City Council agenda and to the chair, is that on consent? Yes. Thank you. Okay, now reading in item five. Receive an informational report on the City of Oakland's general plan and housing element annual progress reports for calendar year 2025 and we have three speakers that signed up to speak.

Excellent, and we'll hear from staff on this item.

Good afternoon, council members and the public. My name is Laura Kaminski. I'm the strategic planning manager. And Kate, if you can have the presentation, please. I'm also here with Caleb Smith, who's with the Housing Community Development Department. So we're going to be doing a joint presentation. So the purpose of the Housing Element Annual Progress Report is to assess the city's progress implementing the housing programs and meeting the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, or the RHNA, committed to the Sixth Cycle Housing Element. Oakland's total arena is 26,251 units, and the annual progress report is required pursuant to the California law, and the APR must be submitted to the California Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation and the California Department of Housing Community Development by April 1st of every year. At this meeting, I'll be providing an overview of the content reported to the 2025 General Plan Annual Progress Report and the 2025 Housing Element Annual Progress Report. So I'm first going to go over the content for the 2025 General Plan Annual Progress Report. As I'm sure you're aware, we're currently working on the General Plan Phase 2 update, which focuses on four elements shown here. The 2025 General Plan Annual Progress Report includes updates from staff regarding general plan implementation and update activity that occurred during the calendar year of 2025. The city conducted extensive committee engagement to inform the Phase 2 of the General Plan update. Um, these are a number of the other initiatives that happened, um, during the 2025 that are listed on this screen, such as, um, you know, over the years, we've also adopted the downtown open specific plan and various other specific plans. We have a safety element, uh, and we're, as we're also updating the open space conservation recreation element. We also have another approved or ongoing projects, and these include the Brooklyn Basin, West Oakland BART TOD, Lake Merritt BART TOD, and Oak Knoll Mixed Use Community. So now I'm gonna provide an overview of the content reported in the 2025 Housing Annual Progress Report. So the Annual Progress Report form provided by the California State HCD collects information on housing units proposed, entitled, and permitted and completed in the reporting year. Definitions of these include proposed is when you, is for a planning permit that's been applied for, entitled is when it's been approved as a planning permit, permitted is when it's actually, the billing permit is issued, and completed is when the building is finished. So there was 1,007 units that were proposed in 2025, 1,944 units that were entitled, and 712 units that were permitted, and 1,391 that were completed. So now I'm gonna go over some of the definitions of, oh, sorry. In fact, I'm gonna leave this to Caleb, who's gonna take over this part of the presentation.

Thank you, Laura. Caleb Smith for the City of Oakland's Housing Community Development Department. So in the annual progress report, we're not just looking at the total amount of housing production permitting and such like. We're also looking at how this is related across the different income bands. And the state of California uses a standard based off of area median income. In 2025, the year that's relevant for this information, for a family of four, that was $159,800. We see that area median income is based on a countywide level, so it's often affected by some of our nearby communities with higher incomes than Oakland. Now there's six different standards that the state uses. Some of these may be a little newer because the state has added these recently. Acutely low income is for households that earn less than 50% of area median income. Extremely low income is between 15 and 30. Very low income between 30 and 50. Low incomes between 51 and 80. Moderate income between 81 and 120%. And then a market rate or also known as above moderate income is over 120% of area median income. Now when our regional housing needs assessment was originally assigned, only four of these categories were specifically assigned targets for very low income, low income, moderate income, and above moderate income. these other two categories acutely low income and extremely low income are more recent additions that show up in our reporting however they don't have a separate target those are considered to be part of the very low income target so area median income is again the midpoint half of the families earn more half them earn less this is available for different household sizes there's a state lookup chart state publishes every year now to provide a bit of a sense for what this means in a practical level We see that there is a variety of different incomes across this spectrum. We see that above moderate income can be skilled professionals like doctors in some of the higher earning professions. Moderate income, a lot of teachers fit into that. Where low income, it could be a wide variety of white collar and skilled blue collar jobs. And we see that there's, again, a lot of working class Oaklanders who fit into very low income or even extremely low income. And acutely low income, those are often people on fixed income, people with part-time employment, that manner of thing. So now I'm going to turn it back over to Laura to talk a little bit more about some of our recent progress.

