City Council - Regular Meeting

In progress.

It is 7.10 p.m. on Monday, September 14th, and I wanted to call the meeting to order. City Clerk Coffey, could we have a roll call, please?

Council Member Espinosa? Here. Council Member Beer? Here. Council Member Beckmeyer? Present. Vice Mayor Wright?

Present.

And Mayor Bowles?

Here. So I just want to remind everyone, We have some new faces I see in the audience today that you do need a parking pass on your car if you're parked out front, and those can be found right downstairs. And I'm going to start by reading a statement about public commenting during our meeting. So public meetings are a limited public forum, meaning that there are rules for commenting at these meetings. Comments on non-agendized items must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, and comments on agendized items must relate to that specific item. If comments do not fall into one of these categories, the city will provide you with an initial warning to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or on topic. If the warning is not followed, then I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. And throughout this warning system, I will seek the assistance of the city attorney in identifying comments not related to the agenda item or not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. OK. And we'll take a moment to read our land acknowledgment. The city of Pacifica acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramito-Shaloni peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We honor the Ramatish Ohlone peoples for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth. As the indigenous protectors of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatish Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramatish Ohlone peoples. Council Member Beer, could you lead us in the salute to the flag?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

City Attorney, do we have a closed session report?

No reportable action.

OK, well, we have a proclamation today first for the 50th anniversary of the California Coastal Commission and for Coastal Cleanup Day. And I believe we have Deirdre Martin and Lynn Adams in the audience, perhaps. Do you want to come up to the podium since we weren't able to get anyone from the Coastal Commission today? So we have our own Earth heroes here. WITH US. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING HERE TONIGHT. SO PROCLAMATION OF THE CITY OF PACIFICA IN RECOGNITION OF THE CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY AND COASTAL CLEANUP DAY 2026. WHEREAS IN 1972 ALARMED BY THE SANTA BARBARA OIL SPILL AND CONCERNED THAT PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT WAS CUTTING OFF PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE SHORE, CALIFORNIANS RALLIED TO SAVE OUR COAST. They declared by voter initiative that it is the policy of the state to preserve, protect, and where possible, restore the resources of the coastal zone for the enjoyment of the current and succeeding generations. Whereas this voter initiative, Proposition 20, was a hard-fought campaign and ultimately led to the passage of the California Coastal Conservation Act on August 23, 1976, in order to preserve and protect coastal and oceanic resources and public access to the shore, as well as permanently establishing the California Coastal Commission. And whereas, since its establishment, the California Coastal Commission has collaborated with local governments to create over 2,500 public access ways to and along the coast to protect 12,000 acres of open space and habitat, to restore or create more than 4,600 acres of habitat, open 875 miles of the California Coastal Trail to the public, and enable projects to educate the public and preserve public access to California's coastline. And whereas the coastline is an integral part of the City of Pacifica, including coastal beaches, wetlands and critical habitat, trails, fishing spots, and surfing breaks, and the California Coastal Commission has protected the coastline of Pacifica for the past 50 years and will continue to do so for future generations. And whereas, in partnership with the California Coastal Commission, San Mateo County Environmental Health Services coordinates Coastal Cleanup Day, California's largest annual volunteer event, and in Pacifica, works in partnership with the City of Pacifica and the Pacific Beach Coalition to engage community members in cleaning local creeks, beaches, and coastlines to help restore and protect our environment. And whereas, Coastal Cleanup Day will take place on September 19th and will gather families, friends, community groups, and schools to protect the environment, wildlife, and the health of the community. Now, therefore, I, Christine Bowles, on behalf of the City Council of the City of Pacifica and all its citizens do hereby recognize the 50th anniversary of the California Coastal Commission and the 42nd annual Coastal Cleanup Day to take place on September 19th. The rich history and valuable contributions made by the California Coastal Commission and community members help ensure the continued protection and preservation of the coast. As Peter Douglas, co-creator of the 1976 California Coastal Act and former executive director of the California Coastal Commission said, the coast is never saved, it's always being saved. Thank you. Would you like to say a few words? And we'll let the council members.

Sure. I would love to. I actually submitted a card, so thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor Bowles, council members, and the City of Pacifica for this recognition. Lynn reminds me that it's the 30th anniversary of Pacifica celebrating Coastal Cleanup Day this year as well. I'm very grateful to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Beach Coalition, the Coastal Commission, and all the volunteers who helped make this work possible. I want to thank the city staff and Public Works for their partnership and support over the many years that PBC has organized Coastal Cleanup Day here in Pacifica. And I also want to recognize the California Coastal Commission and San Mateo County Environmental Health Services for their continued support. This year is especially meaningful as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the California Coastal Act. The Coastal Commission estimates that California's coast and ocean support a $51 billion economy, but those of us who live in Pacifica know that the value goes far beyond economics. As we often say here, and past mayors who agree coined the phrase, our environment is our economy, so protecting our coast is vital to our community and our future. So I'd love to invite mayor, council, city staff, and public works, and everyone in our community to join us this Saturday from 9 to 11 a.m. While we won't have a formal podium event as we have in years past, your presence is just as important. So visit the Pacific Beach Coalition website and choose one of our many cleanups and sign up today. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Debra. Would any council members like to add anything?

I liked it last week. We started with Myra.

It worked out really well. Okay. Well, I missed that. So go, Myra, go.

Oh, you want to start with me?

I think we should always start with you. Don't forget your mic, though. Pull your mic down.

Cleanup day is my day. So I will leave anything behind and I'll be there. In Pacifica, our coastline is part of our identity. But we also know how vulnerable it is. And I appreciate all of the volunteers for cleaning up our coastline and beaches. So thank you so much for everything you do. So if it wasn't for you guys, I don't know how the city would look like. So thank you so much. Thank you.

I'm always excited at school when I see, you know, school, beginning of school, your stuff is just dying down, and then I see the poster for Coastal Cleanup Day, and everybody starts getting revved up for that. And at Cabrillo, there's a green team that is organized. Cherie Chan's been involved with it and others, and so we're very excited to see that happening and look forward to participating again. Thanks.

It's so good to see you both standing there together. It's like the dream team right there. And I found myself getting a little emotional because the work that you have done and the opportunities that you have provided for our community, it's just priceless. So many years of young people and old people and everybody in between coming together just to clean up and care about their community, right? There's not, talking about politics or anything like that. It's just we love our community and we want it to look beautiful and we want our oceans to be safe. So thank you so much for providing our community with all those opportunities, for providing me personally with all those opportunities for so many years now, 20 years something. I can't be there this weekend.

I'm going on a painting retreat, so I'm really taking care of myself. Good for you.

But I will be thinking of you and there's groups of my students that are gonna be there with bells on. Awesome, thanks Mary.

How lucky are we to live next to that? How lucky are we to have the council meeting next to that? How lucky are we to have people looking after that like you in this community? We're lucky to have you here doing that for us to make this such a wonderful place. If you think about the human body, You think we have four limbs, a torso, and a head. You take 15% of that off, pick a limb, pick a head, pick a torso. That's what we'll be missing. 15% of the community is the ghost. You guys are warriors for us. You're saving us. You're keeping us whole. Thank you.

Thanks. And you know I love you and all the work that you do and all the education and inspiration you provide to our children too that grow up just taking care and cleaning up by default because that's what they've always done and it's the right thing to do. I can't wait to hear what the final slogan is about the octopus. I do want to take a minute to thank the Coastal Commission too, though. I mean, I know we weren't very happy with them at our last meeting about our short-term rentals and, you know, sometimes there's disagreement about policies and so forth in the city. But, you know, you look at the quarry and the fight that's coming up and the Coastal Act does so much to protect our environment and our habitat and make sure we're safe from sea level rise and other hazards. And they're really a partner. And this council, since I got on, had as our goal to try to prioritize and improve our relationship. And I think we've done that. I think we have more to go. But there's a new movie out that's called To Save Our Coast that's about the political movement in the early 70s, you know, after the oil spills in Santa Barbara. And just the real battle between the property rights, real estate interests who really didn't want the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Act because, you know, that's development on the coastline that, you know, they... were going to be limiting to make sure there was public access to and so forth. Anyway, it's a really great movie that's really inspirational about the power of the people over the power of corporate interests and so forth. And so I really encourage people to watch that and remember. And then just finally, Coastal Cleanup Day is really about preparing our environment before the winter storms too. And we saw the storms already hitting in Southern California. Horribly last week and the more trash we can get out now. It's not just the beaches, but it's your streets. It's your You know sewer outfalls and and our stormwater drains and so forth So really encourage people to look where you are and try to clean up the trash there too along with the beaches But thank you all can't wait to be there with you on Saturday Thanks for for all you do for Pacifica and for and for our coast and

Thank you so much for saying that, Christine, about it's before the winter rains and what we can get. And everybody can get something any day and every day of the year. But I also want to note that I will be at 24 Hour Fitness cleaning up that district. And we're going to have most of the districts are cleaned up by our volunteer teams. And these shopping districts are a big source of waste. And we need to do what we can to call attention to that and to rectify it. Also, coastal cleanup is the kickoff of the butt blitz. And the butt blitz goes on through October 31st. So we can all take time to pick up the cigarette butts every time we see them, count them, log them. We have our butt busters and butt blitz log accessible on our website. And you can make your cigarette butts that you pick up count So the team is up to over 65,000 cigarette butts that they've collected this year just from the butt busters. So let's turn out that much for the butt blitz. Thank you much.

Thank you.

And happy Coastal Cleanup Day.

Yeah. And I'm going to present this to you all on Saturday, right?

Thank you.

Do you want a picture or anything today to celebrate? Not necessarily? Okay. Okay. Love you both. Bye, guys. But I will open up public comment on the proclamation. If anyone would like to say something, you can come up and fill out a yellow card afterwards. Do we have any raised hands?

We have two raised hands. Okay. Go ahead. We have three raised hands, I think. The first is for Jim B.

Go ahead, Jim.

Yes, hello. I would like to thank you. It is so amazing that we have such a great community where the young people and the old people alike. And as you said, those in between, we can focus on environmentalism and keeping our beaches clean. It's very important. And I'm just so glad to be a part of this community. Now, What I wanted to speak about tonight is I wanted to ask the city council to have a week of remembrance for 9-11. As you know, it was the anniversary.

I'm sorry, but that's not the topic of the conversation now. You can make that statement during open public comment.

Okay, okay. This is only about... We're just talking about the beach?

We're only talking about the beach and the ocean right now, yes.

Yes, okay, great, okay. Yeah, so one thing I'm really invested in is the sea turtles. Now I know that the sea turtles make their nests and people don't understand that it's very difficult for the baby turtles to get to the ocean. So I would like to see if there could be maybe a side branch of the efforts of the cleanup in order to help the baby turtles to protect them and help them because I've seen other communities and I've actually watched documentaries on it to get the sea turtles into the ocean so that they can have their chance to become full grown sea turtles, right? We all love to go and I know that There's a lot of trash that accumulates in the great Pacific garbage heap where a lot of these turtles are dying as well as other wildlife in the sea. And also I would like if we could maybe as a city put out a proclamation that we support the efforts and maybe put some resources towards the efforts to clean up the trash within the Great Pacific garbage heap and maybe have some type of effort to prevent more plastic waste going out and accumulating there because that's one of the most, the largest trash heaps in the ocean in the whole entire world. And I think that that would be very beneficial and it would put our city up as one of the leaders in this fight to get rid of the plastic debris in the ocean that injures and kills so much of the wildlife. So thank you so much for hearing that.

Okay.

Thank you, Tim. The next raise hand is for Judy S. Go ahead, Judy.

Go ahead, Judy.

Judy is still muted.

Can you unmute yourself, Judy? Can we go on to the next one and come back to Judy?

And the last raised hand is for Carrie.

Go ahead, Carrie. Go ahead, Carrie, we're listening. Is he muted also?

Carrie is unmuted.

We're not hearing you, Carrie. Okay. Do you want to try Judy one more time?

Judy S is unmuted.

You're very polite to come back to me. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great. Is this non-agenda items?

I'm sorry?

Is this comment on non-agenda items currently? I don't want to speak. No, it's not.

