City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank for hanging. Welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Ojai City Council. Tuesday, May 12. Roll call, please.

Yes, mayor. Thank you. Mayor Gilman. Here. Mayor Pro Tem May. Here. Council Member Rule. Here. Council member Lang.

Here.

Council member Wood. Here. Thank you. And would you lead us in the pledge, please?

Of course. Welcome. Community, please rise as you are able. Ready to begin.

It's fun to say the pledge. So on the agenda, obviously, we have moved item 11 to another day.

Mayor? Yes? May I make a request in addition Please. May we also move six, item number six, which is on your consent.

Okay. Hold on.

Number six. Okay. And item number nine.

K. Sorry. So six would be the pristine auto detailing office.

We'd like to move that to a future meeting. Yes. We'd also like to item number nine.

Okay.

Which I think you already mentioned that is the oh, no. You haven't mentioned that. That's the landscaping and lighting Yep. District 1. We'd like to move that as well.

Okay.

And then you already acknowledged number 11. Yep. And and on that topic, I was just gonna mention this during my city manager report. I'll tell you briefly just right now. Mhmm. We're going to send you home tonight with a hard copy of the working agenda document. We made a bunch of changes and I'm just gonna send you all home with it and please feel free to call me tomorrow if there's any Okay. Problems that we've created with moving things around.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. With those

changes So Yeah. I'd actually like to push seven forward also and that's with the idea that we're going

to get a presentation about

when we hire versus contract out and this is another contractor services type of, I'd love to have that heard after.

The only challenge we have with that is I did move that discussion further out because of all the swapping around that we just did. So I mean, could specifically come back in the near term on this particular item and talk about contracting with this just as solely as it relates to this, if you like, I can do that. The bigger topic about contracting is a much larger discussion and I imagine it'll take a considerable amount of counsel time to go through. So if it's a counsel pleasure, I can I'm happy to move seven, maybe move it to the twenty sixth and to specifically talk about an option to bring that in house if counsel wants to talk about that at the same time.

And then we'll have like the budget, when will we have that? The

budget comes to you and actually it's gonna come in two different, actually four different meetings. There's gonna be two with the finance and budget committee.

Which you're gonna see

And then there's going, and those are going to be in May. Actually, one on the ninth, I think it's on the

Oh, right, think I can In May.

Yes, we're

gonna call it an additional one on the June 2. And then on top of that, you're gonna have two readings of the budget as you always have to at your regular June meetings, the second and fourth. So there's gonna be four discussions total involving the budget specifically for you, Mayor Pro Tem and the Mayor because you're on that Finance and Budget Committee.

So Mr. Whitman, the question I just want to make sure I'm getting what you're asking. You would like to move number seven to be related to a conversation around contracting, and I'm hearing from Mr. Harvey, there is an operational need, at least on this item, to move it forward possibly before that conversation.

We can, if it's the pleasure of the council, I could add to this item on the twenty sixth of this month to include a discussion about bringing this internally if the council wants an internal employee is what I mean. Oh yeah. If that's acceptable?

That's acceptable. And does that work, I mean is that going to solve your need in the immediate? Yes. Okay. That's fine with me. Yes. Thanks for being flexible. Okay. With that, are we good? Any objections? Yeah.

I'd like to poll number

four.

Well, just on the agenda in general, and then we'll I'll I'll get to the consent in one second. But are you okay?

Okay. Yeah. Otherwise.

Okay. We're good at we're good there then. Okay. So let's go to and we can pull whatever we want. Any commission reports? Okay, and then let me go to the city manager's report.

I do want to call our public works director forward just if she's got some very important announcements I want her to briefly run through so that the council and

the community are aware. Be very brief. Thank you. Now take your time.

Good evening all. So I've had independent conversations with several of you over the last couple of weeks talking about safety improvements throughout the city, and I just wanted to give of a brief overview of some of the projects that Public Works is working on that relate to safety improvements. So first off I would like to talk about the RRFBs and I will tell you what that means because I didn't realize how many people had no idea what we were even saying. So RRFBs are rectangular rapid flashing beacon, beacons. And that's what we see in front of Jim and Rob's.

It's what we see over by the high school. So the city, the Public Works Department right now is working with Caltrans, it's along the Caltrans right of way. It's, we're trying to get some installed at the mid block in front of the arcade and then at Montgomery in front of the brewery. I wanted to be clear that that was the Montgomery area we're talking about, not the one further down on For now anyways, just for now. So again it's along the Caltrans right of way, so we are required to get a permit through Caltrans.

So we're in that process right now, we're back and forth right now with some corrections. We're moving closer. My hope is that you will see in front of you in the next, I don't know, couple of meetings. Don't know, are so many meetings, I don't know when we'll get it on. But we are going to be purchasing, the plan is for us to purchase the equipment in advance because the lead time might be long.

The lead time is quite long on steel and electronics right now. And the hope is that we can use our paving contractor, change order that contract and have them install these for us. So there's some curb extensions, there would be a curb extension in front of Libbey Park because we can't have the RRF be pushed that far back. They'll be solar powered. So we need to make sure that they have solar access.

So that's coming soon. The other project that we're working on and you will be seeing people out soon and that is our paving project for this year. And we will be doing crosswalk, re striping, we're doing curb ramps at the intersections, we'll be painting curbs, re striping the streets. So there's an element of that. Of course repairing potholes and the drivability of the streets and storm drains. And I've talked to a couple of you about storm drain improvements that are going along with that. So that's another safety element. The other project we're working on with Caltrans is ATP. And we in this building refer to that as phase two. The portion over in front of Nordhof would be phase one.

We're referring this as, referring to this as phase two. Although Caltrans sees this as one project. So we're, I'm sort of thinking about this as the second part of the paving or the second part of the construction. So we're working through some concept designs with Caltrans on that too and moving closer. Things get kind of bogged down and slowed down with Caltrans, but we're working through things.

So another safety feature that you'll be seeing in the next couple of weeks are, is the corner, the intersections, three of the intersections at the corner of Ojai Avenue and Signal. So I am sure many of you have walked since Caltrans came out and did the curb ramps the three, all three corners except the movie theater. And we've got these step downs, these curbs at the ramps that people are having a problem navigating those. So I've worked with Caltrans and again received approval to put some concrete pots out there. So we're going to plant some plants as a warning that there's a curb in front of you.

They're not gonna be able to walk across, you know, just kind of stumble down the curb. So that is coming soon. We've got the plant sitting in the public works yard right now. They're all native plants and we're going to plant them and hopefully it'll look lovely. Last but not least, we have a speed hump policy coming forward to you all pretty quick. So I don't actually know what meeting that's going to be on at this point. I think it's scheduled for the last meeting in June.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So

what I'm planning on doing, where I know I understand the urgency, I get the calls, you folks to talk to people all the time. And so I'll be bringing forward a draft policy and the draft policy is actually the County of Ventura's policy. And we will have the opportunity to tweak it, change the criteria, but at least it's a starting point and there's not really, I don't really see any value in reinventing the wheel at this point. So I've got, talked to police and fire who are sitting back here behind me and they're familiar with that policy and you know, so, it might be a really great place

to start.

Good.

So, that's it. That's the update.

Yeah. I have one quick question. Sure. With the planners or whatever you're going to

put in the arcade, have you reached out to HPC and seen that everything dials into what their scope is? I have been in front of HPC on that.

Perfect, thank you.

Appreciate that. I have a question also. I know I'm going to get this question, which is on the flashers, why are we doing the crossing at Topa Topa Brewery as opposed to the other side of the intersection which goes to the Pinion piece.

You know, there's not, I don't have a real logical explanation for that other than we've been talking about those two intersections for a very long time. And when mentioned that earlier, and I'm saying we're starting there, and I would not want to change course right now because we're so far down that path with Caltrans. But the good news is we know what Caltrans is looking for now. We know the specifications. We have the specifications for the RRFBs. So I wouldn't expect that that intersection would be super problematic

Okay.

Other than the closeness to the other two. But we can work through

that. Right. So we're not precluded from adding that. And I guess, you know, what I'm anticipating is I think there's been a couple of accidents involving that crosswalk. One of them is very old but very notorious and one of them is very recently.

Yeah. We probably need three.

Yeah, we do. And I totally agree with that. And again, I don't want to switch gears right now on this particular permit application. I have no problem reapplying and applying for another one for the next intersection further east.

Thank you. So. That's really great news.

Yeah.

We've been wanting it forever. I know. Yeah. I'm sure you have been too.

So. Any other questions?

Thank you. Great report. Okay. Thank you. Else to report mister Harvey?

No, mayor.

Okay. And any public communications, mister Montgomery?

I'm so sorry, mayor. Mean, not

at all. We we had a very.

We have no raised hands on Zoom and I'll give you. Your stack. It'll be Ron, Ron Salarsino at the library, Griffin Schrader, and then Zach Leha. Zach, welcome. Okay. Ron's not

here. Okay.