Okay, so the following slides document our progress towards meeting Oakland's regional housing needs allocation. Only building permits for the construction of new housing units may be counted towards meeting the RHNA. Building permits ensure that any new construction complies with all health, safety, and building code standards. This issuance of building permit signals that construction of a project may begin at the time the unit is considered permitted. So 14% of Oakland's regional housing needs allocation has been met in the first three years of this housing element cycle. We've been relatively successful at permitting very low, which is 19% of those units and low income units, which is about 25%. While production of moderate income units and market rate units has underperformed with only 9% of the regional housing needs allocation permitted at each affordability level. Over the past eight years, significant shifts have occurred in the market. In 2018, Oakland permitted record levels of market rate housing. This major influx has helped stabilize rents in Oakland. However, high construction costs and high interest rates have deterred market rate developers from continuing to produce units at such a high rate. Meanwhile, the city has aimed to leverage the cooler market to produce more affordable housing. In 2025, funding from Measure U and recent zoning changes and other factors have led to high levels of affordable housing production in the city. Continuing a trend that started in 2023, more deed restricted affordable units than market rate units were permitted in 2025. Fewer units were permitted in 2025 than in 2024. These units permitted remained below average relative to prior seven years. This represents a 31% decline from 2024 and a 10% decline from the previous low in 2023. In contrast to planning entitlements, housing developers typically only apply for building permits once they are ready to break ground on a project. This means that building permit issuance is the best indicator for the current state of housing development. In this regard, this is the stage at which housing developers are more sensitive to high construction costs, high interest rates, and low market rents. Accordingly, the permitting activity in 2025 was largely driven by production of affordable housing. The largest number of affordable units are being produced within housing projects that have five or more units. The city made important progress advancing affordable housing across all phases of development in 2025. Significantly more affordable housing units were proposed, entitled, permitted, and completed compared to market rate units. There was 870 affordable units proposed, 1,283 affordable units entitled, 600 affordable units were permitted, and almost 800 affordable units were completed. It should be noted that affordable housing that is entitled is a very strong predictor of affordable units that will be permitted in the following or upcoming years. Given the high number of affordable units entitled in 2025, we expect these to translate pretty directly into permitted affordable units in the coming years based on funding availability. Many of the trends we are seeing in Oakland are playing out also in pure cities, specifically in San Jose, Fremont, and Sunnyville. So Oakland has permitted 14% of its RHNA requirement. This is roughly average compared to cities of San Jose, which has permitted also 14%. Fremont has permitted 12% and Sunnyvale has permitted 16% of the required units. Notably, as you can see from the purple bars, Oakland has permitted a larger share of its very low income and low income units than any of its peer cities. So 19% and 25% respectively. This represents 42% of all low income or below units permitted in Alameda County in this housing element cycle. Accessory dwelling units or ADUs also saw relatively stable levels of production in 2025. So while ADU production fell across all phases of development tracked on the APR, this decrease was less significant relative to the decrease seen in multifamily development in 2025. This relative stability of ADU production shows that even amid a financially constrained development environment, ADUs continue to be affordable by design, not just for renters, but also for homeowners that are developing them. The city entitled 244 ADUs, permitted 192 of them, completed 183 in 2025. The number of units entitled and permitted in 2025 were still below average from the last five years. So the permitted ADUs in 2025 represent a 9% decline from 2024 and a 34% decline from the peak of 2019. This figure shows the trends of the production of ADUs over the last few years. The number of ADUs entitled and permitted in 2025 were below average relative to what we saw in 2019 to 2024. ADU production is not broken out by affordability for a few reasons. Prior to 2023, the city of Oakland reported ADUs as market rate units to the state through the APR. This was done because ADUs are not deed restricted. However, recent studies on the affordability of ADUs supports the idea that ADUs are an important source of housing that is affordable by design. So the Association of Bay Area Governments, or ABAG, conducted an analysis of ADU affordability, included that in most jurisdictions, 30% of permitted ADUs could be counted as very low income, 30% could be counted as low income units, and 30% could be counted as moderate income units, and only 10% would be above moderate. Therefore, beginning in 2023, the city began reporting ADUs as non-deed-restricted affordable units in line with the ratios provided by ABAG. In addition to reporting on housing production, the housing element APR also reports on Oakland's progress implementing the Housing Action Plan. So these are just a few of the progress items from this past year that one is promoting healthy homes and lead safe housing, also investigating a tenant community opportunity to purchase act, right size development fees on market rate developments, adjusting or waiving city fees and payment timing for affordable housing development, and also implement objective design standards. I'm not gonna let Caleb continue this.