It's about the Coastal Commission and Coastal Cleanup Day.

Okay, I guess, will I wait? How much further along is the unrelated items?

We've got a couple of other items first, so, yeah, you'll need to wait.

Sounds great. Sorry to interrupt. My bad. Okay.

All right, I'm going to close. I don't see anybody in the room. I'm going to close public comment on that item now. Okay. Our next special presentation is from the Fogfest Organizing Group, the 39th Pacific Coast Fog Fest. So I want to invite Teresa and Rhianna to the podium for a special presentation.

Hello, my name is Teresa. I'm one of the co-presidents for our 39th annual Pacific Coast Fog Fest this year. So I just want to take a minute to thank the council for your generous donation. It's helping keep Fog Fest alive this year. And to thank the community for all the volunteer work that they're doing to help put on Fog Fest. And to encourage you to come, it is next weekend, the 26th and 27th, so it's literally right around the corner. Hopefully you've seen the beautiful poster up in your local businesses. It has been created by a local artist, Mark Burdell, this year. So yes, we'd like to encourage you to come and have a good time. As you can see, we are showcasing some of the merch that will be available this year. It's got a great color palette, so we're really excited about it, and we hope to see you there.

Thank you, Teresa. I'm going to skip the block in case I fall and injure myself again. My name is Rhianna Karstead. I am the co-president of Fogfest with Teresa. And I am going to make sure that I mention we have 24 amazing bands that are going to be playing this year on three different stages. We have the Kaiser stage on Montecito, the Pacifica stage on Santa Maria, and the North Stage Recology is there on IBL on the corner. And I just wanted to mention our parade this year. The theme is Happy 250th Anniversary, America. And we are honored to feature the Grand Marshals who represent Pacifica's original Ohlone inhabitants, along with local veterans who serve to preserve our democracy. The parade starts on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. right at Montecito, where the South Stage is. It culminates at IBL. We are going to be having wonderful floats, marching bands, dance groups, and classic vehicles. Again, that starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. On Sunday morning, there will be an awards ceremony for a few of those floats. There is a best float award, a best mini float, best costumed walking group, and a best music or dance group. And again, you can see those prizes being awarded on the center stage at 10 a.m. on Sunday. The next thing I really wanted to do was just encourage the community if you were interested in getting involved in Fogfest. It's a really large production. This coming year, everyone in town, mark it down, it is the 40th anniversary of Fogfest. Fogfest has been around a couple years longer than that, but with COVID, the actual running of it, this is going to be the 40th. And it will also be, if my Wikipedia is correct, the 70th anniversary of the declaration of Pacifica as a town, incorporation, I guess I would say. So next year, 2027, we're looking at the 40th anniversary of of Fogfest and the 70th anniversary of Pacifica. We're really hoping to make it just a really big deal and we could use more help as a board. The volunteer work that goes into the production of the festival throughout the year is pretty large and we're really looking for some dedicated assistance with that. So if you think you're really good at marketing or you know you're really good at talking to businesses You can land sponsorships if you want to help with entertainment or run the parade. All of these different things we have when we could really use some help. And we hope to see you all there that weekend.

Do we need anything else? If you do want to volunteer, reach out to one of us or you can email community at fogfest.org.

Thank you. Thank you both so much. Excuse me. I think the council wants to make some comments and be able to thank you from here. Yeah, you have the block. Oh, yes, there you go.

Let me do it again. Oh, of course.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you guys for everything you do. It seems like it's easy, but it's not. This is a lot of work. So, and for me, when I wasn't involved with anything related to the city, so I usually come to Fogfest. And... This is where we gather as a community. So thank you so much for everything you're doing. And hopefully we can help out if you guys let us know what you guys need. Maybe ahead of time. It's kind of late right now. But thank you so much for everything you guys are doing. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

I was reflecting on our long history with Fogfest and thinking about our son, who's 33, who had the opportunity to march in the parade with a respite care group. He was about six, and it rained. And he was not happy. He was the most unhappy-looking parade marcher I think I've ever seen. But that was a long time ago. And there have been... endless involvements. There are so many opportunities to volunteer because this is truly a community event put on by the community for the community and the benefit in the end for the community groups that work at Fogfest to raise a little money for their specific missions. I know how long and hard you work to make this happen and I really Thank you for stepping up and for your excellent work and great job on Kaiser. Thank you.

Thank you both for being here. I think the community needs to really understand how much work you have put into this year. So there was some really big transitions, right? Folks that had been working for a very long time who kind of stepped down just a little bit. Maybe some of them stepped all the way down. I mean, we have John in the audience there, right? So I know you still have your little fingers in there every now and then, John. But you really stepped up. And I don't know if you realized... what a lift it was going to be, but boy, did you do a great job. And I got to be the liaison. So I got to attend your meetings and see the facilitation and the organization of the meetings. And there's a gift to that when you have a bunch of people around a table with a whole lot of different opinions and you can run a tight meeting. So congratulations for that. I look forward. to the Fog Fest. And Sue, you reminded me of when our kids were little and they would march down the street, like Valley Mart Band.

They'd play it all the way down Palmetto.

It was like the same three notes. It was great. Anyway, there's lots of memories. We all have a lot of memories and we can just make some more this year. So thank you both so much.

I definitely want to echo the comments in terms of how much time and how much effort and how little people really understand how much goes into this. But that's part of what makes Pacifica great, is people like you coming together to make this a community where we all care about each other, lift each other up. And this is our biggest, brightest, make us shine, even though they call it Fogfest, is still going to make us shine out there in the community. And I really appreciate all the work that you and all your volunteers do to try to make this happen. Thank you so much.

Before you go, there are other people out here that are very involved in the Fog Fest. We have Marty, who's in charge of all the entertainment. Yay, Marty. And then I saw Robin walk in. And so, Robin, how long have you been doing the parade? Banana years, like 25 years. So thank you. Thank you so much.

And I have one card from him, but if anybody else wants to speak, please do fill out a card. And yeah, Teresa and Rhianna, I just really want to thank you for stepping up because I know this wouldn't have happened without you this year. And It's becoming more and more challenging every year with the cost, especially since the Gilroy shooting, you know, the cost of police. I'm just trying to keep everyone safe, too, while having fun. And most of that, they do such a great job. It's in the background. You don't really notice, but you know they're there if anything happens. And this is really a big thing that defines Pacifica, you know, that where the whole community can come together from from the run early in the morning to the parade and all the different kids groups and costume groups and the council and the wonderful fire truck that's historic. That's been such a fun addition the last few years. But it also puts us on the map to other visitors coming here who come and get a taste. I mean, I remember coming when my kids were little when I still lived in San Francisco. Somehow we came home with hermit crabs. So yeah, you're creating memories for a lot of people even outside the city. And look at that, then you're on the council.

One more thing, if you don't mind, we have to give a shout out to Kathy Johnson. She's not here tonight because she couldn't be, but that woman has put in some significant personal time over many decades with Fogfest.

Great. Thank you both so very much. Thank you.

Yeah, thank the whole Fogfest board.

All of them. Yeah. I'm going to clap. I'm going to clap for real. So we'll take public comments online first. I just want to make a reminder that this is not about general public comment. This is only about Fogfest. So do we have any raised hands, Emily?

We have one raised hand for Jim B. Okay.

And let's cut that off for now. So Jim, please go ahead.

Yes. I'm still waiting on the public comment. Yeah.

That's not now. This is only about Fogfest. So I'll let you know when it's time for general public comment. Thank you. All right. I have a card from Martin Anaya.

So I didn't come in here originally to speak this evening I came here to do my day job which is Pacific Coast television and helping to make sure that people can see these meetings at home through the various ways that they do but I did want to say something at the risk of reiterating what I know a couple of the council members had already kind of intimated which was that this is an all-volunteer effort and that these ladies and the entire board, including John and Kathy and Robin, have stepped up in a time, and if we look at this in context, it was a time when we didn't even know if there was going to be a Fogfest. So I just like to put that in context that these are community members. At PCT, we don't just cover things that go on in Pacifica. And it has been my pleasure to be up and down the peninsula and work with different cities and see what they do with their art and wine festivals and the pumpkin festival. Almost all of them have some what you would call professional component. People that are getting paid to do it, right? Almost all of them. And again, those are different scenarios than we have here. A lot of those cities are much more wealthy than this community. But the people who have stepped up in this community to make this thing happen amidst all of the trials and tribulations really deserve all of our applause and thanks because again, without them, it would be no Fogfest. For 20 years, PCT has been the de facto stage manager at the South Stage. This year, on our 39th, wanna make clear, this year's the 39th, next year's the 40th, we stepped up to do the entire management of the entertainment. 24 bands, and the idea was we wanna make it accessible to the entire community, and I think that that ethos is the same ethos that I see throughout the workings and these people that have been so amazing with their time. So I just want to say thank you to these ladies and to these gentlemen who made it happen. Thank you to you guys for supporting and thank you to this entire community for understanding. By the way, one more... Since we're doing anniversaries, it's also PCT's 50th anniversary. So maybe we can do some sort of a combo. City, PCT, and also Fogfest for all having anniversaries. But thank you guys for your support over the years.

Appreciate you. Thank you so much, Martin. Okay, I don't have any other cards, so I'll close public comment on that item. Okay, and then that brings us to our... Consent calendar, items 1 to 11. Are there any council members that want to pull any items? Seeing none.

I wanted to... Not yet, let me find it.

You can ask questions later, too. It's just if you want to pull an item.

Oh, okay.

You don't need to pull one, so I can just take public comment while you're looking for your comments. Okay. All right. So, again, I'm opening up public comment online first for items 1 to 11 on the consent calendar. Again, this is not general public comment. That will come next. Do we have any raised hands?

We have one raised hand from Judy S. Go ahead, Judy.

Hello. I think I did hear. I'm sorry. I think I might be misunderstanding. But I have to wait until later in the meeting. Yes, you do.

This is not general public comment. That will come next. Thank you.

OK. Thank you.

There are no raised hands. I do have two cards from the audience. First is Jose Quintana from the Pacifica School District. Oh, here you are. Come on up to the microphone, please. And then Michael Wellman is my last card. So again, if anybody else wants to make a comment on the consent calendar, if you could fill out a yellow card and bring it up front, please.

Hi, Jose. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. the rest of the board here for the City of Pacifica. I'm here with Maverick Development who is working with us for the workforce housing and obviously we have a... Could you pull the microphone up a little closer? Very well, thank you.

Thank you.

So thank you once again for entertaining the agendized item for our agreement here with the City of Pacifica for the 70 units and moving that forward here today. I'm here with Maverick Development, who will be working with us with the workforce housing. And if you had any questions on that, we were just here to that capacity.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, we're not asking any questions right now. We might after public comment.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Michael? Michael?

Mayor, vice mayor, city council members, city administrators, staff, members of the public. Mike Wallman, Pacifica D2 Sharp Park. I also would like to speak as to number seven, as those gentlemen also just did. Quite apparent that the current construction is only for 45 units, not 70. It's not necessarily clear on that map where the 45 units will be built, and I believe that it would be useful to have a staff report on this item. So I respectfully ask to sever that item for a specific discussion on it. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay, those are all the cards I have, so I'm going to close public comment on consent and

Through the mayor. Excuse me, city attorney. When the council heard the item three years ago or something, I had to recuse or go in the room and be locked up until the voting was done. Would it be appropriate to pull this item out separately and vote on it and not have me vote? Do I abstain from this item?

You can just abstain from the item. And when the consent calendar is called, the clerk will note that you have abstained on this particular item.

And the reason for that is because I'm a school district employee. Thank you. Thank you.

I do have a question on the budget items that were listed. I saw two different charges for Sierra Club. Are you talking about item one, the disbursements? Yes. I'm just trying to check and see what's going on here. This is for the Sierra Yellow Cubs. And I see a charge on August 14 for $7,465 with 37 cents. There is another charge on September 4th for $8,686.51. And I just wanted to know who's taking all of this taxi. Who is using all this? So I wanted to clarify that and find out.

I think that's part of our senior program, but Scott, do you want to say a little bit more about that?