Well, I'm gonna call out. So we have Ron not here. Griffin Schrader spoke already. He's not here anymore. Zach Leja?

Zach left too.

Zach left too. Tia Rose is not here. Randy Haney is not here. And Clay Creasy, do you want to come up? All right. We got one. Thanks for stick thanks for sticking around.

My pleasure and I I won't be long. I actually wrote a note to you all last week on this topic. But when I write to everybody, the protocol rarely gets any response. I just want to make sure that you heard that the as we recall, the bids for the maintenance yard project expire on May 16. So we're getting close to the end of being able to avail ourselves of the prices that were quoted back on January 16.

And the last time you addressed this, as far as I know, is when you opted for, and I believe it was Option two, with maybe a comeback, and that was the bare bones option with no landscaping and, you know, all the other things that it didn't have. And you were hoping that the million dollar grant Hail Mary would relax their issues with regard to the 18 to 24. I haven't heard back on that. I haven't seen anything, so I'm just speculating that they didn't play ball. But be that as it may, one way or the other, it doesn't really matter.

In four days, you're going to lose that January 16 pricing on your landscaping, on your gates, on your kitchen appliances, on several other things. And if you're going to do that anyhow, which I think you have to, you're really choosing to either take a price that you got a lucky break, it was before the price of gas went up and inflation going up and so on. But if you wait four days, those prices go poof. Now when you go for landscaping instead of X, it's gonna be 1.5 times X or something like that. And I don't know structurally whether you need a special meeting to pull that trigger or not, but if you're gonna landscape it and do that other stuff, you know, it'd be smart to pull that trigger before May 16.

Or alternatively, you might be able to get the vendor to agree to extend that to your next meeting when you could handle it in the normal course. But I just wanna make sure you didn't miss that in the in all the whole level here. Thank you very much.

Okay. Anything online?

Still no raised hands.

Okay. Alright. So we will move on to the consent calendar. And I already heard some people want to pull something out of consent. Did I hear?

Yeah. Okay. Number five. Number five. Okay.

And I'd like to pull number four and number eight.

Number four and number eight.

That can be fast though.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Anything else? Okay. So then I would propose can we move to accept one, two, three. One, two, and three.

I'll second that.

Okay. Any objections to one, two, and three? Okay. Let's move on then. We'll go to the number four, confirm appointment to the midterm vacancy for the Planning Commission, Bruce Hanson.

Yes, I just wanted to pull this because Bruce is my neighbor.

Bruce, come on please.

He's an excellent selection and I'm very excited to have your expertise and your knowledge and all of your wealth of experience as a part of our Planning Commission.

And patient. Yes. Exactly.

I know. I know. You're you're preparing. You're just like a dress rehearsal for future planning commission meetings. I don't

think they don't go this long.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm regularly pretty really pleased to be here. So, wonderful. I love living here. So, it's a good place to get involved. Kind of returning to something that I've loved to do. And I do in other countries now. So a lot of working with eco villages in China and some other areas, a little bit in Europe. And just interested in how we can have thriving business and good nature relations at the same time. That's probably where a lot of it is. And but I love living, you know, loving here.

So, that's the other piece of it. Just find some way of and find out what's going on. So, of activities and things. So, thank you for being here.

Thank you for your agreement to serve the community.

It's really important. Yeah. Would you like to move that we accept?

Yes, I'm going to move that we accept Bruce for the Planning Commission, so filling that vacancy item number four.

Yep, second that. Wanna do a roll call on these these items? Mister Montgomery, thanks. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes.

And just one small little comment which is with Bruce's appointment, every acting commission is full minus the public safety which we are filling and there's about 12 applications still available for different commissions. So we're in really great shape and I just want to affirm, I think that the unanimous collection between the mayor, the rotating council person and the chair, I think is working really well. So anyway, great news on commission front. So number five, Mr. Whitman, you pulled I pulled this it. Yep.

And I just pulled it because I'm gonna abstain when we vote.

Oh, okay. Well, mister Steingold, come up. We wanna hear from you.

Good evening. Yes. Hello.

Thank you.

Mayor, council members, rather than wing it. I'm a proud, my name is Larry Steingold. I'm a proud Ohio resident. I'm deeply sincerely honored to be nominated to serve on this new public safety commission. Public safety is everything else rests on.

When residents and visitors don't feel safe, the character of a community erodes. Businesses struggle, families leave, and the qualities that make OHAI special begin to disappear. We start to become like everybody else or a lot of them. I'm committed to keeping that from happening through emergency preparedness, collaboration between the city, first neighbors, first responders, and our neighbors, and making sure everyone who lives or visits OHAI feels safe and welcome. OHAI is worth protecting.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thanks. And I just wanted to add one Oh, did Yeah. Cause I was one of the member council members or the mayor and I interviewed Larry. And in our interview, Larry, you talked about how you've actually gone around and counted all of the street lights that are out and sent sent them into the MyOhi app.

Well, we finally got the street lights on our street up and running.

There you go.

So It's only taken four months.

So I so I think, you know, you're very conscientious. You come to all of our meetings and I and I trust that you're going to be, you're not going to let me down or look, make me look bad. No. Right. I'll be

be succinct.

No pressure.

That you'll be that you'll be an excellent servant for our for our safety commission.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I think you're an absolute natural for this commission and I'm so glad you're on it. No, do. I honestly think that this is a perfect, a really good match.

Thank

you. You've always, when you speak, you always speak about safety. And so I know it's one of your primary concerns. Welcome. I'm pleased as Punch to have you.

Thank you. Would you like to make a motion

motion to accept Larry and move forward with item number consent calendar item number five. Yeah.

And I will second. Okay, wonderful. Enthusiastically.

Roll call please. Yes. Yep.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman.

Abstain.

Mayor Pro Tem Meng. Yes. Council Member Lang.

Yes.

Council Member Rule.

Yes. Thank you.

And just so my colleagues understand the next step of the process, I've contacted the next council member. My hope is that we can get this populated this month and they, you know, we get it ratified and up and running in June. That's the hope. So, I'll keep you posted.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes. Okay. May

I say one thing?

Yes.

Because we're on commissions, I just have one tiny announcement. Please. We have our reappointments for all commissions wide for May. The muni code for all commissions places May as the term ending month. Okay. So, working mayor and I began to work. We're gonna have an update for you on all the reappointments. Yeah. That we're gonna address. And that'll be in the second meeting of this month.

Okay. Thank you.

The last item I'm seeing is number eight if I've done that correctly. Yes. Yes,

please. I, so I brought, I brought this forward because I had some concerns about about the unions being opposed to this resolution. And I wanted to just ask our city attorney what was the what was the reasoning for that and are there any concerns that we should have about that?

Basically the background on this resolution is it's actually something that our firm has been involved in working with Assembly Member Johnson on. And so, you know, we've inquired with a number of our city clients to see whether it's something that they also wish to support. It's, you know, obviously I think each council member, you know, has, as always, you know, you have to vote in a manner that you're comfortable with. But the purpose of this item, or of this legislation, would be to ensure that when claims are submitted to public entities, that they are submitted basically under penalty of perjury, meaning that claimants are not, at least they're certifying that they have not included any false or perjurous information in their claim. And so right now, under the law, technically if someone files a claim against a government agency, they can say whatever they want.

And so the biggest two contexts where this comes up are typically in cases of things like tort claims, but it also comes up in the context of labor and employment claims. So it adds an additional hurdle for a claimant. And so if that's, you know, if that's something that you're concerned about, you know, certainly no pressure to support it. However, you know, it is something that theoretically will help local agency, local government agencies save money in reviewing and defending claims that are not submitted with that additional, you know, level of, like it's not really verification, but without the additional statements that everything in the claim is true and correct.

It's veracity.

Yeah, it adds an additional hurdle for someone who, today claimants can basically say whatever they want. And so it is something that we think adds value. Think the original version of this legislation would have gone a step further and actually required claims to be verified. However, you know, we I think through the legislative process, one of the committees has kind of modified the wording to reduce the standard a bit to things being submitted under penalty of perjury. So are there any other questions on this one?

My comment would be that I'm not sure I would view it as an additional hurdle because you do have to sign a claim. And all you're doing to the claim is adding the statement. What I've said is true and correct under

Penalty of perjury.

Penalty of perjury of the laws of California. Which is something that is actually a pretty common place thing that we have to do, you know, fairly regularly in our lives when we're looking to be reimbursed or something like that. So I think it's a good idea to have that provision.

And at the state level, that is already a requirement for claims that are submitted to state agencies. Is not something that is required under the government code for claims submitted to local government agencies. Yeah,

I would support number five. Likewise.

Sorry.

I eight. I'm mean number number eight.

I was following.

Sorry, no. So I would move to accept.

I'm planning on, I don't support it just because I'm concerned about anything that would make it harder for workers you know, to bring forward a claim.

For sure. So, let's do a roll call.

Who is the second, please, mayor? Miserable. Thank you. Roll call. Council Member Roll. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Mang? Yes. Council Member Lang?

No. Okay.