Thank you, Laura. So the annual progress reports primarily focused on housing production numbers, but the city of Oakland also invests in affordable housing preservation. We see here that the large majority of units this past year were counted towards the RHNA as production units. There were, however, some additional units that were preserved via the city's acquisition conversion affordable housing funding program. Historically, those do not count for the purposes of RHNA credit. However, we are looking forward to some changes in state law which will take effect. So in future years, we do hope to get at least partial arena credit for these units as part of the city's broader affordable housing strategy. Now, we also, with this annual progress report, want to look ahead. Looking at a snapshot in time like 2025 can sometimes be illuminating, but it may also sometimes not adequately capture the full picture. Now, one of the key priorities for housing community development in 2026 continues to be measure U implementation. There is over 1,000 units of affordable homes that have already received building permits or are expected to imminently receive building permits in the first half of 2026. So when it looks like we maybe had a little bit of a drop in building permits in 2025, in some respects that's a quirk of the affordable housing funding calendar on the state level as projects were awaiting the final affordable housing tax credits before they were ready to move forward in construction. Fortunately, thanks in large part to the city's investments through Measure U and other programs, a lot of our projects were in a position to get those final awards last fall, as well as the first part of this year. Our Department Housing Community Development is also going to continue to deepen partnerships with other agencies, such as working with Alameda County on Measure W, other parts of Alameda County on tax-defaulted lots and small infill developments, and also working with our regional partners, such as the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. There's going to be additional priorities, investing available, Measure U, as Measure U is available. In shovel-ready projects, we have a robust pipeline and we know there's a number of projects that are excited to apply for our next NOFA when available. And we also want to ensure that our pipeline projects are positioned to compete for additional affordable housing resources, such as the upcoming state's affordable housing sustainable communities funding program, the upcoming tax credit rounds, and other state funding programs. In addition to some internal staff capacity building, we're also excited to have an increased focus on homeownership with some opportunities associated with the state's permanent local housing allocation funding program. Some new programmatic rules should make that a better source for homeownership. And then implementing the anti-displacement strategic action plan. We know that a lot of the work discussed in the Annual Progress Report is focused, again, on our capital investments, but we also have a much broader affordable housing strategy and housing community development, which also encompasses a variety of non-capital preservation, anti-displacement investments, which really create a more comprehensive and complete affordable housing strategy. So now I'll turn it over to Laura to talk a little bit about some of the exciting work Planning and Building has upcoming.

so the planning and building department is continuing to work on streamlining code approval and making building faster and easier and also we're working as stated earlier in the general plan update we're updating our land use and transportation element the open space conservation recreation element our noise element as well as a new infrastructure element and we anticipate bringing that to council for adoption in 2027 and that concludes the presentation

Excellent. Thank you both for the comprehensive breakdown. Any Councilmember Unger, you can start us off.

I just want to say it's pretty easy to go through these slides, and you guys are so deep in it that you don't necessarily step back, but I just want to take a minute and acknowledge what an amazing job you've all been doing on producing housing and affordable housing in Oakland, and we are beating a lot of our cities in the region, we are doing incredible work, and it translates to real safety and security on the ground, and I wanna thank you all for the work you've done, and also, like all of us, I'm worried about where the next funds come from in doing this, and that's something that we all have to put our heads collectively together, because there's still an enormous amount of work to be done, but I just wanna, I hope you all take a moment to pat yourselves on the back, because you deserve it.