Good evening, City Council. Scott Leslie, Director of Park Beach and Recreation. That is part of the CAR, the Connect-A-Ride program for our seniors. Just hearing what it sounds like, I don't have it right in front of me, but those numbers seem to match up pretty closely with our monthly bills for that program. The program serves seniors, I believe, 60 or 65, oh, sorry, again, wasn't prepared for the moment, where they can get rides starting from the city and ending within 10 miles or starting somewhere 10 miles away and ending in the city.

But I heard that the program was discontinued when, remember when we were cutting on the budget, that you said that only like eight people were using it. That's why it was discontinued. So I thought about it when I saw the charges, but then I thought, I didn't have time to look at when you say there was so many people using it, that's why it was taking off. But I'm not sure if... Is it still in use?

It's two separate programs. One program was a van program which picked up participants with our drivers and brought them to the community center and back. This is a program where anytime, 24 hours a day, they can call up if they're signing up for the program, get a cab. They pay $5 and use the program and the extra funding beyond the $5 comes from THE CONNECTOR RIDE PROGRAM. SO IT'S TWO SEPARATE PROGRAMS. ONE IS ABOUT INDEPENDENCE. THEY GET, I BELIEVE, EIGHT SINGLE RIDES OR FOUR ROUND TRIPS, DEPENDING HOW YOU DO IT, MONTHLY. THE OTHER ONE WAS A DAILY PROGRAM TO COME TO THE COMMUNITY CENTER. SO THERE'S TWO SEPARATE. ONE WAS GRANT FUNDED. ONE IS MOSTLY FUNDED THROUGH THE CIRCA NUNANIN ENDOWMENT, WHICH IS A CAR. THE ONE YOU'RE REFERRING TO IS THROUGH CIRCA NUNANIN FUND. AND THE ONE THAT WE DISCONTINUED WAS PARTIALLY FUNDED BY THE COUNTY.

But that's not the one that you discontinued?

That is correct. This is a separate program. This one is a different senior program.

Okay.

Transportation program.

And maybe could you give us, like, I know this is a funded, you know, program. So is that possible to find out how many people are using this one too?

We have a monthly, we keep track of all of it monthly and annually, so we could put together a report for the community.

Okay, thank you.

If I could just comment on it, it's a beautiful program, and it's been running for a few years now, like five years. Yeah, and it's also, it was encouraged by the age-friendly programs task force, and so that was really great. Yeah, it's really wonderful.

I thought about it when I looked, but then I thought, okay, we are trying to save some money here, so what's going on?

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor Wright.

Yes. There's so much information that we put out there all the time, and I first want to appreciate staff and their extremely thorough answers to so many of my questions being one of the most prolific question askers. I just wanted to understand, and for the public's benefit, how does the public have access to your responses to council member questions?

Let's see. We print out hard copies and we have extra copies at council. Is that right, Sarah?

Correct. We have printed copies that are provided to the council members and there's a copy of the printed questions and answers in the agenda binder at the back of the room.

Due to the timing of the agendas and when we get the questions, the responses often come out late in the afternoon of the day of the meeting.

And just in the interest of being able to better educate the public, would it be Would it be hard to put that on Connect with Pacifica, or is that just too much? Because a lot of them seem very germane to a lot of the issues, not just my questions, but all of our questions. And if they're not asked from the dais, the people that are watching from home, either on TV or online, may not have access to the full information that us sitting up here have, or those that have taken the time to take the responses from the back of the room and read I was just wondering, could we at some point talk about a better way to put that out there so everybody could have the benefit?

We could. Connect with Pacifica is often forward-looking. And we do have the challenge. I think we finished these at, say, 5.30. So that is a little bit of a challenge there. But let me take it back to staff and find out if there's a way to give that electronic availability as well.

Once again, I want to express how much I appreciate all the staff's work to answer these questions. The first one's an entire page response.

Are they connected to the meeting minutes?

They're not right now. They're not included in the meeting minutes, no? Okay. That might be a place.

Yeah.

So we had one question from the public about the school district workforce housing and identifying which of the units were being built in this first phase. Is that something that we have an exhibit in the staff report that can be pulled up or perhaps the applicant can just describe it.

Samantha Updegrave can answer that question to the best of our ability.

So my understanding is the permits are and the building permits too are for the full 70 units but Right now the project is intended to be phased and maybe the applicant can talk a little bit more to that in terms of the schedule and what they're thinking.

Thank You mayor Samantha up to grave community development director the subdivision map and the subdivision agreement Improvement agreement are what's before the council tonight. So the projects already been reviewed and approved. So there aren't any There's no depictions of The proposed project itself. It's really just limited to the subdivision map and They have applied for their building permits. We're currently in the process of doing that review. The building permit would authorize construction of all 70 units, but we believe the first phase will be the first 45 units and the amenity buildings and then as well as the overall site improvements and would include all 11 of the required below market rate units. in that first 45.

Okay.

Through the mayor. Yeah. In the staff report, it says that there was a planning commission meeting on March 20th, 2023. And then later on April 24th, 2024 city council approval of a resolution. Would it be, would the exhibits in those staff reports include information that people might have interest in?

Thank you, Council Beckmeyer. Absolutely. Those were the project approvals from the Planning Commission and then approval of the rezoning development plan and the development agreement at the council meeting.

I, too, did not see those. those exhibits because I was in the room with the door closed for the city attorney. But they are available through our website on that date, April 24th, 2024.

And that distinguished the phasing? I don't remember that being part of that meeting.

I was not here at that meeting. I would need to look that up.

But perhaps the applicant can can speak to just roughly which units are being built now and what's happening with the other piece of land in the meantime. Thank you so much for coming back up, Jose. Thank you.

Yeah, so the first phase would be for the 45 units. This agreement, subdivision agreement, is for the entire project. It's for the 70 units, but they will be done in two phases.

Uh-huh. But at this point, you don't know when the second phase will happen, is my understanding.

For the second phase, correct. That's the bonding that we would be working with our bond consultants to see where we would take the next tranche of money to move forward on a second phase. But that's something that's still pending for us. Obviously, the market rates. So there's obviously that factor.

Okay. So... Just if we're looking at the plan sort of horizontally, right? Because it's mostly parallel to Odstad.

Correct.

Left side, right side. Which part are you developing now? Just to give the public a rough idea.

We're building the seven buildings that would have our property management, our public-facing restrooms and changing stations, condominiums, and apartments. Okay.

So that should all be clear once they're reviewing.

Absolutely. And we're working with your planning division with that.

Okay. And then just to confirm what Community Development Director Updegrave said, so you're building all 11 of the below market rate units as part of this first?

Correct.

Right. I really appreciate that.

Yes.

All right. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. Excited to see it really start construction.

Yes, we're excited about it. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you.

So item 12 is part of the...

You need to talk into your microphone. Item 12? Is that part of the consent? No, that's not consent. Okay. I think we're done with the consent calendar. Would anyone like to make a motion?

I move we approve the consent calendar as recommended and lock her up.

And Commissioner Beckmeyer will be abstaining from item 7. for item seven.

I accept the friendly amendment of our esteemed city attorney.

I'll second. All right, please vote.

The motion made by Vice Mayor Wright, seconded by Council Member Beer. The motion for items one through 11, excluding item number seven, passes unanimously five to zero. For item number seven, the motion made by Vice Mayor Wright, seconded by Council Member Beer. Council Member Beckmeyer is abstaining. The vote passes four to zero with Beckmeyer abstained.

Thank you very much. All right, so that brings us now to public comments on items not on the posted agenda. Oh, you're fine. So I have 14 cards in the room. How many do we have online?

We have three raised hands.

Okay. I'm going to give 10 more seconds, and then we'll close that queue. And we're going to start with the online comments. So do we still have three?

We have three raised hands, yes. Okay. All right. So we'll leave it at that. Please go ahead. The first raised hand is for Carrie. Go ahead, Carrie.

Hi, can you hear me?

You can.

Okay, I just really wanted to quickly speak on the cleanup project for the beach. So one of the big impacts on the whole sea ecosystem is called the Geno sea turtle. So they have been swum out of 110 different parts of the ocean. They have been the biggest in-group bias, or they have the biggest in-group bias, sorry for my mistake, of any aquatic animal. They also have committed the attack on Atlantis, which took place September 11th. They performed a suction by mouth on infant sea turtles, which is a traditional ritual practice during Juneau sea turtle circumcisions where the circumciser places their mouth directly on the infant's wood.

So the attorney, I'm not sure this relates to items within our jurisdiction. Give a warning. Yeah, so I just wanted to warn you that this doesn't seem related to items within our jurisdiction. So can you please keep it on topic to items within the City of Pacifica jurisdiction? And if not, I'll have to cut you off. So please go ahead again for now.

The last sentence.

Oh, so.

I'm actually talking about Jewish NGOs facilitating the invasion. No, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Your comments are off topic and I'm going to have to cut you off. Okay.

Next raise hand is for David R. Hey, go ahead, David.

Actually I'm Joanne Rokoski and I very much appreciate the opportunity to make a public comment tonight. My name, um, I, I'm a member of Coastside Faith in Action, as well as Faith in Action Bay Area. And although I am from El Granada, I've been following the Pacifica Safe Parking Program since its inception. So tonight I'm here to urge you to extend the current program. My hope is that by doing so, we can gain the county support to extend the Pacifica program into the unincorporated coast, which is second only to Pacifica in homelessness, according to the 2026 one-day count. The people who participate in the current program are not retired fifth wheelers. Neither are they transplants from elsewhere. They're largely Pacifica residents. who've been priced out of their homes because they can't afford the high rent. I don't believe that we can close our eyes to the need and to the desperation that has people live in RVs as the only option to keep a roof over their heads. And with the wraparound services and garbage wastewater disposal provided through the Pacifica Resource Center, this program has been successful. People have been rehoused in better living situations. And it can and should be a model for the compassionate services that can assist unhoused people into long-term better housing options. Please extend the program again. Thank you so much. Thank you, Joanne.

And the third raised hand, which was called for the queue, is Judy S. Okay, go ahead, Judy.

This is Judy Destroyer, City Council Death Squad, Free Speech Activist Group. And thank you for allowing us to have the free speech that our forefathers shed blood for. It's not just the polite and friendly speech that you need to take. The reason why this is relevant is that your bodies were influenced by the Anti-Defamation League to silence free speech that's been exposed through public records requests and I'm asking you as a citizen Just like the rest of the groups are asking for their special rights and days as a white person Non-jewish white person like that.

So I'm sorry, but your comments are off-topic and not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city and It's therefore disrupting of the council meeting. So I'm directing the city clerk to remove you Oh, this is your warning. I'm sorry. This is your warning So if you're not able to keep to a topic within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, I will need to cut you off Right away the next time so please go ahead

violating my First Amendment and the Brown Act. I am talking about your restrictions on free speech. This is absolutely within your purview, and you're showing it as you mute me. And that happened during a time while genocide for three years happened. You silence your own public... Okay, I'm sorry.

The city attorney is telling me that you are off topic, and I'm going to cut off the microphone. Please do so, city clerk. Thank you.

That concludes the online queue. Okay. Thank you, Christine.

Thank you. for your patience in the room. Okay, so I'm going to ask people, I'm going to call three names at a time and if you can line up because we do have a lot of cards and we've got a big item still to get to tonight. So Dustin Davidson followed by Lilo Ranero and then Kimberly Finale are my first three cards.