Alright. Thank you, guys. So, now, we're moving on to our sole last item which is number 10, Habitat for Humanity Project, Real Property Management, Disposition Options.

All right. And before we get started on this item, I will note that after my initial remarks and questions from me or for Mr. Seibert, there is a brief presentation that council member Whitman requested be included. That would normally be, you know, member comments would normally be held till after public comment. But in order to ensure that the public has the opportunity to comment on his remarks, my recommendation to staff was that we include that presentation ahead of public comment.

Okay. It will also be in the standard practice for presentations. It will be added to the agenda so that it will be publicly accessible as well.

So I have a question. What is the timeframe for getting presentations? So I think this one was submitted, it was submitted today.

But we also don't, we don't normally submit presentations or include presentations with the agenda itself. We make sure I can jump in.

Sometimes we do, but we in general say if you provide them day of the meeting, we will then append them to the meeting. Sometimes we do get them

ahead of

time. I'm just wondering about the policy. I can come in the day of with a presentation and have it presented. I was not aware that that

is think possible to

say something at the last meeting when we brought this up that he wanted to present something.

I'm just wondering about timelines and expectations and things like that. I'm just wondering about process because to me.

Council Member, I'm going remind you that you have actually done this before.

No. A presentation. Yeah. A piece of paper.

Yeah. It was it was a pickleball actually in our very first year And you had the picture you had the the the all the images of people on the screen playing pickleball, and it

was a presentation. It was a video. There was no comment. It was a video.

If I'm

gonna suggest the

just just to be

procedurally fair. Be procedurally, I just if you don't think that there's a reason to ask the question, that's No,

I think it is. I'm not saying that I'm

Well, what I would say is that, you know, counsel, like as you have discussions on items that are, you know, typically result in longer discussion and you cycle through each council member with the, you know, your time for giving your remarks, I mean I would recommend, and I haven't discussed this with Council Member Whitman, I apologize if you're surprised by this, but I would recommend that maybe this be the equivalent of his first five minute period.

I think that, well I was gonna

if that's gonna do my best

to get through it in five minutes.

Well, let me just say though, Ms. Ruhl recently brought a document and was limited to her five minutes. So it does seem to me that you you

would, would And do the process would have been happy to make a presentation out of it had I known that that was And an I think in the

future we can certainly do that. I yeah, was uncomfortable having a presentation that was presented after public comment in case the public has comments. Okay. And so that was the basis for that. So that that's that's my recommendation to staff. We could also do the presentation after public comment.

Yeah. I I You know,

during the five minutes. No. No. No.

I totally get it. I totally get it. I'm just trying to distinguish between what a piece of paper and a comment is different than a presentation and what that works like. I just think we need

to figure it out. So we can do it either way.

Here's what I would suggest. And I

don't care how we do it really. Just want some procedural clarification.

Well just to be fair, it seems to me, if you said we will have the staff report go to public comments and then there's a presentation during a council person's response.

That's fine. Works. We can do that as well.

That makes

Yeah, that's fine. So Okay. That's fine.

Similar to what happened. Okay.

Alright.

Alright.

So tonight's discussion on the property at 408 And 410 Montgomery Street, which is the location of the Habitat for Humanity project. This is a continuation of presentations that were made at the council meeting or council meetings on, at the second meeting in March and in, at the 04/16/2026 special meeting. And as part of those discussions in the meeting in March, there was some information but it was more limited in scope that was included in your staff report regarding different potential options related or kind of raising the question about whether a ground lease might be the appropriate mechanism for addressing this property or project. And out of that discussion, additional information was requested to be presented at the April 16 special city council meeting. At that meeting, we did present some information regarding three potential options for how the property could be managed or owned.

One was the concept that was included in the memorandum of understanding with Habitat for Humanity, which is a ground lease held by the city. Specifically in the MOU with Habitat, it contemplates a ninety nine year ground lease. And so to be a little more specific, was part of what presented the concern related to the ground lease because the city legally can only enter into below market value leases up to fifty five years. So as part of that discussion on April 16, we also included some information regarding, you know, a potential conveyance or disposition by conveyance to Habitat for Humanity and development subject to a disposition and development agreement. But then there was also information included in the staff report regarding establishment of a community land trust and a ground lease held by a community land trust.

There was additional information that the council wished to see regarding the community land trust. So what we have brought to you tonight is, I would say a more robust staff report that provides additional information regarding all three of these potential options. And I'm gonna kind of describe this. It's maybe described a little bit differently as I thought about it more, I kind of refined how I would describe it. So, you know, option one included in your packet would be basically the status quo, which is city ownership of the property subject to a ground lease with Habitat and or potentially the future homeowners.

We would have to confirm with Habitat that knowing that they can only do a fifty five year ground lease, whether it should be a shorter ground lease with the ultimate leases being held with the homeowners. Option two that is described here would be conveyance of the property to Habitat for $1 to develop five residential units and the eventual conveyance of fee ownership of property to the qualified homeowners. And then the third option would be city ownership of the property subject to a ground lease with Habitat and or future homeowners along with conveyance of the property to a community land trust if one is established. And then we are also looking for direction from the city council to initiate the Surplus Land Act process under any of these three options. The Surplus Land Act requires before you lease or convey city owned property that you follow the process for property disposal under that act.

And then, you know, without really knowing exactly which direction this discussion would take, You know, we are looking for counsel to provide us with direction regarding which of the three options we've counsel would like us to move forward with, which to be very clear for the public who's listening as well as for the counsel, you would not be approving a conveyance, you would not be approving a ground lease, and you would not be approving the establishment of a community land trust tonight. You would simply be giving staff direction to bring those back to you. So we would, if you provide us with direction to establish a community land trust that would then hold the lease, you know, there's a whole other process that I've, that will be item number four in the recommendation section. If you provide us with direction to just do a city held ground lease, once we've developed that ground lease, we would be bringing that back to city council for approval. And if we do the disposition, you know, you will have to make the approval, you will have to provide us with authorization to convey the property.

Okay.

No problem.

What I'm hearing you say though is if I heard you right, you're asking for the direction so that you can do the work and bring it forward again. Exactly. Not another debate.

Exactly. Okay. And so we will prepare the documents that are needed for whichever item council selects or option council selects. Okay. Additionally, I just wanted to note that some of these items are not mutually exclusive.

So, you know, if council has interest in moving forward with establishment of a community land trust, You know, obviously if you wanna move forward in that direction for the Habitat project, we need direction to initiate that process. But you could also provide us with direction to return to city council, you know, as part of a future agenda item to kind of sketch out or schedule out the process for establishing that community land trust. And if so, or as an alternative to that, you could give us direction to work with an ad hoc committee that could be more focused on that and bring something back. So with all of that being said, you know, I have included a lot of information in your staff report. I'm happy to talk through any of these options, but knowing that we've had a long meeting so far, I will not necessarily go into a more detailed discussion of each one of those options unless you have specific questions or would like me to address any of them further.

I appreciate that you laid up those choices with clarity in my mind. Any questions for staff?

Yeah. I know at the last meeting there was so much tension over the timeframe. So this, if we're not choosing something, how long will it take? Because I know they said before that we'll kill the deal. What we were told was we were leaving. So where does that phrase come from?

So while city manager might kick me because I don't believe it's on the working agenda, he's going to send out to you later this evening. If council's direction is to move forward with either option, either a ground lease held by the city or a disposition and conveyance of the land, we would try to put that together and bring it back to you as quickly as possible to get those processes started. So you know, it would likely be sometime in June. For the community land trust item or facet of this, if council wishes to move forward with establishing a community land trust, whether or not that's tied to the Habitat project, you know, I think it would depend on whether council wishes to establish an ad hoc, in which case I think we would work with the ad hoc first. And so we would probably be looking at returning to council, My guess realistically having looked at the working agenda, we'd probably be looking at July at the earliest, but it, you know, it might take a little bit longer.

Or if, you know, again, if we were to proceed with a ground lease that results in the eventual conveyance to a community land trust, we would still move forward with work on the ground lease.

Thanks for the question.

And there is one other thing I would add, and since Mr. Seibert's at the dais, we can put him on the hot seat. At the last meeting and there is information about this included in the staff report but there was also a request for more information about the valuation of the property. And I know Mr. Seiberg, he was unable to obtain an appraisal quite this quickly, but he does have some information based on discussions with a local realtor who was able to provide some comparables.

Yeah, the appraiser we had used for 05/2003, he was not able to put information together in time. So instead I pivoted to a local real estate agent to kind of spitball what that would look like. Now understand that these are estimates. I think it was in the staff report as well. It's as a value, just as a vacant piece of property as it sits today, you're looking at a range of in between 700 to $795,000 As it's developed as five units, you're looking at each of those units regardless of the size of the lot going for at the floor $1,000,000.

Mhmm. Even on a on one fifth or less of point two acres?

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Each individual unit.

Each individual unit.

Even a tiny home?

Yes.

That's loony tunes. Yes.

So I have a couple of questions.

We can hear you guys.