definitely agree um both the hcd team and planning and building with all of the just when you were running through all of the elements that you know land use and the general plan all of these um all of this takes a lot of comprehensive planning um with various teams within the city and with community stakeholders and i we know that the job is not easy so just really want to express my gratitude and just really gratitude for all of the hard work and also the HCD team just really helping us be really a leader in building so much affordable housing and just all of the amazing work. So definitely agree with Councilmember Unger's sentiments and Councilmember Fife.

thank you um through the chair ditto to everything my colleagues have said can we get these slides emailed to us i saw the report but i the the presentation is just a lot easier to flow through so if we could get uh copies of the presentation i could i would really appreciate that um because i want to go back to the slide where i think we were showing that there was an under performance at nine percent for one of our categories of housing, and I wanted to understand what the baseline is for underperformance. Is performance defined as 100% of meeting the RHNA goals, or is there another baseline

Yeah, I think what we're trying to look at is, in order to meet the RHNA, on average, you would try to have, because it's an eight-year RHNA cycle, that you would try to have 1 1⁄8 of the production per year. And so, looking at it in that regard, we are behind, but most of the other cities are behind, or actually, we're seeing other cities are behind as well. It's just reflective of the current economy in the Bay Area right now. for market or affordable or across the board um it's across the board but we are we are doing better in the affordable housing production than we are in the market rate production and that's again relating things to measure you right which is I see a hand up behind you

Timothy Green, Planner 3. Just to clarify that 9% under production number is both for moderate income units and market rate units, and that's comparing ourselves to our peer cities. If you take if you take a hundred percent divided by eight years, I believe that's twelve point five percent annually That we would need to produce of arena That math is very helpful.

Thank you for that Thanks Timothy and and then The market conditions that are producing this phenomenon across the state of California. Is it possible that we? look at other other developments, products other than the way that we're building right now because what is it, like a million a door now for new construction? Can we look at modular, are developers or builders talking about using modular construction so we can reach those numbers? Thank you.

Emily Weinstein, Director of Housing and Community Development through the Chair to Council Member Fife. So I think there's a couple different ways to look at that information. First, in terms of the amount of production for market rate, the city of Oakland has produced, I think it's been 14,000 units or something over the last eight years. of market rate development. And so part of what you're seeing here is the RHNA cycle, and it's an arbitrary sort of date of when this RHNA cycle started and we finished last RHNA cycle. The last RHNA cycle we overshot the number of required, or the goals for market rate. So part of what the city is facing right now is an absorption of existing housing stock. And so no matter what we do as a city, we're gonna be absorbing that large amount of supply, whereas other cities across the Bay Area, across the state, weren't developing all through COVID. So that is part of why our rents have been kind of holding still while vacancies is starting to go down. Our rents are pretty much staying still, although they're starting to take up a little bit, but that's because of the large supply of market rate housing that came online over the last several years. In terms of the cost of housing, we are not seeing yet the huge savings for modular. So we've seen, we've had a couple modular developments, affordable developments come through, and we have not seen yet the huge savings change in cost. It really has to do with the time savings, but there's other costs right now associated with modular. So what a lot of affordable housing developers do is during the design period, they're evaluating their developments with different construction methods. modular and not and seeing particularly with like infill it can be difficult because there are not a lot of staging areas and so it can be you can build up the the costs through construction so many developers will evaluate how to bring down the costs and modular is one potential solution but it hasn't yet borne out really outstanding thank you for that information and then i guess one of the last things i wanted to add is

What I would like to see moving forward is a process that brings in small and emerging developers into this process that can access the funds that we have for development projects because I know there are a lot of women, there are a lot of minority developers. uh that are trying to get projects off the ground especially for units that are less than 50 units the smaller on the smaller end i think that would be really beneficial to the populations that we're trying to serve as well as these developers that serve some of the marginalized communities that are so in need of of housing i guess i said that was the last statement i do have one more do you want to address that

Yeah, I can speak directly to that. So as part of our funding processes in our NOFAs, we provide additional points for emerging developers. So that's baked into the way that we score projects through our competitive processes. And that's really across all of our different funding programs. In addition, one of the big challenges for emerging developers is pre-development funding. And we know that that's the riskiest funding. And so, as you are aware, we applied for a program through HUD and were successfully awarded for it. over $5 million of HUD funds and we developed a pre-development program, a portion of which is designated for emerging developers. We have had some challenges to get that program up and running and part of it is what we came to understand is the program is designed to be rolling funds The original funds though come with what are called BABA requirements, Build America, Buy America, which adds additional costs. So it makes those funds almost like cost prohibitive to use particularly for emerging developers. So we are in the process of identifying projects that already have BABA requirements, because they have federal funds tied to them, to provide the initial round of pre-development funds, and then when those payments come back to us as repayments, they will be circulated again to emerging developers without triggering those federal requirements.