Hello. Excuse me. I come tonight. We're asking for assistance with the oversized vehicle parking on the 400 block of Esplanada Avenue to help move them to maybe designated zones or enforcement of the existing parking laws. For the last year, they have more and more starting to appear. There's no sanitation services that come through ever. And obviously people have to go to the bathroom, so that ends up happening on the beach. Tanks are getting drained into the ocean. And none of the vehicles ever move more than a few hundred feet. They just play a game of musical chairs where they're simply swapping spots over and over. And I'm empathetic to their situation, and we try to work with them, but I understand there's designated zones, and maybe we could get some assistance in moving the unhoused to those areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Dustin. Okay, Lila, followed by Kimberly, and then Pete Shoemaker.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and everyone here. My name is Lila Venero, and I live at 1531 Grand, directly below the large cypress tree at the corner of Belfast and Grand. I can't overstate how much this tree across The street scares me when I think about the safety of my family and our neighbors, particularly now that construction is underway at 400 Belfast. This is an approximately 90-foot tall city-owned tree on a slope with a history of mudslides and erosion directly above homes and the PG&E wires, I might add. Branches have fallen onto our property, and during the recent February storm, a large branch completely blocked access for our neighbors on Belfast. I know the prior arborist reports describe the tree as healthy and recommend pruning rather than removal, but that doesn't fully reassure me. The circumstances have changed, including the construction now underway immediately adjacent to it. We've also seen other neighborhood cypresses that were considered healthy subsequently toppled during storms. I love trees, and I'm not asking for unnecessary removal. If this tree can safely remain, that's my preference, but I'm asking the city to look at the potential risk to homes, families, and neighbors below it, taking into account the tree, the slope, and the construction together. I'm also concerned that the retaining wall work has already begun while the tree encroachment permit is still in plan check and has not been issued. I don't know whether that's standard procedure, but I feel it's important to make that publicly known. I recognize how limited staff resources are, and I'm not trying to interfere with the project or be a pain in anyone's butt. I simply feel strongly that the safety of my family and our neighbors needs to be taken seriously, and I want to make sure these concerns are on the public record while there's still an opportunity to address them. I'm so very concerned about all of this, especially in light of the anticipated El Nino storms. I literally do not want this to be my hill to die on. Thank you.

Thank you, Lila. Kimberly, Pete, and then Ren Murphy.

Before you start the clock, please, Mayor, I wanted to inform you that on my way into chambers this evening, I noticed that something was going on out front with Suzanne Moore and asked her if everything was okay. And our community member and friend of ours had taken a fall. And so I asked if I could help them, and she said, Hey, you could help me by reading my public comment. We're going to take our friend to make sure she's okay. So thank you very much, Mayor. My name is Kimberly Finale. I'm a resident of Pacifica. I will be reading a public comment by Suzanne Moore, who is a resident of Manor District. Like myself, just five blocks from Oceana Safe Parking Program participants. Suzanne is also a retired nurse practitioner, member of Pacifica Housing for All, and sitting board member for both the PRC and Healthcare for the Homeless and Farm Workers program. These remarks are hers. I wholeheartedly support them. Here are her remarks. I remain in support of the extension and expansion of Pacifica's Safe Parking Program, a program with demonstrated success to meet the needs of the unhoused in Pacifica and on the coast, and assist them onto permanent housing. The program has reduced the number of RVs on neighborhood streets, mitigated environmental impacts through trash and graywater pickup, and provided case management to address housing barriers. The program lapses at the end of this month and these services will expire, forcing remaining participants back onto community streets unless we extend the program. There are two known causes of homelessness, poverty and a lack of affordable housing. The Safe Parking Program has found homes for 38 individuals, and its success is far greater than similar programs. That's 38 lives truly and positively impacted, with additional positive impacts for their families and the community as a whole. This is not just a community issue. It's a regional, state, and national issue, and, I believe, among the great social issues of our time. Until safe, affordable housing is available for all, we need to provide a temporary path forward toward permanent housing. Our homeless outreach team has identified families with children, elders, veterans, and the disabled among motorhome unhoused. The unhoused face harassment and vandalism from those without an understanding of the complexity of homelessness. There are some in our community unaware that over 75% of homeless were previously housed but priced out of housing. The majority of homeless have strong ties to Pacifica and the coast. The cost of housing far outpaces the wages of low income workers. Most homeless work and need to stay in close proximity to their place of employment since transportation on the coast is limited. People over age 50 are the largest group of newly unhoused. Homelessness can reduce the lifespan by 20 to 30 years. It will take the public commitment to end homelessness, but I'm convinced this can be achieved. So please let your electeds here on council and the Board of Supervisors know you support the extension and expansion of our temporary safe parking program. Please continue the program. Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly, and Suzanne. Pete, followed by Wren, and then Brennan Duck.

All right, Pete Shoemaker-Valamar. I'm here tonight to announce the launch of the Yes on Measure BB campaign, the 1% Pacifica-only sales tax that will preserve our essential services and keep our city financially stable. The website is yesonbb.org. We have flyers and fact sheets, yard signs, and we'll put out a mailer to the entire city beginning next month. We're open for business and donations, so please take a look. were endorsed by the San Mateo County Democratic Committee and Teamsters Local 856. There are 10 ballot signers, all prominent Pacifica citizens that you all know, and who have given decades of community service. A former fireman and policeman, two former mayors, board members of nonprofits, business owners, all listed on the website. These people know what's happening in Pacifica and know how much the city needs this measure to pass. The people who are coming out publicly against this measure have never been on city council and to my knowledge have never, rarely if ever, done any kind of formal city service. Some of the ballot signers don't even live in town. They have no clear vision for Pacifica and no reasonable solution for the city's economic problems. If you communicate with these folks, ask them what their positive ideas are, their innovative solutions. As Paul Simon might put it, if you don't like the tax, Jack, then what's your plan, Dan? You'll probably get the sound of silence. When looking for advice, who are you going to listen to? Those who have served the city or those who have done nothing but criticize those who have served the city? Your choice. The math on this measure works out to about an extra $7 per month on average for each Pacifican. The price of one venti mocha frappuccino at Starbucks. If you feel the cost of one cup of coffee per month is too much to ask to preserve essential services, maintain our beautiful environment, and keep recreation programs for everyone from toddlers to seniors, then with all due respect, you might consider living somewhere else. City workers, it's possible that some of your jobs are on the line. So it's important that you follow the rules. And the rules say that you cannot advocate for this measure while on city time, which means that on off hours you can advocate for it. So please follow the rules. Go to the website. Donate it if you can. Send it around. I've made a Monty Python video that takes a humorous look at this serious issue. And all humility aside, it's pretty darn good. Check it out. Give it a like. Help it go viral. Most Pacificans do not realize the seriousness of our situation and how little it will take to keep our city the way we want it. We need to get the word out. I'm committed to whatever time, energy, and money this will take, but I need help. Please join me. I guarantee that doing so is in your own best interest and that of our wonderful community. Thank you. I have flyers and fact sheets. There's a flyer fact sheet all in the back, and I can pass them out later on. Thank you.

Thank you, Pete. Ren, Brennan, and then Sebastian Strasser.

Hi, everyone. Good to see you again. Two weeks ago, I came up here and described how correlation does not equal causation. I shared my research, which found that the relationship between lowering crime rates and flock cameras were not statistically significant. I want to share more of my research, but this time I investigated the financial and psychological risk of flock cameras and what that risk actually means to all of our public safety. Beyond the minimum subscription of 120K, there is substantial litigation cost risk. In Aurora, Colorado, there was a $1.9 million settlement because ALPRs misread an out-of-town plate. Not only was there a financial impact, but the innocent mother and her children that were held at gunpoint due to that misread error will suffer from trauma long after that settlement is closed. Closer to home, there's an active class action lawsuit in San Jose. Plaintiffs seek policy changes around deleting stored data. If the city loses or settles, taxpayers are liable for 250 to one million in plaintiff attorney fees, plus city legal defense costs. While Pacifica faces a significant budget crisis and the deadly effects of climate change sitting on the coast, it feels quite risky to invest and take bets that flock cameras are the best avenue to our public safety. We started this evening talking about how much we all love the coast and how our coast is our economy. I would also argue that the biggest component to our public safety is the coast. So taking on the financial risk of flock while we need every dollar possible to protect our coast seems like an ill prioritization of our public safety. In the last two weeks, over 250 letters were sent by your constituents in opposition to renewing the flock contracts. If you haven't seen them, please check your spam. I know that they go to spam. So to conclude, I urge city council to continue to serve your people by listening to your people. Again, 250 letters were sent to you all. Also, I see Pacifica's police department here tonight. I urge you to follow your motto, tradition of community service. And please listen to your community. Thank you.

Thank you, Bren. Brennan, Sebastian, and then Gloria Stofan.

Hi, I do not have as well composed statement. This is my first city council meeting ever.

Welcome. Thank you.

I'm very excited about all this. My wife and I have decided to come back and settle into Pacifica and have roots here. I'm now a substitute teacher. and I'm very excited to start having a family here. One thing that very much concerns me about having a family here is the flock cameras. And I don't know what everybody's stance is on it in the city council, and I don't know how to find out exactly what you guys believe. I understand that you must have signed some kind of contract, and it got established however long ago, and that contract is going to come up again, and I don't know all the details, but As someone who wants to raise a family here and does not feel safe for a number of reasons, I'll come back every time I need to to give you more updated reasons as to why that is. But this time I just want to reach out and say please make a public statement or something as to if you want to continue with this program or not so that we can make an informed decision on whether we should continue to elect people that will put us at risk by continuing contracts with FLOC. Yeah, I want more communication, I guess, is what I would like. And if you already have decided what you're going to do, or if you're going to decide what to do on Flock, please decide to let it go and take them down. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Sebastian, Gloria, and then I said this wrong the last time. Elisna? Elisna?

Ansel. Good evening, City Council. I am not just speaking to you as a nearly 20-year Fairmount resident, Sunset Ridge, Abbeel, and Oceana student, and a longtime Boys and Girls Club volunteer during high school to voice my opposition to ALPR cameras. I also speak to you tonight as someone who went to Stanford for a big chunk of my college education. I saw the values, mannerisms, rhetoric, and people that are everywhere in tech. Flock is not different in that way from, say, Palantir, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and others. Time and time again, we hear of flowery, grandiose, and at times fear-mongering appeals to efficiency, security, just going after the bad guys, and so on. It's really appealing. Sometimes you can't help but just give yourself up to that with absolute trust. They lure you in with awesome, badass tools of surveillance, cloud computing, and other means of invading private, I mean protecting the community. Flock and other companies like it are not in the best interest of our community. There are self-interested tech and law students who see privacy violations as just as something to optimize and then apply at scale. There is a very real dangerous savior complex wielded by the tech execs who want security details and get a living for themselves, but a complete surrender by we the people. The snake oil salesman types can be seen to some extent at many levels, classrooms, campus clubs, internships, senior engineers, and even the C-suite. That is what we must focus on in the flock conversation. After all, Marc Andreessen, a significant flock funder, literally said that, democracy is fake, there is always a ruling elite, the majority can't organize, only the minority can organize. And there is Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir and similarly provided instrumental funding to Flock. He, in an interview, hesitated to agree that the human race should flourish and endure. The Flock culture is neither made by or made for Pacificans. The Flock culture is a bunch of outside techies that treat our local needs and governance as targets to control X day and night. Don't view them as the protectors they pretend to be. View them as the outside dangers that they truly are. In doing so, please protect this town from further ALPR contracts. Thank you.

Thank you, Sebastian. Gloria? Stefan? Is she here? Maybe she's one of the people that had to go out. Elizna or Elizna, I'm sorry. Remind me how to pronounce your name.

No worries. It's pronounced Elizna.

Elizna.

Yep. Thank you for having me again. I'm here again to talk to you about FLOC, Dear Council Members and Neighbors. My name is Liz Van Zyl. I'm a voter and I live and pay property taxes in District 4. I'm here to urge you to cancel Pacifica's contract with our automated license plate reader, or ALPR vendor, which is FLOC currently. Furthermore, we must refuse to renew with any other vendor. This is the kind of tool that is too dangerous in the hands of anyone, especially a private tech company. You signed up for the duty of protecting and representing all people in Pacifica when you ran for office to be our council members. The true beneficiaries of these ALPR cameras are not the people of Pacifica. Not even law enforcement, but the companies who gain access to the most intimate details of our movements and lives through indiscriminate and warrantless mass surveillance. If you keep these cameras up, you would be failing the people of Pacifica, all while making us pay for the continued violation of our privacy. I thought America was the land of the free. I am a naturalized citizen. That means I immigrated here from a country that I thought I was coming to a better life. Why, then, are we all being subjected to this indiscriminate data collection by AI companies, data which is processed, shared by, and kept by them at their discretion to improve their products and services? Please read their fine print. Stop trusting them at their word. Start protecting our neighbors first, especially those vulnerable to retaliation and prosecution. The only guarantee we have that this tool won't be misused right now is their word that it won't. If you do not cancel our ALPR program, history and your Pacifica neighbors will not remember you kindly. The cameras will come down. The question is whether you want to bankrupt our city with a lawsuit first. The cameras will come down. The question is if you want our youth, who have already paid a high price to tech companies in the form of their mental health and privacy, to get angry and desperate first. These cameras represent only the latest in a long list of recent violations by greedy tech companies. Protect our community from this violating overreach and typical tech company greed. I promise you, I'm in this fight until the cameras come down.