First of all, terms of I know Habitat's model is to is for the homeowners to have sweat equity. And if we do a land trust, it's my understanding that that would would it be harder for for them to find homeowners or for or for the for like what would the limitations there be if we go with that model versus the other model?

So as I've thought about this, I think the way that that would probably have to work would be that the city would still enter into some sort of agreement with Habitat for development of the property. And in full transparency, we haven't had discussions with Habitat about the details of what that looks like and whether that's something they would be interested in. But from my perspective, the way that would play out is that we would still have an agreement with Habitat and what we would need to endeavor to do would be to, you know, during the development process, so before they are ready to convey homes to homeowners, the city would have to move forward with establishment of the community land trust. And if the city is unable to establish the community land trust by that date, I think that would be problematic. But I think as long as the community land trust was in place by the time the homes are built, then it would effectively be that the community land trust holds the ground lease that the city would otherwise

Can I interrupt for just a Absolutely? But I think the question I'm asking is if the homes are built by the homeowners and homeowners have to be determined before the before occupancy in order to build the homes, could that delay prevent homeowners from could that could that delay

the project in general? I think we would probably have to ask Habitat, you know, what the timing is for when they enter into agreements with those, you know, qualified home buyers. You know, because the conveyance of the home doesn't happen until the home constructed. Right. But I don't know exactly, you know, at what point

the But the process home isn't constructed until the homeowners are selected because the homeowners construct the homes.

So I think if the city were to desire to move forward with the community land trust option for that project, then that would need to be something that Habitat discloses to those prospective home purchasers as part of the process.

I think one answer to Council Member Lang's question is that the difference is that that person who is choosing to put in their sweat equity to the property, if it's a community land trust, if it ends up being owned by the community land trust, then what they will realize in equity in themselves will be a smaller amount than if they're effectively eventually given the land because now they're going to get the

land. Let's do the discussion in a little bit if I can.

Think just for clarification, correct me if I'm wrong, at the last meeting, Darcy, you said it takes up to twelve months to vet to find the people for the homes and eighteen months to build is what was said at the last

Please come up because I'm going to have a question for you as well. Thank you, sir. I know you're like, I've been here 27 and a half times.

The construction timetable for the tiny homes is going to be about nine to twelve months. I I think Councilwoman Lang was actually correct in that The sweat equity process starts shovels in

the

ground. The families are selected long before we actually start construction. So their involvement in the actual build itself starts when we start building. So, the selection process has nothing to do with the the sweat equity. Part of the the application of the homeowner. I have a

different question, if that's okay. Now, you may have said this and I forgot it. After some process in the future, when the homeowner wants to resell the home, let's say at some point, does Habitat have the first right of refusal on the home?

We have first right of refusal on the home if they try to sell before the time frame of the agreement, which in the city would be fifty five years.

I see. So you would have the first right of refusal.

Yeah, because our goal would be, our rules require us to purchase a home and put another low income family into that.

Understood. Because you said something last time and I wanted to get the clarification. When you said, tell me if I'm wrong, basically, the Habitat homes stay in low income family arenas. And it seems to me in the way that you're saying it right now, you're trying to keep it sort of in that arena by having the first ride refusal. Is that a way of saying that? In other words, somebody stays there for twenty years, let's say, they want to sell, you take the first right of refusal, you try to resell it then to

Yeah, we'd be yeah, we're under under under the agreement.

Mhmm.

We'd have to sell it. We'd have to. Sell it to another low income family. We couldn't sell it for market value at that point in time. Again, key is the fifty five year agreement as the attorney has stated here, that property will remain low income for that that term of the the ownership. I I think it's fair to say of all the houses we've built. 90% of them. Are still inhabited by the original loan

90% by the original owners,

so you know. I I think the the the question is. Or. Council Member Whitman about, you know, what is the process? Most of the the homes that we sell homeowners can't in Ventura County.

Sell those units and move to a house that's less expensive and really cannot afford to move to a house that is significantly more expensive. So they stay in the units that they have purchased as Habitat Home. That's really how it's designed to work. We don't have there's not a mass sell off after fifty five years of home ownership. Because they cannot afford with an average price of $950,000 here in the county to buy another house. I see. And afford to to make that that that move.

So, one more question. If if we were to offer the land to Habitat for the $1 would the price of the units go up versus the lease?

No change. Okay. No change. Again, I think I've talked to most of you. Habitat's not a land baron. We don't own land. We build and sell. So, the price of the house is only increased based on property taxes that the city may have or those kind of things are obviously have an impact on the overall cost of the house and how that might increase over time. But for us, the same price we build it for and the same price we sell it for has no impact on Thank you. On the land.

The other thing to that point, and I know I've mentioned this to a couple of folks, is that because under the requirements related to affordability and making sure that the houses are affordable to lower income households, The actual price that it, the maximum price that it can be sold for is based on basically the HUD housing table So or income I think the standard is 80% of the average median income. Right. I think probably in this case it would be for a household of probably no more than two people.

Right.

And so that, regardless of the frighteningly large number that I was not expecting to hear from Mr. Seibert, these are not houses that will be sold a million dollars, at least during the period of time that they're subject to the affordability cost.

My last question for now. This, in the Planning Commission, think, tell me if I'm remembering this correctly, in either the land lease as present or in the land lease until a community housing trust is developed and replaces that, Something is going to have to be worked out in relation to the landscaping, the responsibility of the land, and that is not Habitat.

So I did review the MOU with Habitat in preparation for this discussion and you know, the reason there's slightly hedging language related to, you know, a ground lease with Habitat or the property owners is because we would have to work through that. I mean, the MOU contemplates a 99 ground lease to Habitat, we know a ninety nine year ground lease is off the table. But the MOU also does not include specific requirements related to maintenance. And so while, you know, that might be something we could negotiate with Habitat as part of establishment of a ground lease,

you

know, I think that that does need to factor in and would probably inform, you know, depending on which direction we receive from counsel, that will inform, you know, how we negotiate and draft those agreements.

I add something to that as well? So land trust and if the city decides to go that way in the future, don't think that's the discussion that you'll be having ongoingly, know, long after this meeting is over. The land trust role is just that, what was just described. There are four major areas in the land trust that are things that currently in our model we do for free. You know, those kind of things are built into the CC and RS are built into the homeowner agreements are built into the maintenance agreements.

Some of the things that the attorneys talked about such as you know, painting and color and you know, roofs and landscaping and who's taking care of that. Those kind of things are built into the habitat agreements that we have with homes with homeowners, and as you just described, are negotiated with the city in regards to the care of those issues. The Land Trust model really is designed to take the role that Habitat does on as a city. And there's a number of things that are in there. There's responsibility, there's liability, there's you know, resale agreements, all the things like that are are built into those models that Habitat does for all the units that we build and all the communities that we're a part of.

And that's part of the uniqueness of the Habitat model in regards to those costs and issues that the city attorney has talked about being negotiated. And we do negotiate those with the cities.

Thank you.

But I think one thing just to add to that is that if the council moves forward with the CLT, you know, what we would probably recommend in terms of what the ground, the ground lease would look different because the CLT would effectively, when you look at what CLTs do in other communities, they effectively are the property manager, if you will. They own the land, they maintain the land, they So, you know, again, I think that some of those concerns with a ground lease held by the city, we would address through the CLT process. And I think that's stated in the staff report.

Yeah, and I think what you said in the staff report though was the ground lease would need to be in place until some future time when the CLT is populated and funded and staffed.

Yeah, so it could be a ground lease, it could be that, you know, we simply come back to you with a disposition agreement or development agreement of some sort, like it would be a lease and development agreement for a shorter time period with Habitat.

Like a year or two, whatever

it

Yeah, would kind of terminate upon conveyance of the land to, or establishment of the leases with the homeowners is probably how we would structure that. So, you know, we haven't begun work on any of these options because we wanted to get council direction.

Yep. Thank you.

Yeah.

And just for clarification, anything that Habitat would do in terms of these long term maintenance issues, those can also be done by the CLT?

Conceivably, yes. I mean, I think the answer is yes, but you know, obviously the CLT has to exist and it has to

Right.

It's gonna need, you know, funding and either contracts or employees or, you know, people who, I mean, so there's a process that would be involved in setting that up.

Sure. Yes.

You know, do understand CLTs, but essentially the city would set up a nonprofit that the city would not control. I mean, we it would be an independent nonprofit. We may be have more, you know, board members or whatever, but it's a separate entity that the city does not control.

That is the way it's described in the staff report is that it would be a separate nonprofit. And I am aware of at least one city that has created something, or at least they call something a community land trust, and that's the city of Bakersfield, and I couldn't tell that they established a separate entity for that. But if you don't establish a separate legal entity, I think you're still kind of limited by the so if it's effectively still city owned property, you're still gonna be limited by the fifty five years on the limitation in terms of the ground lease. And so if you were going to create a community land trust, you would probably want that to be a separate nonprofit. But yes, there's a relinquishment of some control in doing that.