Wow, can you share information about this BABA program? This is so funny to me, the term.

We enjoy saying it, although it is very difficult when it hits our projects.

Understood. The last two things. The success that you all have had with Afford, oh, I'm sorry.

I was just gonna add also for projects that are for market rate projects. So a number of the streamlining code changes that we made, we're also trying to help smaller developers as well. So now we have a ministerial approval or buy-write approval process for one to 30 units. that are market rate projects, as well as for one to four units, those products do not have to pay affordable housing impact fees, so trying to help encourage that missing middle housing, and those were action items from our housing element as well that we have now implemented.

I remember. Thank you for refreshing my memory. And with the success that you all have had with getting so many units developed, affordable units, I just wanted to state that I think that underscores why we need that allocation for affordable housing in this upcoming budget. I said when we had our last council meeting that I was going to try to add back the 50 million that I heard so many of our public speakers ask for, and I did that in my budget amendments to the mayor's budget, so I just wanted to state that for the record. I heard loud and clear from the constituents that came and spoke that need in order to continue this progress. And then my last question is, with such... a robust introduction of affordable units in our system, what does that do for the property taxes that like some of our nonprofit developers and other developers don't pay into the city of Oakland? Do you see it balancing out with people that are now able to afford rents to be putting money into the economy a different way? This is a completely random question. but I'm trying to figure out how does that balance out if we're not receiving those funds that we receive from market rate projects.

Through the chair to council member Fife, yes, under state law, affordable housing is subject to a reduction in some case waiver of property taxes known as welfare tax exemption. We have actually done some analysis in the past quantifying this benefit and comparing it with different levels of rent savings. And I think it is pretty definitive in the analysis we've seen so far that the benefit to the residents and to the broader community far outweighs the foregone taxes. in a scenario for all the city supported projects and in the past there have been people who have proposed projects to the city that would not meet those benefit that other cities have gone for and with unusual financing models and we said no thank you because it didn't demonstrate that depth of public benefit so we always are very careful when it comes to safeguarding those city funds and fortunately for our city funded projects there is always that very robust public benefit that significantly outweighs any foregone taxes under that state law

So I will make a motion to, do we need to send this to the full city council or can we accept and receive it in committee?

I was gonna ask if you had a preference.

It does need to go to the full city council, but I believe, Mike?

But I guess specifically, did you wanna present to the full council? Do you have a preference?

It can go on consent or non-consent.

So I'll make that motion to send this to the full city council next Tuesday on consent. Thank you for all the answers, very thorough.

Second.

And then public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number five. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium, or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified. Zach Thayer, Jeff Levin, and Asada Olaballa.

And Johnson Pharmaceutical via the state of California and Purdue, the United States. In compliances of the COVID relief bill, 13586 and 1380 was changed. and view of myself based on the big bill um building purchases are notices not permits you notice that these are all for new construction but um through the aca hx and the tax credit the room to housing hasn't been and is meticulously biased in this administration for turning buildings when granted money is already liquid and capitalized and calling it steel case and just rezoning the building. we are known for that in simon property be the city of oakland ladera v the united states and about a half a dozen sfr investment pool mercy housing this is specifically an issue with i of myself knowing that through the sheldon eldon anderson estate ernest williamson and dolores williams estate as compta controller and lotus capital management and chair of the board, as well as in TSO Capital, as the private donor of Operation Homekey, and via the system of care, I was put into bankruptcy, and in view of Merkle via the articles of impeachment, knowing that it was my capital gains um for my grandpa sheldon mitchell james who is my grandpa jim his son and um my i just want to remind you that affordable housing