Thank you, Alyssa. Rhianna Karstad, Tyler Cabana, and then Mike Pachmanaban-Cabona. I'm sure I butchered that one. Hello again, Rihanna.

Hello again. I just really quickly wanted to do a public comment to express my gratitude to the city and the council in particular for their proclamation declaring September Suicide Prevention Month. I lost my little brother to suicide in 2016. It's a really important topic, and it's really important to a lot of people in town, and I'm happy that you guys brought something that's not talked about a lot out into the light in such a public forum, and I just wanted to really express my gratitude for that. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, Tyler Mika, maybe not Mike, sorry. And Jeff Haley.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Tyler Cabana. I'm a Sharp Park resident, and I stand here today in opposition to the implementation and expansion of mass surveillance systems in our community, including flock cameras, automated license plate readers, and all related tracking technologies. These systems are not simply cameras. They are data collection networks capable of tracking the movements, associations, and daily lives of ordinary citizens who have committed no crime. We are repeatedly told these systems are only for safety, but history has shown that surveillance powers never remain limited for long. What begins as temporary or targeted inevitably expands into broader monitoring, broader data sharing, and less accountability. The issue before us is not whether we support law enforcement. The issue is whether innocent Americans should be continuously tracked and cataloged as they go about their daily lives. Freedom does not require citizens to surrender their privacy in exchange for promises of security. There are already serious concerns nationwide regarding data retention and storage, interagency data sharing, lack of public oversight, potential misuse or abuse, tracking of innocent individuals, and expansion without voter consent. Communities should not normalize mass surveillance as the price of living in modern society. Public trust is built through transparency, constitutional protections, and accountable policing, not through systems that monitor everyone first and ask questions later. I urge you to protect the privacy and freedoms of the people you represent and vote against the implementation and expansion of these surveillance systems. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tyler.

Mika, Jeff, and then Leslie Bode.

Hi, I'm Mika Padmanabhan-Kabana, and I am also a Sharp Park resident. And I'm speaking tonight to urge you to vote no on contracting with Flock Safety and to cancel any existing agreements. Constant passive tracking of every vehicle creates a permanent log of our daily lives. These automated license plate readers record where we drive, revealing visits to healthcare providers, places of worship, and political protests. This mass surveillance infrastructure lacks meaningful, independent oversight and transparency. Handing over community movement data to private corporations and law enforcement without strict enforceable warrants threatens our fundamental right to privacy. Recent industry changes have even reduced the transparency of police audit logs for searches. True public safety comes from community investment, trust, and accountability, not from tracking the movements of ordinary residents. Please reject this surveillance expansion and protect our privacy. Thank you. Thank you.

Jeff, Leslie, and then Mike Wellman.

Hi, my name is Jeff Halley. I am a resident of Sharp Park. And I also wanted to speak out against the flock cameras. And particularly, I was shocked at how expensive they are for, I suppose, no benefit. And I would like the council to consider whether that money that's being spent on flock cameras would be better spent on increasing salaries of our police officers and public safety officers. Thank you. Thank you.

Leslie, Mike, and then the last card I have is from Jessica Shepard. Hi.

Hi. I don't want to play the local game, and I don't mean to pull rank, but it does seem to come up quite a lot when there are discussions about unhoused and the safe parking program. This year marks the 70th anniversary of my maternal grandparents moving to Pacifica. Although my father's family moved here only 67 years ago. They also moved here for the same reasons and were able to fulfill the same dream of raising their children, grandchildren like myself, and some great-grandchildren here in Pacifica. I've spoken about this topic before. Almost 10 years ago, at multiple city council meetings, when the first wave of RV discussions and issues really began to happen, there was a period of time when my mother and I were unhoused, not just in shelters, but having also resided in an RV parked in Pacifica. I don't know if folks are aware of the conditions in the shelters, so I'll share some of our experiences. My mother's first move was not to reside in a vehicle, but to go to a shelter in San Mateo meant for families. She and I both got extremely sick soon after arriving, to the point where neither of us could stomach fluids or food for two days. And when my mom asked the staff for help, we were told, everyone gets that here. My mom made the decision that if the shelters were going to introduce these unknown and unsafe conditions, there had to be a way that she could better control what I'd be exposed to, and that was living in an RV. The RV Safe Parking Program provides safety from illnesses, pest infestations, or exposure to people who are assaultive or aggressive that are sometimes encountered in shelters, assuming you can find a shelter where there are beds available. It also provides the wraparound housing services that a family like my mother and I desperately needed. I hope that Pacifica supports this program financially and socially, as well as the expansion, as I think it will turn into setting a standard and being commended by our neighbors in San Mateo County and hopefully help a Pacifica kid like I was experiencing homeless while I was going to elementary school at Ocean Shore and a high school student at Terranova. I strongly support this program and hope it continues and expands. Thank you.

Thank you, Leslie. So Mike and then Jessica.

Hi, Mike Ballman again. Always a pleasure to spend an evening with you. So I'm here to make a bunch of new friends and speak to flock. So as we know, the police department recently posted about how there was a case where two individuals from out of town, San Francisco and Oakland, if I recall correctly, had driven into Pacifica, robbed the Walgreens and two Safeways, and then because of the flock, the police knew where this individual was. Both of these individuals have a long rap sheet of stealing from a grand theft, and they had presumably stolen a car, they ran over a police officer to get out of the area. So if these individuals were willing to run over a police officer, what do you think's gonna happen if your kid happens to be in a stroller coming across the street while these criminals are trying to get out of town? I don't necessarily saying that I'm fully in support of Flock, but I do think it needs to be a conversation about the pros and cons. about the cost-benefit analysis and what would be the alternative. If we choose, which we might, to remove flock from this town, what is the impact? And what's the cost of replacing that with more police officers? Do we have funding for that? Are we willing to accept more crime? It's just something we need to talk about and think about. And then lastly, I did some searching on this. Back in... August 6th, there is a news article from CBS News stating that San Jose argues there's no reasonable expectation of privacy on public roads, pointing to a California appeals court decision that allowed police to access traffic camera footage of a murder suspect without a warrant. The judge indicated he's leaning towards the city's position, but wants more research before deciding. So essentially, what we have in California is a decision thus far that flock is not illegal. I know there's a lot of big feelings on this topic, but I think we need to also be talking about thoughts and facts and make decisions based on those. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Jessica and then Sue Degree.

Good evening. Good evening, council. Good evening, community. My name is Jessica Shepherd, and you've heard a lot of facts about Flock tonight, and I'm not here to provide another. We have a lot of them. However, I am here to speak to you in opposition of renewing the contract. And my reason centers and is based in our community. When you walk down the street, you know somebody is already looking out their window, observing their view, or looking at their neighbors, or going into their garden. It's not that this community doesn't have eyes on it. We are our own eyes. There's not a day that goes by that I don't appreciate somebody walking their dog, or alternatively, going to the cafe and getting cab... Getting a cup of coffee with a friend or somebody that they haven't seen in a very long time. It's not to say that crime doesn't happen. It's not to say that crime isn't real. And it's not to say that it doesn't happen here. But what I am saying is that we are such an active community that having a system like Flock makes no sense, not just from a monetary or a factual perspective, in the sense of the financial burden around it that we already face as a city. But I would argue that we protect us. We do a very good job at maintaining our safety. And I don't think that that's necessarily because flock is in town. I think it's because we as neighbors look out for each other. We make sure that each other has what we need. And we show up for each other. And so I think that... understanding that that's who we are as a town we don't need a company to look out for us because we do that for us and we need that money to be able to keep doing that for us thank you thank you Jessica

Sue Degree. Hello.

Good evening. I think regarding the RV issue, we are a very caring and very wise community, and there are two RV issues. One of them is the safe program, safe parking program, which is highly screened, monitored, has safety, health and safety issues that are taken care of for the RV people. and also serve all of us. The other one is I believe that our public also wants our city to enforce health and safety community standards that would include RV users who behave badly and disrespect our community dignity and put our health and safety at risk. I think those two are two separate and very important things. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue. With that, I'm going to close public comment. And I'd like to make a slight agenda change, if that's okay, and allow the city manager. We have some special guests in the room and an announcement tonight.

Yes, thank you for your discretion on this. We do have city manager Tom Piccolotti from Daly City, who's here to make an important Pacifica Fire family staffing announcement that will be of great interest to the council.

Thank you, city manager. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, I'm happy to be before you and thank you for letting me speak. I want to tell you that I'm here to introduce Daly City and North County Fire Authority's next fire chief. So he's right here next to me. This individual is Nick Gracia. So I think it deserves a round of applause. All that stuff too. So what I'd like to tell you is through an extensive nationwide recruitment that began several months ago with an expert recruiting firm on fire chiefs, 30 qualified candidates from across the country were screened and interviewed. Assessment panels were conducted that included administrative skills, exercises, along with internal and external panels of experts. We had fire chiefs from Oakland, North, all over the Bay Area, the greater Bay Area. SEVERAL ROUNDS OF INTERVIEWS NARROWED THAT TO SIX CANDIDATES. FROM THERE ANOTHER SUBSEQUENT SET OF INTERVIEWS ROUNDED IT TO TWO CANDIDATES. FINAL INTERVIEWS WERE CONDUCTED IN WHICH AT THAT POINT I RECEIVED INPUT FROM YOUR CITY MANAGER AND CITY MANAGER OF BRISBAY AND WE WERE ABLE TO INTERVIEW THE LAST TWO CANDIDATES. I would say that this individual has the respect of all three community fire departments. He's a top candidate in every one of those interview sessions, every step of the way, he would come out on top. So I think he's been an employee at Daly City for over 25 years, which includes his service to North County Fire. He's risen through the ranks. I think he's qualified to do a great job for both Daly City, Pacifica, and Brisbane. So he's the ninth fire chief in Daly City's long story history, which goes back to 1911. And I think he's going to do a great job, very qualified. And I'd like to introduce to you Nicholas Grazia. Thank you.

I like the hands.

Yeah.

I like that. Thank you. Yeah. So it was a busy night. We were just up in Daly City and then buzzed down here. But if I could just quickly, you know, I just wanted to cover some of the points quickly that Tom went over. It's been a long time since we've had a new fire chief. Our previous fire chief had been here for nearly 24 years. So it's a big transition time. And this year has been a lot. It's been a lot going on in the fire department as a whole. And so I just wanted to touch on a few things. Some of the things that are really important to me are understanding the cities, the communities, and the culture. And for myself, I grew up just up the hill here in Daly City. I grew up near Classic Bowling Alley and spent a lot of my time down here in Pacifica. I grew up at the beach. I've spent most of my middle school and high school days surfing at Lindemar. We have a boat at Pedro Point. And so I understand the community. As Tom said, I've worked here for 25 years. I've worked through the ranks. I've been involved in labor and community. And this is something that I got involved in the process because this profession is really important to me. It's something that I have a deep caring for. We're very fortunate here. I'm thankful that we have Engine 71 and Engine 72 here, along with one of our battalion chiefs. These guys are Pacifica firefighters. do great work. They're out there working hard, protecting the community. We have a very unique community, as you know here, with the coastline, with the cliffs, with some of the access points and Marina del Mar in the back of the valley. So your local firefighters continue to provide excellent service day in and day out. And I'm hoping in my tenure that I can just kind of continue to sharpen the ax and help improve what we're already doing. I really believe in collaboration. I said, I mentioned at the Daily City Council meeting, for me, I always tell people leadership is not rank dependent. You can be a leader as a firefighter, as an engineer, as a captain, and that applies, of course, to any industry. But beyond that for me, I will tell you that with respect to myself, leadership for me will be available like I am right now. You will see me. I will be available. Our administration will do our best to provide clear direction when we're talking about leadership. And most importantly to me, leadership is being present. And so I am present. I am around. You're going to see me out in the community, out in front of the desk, as I like to say. And I'm happy to take on this responsibility. I'm excited to work with our team here, with all of our brothers and sisters in the fire department. And I'm happy to answer any questions that any of you have.