Because you could only control the extent to which you're providing, you know, funding or donations or property or you could still have control over those things.

Over those things but not over what the decisions that were made by the community land trust because that would be an independent board.

Mhmm.

That would essentially decide what they thought was the best thing to do. I mean, as I understand, Community Land Trust, that's the way it works. A separate entity made up of non, you know, I mean, they're not they're not.

It would not be the city council.

And they're not responsible to us other than the funding and, you know, that kind of thing. But the decision making on what, you know, how, what property, what the property would look like, what would be built, things like that. That would be the decision of the independent community land trust and the board or the executive director, however that mechanism works.

Yes, except to the extent that they require approval of land entitlements that are have to be approved by the city. So you would still have approval authority over the same types of things that you considered and approved for Habitat at the last meeting, such as the, you know, any design review permits or other development entitlements that would be associated with those projects.

It gets deeper, but would that land trust would be planning and housing laws that come down from the state, are those also applicable? They would be. I mean things like and not that we don't have builders remedy, but you know those kinds of things by right. Can do certain things, then

you Depending on the project.

Ms. Lang. Oh, sorry.

And then finally Go

ahead.

How does this meld in

with RENA numbers? I think under either either one of the ground lease options or under the home conveyance the the conveyance process option, either one of those would help address your RHNA numbers. Because they would still be homes that are for lower income

households. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yes. So

I You were still on the question part.

Yes. Yeah, we're still on questions.

So I actually have a question about the conveyance of the land. Because essentially we would be donating that to Habitat as our as a as a collaboration and a partnership. What advantages what advantages does that have over some of these other where we retain the land?

I think one of the biggest advantages would be that it's simple. It's the most simplistic option. You know, it obviously wouldn't be contingent upon, you know, once counsel goes through the process of approving the disposition and we close on the disposition, counsel would not have to, you know, they wouldn't have to come back to counsel for approvals of, well, we wouldn't have to worry about establishing the community land trust if that's the option that you were to pursue. If you do the ground lease, you know, the city will still, that's held by the city, the city will still have responsibilities related to property management. So there would potentially be times, you know, where they would have to come back to the city.

So I think from the standpoint of the disposition option, it's kind of the, like, you know, cleanest once it's done, it's done. There's not this, you know, beyond the requirements and the covenants and conditions and restrictions, There's not additional interaction or involvement with the city. It would, you know, each homeowner takes their tiny home and their small parcel of land, and they kind of, you know, go forth. So I think that there are some, I think, you know, just we've talked about in the previous meeting that there are some additional costs associated with some of this other stuff. I do think for the homeowners, you know, they, I think that this is just an unfamiliar structure for some people to do a ground lease.

So in that sense, you know, people, the homeowners will be more familiar with a disposition option. But, I think at the end of the day, the simplicity is really the biggest benefit.

Because if, just help me understand here. So if, because if we do, if we go with that route, then Habitat stays involved for fifty five years essentially?

Habitat potentially stays involved longer, and they can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that they enter into a homeowner agreement with each of the homeowners and, you know, effectively that continues potentially even, like they kind of restart the term if the home gets sold. So potentially, you know, the restrictions could remain with the property longer than forty five years. One other thing I failed to mention on the disposition option is also that, you know, in addition, so while a a community land trust ground lease with a ninety nine year ground lease can be eligible for basically traditional financing through organizations like Fannie Mae, You know, in terms of a homeowner who's trying to seek financing, I think we previously in the last meeting had indicated that, you know, there could be some benefits for someone who needs, you know, financing but maybe doesn't have perfect credit or, you know, it might be easier to get financing if they own the fee. The other factor I think we discussed last time is that for someone who owns the fee, they also have, they have more equity in the property. They have equity in the property itself as well as in the structure.

And just to clarify, when you say fee, you mean when they own the property?

Fee ownership, yeah, when they own the land as opposed to a lease. That's legal. Okay, yeah. But that's good to know.

More questions.

Yeah. So as far as the control of the CLT, that is, you know, the city's influence over the CLT and what it can do would be in the creation of the bylaws that we would participate in. I

think that's one of the things that we would have to explore as part of the, you know, CLT development process. I do think that if we're creating and establishing a separate legal entity, we can certainly impose conditions on what they do with the city resources that we would potentially provide to them, but I think we would have to flesh out as part of the development process, you know, exactly how much control we could exert without them effectively being an arm of the city.

And

then the the control is also an issue with habitat because once we transfer the land, the simplicity is we're out of the equation. And then, you know, when it comes to dealing with say maintenance on the property, habitats in Oxnard, a CLT would be here in OHAI. Correct?

I think the CLT would be wherever you establish it.

Right.

So, you know, conceivably, yes.

And my understanding is that, so once fifty five years has gone, then it's effectively a market rate unit. And there are provisions for extending and rolling the affordability factor forward, but we don't have, the city would not have control over that. But with the CLT, the CLT would have control. They could do a 99 lease and they can perpetuate that.

That would be correct. But, yeah, that would be correct. Nobody.

So wouldn't more people benefit from a CLT if you did the years and then when you when they moved or whatever, would benefit. Instead of just five, we could benefit, just continue?

So, what

Just to say, we getting into discussion? That would, we'd getting

into discussion Can if I answered

we ask Doctor? Just really quickly the fifty

five years is if it's a ground lease. So to make sure we're not mixing things up, so the fifty five year limitation is the limit on the city's ability to lease property for below fair market value rent. The city's affordability covenant that would be required as part of the condition, it was already included in your conditions of approval associated with the density bonuses that were approved as part of

the

entitlements is a forty five year affordability requirement. So, but that is separate from the requirements that Habitat imposes on homeowners. Okay.

So we can

And that, in the fifty five years when I mentioned that, that was what Mr. Taylor said in terms of their affordability, you know, covenants that are built into the sale. Although the sample agreement that we got said forty years. But that would all be subject to negotiation is my understanding.

I believe so. I mean, would only, and I believe, so the sample agreement they provided was for the city of Port Hueneme, and so that particular project might have had different requirements, but you know, when we reviewed that agreement, when my office reviewed that agreement, we noted that it did not, you know, there was a term limit or time limit on that affordability requirement, but my understanding is that the reason for that is that they, you know, if the homeowner who is originally, who originally purchases the home, if they sell the home before the expiration of that time limit, then the new homeowner enters into a new agreement with Habitat that kind of rolls that over. But if it's owned by one homeowner for the expiration or duration of that mandatory period, then that covenant would expire.

Okay.

Alright. We'll go to public comments. John Buetti please. Larry Steingold and Craig Gardner. Thanks for waiting.

Yes, once again, thank you council and staff for the effort that you put in on our behalf to this community. I really appreciate it. So, earlier today, was doing some research and I noticed that in the goals and tactics document that one a, so the most prioritized goal is the establishment of a land trust. Is that right? Yeah.

And then a $100,000 was allocated to look into that possibility. Is that right? That's what it says. Anyway. So there's certainly interest among the council to create a land trust. Absolutely. So I think that what we should do is move forward with a land trust that can manage this project. Land trusts exist in 50 communities in California. There's a lot of success associated with it. It builds community tremendously.

It's an opportunity for people in the city to contribute to something that we have all been talking about here for years, which is the desire to provide affordable housing for people who can't afford it. And I think that our community would just, like, would love the opportunity to contribute to this kind of a project. So I am all for, I believe it's one c listed, one c in the report that that would propose that the sorry. That the city maintain ownership of the property subject to a ground lease with Habitat and for and or future homeowners along with the convenience of the property to a community land trust if established. If I mean, it seems to me that that's something that we are have agreed that we definitely wanna do.

And again, just to put a fine point on this, a community land trust is more than a management vehicle or property holding entity. It is a community uniter. It allows, as I've mentioned, and invites community members to participate in soul enriching endeavors that benefit their neighbors from participate so from participating in building and renovating homes to donating real estate, fundraisers, opportunities for youth to experience the joy of giving and service, which can be transformative. I've seen it. I've worked on Habitat Humanities.

You, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Larry Stangel, please. Craig Gardner. And I have one that says, Habitat Project, no name.

Good good evening. Okay. Yeah. Forty good evening. Forty years in commercial real estate, and the more you spend talking about this and talk and trying to figure it all out, the worse it's gonna be because real estate's gotta be really simple. This is just getting way too convoluted. If they lease the land, how are they gonna get financing? Because if Habitat owns the land, they would at least use it for collateral to help build it. Because if it's a land lease, even if we have a land trust, are we getting any money income? We're not getting any income out of it.

It's gonna be all expense. So maybe public works does repairs or maintenance, what have you. But other options that you may want to add, sell the land for $7.50, $7.80, and use that money to fund the land trust. Sell the land and use the money to add back all the things to our permanent housing at Park, at Public Works, because of all the things that were stripped out by dignity and the city council and the construction prices. Things like air conditioning, and fencing, and trash removal, and landscaping.