has different components. And it's not just the housing that you make available. The Oakland Housing Authority with the vouchers, that's a part of affordable housing. The public housing that you have in this, that's a part of affordable housing. So when you had the report on what's happening with the Oakland Housing Authority and the fact that they support 18,400 Oakland families with the contribution that they make to the possibility that you can use Section 8 vouchers for mortgage payments for housing. And how do, instead of paying rent, it can be a subsidy to pay your mortgage. and then you don't take into consideration in the discussion of affordable housing, you talk about people's income, but the responsibility when you are buying a house, when you have to pay insurance and mortgage, utility bills, and other aspects of what's involved in that, contributes to your ability to have the capacity to buy a house. I'm also concerned in the report you make reference to the Oak Knoll project, That project is out of control. That project started in 2018, and right now, if I can just say one thing about the project, is what's gonna happen to the Barcelona partial, which is the property that we own, because the new owners are not committed to building any affordable housing on that Oak Knoll project. So what's gonna happen to the Barcelona parcel?

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user Jeff. You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Jeff Levin speaking for East Bay Housing Organizations. First of all, I just want to thank the staff for a very comprehensive report and say that we very much appreciate the progress that the city has made in meeting its housing goals, especially for affordable housing. As the staff notes, in the first three years of this housing element cycle so far, affordable housing has actually outstripped market rate production. We're very happy to see that. But as has been noted, this is due to the unique confluence of two factors, the presence of Measure U bond funds in particular, and depressed market conditions that have held down market rate housing. These conditions are not likely to persist long term. So if we look back to the last housing element period and look at the entire fifth cycle, which goes back to 2015, we get a much different picture. Over the last 11 years 80% of new housing has been unrestricted market rate housing and only 20% has been affordable housing So while we celebrate what we have done so far We also acknowledge that we have a long ways to go and this underscores the importance of continued local funding for affordable housing and we are very happy to have a I heard Council Member Fife last week speak of her support and intent to introduce an amendment to the budget to put $50 million of Measure U funding into the budget. And we note that the Council budget team has done so. So we look forward to seeing that become part of the adopted mid-cycle budget. couple things i want to mention quickly that aren't here that should be in future aprs one is the impact of suspending the affordable housing impact fees and whether that's made a difference secondly whether the zoning changes for middle housing are doing anything and particularly whether they are in fact affirmatively furthering fair housing and lastly just want to note that the downtown oakland specific plan requires annual reports here

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item. And we do have a motion made by Council Member Fyfe, seconded by Chair Brown, to receive and forward this informational report to the June 16th City Council agenda. On roll, Council Members Fyfe. Aye. Ramachandran.

Aye.

Unger aye and chair brown aye thank you item number five passes with four eyes to be forwarded to the june 16th city council agenda on consent moving on to open forum calling in the names that signed up to speak on open forum zach thayer and mclean

Ken Slade. Ken Slade. I want to make sure you understand. I need to get a tusk, you know. Ken Slade. Are we ready to be understood, Hans? got a little bit of the application. Eckman Nuremberg Orders get specific. The nice little Queen Marinette As a prisoner of war, the definition for UN Order 26921 and UN Order 118432 puts into theater by the week of 9-11 the ability to order six isothermic atomic weapons against the state.

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user Anne. You can unmute yourself and begin your one-minute comment.

I have submitted a packet of photos for the 35th Avenue corridor properties. We do not need any of the so-called services offered by the Laurel Business Improvement District. We already pay annual assessments to the City of Oakland for the same services. We are being double assessed and want to be removed from the business district during the july window of opportunity the laurel bid took in over 250 000 in assessments during this last year the laurel looks like a slum for the 10-year period 2015-2025 the laura took in more than 2 million in assessments and when i submitted photos last july the laurel still looked like looked like a thumb slum we court our properties which include 61 rent control departments are essentially being double taxed for the services that we do not want or need. We keep up our properties. We derive no benefit from being in the Laurel. We want to be removed from the business district during the July window of opportunity. As a minority, we were never heard by the CED committee and before city council. The executive director of...

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. Chair, at this time, all names have been called.

Excellent. Thank you so much. This meeting is adjourned.