Thank you so much. We're so excited for this surprise and this wonderful decision for Pacifica, Daly City, and Brisbane. Council Member Bruce, would you like to make comments or ask questions?

Sure, absolutely. City Manager Piccolotti, thank you for coming in tonight. When I saw you walk in, I'm like, okay, what's going on? So this is wonderful news. Thank you and welcome. Welcome. And it's very obvious the support you have in the room by everyone who's standing back there, and that means a lot to all of us too. So I look forward to getting to know you, and thank you for your service. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you.

Congratulations on this great achievement. I'm glad that your wife had the opportunity to pin your badge.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Family is an important part and a forgotten part on how much they sacrifice as well, not just you. And your continued commitment to our community and your assurance that you're going to be more present here in Pacifica is greatly, greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your leadership. Frankly, I was hoping it was gonna be you. I am so glad to see this come to fruition, as I'm sure so many in our community are. Thank you for joining the team. Thank you.

Welcome. and I'm very happy that, remember our meeting with Daily City, and the fact that you are right in the middle, Daily City breathes fame, so I really like that. And also, I'm looking forward for a new chapter for JPA, and I think this collaboration is gonna be a great collaboration from now on. And we are very happy to have this, I would say friendly relationship within the cities. They were here to support each other. So I'm very, very happy. Welcome. Wonderful.

Thank you.

Congratulations. Thank you for choosing us. I always say that because I know you have a lot of options. I like your statement. Leadership is not rank-dependent. I believe the same thing, and thank you so much for voicing that. I can tell you're well supported already, and it's going to be a good run. Thank you. Thank you.

I happened to meet with Scott Perham this morning and got a sneak peek at the news, and he was just effervescent in his excitement at you taking over this position and him now filling in in your role as the laborer. representative too. And I think what you bring is something that's really been missing is really an understanding of our coast and the dangers and the water and so forth too. You know, we have such a beautiful place here, but we have a lot of hazards too. And it's so important to have someone who has lived here long enough to see, you know, some of these disasters and tragic desks and so forth so that we can talk together and brainstorm how to improve our service to our residents and our visitors. And we're just so very lucky. Thank you for applying. Thank you for accepting this position. We look forward to your leadership for 24, 27, 40 years, however long, we can keep you. And we've got such a turnout. We don't usually do pictures, but I think we need a picture. This is a big day for a new fire chief.

Yeah, whatever you like.

Yeah, we could all come up. And other firefighters.

Yeah, if we're going to do it, let's get the crews up here for sure.

You're not used to that.

Tom, be glad.

Michelle, speak to her. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm going to reopen public comment for just a moment. City Manager Piccolotti.

Thank you, Mayor, for indulging me. I just wanted to say before I take off... A lot of the issues that the council deals with are safety items. And I really, as a citizen of 59 years of Pacifica, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the decisions you have to make and those things that are based on safety, whether it be stop signs or these cameras, whether that's the issue. You have a tough job, and I appreciate the work that you do. So I want to say thank you to Sean for making it possible for me to come and bring Nick. But I just wanted to say, appreciate the work you do, and thank you for allowing me to speak again, and especially to introduce our new chief. So thank you very much.

Thank you so much for coming to join us today, Tom and Nick.

Thank you.

Okay, closing public comment. And I think we need a little break. So I'm going to suggest we take. It's almost 9 o'clock. Take an eight-minute break until 9 o'clock.

Recording stopped.

I'm here.

Hi, Karen. Hi, Karen. Hi. Hi.

All right. This brings us to item 12. Public hearing text amendment TA 129-26 initiated by the city of Pacifica to repeal and replace article 41 density bonus program and article 47 city of Pacifica below market rate inclusionary program. So community development director Updegrave, welcome, and Hart staff, welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, and members of the City Council. I'm Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director, And I'm joined by Tim Davis and Alex Wagner of the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust of San Mateo County, known as HEART. Assistant City Attorney Karen Murphy is joining us online. And later this evening, we'll also be joined by Chair Hauser and Planning Commissioner Davis as our council liaisons. for this evening. So it's really an honor to be bringing these updates to the city's density bonus and inclusionary housing ordinances here tonight. This is another big step in modernizing our zoning codes and processes and aligning them with state laws, best practices, and our housing element. And it really represents a tremendous amount of time and attention and work by council the planning commission and staff. So on tonight's agenda we'll give just a brief overview of the state density bonus and inclusionary housing. Look at some of our housing element programs that this is supporting. Highlight some of the bigger changes to density bonus and inclusionary housing. And on inclusionary housing also looking at a potential vesting option and some staff recommendations for alternatives And discuss updates to the fee resolution The Inclusionary Housing Ordinance and State Density Bonus, these are both legislative provisions for affordable below market rate units in market rate buildings in both residential and residential mixed use. The density bonus ordinance is based on state law, requires on-site construction, and allows developers to receive additional density in exchange for construction of on-site deed restricted affordable units, and provides waivers and concessions from development standards in exchange for those affordable units. The inclusionary housing ordinance are local regulations that mandate a percentage of market rate, residential developments be deed restricted as affordable for low income households. It also provides alternatives to onsite construction, including in lieu fees, offsite construction and offsite preservation of affordable housing. And density bonus below market rate or BMR units can be used to fulfill inclusionary obligations and vice versa, provided they meet all of the standards. So why update these now? Well our ordinances are very out of date. This density bonus ordinance was adopted in 1984 and last updated in 1992. Our inclusionary housing was updated in 2007 along with the in lieu fee resolution and there's probably been at least a hundred changes in state housing and planning laws just in the last seven years alone. We also have our certified housing element, which led to the first major rezoning in the city in 40 years. That's really expanded residential development opportunities throughout the city. And then we also have some commitments within our housing element related to these topics. The first housing element program that this hits on is HEI 2, zoning modernization and streamlining. So this advances that modernization and streamlining by restructuring these ordinances, aligning them with state law and best practices, and providing clarity. HEI 5, Fund to Housing Action Fund, the updates to the inclusionary requirements including requiring an in lieu payment for fractional units and updating the current fees. This will provide more opportunities for contributions to the city's housing in lieu fund, which is a restricted fund to be used for the purpose of providing funding assistance for the provision of affordable housing. monitoring and reasonable administrative costs. And I think, oh, no, two more. We also have HEI 6, strengthen inclusionary housing. These changes ensure alignment with state law and best practices, increase the length of time affordable units must remain affordable, adds provisions for 110% annual mean income households, increases and clarifies requirements for alternatives to onsite construction. And lastly, HEI 14, state and federal law compliance. So these updated ordinance do comply with current housing and planning laws, including state density bonus. And with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Wagner with Hart to discuss density bonus.

Thank you.

Good evening, city councilors. Thank you for having us here tonight. Very excited to talk about these updates to THE LOCAL MUNICIPAL ORDINANCES. TO START, WE ARE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT THE LOCAL DENSITY BONUS PROGRAM. THE CURRENT CITY OF PACIFICA DENSITY BONUS ORDINANCE IS, AS DIRECTOR APERGRAVE MENTIONED, OUT OF DATE AND UNENFORCEABLE BECAUSE OF HOW OUT OF DATE IT IS. THE NEW UPDATED VERSION WILL ALLOW THE CITY OF PACIFICA TO OUTLINE SOME POLICIES AND FOR HOW DENSITY BONUS DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS ARE FILED AS WELL AS SOME OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR HOW THOSE ARE THEN APPROVED AND ENTITLED.

CAN I JUST ASK ONE QUESTION AS YOU'RE GOING THROUGH THE PRESENTATION. I HEARD COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR UPTERGRAVE SAY THE DENSITY BONUS ORDINANCE IS REALLY ABOUT UPDATING TO STATE LAW AND THEN THE OTHER IS MORE OF A PACIFICA CODE. IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT WE HAVE jurisdiction over as a say in? Could you just highlight those as we go along?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll do that in the following slides. Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

But current state law has totally different numbers in terms of the number of affordable units that you need to provide to qualify. It has longer affordability periods required for those units. They are mandated in sessions and concessions and waivers. that developers can request, and it applies to more housing types. And as I mentioned, those are already applicable here within the City of Pacifica, but there are certain policies and procedures that are not outlined in state law, which you have the ability to legislate here through the local ordinance. So in summary, some of the major updates that we are providing to the city's ordinance here include updates to some of the definitions to point to and be in line with state law for simplicity of future updates. We're adding a section to require the standard form for those density bonus applications. So to clearly outline the requests, incentives, concessions, parking reductions and waivers, in the first place so that city staff can be prepared for that in the development process. A requirement for a tentative map and preliminary plan with proposed market rate and density bonus units so that staff can ensure that those units are distributed equitably throughout the property, as well as a requirement to include construction phasing for those affordable units to ensure they're being built quickly and in line with those market rate units. Next, we also are adding a section to the process for review and approval of those density bonus requests to require concurrent submission with the planning entitlement application. That is currently required by planning staff, but this is to codify that requirement. We're also adding a section to outline the requirements of a density bonus housing agreement, so the legal agreement that would run along with that property to ensure the affordability of those units as well as updating the affordability term for those units. Lastly, we are updating how those calculations for the density bonus units are done to be in accordance with state law. We're also updating it to require a roundup for fractional units that are calculated through the density bonus ordinance, requiring additional on-site units for density bonus developments, as well as adding a section to allow for commercial development. to have a density bonus in partnership with an affordable housing partner. That's a quick summary of those major changes that we're incorporating, and that will allow the city to have a greater degree of control over how those applications are filed, submitted, and approved. Now I'll pass it over to Mr. Davis to talk about the inclusionary housing ordinance.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Council Members, for having us today. We're pleased to talk to you today about, I'll talk to you about the Inclusionary Housing Article, Article 47. The Inclusionary Housing Article, those are your local regulations that mandate a certain percentage of housing units to be de-restricted units affordable to specific income groups. It requires 15% of units to be deed restricted affordable on-site or 20% through alternative compliance means. It applies to residential and residential mixed-use developments with eight or more units or residential lots with a conversion of non-residential buildings or floor area to residential units. It excludes junior accessory dwelling units and accessory dwelling units. To provide some overview of the major updates in terms of applicability and requirements, we have altered the affordability term for deed restricted units to 99 years for rental units and a renewable 45-year term for ownership units. We have lowered the average area median income requirement for rental units from half at 120% of AMI and half at 80% of AMI. to one-third at 110 percent of AMI, one-third at 80 percent of AMI, and the remaining one-third at 50 percent of AMI. We have added a requirement for any calculation of below market rate units that results in a fractional amount under 0.5 to be paid out as of the in lieu fee, and at 0.5 or more shall be rounded up to the next whole number. In terms of other additional changes, we have outlined the affordable housing plan and agreement. We've added a section requiring an affordable housing plan as part of the development's application for first approval. This dovetails with the same plan required for the density bonus ordinance. So where a developer is doing density bonus and inclusionary housing, they can be considered simultaneously. Added a section outlining the requirements and procedures for that plan. Added a section requiring an affordable housing agreement that shall run with the land and bind all future owners. And added a section requiring that the affordable housing agreement is in place before the issuance of building permits. I turn it back over to Director Updegrave.