Because where's that money gonna come from? We just here's the here's the money. Keep the land for a park. But sell the land and establish the land trust, then the land trust has capital to go out and do something with. So you're seeding that. But for a dollar? Great. Okay. But we don't want to be a part of it. And the gentleman from Habitat, they have first right of refusal on purchasing.

Great. That doesn't mean they have to. That's all it is, is a first right of refusal. Hedging and developing a plan, who's gonna manage it, if you don't determine all that stuff now, we're gonna get sandbagged by problems in the future. What happens if it needs a roof? Habitat's gonna go, homeowner, not my problem. Homeowner doesn't have any money. Where are they gonna go? Land trust. Okay, things happen.

Because when Habitat walks away, these people, are they gonna have any money to fix this stuff? They may, they may not. That's what sweat equity is for. But I know how I fix things and sometimes you need a professional. Things don't always work out the way you expect them to. But that's the point. I mean, you don't want a bad deal to begin with. It's easier to do a good deal now than it is to find problems because this is becoming more like the tax agreements or the tax code. That's not very specific. You've got to nail things down. Who's gonna maintain the landscaping? Who's gonna enforce it? What if the homeowner doesn't do anything?

You, mister Steingold. Craig Gardner, Habitat project, no name, and then Star Child. Is there Craig Gardner? Nope. Habitat, no name? I don't think I do, but come up. Okay.

Alright. So my name is Heidi Whitman and I'm a resident of town. So you've heard a lot of things about why you shouldn't do this and I'm going to tell you why this is an amazing opportunity for the whole town. But I do want to start by asking for some clarification in writing because at last meeting Mr. Darcy said it would take twelve months just to pick the people. These are five tiny units. These are not three bedroom, two bath homes. I don't think that any of these units are going to be lived in for fifty five years. You could get married, you could have a baby, your kids could become teenagers. It's not the kind of generational house where your kids are going to move back after college and live with you.

So I think they're going to flip more often. So with that I'm going to say also these haven't been advertised yet and it would be super important for you all to ask what the advertising plan is so Ojai residents can actually find out about it. So tonight the council has a rare win win opportunity to support affordable housing in perpetuity. The city can support a Habitat for Humanity project while ensuring the project through the creation of a CLT to hold the land in trust for the community can benefit the most residents possible. Without the land, these units will be more affordable and they'll be able to be available to residents with even lower incomes.

Without the land, CLTs all over the country have shown that the houses are cheaper. So this one would be no different. Now I completely understand that Mr. Darcy has indicated that the houses will be the same price because you're giving them the land. So are you going to give the land to those five first owners or are you going to use the land in support of the community forever, long after we're all here, so that we can continue to flip these over and over. So one

of

the things about CLT is affordability is achieved for both the first purchases and resales after that. And like I said, I think that these units are so small that you're not going to see somebody living in one for fifty five years. Certainly if it's a senior, we're not going to be around that long. So I just really want to urge you to kind of step out of your shell. If it let's just say for a second that it takes eighteen months to advertise, select the families, figure out how you're going to convey the land.

That would be plenty of time to start a CLT. That's what other cities have done. There's all kinds of examples. And with a CLT you have this property help OHAI people forever. So I strongly urge you to think outside the box and think about a CLT. Thanks.

Thank you. Starchild please and then Anita Cramm.

Good evening. I've got my Habitat for Humanity shirt on. I got this one by volunteering at the Port Wai Nimi project in Ventura County. I've also worked for, volunteered in construction for Habitat for Humanity in Anchorage, Alaska, as well as Phoenix, Arizona. And when I go back to Minneapolis, where my mom lives, I can look out the window and see the house that she and President Carter worked on.

I urge you to choose option b and convey this land fee simple to Habitat for Humanity for $1. Habitat for Humanity has a mission of making decent, affordable, sustainable housing for all. It's a decent organization with a laudable goal nationwide. It seems like one of the reasons why we're looking at a community land trust is maybe we don't trust Habitat for Humanity to maintain decent, affordable housing on the lot in question. But where's the evidence that that's happened?

Habitat for Humanity is a nationwide organization. They work in so many different communities. And where they work, they stay. I think what we should be doing instead of establishing a community land trust is establishing trust with Habitat for Humanity, working in partnership to ask them to help with our surplus land to develop it for affordable units that people who can't afford housing can live in. We already have an organization in Habitat for Humanity that can achieve a lot of the objectives we're asking a community land trust to achieve.

And even so, if we want a community land trust, we can do it. It can be established privately. The city could give money in the form of a donation, 100,000, to help kick start a private organization. It doesn't need to hold up this project. And hold up the project, it very well could.

Regarding a lease, I don't think it's a good idea. We would maintain maintenance responsibility, responsibility if there's contamination on the site, any dangerous conditions, fire on adjacent parcel could cause the city liability, and we might need to hire staff to maintain it, cut the grass, trim the trees. We shouldn't take on that additional responsibility as a city. We should this house. We should convey this land to Habitat for Humanity, allow Habitat for Humanity to build on the land, and we should look to the next surplus land parcel to help build that, either in partnership with Habitat for Humanity or in whatever is established in the next year or two.

Thank you, sir. Anita Crayon, please.

Good evening, everyone. Hello. Hi. Okay. So I'm for the community land trust. Don't give this property away for a dollar. You know, yes, give staff direction to establish a land trust. It makes much more sense for a land trust to hold the land rather than to give it to Habitat. We have a housing problem. It's not going away.

A community land trust is a piece of the solution of this. Hold the land that we, the people, own for we, the people, and particularly the most vulnerable in our community who can't afford to live here anymore. So, you know, and it strikes me that everybody's talking about all this maintenance and they're also talking about sweat equity at the same time. Well, isn't that part of sweat equity? Trimming the trees, cutting the grass?

I mean, why do we think that that can't be done as a part of this? That just kind of baffles me that we're getting caught up on this thing that's part of sweat equity. And, you know, I mean, you know, this would hold it perpetuity into the future for the good of the community. And, you know, allowing people to live here in a house that they know that is theirs, that a landlord isn't going to come in and keep jacking the rent up, evict them, whatever. Because the people who will own these otherwise have to live in those kinds of situations where it's just a constant unknown.

This is solid. So and I also am just going to have to say one more time. If we had been working on a second vacant home tax, we would also have a source of revenue to help with all these problems, but it just kinda boggles the mind why that is not being addressed by the city and by council. So I say go for it. Land trust. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anybody online? Yes, mayor.

We have

two raised hands. Okay. First, we'll have Bill followed by Renee. Okay. Hi, mister Miley. You have the floor.

Hi, there. Originally, I thought keeping ownership can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you.

It's the best option. Like a land trust. But I had a further chance to consider. Our city has never done that before. Takes time, talent. Trust require operating management and details, money and staff. What's the purpose? To keep it affordable forever. Habitat will do that. They're incorporated to do that.

I do have a question about what happens after fifty five years. A key is the issue with the original purchase of this land. We bought it through bankruptcy, and the condition says it has to be only used for affordable housing forever. Mhmm. By giving it to Habitat for a dollar, we accomplished that.

They keep it affordable forever. They maintain it forever. The city doesn't have a land trust responsibility as a property manager, which will cost money and staff every year. We need to know if we choose that option, how much? And what do we get for it?

We get affordability, which Habitat is guaranteed to us will occur. For a dollar, we give it to them. It's worth, you already heard, a lot of money. What a great contribution to a nonprofit that's been around for years and will exist well beyond all of our lives. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Whaley.

Next, have Renee.

Okay.

Renee, you may unmute.

Okay. Hello, everybody. Okay. I wanna try to merge what I think are the best of both of these ideas, because I think that really is what is called for right now. First of all, we have a blank lot. We have five families who need affordable homes, and we have a community that wants something more permanent than a one time housing project. So I think we can do it all, and I think we can start right now. Here's the plan. The city conveys the land to Habitat for $1. Habitat builds the homes, modest, well built, energy efficient homes.

And each family gets a ninety nine year ground lease from Habitat, but they own their own home. Habitat holds the land, A deed restriction recorded at the county ensures every one of those units stays affordable forever, not for a generation, but for forever. And then when the family sells, the next buyer has to become qualified. The affordability never leaves the prob the property. That solves the immediate problem.

But here's where it gets interesting. Built into the deed from day one is a transfer mechanism, a written commitment that when our community land trust is ready, Habitat transfers the land to the land trust, not if, when. The conditions are defined, the timeline is real, and the city has to consent to any transfer so we stay in the loop permanently. And then while Habitat is breaking ground on those five homes, we start building the community land trust in parallel. It gets incorporated.

You apply for nonprofit status. You record you re recruit a real board board members, and you have funding to capitalize it properly. And then you build the organization that OHI deserves, a permanent community controlled institution that keeps affordable housing here locally, run by people who live here. So in three to five years, the CLT is ready. The land transfers.

Habitat steps back to what it does best, building homes and counseling buyers. And then the CLT steps forward as the permanent steward of the land, and every affordable unit we add after it. So, five homes become the founding asset of something that lasts a century and the families who need housing now don't wait for us to build the perfect institution.

Thank you, Renee.

That's all

made it.

Anybody else online?

That's it.

Okay. Alright. Anybody like to start? Yeah. Oh, so. Oh, Carol, did you, you make a public comment? Sure. Go ahead.

In the city of Ojai.

Thank you.

And I had the pleasure of being on the council for twelve years. These houses are four fifty square feet. We're not going to have families in there. We're going to have hopefully people in Ohio who have been renting for years, who are single, who will now have a roof over their head that is secure. These are not going to be family homes.

This is not going to contribute to our lack of children in this town. And these people who who buy these homes who qualify will probably not live fifty five years. So, we do need the mechanism that you decide and that will keep it affordable for other senior, older, older, Ojai people who are also in a bad position to keep renting. But they are not family homes.

Mhmm.

Four fifty square feet. Max? Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Did you want to start the conversation? Or do

we we still have the presentation?

Oh, okay. Yes, go ahead. Alright.

Are you

going to know.

Alright, so

please have the timer though if

you can.

Yeah, I'll Okay.

Slides and timer.

So there's a huge gap between what market rate housing and what people in O. Can afford. The, you know, average well, the lowest houses are in the $800,000 to $900,000 range and I did a quick look this weekend and I think there were two. So that means that you have to have $80,000 for down payment or possibly $180,000 if you're a second time buyer, but a first time buyer can usually get 10%. And based upon the government recognized standards, it takes an income of $260,000 for a family to afford that $900,000 home.

But with a family income of $100,000 you can afford a mortgage for a $300,000 to $500,000 home. That would be a rent of around $25,000 to $3,500 a month, or a mortgage payment. And we have so many people in our community right now who are paying that as a rent and not getting the benefits of home ownership. So the community land trust is not for profit. And

oh yeah.

I switched my page but I hate to switch yours. So the idea behind the community land trust is the community land trust owns the property and it never gets transferred. And what that means is that the person acquiring it in perpetuity is buying just the building and that vaguely is about half of the cost of what the market price would be. And so it does allow us that I spent a lot of time talking with Mr. Taylor this morning.

And what their organization does is fantastic. Their goal is to create a great opportunity for that first person who owns it. And that they are going to be able to sell it and have a substantial life changing increase. Under the Community Land Trust Model, the goal is to perpetuate it for multiple generations off into the future because the land is never going to be joined to that piece of property. It will never have the same value as a regular single family home.

And it's the concept is called shared equity. So the land trust holds on to roughly half the equity while the homeowner has the other half. What happens under the community land trust is that the person who acquires a community land trust home is going to achieve equity but at a much slower rate than the person who has both the home and the land. But it is going to continue to provide that benefit well into the future. Mr.

Stangel mentioned something about the difficulty in a mortgage. There's a huge market for land lease homes and mortgages for that. Penny Mae, Freddie Mac, both have programs for that and all kinds of individual brokers. Thank you, Kim.

I just want get you I to get you know, I should

And then we can ask questions later. Yeah, I know.

Okay, so I think I've, yeah, so the homeowner qualifies for a mortgage and buys the house and leases the land for ninety nine years. And I've already covered that. So what, since our last meeting, I've received just a trove of documents from these community land trusts around the state. And it covers every type of document that you could conceive of to make the community land trust functional. The trick is that we have to decide what form our community land trust would take.

Would it be a five zero one C three? But we have the documents ready to work with as exemplars to do that. The city of Laguna Beach just did this a year ago. Which they had a property that was

We can come back to you. How much more do you have? Like four more pages. Let's come back to you. So let's continue the conversation. Did you were you gonna say something a minute ago or do you if you don't wanna start, that's fine.

You know, we all agree

Oh, yeah.

Thanks. We all agree that a community land trust is a great thing. The question before us is, is this the property to do the community land trust on? A community land trust is a complicated thing. It's not an easy thing. It's a five zero one c three. You need to get a board. You need to do bylaws. You need to figure out. And then, even with a community land trust, you then need to get a developer.

So I mean, it's not something that happens really, really quickly or really easily. It's something that is incredibly laudable. I would support immediately starting the process. But to say that, you know, we should now try to pivot Habitat away from their model to implement this, to me makes no sense at all, I have to say. Yes, I mean, yes there are great things about a community land trust, and yes they are different from the habitat model.

But we brought up the ground lease a year ago because we didn't want to give them a dollar. We didn't want to sell them the land for a dollar. And we worked with that for a very long time. And now we're here again, and we're like, nope, we actually want to do something different. You know, and I think we need to it just a community land trust is a great thing.

It is not appropriate here. It's not appropriate now. We cannot turn on a dime and, you know, get an LLC and get a developer, assuming that Habitat would even want to move forward with this. And, you know, basically bring in a whole new model that they can now have a whole you know, work try to work with their whole new model. I think once again, it does behoove us to talk to them about a future project.

This project is ready to go. This project needs to move forward. The amount of time and energy that it would spend it would cost us to do a land trust for this small plot of land, It it it's it's a huge lift. It's not a simple thing. We don't have a developer.

Let's move forward on a on a simultaneous pathway and get the community land trust and look at the other land that we have. Let's ask I mean, we don't even know if Habitat would be willing to take this on, which means that we wouldn't have a developer even for the land. So no one disagrees that a land trust is a great thing. No one thinks that it doesn't do doesn't serve the community and and shouldn't be here in Ojai. It should.

But the question is, is this the project? Is this how we should be pivoting right now? And, you know, we don't we're still waiting for a soil sample a year later. I mean, I'm sorry. Let's be real here. And I'm not in any way casting aspersions on anybody, but we've if anyone thinks that we're moving forward in any, like, quick way, you're not looking at the world that we live in here. So is this a here and now project? No. Is the community land trust a project that we start working on now? Yes. I would support that a 100%.

And Got it.

That's the point.

Yes, please. So

I definitely see the value in looking at a land trust for this project because it would anchor having this would anchor the land trust that we've all said that we want to have. And so I definitely see I think it's valuable for us to talk about this. I think it's worth it to take the time to do this and to really explore these options. I that said, I I have I've talked to some of my friends who started one in Point Reyes. I've also I went to the Southern California Association of Governments conference last week and talked to several other mayors and city council members.

And and some of the feedback that I heard was that the project because it's tiny homes isn't that there that a lot of community land trusts have a funding built in to the to the home ownership that this that that there that it would work better for projects that are higher price points. Family homes, two two bedroom, three bedroom homes, and that that as one mayor said, don't let the city cause a problem that an HOA would solve. So I've heard a lot of feedback that makes me think that this doesn't work for this project specifically, but that that now that we have the momentum that moving forward seeing if Habitat would like to partner with us for something that that would be more of of a of a project that would work for this that that that that would be that would be good. The other thing is I don't want to delay the project anymore. I really want it to move forward and I I just after the last meeting, I got to say, walking out of here thinking that I had killed the project or that we had somehow that's what we heard, that and not from Habitat, from but hearing that, it sent me into a total, like, crisis that weekend.

You know, I think Habitat's model is something that is unique in that people put their sweat equity in and they build equity. So it allows people to build wealth to have a way of of taking their initial their initial investment and making the most of it. If we do have that fifty five year agreement with Habitat and someone doesn't someone moves within that fifty five years, and that fifty five years starts again. So we are so we are there's longevity built into it. So I'll go ahead and let everybody And else

similarly, when I looked at some of the documents, I think it's from it's the Community Land Trust Guide for Local Governments. It is one of our priorities that we all agreed to and I see introduce the community to the idea, convene stakeholder groups, participate in the planning process, staff the startup, fund the startup. So I would suggest that my view would be that we convey the land to habitat. That would be that middle option and that we initiate a community land trust in the way that's being described simultaneously not holding up this project for eighteen months or whatever that timeframe were to And I think it would meet both goals really for us which is there's more affordable housing right away and then secondly we have a land trust for the future. That would be my goal.

I just think I'm pretty sure that other Habitat for Humanity chapters other than Ventura have done land trust. So it wouldn't be like starting from scratch and then taking information from them and the information that you've gathered with other things. I don't think the time frame would be as long as what you guys are thinking. I think it's worth checking into to see I'm not sure how many of the other, I don't know if you know how many of the other chapters of Habitat have done. Land trust?

Well, many. So I'm not sure where the concept that pursuing a land doing a ground lease from the city to Habitat and then pursuing a land trust would somehow delay this project because Habitat is ready to go with this project with it being a ground lease. It's an agreement that they signed an MOU with us to do that. What we'd be doing is exploring how to put together the land trust that we want. And look, if we can't do that in twelve or fifteen months so that it happens before the sale.

I'm talking about the construction going on through our whole discussion process. If we can't do that, then we can always go ahead and, you know, sell the property to them for a dollar at that point in time, say, oh, well, we tried, can't do it. But there's no part about this that prevents us from going forward. And for the project and for the construction, the selection of residents to go forward while we're trying to put a land trust in place. And there are so many communities out there ready to support us doing that.