Thank you. So there's a few things within the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that we wanted to discuss specifically. And the first one are the option for a vesting provision for the inclusionary housing. This has been added prior to Council. but after the Planning Commission. And it really just provides an opportunity to consider whether housing development projects that are already vested could use the new provisions if they opt in. So currently, if a project has submitted a valid preliminary application, it vests to the planning and zoning laws that are in effect at the time that the preliminary application was submitted. So, this would be a voluntary opt-in provision that would allow a project to use the new inclusionary housing ordinance while maintaining all of its other vesting. Some of the potential benefits of that include clear and predictable application and processing requirements, streamlining and ease of review, potential payment for fractional units, the use of current modern regulations that reflect state law, best practices, And the policy decisions, you know that have been made throughout like the housing element the rezoning program and through the review of this text amendment. So just for example, the cities received multiple applications already on some housing element sites. And this could allow the application of the current intentional provisions that more fully align with the current housing element and rules. So that's an option for the Council to consider. The other thing are the alternatives to on-site construction. So state law does require that inclusionary ordinances also provide an alternative compliance method to on-site construction. So this only applies to inclusionary requirements for density bonus. Those affordable units still need to be built on-site. Based on direction that we received from Council in October, we did increase the requirement for alternatives from 15% to 20%. to help incentivize on-site construction while still providing viable alternatives. There are a couple of different ways for alternative compliance in lieu fees, offsite construction of affordable units. We did add a new option for offsite preservation, which I believe was at the direction of council and planning commission in the fall. And then lastly, land dedication either to an affordable housing developer or to the city. So the Planning Commission had directed staff to bring our initial, the Planning Commission's recommendation and staff's initial recommendation on alternatives to City Council for discussion. So the Planning Commission recommended City Council approval of the use of any alternative. Staff's initial recommendation had broken it down differently with alternatives for in lieu fee payments, offsite construction of affordable housing, and offsite preservation of affordable housing to have the approval of those alternatives follow the review authority for the project. So if it was a planning commission approval, it would be the planning commission making that decision. Second, staff recommended that land dedication to an affordable housing developer be approved by the Planning Commission, and any land dedicated to the city would be approved by the City Council. So just to step you through the rationale for staff's recommendations, for the in lieu payments, offsite construction, and offsite preservation of affordable housing, Staff recommends that the, again, review authority for the project be the one to make that determination. The reason is because it would reduce constraints to housing development. The criteria for approval are objective, reflective of state law and avoid potential Housing Accountability Act violations. Because the criteria is not discretionary, the additional process would not yield a different And the added process really equals added time and cost for housing developers as well as staff, commission, and council resources without potentially adding benefit. It also provides predictability and transparency that kind of goes back to some of these constraints on housing developments. And finally, any decision can be appealed UP TO THE CITY COUNCIL OR CALLED UP BY A COUNCIL MEMBER. IN TERMS OF THE LAND DEDICATION TO AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPER, STAFF HAD RECOMMENDED PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVAL. THESE CAN BE SEPARATE DEVELOPMENTS THAT MAY REQUIRE OR BENEFIT FROM ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATION. AND AGAIN, ANY DECISION COULD BE APPEALED TO CITY COUNCIL OR CALLED UP BY A COUNCIL MEMBER. And lastly, land dedicated to the city. It's actually required to go to the council because only the city council can accept land on behalf of the city. And that would be fully discretionary, so fully at the council's discretion. With that, I'm going to turn it back over to Mr. Davis to talk about the updating the fee resolution.

Thank you. So, the fee resolution was established in 2007. It had not been increased since that time. The resolution itself did establish a process for updating it using changes in single-family house prices and in changes in AMI, depending upon the type. And so what I did was we looked at the rental rate in 2007 was $2,500,416. And for sale is detached single family houses of $561,910. And for condominium and townhouses of $356,910. So this is the fee the developer pays out if they are not going to do a unit on site. And that was for a low income unit and for a moderate income unit the rental rate was only $26,732 and for sale units it was $465,023 and for condominiums $260,023. So given the changes in the indexes used for each of these, we have a substantial increase in those fees for 2026. The reason why we have combined them into a single fee for rental or for sale instead of by the AMI is for two reasons. One is that in 2007, you had 80% rentals and 120% homeownership units. However, under the revised inclusionary housing policy, you have units at 50% of AMI, 80%, and 110% of AMI. So there is no direct correlation with the numbers of that 80 and 120. However, when you average out the AMI for all of the rental units, that is 80% of AMI. So we are updating where the rental unit number is basically an update of your former 80% number. The for sale numbers, we can break them out by 80 and 120 because you're keeping that number. However, we are to simplify the process. We are, because if a developer's not doing a unit, it's like they would have half the units to be 80 and one half of their units to be 120% of AMI. So we've done a blended rate for the for sale units. And so those are both substantial increases of about, I think, 70% on both cases from the previous numbers, but those do reflect changes in the AMIs and the sales prices.

Great. Thank you. So that concludes our presentation. Staff recommends that the council hold the public hearing, discuss the text amendments including the vesting option and the review authority for approval of alternatives to on-site construction. for inclusionary housing, discuss fee dates, and approve a motion to introduce the ordinance. We do have a copy of a motion that we can put up on the screen should council decide to introduce the ordinance this evening. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON WONG.

Okay. Thank you. Before we go to council questions, I'd love to hear from Our planning commissioners, welcome Chair Hauser and Commissioner Davis. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your process and your lengthy meetings and where we are now?

Sure. Thank you, Honorable Mayor and city council members. Chair Hauser from the Planning Commission. I'm here with Commissioner Davis. We're really pleased to be here tonight. The commission as a whole was super excited, both at our joint study session, but also at all the subsequent hearings. Not only to have an updated ordinance that is consistent with a lot of the other local jurisdictions, not only in San Mateo County, but in the whole of the Bay Area and California. But also to be able to work with HART, because this is like the preeminent group to do this, and we're really privileged to have them. We took a lot of time going through both ordinances. and making sure that there were consistencies between other jurisdictions, that things were clear and consistent with things that are practical and obvious in state law. So government code 65915, which goes through the state density bonus ordinance, letters from HCD that had opined on certain things, getting in language that made sure that it was clear that if there is a conflict between state and local law, that state law governs. But I think one thing that I think is probably most pressing, and I think what was presented, was that we did make a big change. So what staff presented on the review authority was what was originally introduced to us, and the commission proactively requested a change that any alternative come to the city council. That is consistent with how Daly City updated their code back in 2018. It's consistent with South San Francisco. And it's almost consistent with San Bruno, who leaves it to the Planning Commission, I believe. I think what the Planning Commission here is not really privy to in the same way that this council is, is what the city's finances look like. And I don't think, and we don't think, and this is our discussion, that it should be in our purview to accept a fee when what this city and our community have requested is a certain percentage of inclusionary housing. So I think our takeaway was that If a developer wanted predictability and expeditious processing, then they should build inclusionary units. And if they wanted something else, that privilege would have to be entertained by the council. And Commissioner Davis, I don't know if you have anything else to add.

No, I think you covered it really well. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. That's super helpful.

Okay. Council, are there some clarifying questions? I know. And we'll open. I've got a bunch of questions, too, and we'll Is there anything pressing before public comment? I only have one card from Suzanne and she's not here. So I don't know if we'll have public comment, but anything you want to ask before?

Okay.

Anything you want to ask before public comment?

I can wait until after.

Okay. Sue Degree, welcome.

So in a way, I'm going to apologize, but not really. I'm going to say some things that may be uncomfortable. That's where my apology is. Do I apologize for what I'm saying or think? No. So I'm trying not to be furious. So a lot of this is predicated on state mandates. I wrote down the right words. And so I was sitting on those seats in 2002, 2007, which you listed. It was so hard, so hard to try to get inclusionary housing. So our track record of many of us in this city is, yes, we want truly affordable, and we've worked hard for truly affordable. to have state legislators tell us that you're going to do it this way because you've been bad, and we're going to punish you, and oh my God, the punishment is developers get to do whatever they want. Who held us up when we tried so hard, so many years, to get inclusionary housing? Developers. So I get close to freaking out in that we're celebrating our 250th anniversary of the Constitution, which, thank you God, is the people rule. And I feel that the state legislators in their holiness have decided that the people are bad and councils have been bad. And do you want your record called bad? I don't like my record calling bad because I'm innocent for number one. So I'm a bit furious. And so discretionary powers were put in by the Constitution for the councils. And the Constitution says electeds don't start thinking that you can replace the voter. just because you're elected. And I feel that's happening in this state. And I wish we would rebel. Some of us are rebelling. So I think, council, you need discretion all the time. The planning staff is not allowed to have discretion. Planning commission can't have discretion. You have discretion. And your job, by law, is to listen to the public. I saw it on the agenda again. Who's the boss around here? The public. I think we're being shortchanged, sometimes by electeds and approved. I can give you a lot more data about interesting stuff that's very bothersome. So please tread gently for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue. Go ahead, Kimberly Finale.

good evening council mayor and staff thank you for your presentation very nicely done um i what i hopefully i wasn't distracted um and maybe i missed um i didn't hear anything about any commercial space maybe like child care or green spaces maybe like a little grocery store or a little marketplace for residents of a development like this which may help to contain or actually add to the already burdensome traffic issues that we have in the city. So you know if folks are, yes we want our residents to have affordable housing and yes we want to contribute to the ultimate success of this program, but at what expense to the broader community. So if there is some discussion of creating a little neighborhood community where folks don't have to leave to get what they need, and to play with their kids, a little park, maybe some refillable water bottle stations, places to ride your bike, places to have a picnic with your family. And so all of these things make a development like this a little bit more homey. a little bit, just to feel a little bit more at home, and to not have to get in your car to go somewhere, to do all the things that we want to do, all the reasons that we are here. We want to hang out with our kids and our families and our dogs, and we want to lay in the grass and listen to the birds, and we want to... and we want to eat food and we don't want to have to drive somewhere to get a snack. And so I would really, really love to see some details working on keeping this community a true community space. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Kimberly. Do we have anyone online?

We have one raised hand. It is for Suzanne Moore.

Okay. Oh, Suzanne, glad you could be with us. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and I appreciate all the work that city staff, planning commissioners, and council members have done to arrive at this point in our progress. And there are several proposed updates that I think will well serve our community as we move forward, but I do have a couple of thoughts. First, our city did pay for participation in the Nexus study, and that's going to be providing data and analysis from... That's going to be completed... I believe in 2027. And although staff have not favored waiting for these study results to best guide Pacifica's revisions, I would like a commitment from staff and council to agendize the report when it's made available so we can review it and see if there's any edits that we would like to make to our plan based on that data. Second, I'm unclear why land dedication decision-making should be divided based on whether it's dedicated to the city or a housing developer. And although I have confidence in our planning commissioners and city manager, and would expect their expert input on this process, I believe our city council as elected officials are most appropriate and accountable for the final input in this process, whether the land is dedicated to the city or a housing developer. So my ask is for this for consideration, to commit to agendizing the next study report when it's made available to council and place land dedication decision making ultimately in the hands of city council, thank you.

Thank you, Suzanne. There are no other raising hands. Okay. And with that, I'll close public comment. And if I can follow up on a couple of those questions, can you tell us a little bit about the Nexus study? I believe Heart is leading that, right? And what information is coming out of that, and should we wait?

This is Tim Davis again. Heart is actually not leading that effort. We are participating in it. CONCERT WITH SEVERAL OF OUR CITIES THAT WE WORK WITH. YES, WE ARE EXPECTING SOME RESULTS IN 2027. THEY WILL, THOSE REPORTS WILL BE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE, NOT JUST TO YOU, THE COUNCIL, BUT ALSO ON THE 21 ELEMENTS WEBSITE. AND IT IS OUR EXPECTATION AS WE CONTINUE WITH OUR WORK WITH YOUR CITY TO REVIEW THAT AND REVIEW THE INCLUSION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY AT THE SAME TIME. Pacifica did not opt to participate in the commercial nexus part of the study, in part because of the low number of commercial projects here in the city, and probably also an urge to make sure commercial projects do happen here. And so that is the one part of that study you're not participating in, but you are participating in the inclusionary housing feasibility study.

Okay, thank you. And from your point of view, is there any reason to hold off on this until that is done? I assume we can come back with any modifications fairly quickly. Maybe that's a question for Director Updegrave.