So here's let's see, it's not working. Okay. So the main reason why it's great to do this now and to incorporate this is because if our land trust is an empty shell waiting for donations, that takes a really long time. If our land trust starts with five units and a demonstration to people in the community that we're doing something really meaningful to extend affordability in perpetuity, which I'm sorry, in perpetuity which is apparently according to Mr. Miley, it's in the deed that we have to do this in perpetuity.

And Habitat for Humanity doesn't do that. And don't get me wrong, I think Habitat for Humanity is great. And actually, I'd love to see them work with us on future projects. You know, ideally Habitat would build the homes. It would take about eighteen months as I understand it to have the homes ready for sale.

The CLT can be established in the meantime and we'd have lots of help to create the CLT and decide how to do it. This is the this slide is really kind of important because it shows the difference between what happens with the sale to Habitat versus keeping it. So the first big difference is that in under shared equity, the land trust withhold 50% of the equity or roughly that, whereas all of the equity goes to the first purchaser of the property under the habitat model. And then the for subsequent sales after their rollover happens, we no longer have any control or ability to say anything and actually, you know, unfortunately the city is not very great at knowing exactly what's going on with those types of things when we have an agreement. But it stays affordable in perpetuity because of the type of home we've developed.

The resale would include the original purchase price plus capped based upon the appreciation and improvements. You can we can choose local homebuyers forever. The land trust can choose local homebuyers forever. Once the Habitat for Humanity contract expires, there's no longer any guarantee that those are going to be sold to OHAI residents. The land trust allows us to keep this continually going to OHAI residents and continually to be at a very affordable rate.

So we have more control. This is a local control issue. And let's see.

We can come back to you. Okay. I I guess to me, a couple of things. A lot, it's easy. We we keep up bringing things like control and perpetuity and things like that but the land trust would have the control. So the city would not have the control.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you, sorry. So I guess to me it still comes down to the same sort of questions which is I've started two nonprofits myself. It takes a while to get your IRS designation even after you get your board and all that kind of stuff. So I understand how difficult it is. Not to say it's not impossible but when I look at the staff report, if we just look at the land lease option and I see around page 129 of the larger packet, the ground lease has eight items here that would need to be addressed.

And so to say we don't have to stop anything, the land lease can start, these are all things that are going to have to be worked out and at the Planning Commission meeting when Habitat was there, these had some thorny issues around them. So it seems to me it's easy to say if we have to staff it and fund the CLT and those kinds of things or we get it to fund itself eventually, these are all questions that have to be asked. They're great questions to ask. I see it as this is the difficult path forward on this project in my opinion is the the ground lease. So, that's that's the hampering.

Now, I I definitely want to start the CLT and I think we should put money towards it and that would be wonderful but I would not I would not have this project start with the land lease. So separating those two issues out clear. That's my view. Go ahead.

Okay. I don't know that there's more to say. I think we we underestimate the complexity of community land trust. We need a board. The city will not control that board.

The people I I don't think anyone in the town I mean, we've all heard about community land trust, but none of us really knew what it was until we did a deep dive. We talked about a process about bringing the community into it, about letting them truly understand what it's about. There may be five people out in Ojai who understand the community land trust. And conceptually, it's immediately graspable. But there are details to it that it would be really nice to talk to the community about.

And as far as like bringing the community in, the one way to bring the community in is to actually have conversations about it. So perhaps council member Whitman, this would be your first town hall. And you could actually make the case and bring people along with us. And and we haven't asked Darcy, mister Taylor, you know, what he thinks about this. He would then just be a developer.

And, you know, a developer who now has to work with a completely new timeline. And I think, yes, we speak with him about next projects. The city has land. The city has land. If we can indeed get Habitat to develop with us, then it's much better process to work together towards that from the start rather than sort of twisting the arm and saying I mean, and I don't even know if Habitat would be willing to do this.

There's no way to figure out how long this would actually take. There's no way to figure out what obstacles will come in front of you, what the community will say. It's a great idea, but this project on North Montgomery is ready to move forward. And we should move it forward. And and to council member Lang's point, one of the things that my research said as well is that if you're gonna do a land trust, you want to get some some heft with it.

You know, you want to have enough to enough property and enough building to actually get momentum going. So because, like I said, it's a huge ramp up. I mean, we think we can do we can just snap our fingers and get things done. It never happens that way. So, and we have not heard from Darcy either, but I would hope that we could just make the decision to give the land to Habitat, let's get this project moving, start a simultaneous community land trust, and start an outreach with folks, and find out what we actually can get from the community.

Let's have that, if that's okay, that would be your final, if that's alright. Absolutely. Okay. No, no, I don't mean stop. Mean, you're good.

Yeah. No, I'm good.

We'll do our final thoughts.

So, my, so I think we have an opportunity for the Community Land Trust for the property next door, the McRae property. I would be in favor of moving forward, maybe talking to Habitat about that developer. I met actually met a few low income developers at the booths last week. And so I would I totally agree with you about having that it's easier to raise funds for something when you have a project in the works. And for that reason, I wanted to I wanted to move forward with this one.

But I I I'm I'm really concerned about delaying it. I'm really concerned about not being able to find homeowners, any kind of any issues coming up with the land trust, then the city's responsible, future councils are responsible for the land, and then we're in the in the position of being landlords or HOAs. I I'm I'm in favor for this project of moving forward with the property conveyance and looking at a land trust for the property next door.

Final thoughts?

Well, I think that the first of all, we all need to recognize that we're essentially making a donation of this $800,000 property to

five

individuals. And I would much rather see us take this asset nearly $1,000,000 and donate it to generations of Ojai residents. And that is what the community land trust is all about. It's you you create this long term affordability. I it's great to do this benefit for those five families but I don't I can't, you know, responsibly do that when I when I know that apparently it's in the deed, but we gotta fact check on Bill.

But the but the I'd but the concept behind that, that that we would acquire a piece of land and there'd be a condition on it that you make it affordable in perpetuity. We're not doing that with the agreement we're gonna reach with Habitat for Humanity. We're going to benefit greatly five families, and we're going to lose that benefit eventually. I'm one of the people who has lived here, you know, since other projects have been built that have gone out of their affordability factor. And it's really kind of sad that the long term affordability wasn't built in.

And for a long time, people were trying to figure out how to find the law to do this. And the land trust is the first it's a really good concept for trying to achieve this really long extended affordability to multiple families who can live in those homes over the next, you know, two hundred years, not the next fifty five years. And so I think I've, you know, my understanding from talking to Mr. Taylor is that they will do this project and that we can start this project, but that there's lots of details we'll have to work out.

Mr. Taylor begs to differ.

Well, finish your thoughts.

Don't

know. It's okay. Don't want to but no, no. Finish your thoughts. Keep going.

Okay. Well, I mean, if you can't do the project, then I don't think he should be asking us to do the McCray property either.

That's Final thoughts. Finish it though.

Yeah. No. That's those are my thoughts.

Okay. I just think this would be a good place to start. Be I support I support moving forward with the land trust. Mean, I'm sorry. I just think it's a good time. It's small. It's doable. You know, we don't know how long with you guys running with all these seats open if you don't do it now. You know, I just think it'd be cool to have this under your belt.

That's what Then I'm going to make a motion that we test the staff with preparing the documentation for the conveyance of the land to Habitat for Humanity. Sorry about that. I'll get a little closer. I I motion that we test the staff or ask the staff to prepare the paperwork for the conveyance of the land to Habitat. At the Montgomery property and that also we also asked the staff to bring forward the proposal for an ad hoc committee to establish a community land trust. Is that sufficient?

Just to make clear for the record, that would be separate from this particular project, because we're talking about conveyance.

Yes.

And then also would your motion include direction to initiate the surplus land act process?

Yes, please. Thank you. I knew I was missing something. I'm satisfied with those two things. Oh, so it's three, there's three points. The the surplus property paperwork, the conveyance, and then the ad hoc committee for the community land trust. I'll need a second for a vote though.

A second.

Okay.

Yes, please. Motion understood. Roll call. Council member, excuse me, Mayor Pro Tem Mang. Council Member Rule.

Yes.

Council Member Lang.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman. No. Motion passes. Three to two.

Okay. Is there any reports or future agenda items?

I have a future agenda item.

Okay.

I think I raised this more than a year ago. I do like the idea that we consider a second home tax in whatever format. It's been mentioned in our meetings several times recently and I think we should really New pursue York City, I guess, is working on that as we speak. And I'm really interested in us being able to see what's legal.

I would love to see the options on that too. Thank you.

Yeah. And I think part of that we need to figure out, if we can, how many second homes we have. Right. You know

Or who owns it but the residence isn't here.

Yes. Just anecdotal and so yeah, we should investigate. It's it's once again, it's not an easy question because

Mhmm.

What does home, you know

Right.

Mean that anything over three months? You know, what are the parameters around that?

That'd be interesting to see.

I agree. I agree. You got a second home? Work some money up, baby.

Okay? Alright. Meeting adjourned. Alright.