Thank you, Mayor Bowles. I think that the danger in waiting is that the information will be released sometime next year. It could be an additional 12 months until we can really analyze it, incorporate it. And then in the meantime, we have two years with a 40 and a 20-year-old ordinance. that does not meet state law, does not align with best practices, and does not align with our housing element, or move us forward in our commitments to the housing element programs. I think there will be important information that will come out of that. It may cause us to look at more substantial changes to the inclusionary, but I think that it's very important to take this opportunity now to help bring us into 2026. Otherwise, we really... I think like... Mr. Wagner was saying our density bonus, it's not even enforceable. It's so out of date. So this isn't an end point, but I think a very important step along the way.

Also, I think that by updating your inclusionary housing policy today, you're updating all of your processes around it. That when you do get the report, you'll mostly be discussing what is the percentage of housing we want as income restricted, but you already have in place all the procedures and things that kind of package around that.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And then just to follow up with Kimberly's question, my understanding is, you know, I mean, the density bonus applies to mixed use projects. And these ordinances aren't what define the other benefits, child care. I know there were some density bonus exemptions for child care provided on site if the city had a shortage. But otherwise, those kinds of community benefits are defined elsewhere. Is that correct?

»» That's correct, Mayor Bowles. You know, those are really the kind of standards that you find within the zoning ordinance itself specific to either the zoning district or the type of zoning district or the type of uses that are proposed in a project. The density bonus and inclusionary don't really contain those kinds of development standards. »» Okay, great. Thank you.

So I'm going to ask for Council lights, please, because I saw lots of people were eager to start.

»» Thank you for asking about the next study. Because that was one of my questions. So thank you, Suzanne, for that. That was confusing to me. »» Yeah. »» Like why wouldn't we wait for data? But I appreciated the explanation. So thank you. »» Okay. »» Now you can do lights. »» Okay. I smear right.

Sure. I'd like to start by thanking staff in particular for working on this and closely followed by our planning commission. I can't tell you how comfortable I am sitting up here knowing how professional and thorough they are. And in the interest of full disclosure, I did have an ex parte with our chair, Hauser. Okay. Well, I just want to be clear. So this is a question for Samantha Updegrave. Considering that we seem to have a history here of not doing things when we should do them, how often should we be updating this policy?

That's a great question, Vice Mayor Wright. Certainly more than every 20 to 40 years. I feel pretty confident with that. I think one of the things, and you guys are probably tired of hearing me say this, I'm like a broken record, but a lot of Pacifica's zoning ordinances are old. They're older. It can make the code very difficult to work with because when you have one change that might be relatively easy to make, you're suddenly rewriting the entire ordinance. And so we will be coming to council with a larger zoning modernization project. that kind of seeks to solve some of those problems so that we can make our code more dynamic, more responsive. My dream is to have an annual state law and technical edit ordinance that we bring forward to council every April. that incorporates these changes from the legislative cycle. But right now, with the codes being so old, it's really difficult because you can't just plug in a change here and there. You end up really needing to rewrite the whole thing. So I think the goal is for us to reset the zoning ordinance to be more current and more modern, and then start looking at more like annual updates, you know, for things like these state law changes.

Well, thank you for wrestling this alligator. I appreciate it. In your consideration for the in lieu fees that you were looking at, what size of units were you analyzing? I don't think it was basically this size.

We would have to actually look back to the 2007 formula then, because they were looking at typical unit sizes at that time. They basically, as part of the feasibility study at that time, said what are the types of units that are being created and based their original number on that. I was not a party to that, and so what we're trying to do is a light touch where we're simply updating the number based on a set formula that was kind of envisioned at that time. So we're just kind of further implementing what was the original resolution. As part of the inclusionary feasibility study, we will get a new baseline. And again, the consultants working on it would look at what are the typical costs of building units at the typical sizes. So that's part of their work they're going to be doing for the city. under the Grand Nexus study. So we'll have a new baseline in about a year and then you can, again, change these fees to reflect that. So that's one place where we would expect another update.

Yeah, the impetus of that question was I saw the rental unit number at 349,000. Tried to imagine what it is I could build for 349,000 and then thought about, well, what if somebody had two kids and they wanted to live in that place? And it would be a very tight fit. So that was what the concern was. Another concern that came to mind, the other day I was, as I'm getting older, looking at the typical life expectancy for certain groups. And then as I was going through this ordinance, I reflected on that. One of those groups, doesn't matter who it was, it was 69 years. So if you take 69 years and you subtract the 45 years off, if your goal is to build generational wealth, somebody has to buy that unit at 24. And so how are you building generational wealth if I didn't own a house at 24? In fact, I know very few people that do buy a house in California at 24. So what I'm wondering is, is it possible to define it as a family unit? So in other words, if somebody passes away in an affordable unit, can their family continue to own the unit and not reset the clock in order to help that family entity build generational wealth?

To answer the first question,

To your first question, Vice Mayor Wright, the intent of the inclusionary fees is not a like for like, so a dollar amount equals a unit. The affordable housing financing comes in, and Mr. Davis can probably speak. more specifically to this, but they come in stacks. So where, you know, there's different types of financing and, you know, some may be coming from the city, you know, a city contribution, tax credits, you know, loans.

Well, I think I'll simplify it a little bit. The amount that the fee is really to replace the subsidy the city would need to put into a project to make that unit available This the unit would still be eligible for private financing because there is some rent on the unit There may be other federal sources that are anticipated So it's really to replace the kind of the subsidy that the city would need to make sure that unit was built Thank you for the clarification

And then I'm wondering if Assistant City Attorney Murphy can speak a little bit more to the 45-year term and the reset.

Yes, thank you. So as proposed, whenever the unit is sold to a new family through the affordable housing process, that 45-year term would reset. So that would keep the unit basically affordable. It could keep it affordable in perpetuity unless one family does own the unit for 45 years.

So in the event of there were a generational secession, it would still be on the initial 45-day clock. The clock would not reset as it was passed down from a deceased parent to a living child still residing in the unit.

And, you know, perhaps I can get some further comment on how this addressed in practical circumstances but typically there would be a new covenant in the event that you know a parent passes away and the first and the first thing that we need to happen is that the successors would also need to qualify for the affordable housing unit so they would also need to have fallen to the same income category but assuming they would typically we would require a new agreement, which would restart the clock.

And do you understand how it is that I, for one, see that as defeating the purpose of helping families build generational wealth?

Yes, and if the council wants us to include language in the ordinance that provides for a different type of structure, or if it passes, if the unit's passed down through inheritance, that the original term remains in place, that is something that we could clarify in the ordinance.

Some kind of no-fault transfer concept.

Just as a follow-up to that question, If someone sells what was a deed-restricted affordable unit, I mean, you're still appreciating the value some, aren't you, if it's been 20 years that you've owned the unit?

Yes, there would still be some appreciation that the family would receive, not like if it were a market rate unit home, but there would still be some appreciation.

Okay, so there is.

And they would have paid down the loan, so there would be, you know, the money from that as well.

Okay. Believe it or not, that was all the questions I had.

Okay. Council Member Espinosa, if you can use your mic, please.

Thank you for the presentation. I do have, this question is like, I'm kind of like, because we don't have, when it's a development, we request so many affordable units. We don't want the developer to have the option to give us money instead of giving us the unit because what are we going to build with that money? It's practically never going to happen. And right now we're using some of this money for other things. So I would like to stay with the amount of units that we request and don't give them the opportunity to buy us the unit, give us money for the unit, I would like to see that unit being, staying in Pacifica or to be given to a resident to live in. And the other question is could this high fee maybe will be difficult for developers to I won't say to build, but to build affordable housing here is so expensive. The new fees are very expensive for that kind of affordable housing here. So I wonder why are we going so high? Or can we make an assumption how do you say, assumption that if it's affordable housing, we'll have a different in lieu of fee lower than any other developer who comes here to build anything.

Thank You councilmember Espinoza and I think one of the important distinctions is that any money that's paid into the the housing in lieu fee is different actually than the housing action fund the housing action fund is a non-restricted fund whereas the housing in lieu fee fund can only be used in to help provide for affordable housing. And then the monitoring and the administrative costs of that. And so any contributions that are paid into that in lieu fund would go directly back into affordable housing. And that can take a number of different forms. We'll be coming to you, I believe, next month to talk a little bit more about our opportunities for affordable housing on public sites. So there may be some, that's an opportunity for the city to provide some potential subsidies or monies, as well as low income home repair programs, preservation of affordable housing. So that money really is directly tied back into providing affordable housing And I think as we see more development, if that fund grows, there would be more opportunities, I believe, to use that for affordable housing. In terms of the fees... And I think I understood your question about how high that fee is. So this would be, it would be for market rate development. And so the developer would need, I think, you know, to choose what works best for their project. You know, is it building the onsite? Is it, you know, paying the in lieu fee? It's more of a developer decision, I guess. And I think Mr. Davis can probably speak a little more to that in terms of how those numbers were derived.

Yeah, I think that it's important to outline that. You've expressed that you'd like the units to be on site. And so both by making them do an in lieu fee based on 20% of the units instead of 15% of the units and having that fee, We are actually encouraging developers to keep their units on site. That's how the policy is set up. Now, there are some developers where that's going to be the option, and you can have the money and create more affordable housing in another location. But I think that's the... And in terms of how we came to that fee, it's a simple update on the 2007 resolution And as I mentioned earlier, when we get the results from the Grand Exit study, they will tell us kind of a more clear what is the current baseline for that fee. And we can adjust that again.

I'm a little concerned because we, well, the city doesn't have, we don't have a lot of land to build affordable housing. And we haven't been able to build any affordable housing. And if we have the opportunity to keep the percentage that we would like to have, And also it will be good for people with different social status to live in an area that they don't feel segregated, that they have people from different income levels and they can still live there. So that gives them an opportunity to feel like appreciated and not only a whole bunch of people living in an affordable housing area. So I feel that keeping that, keeping the amount of units that we're supposed to get and not give the developer the option to use money instead of giving us those affordable units.

May I just bolster what staff is saying? So the Commission talked about this a lot, and I think part of what I said earlier about giving Council the discretion to make that decision is because of what you're saying. Now, we did talk about how there are instances where we would want a fee. And we want the fee to be high because we want to discourage developers from just opting to do it, right? But if, for example, I'm going to make this up, but like Habitat for Humanity or Eden, both of whom are nonprofits, came to Pacifica and needed assistance in building homes, the council could then opt to provide funds from these in lieu fees that have been paid. Or if we have a project where people would really benefit from having second loans, the city could assist with that or enter into other programs that are really relevant. So I think from the Planning Commission level, we thought it was important to keep the fee as an alternative, but not, to your point, have it as a by right option or an option that could be approved ministerially or by our commission.

Thank you.

Council Member Berry. Thank you for that question because I was going to ask the same questions and I really appreciate it that we're kind of on the same wavelength here because I was very concerned about making it too easy to just pay the fees and I think they can afford these fees so I don't think the fees are too high. I would like to see them higher actually. I guess what I'm concerned about and Planning Director Updegrade said something about how the in-lieu fees will be spent. Can you tell me a little bit more about the structure of the fees and is there a strategy on how to use them in the best possible way to build affordable housing? I guess I'm not too clear on that piece.

Thank you, Council Member Beer. The code does... provide for what that money can be spent on. I'm going to go to my paper because my control F is spinning. Female Speaker 1 Oh, well, thank you so much.

Female Speaker 2 It's on packet page 397. I had some questions about that, too. Female Speaker 1 397?

Female Speaker 2 Yeah. Female Speaker 1 Sometimes it's easier for me. Things are in plain language, right? Female Speaker 2 Yes. So on packet page 397 does talk about, let's see, it's B3, in lieu payments collected under this article shall be deposited into the city's housing in lieu fund and shall only be used for the purpose of providing funding assistance for the provision of affordable housing, inclusionary monitoring costs, and administrative costs. And it also specifies that such funds could be used for homebuyers assistance programs for eligible households as well. And so that's a restricted fund so that we couldn't reach in there and say, well, we're going to take some money from here and put it in the general fund or something like that. So it is a restricted fund that would be limited to the provision of affordable units.

Through the mayor. One example is when we're successful with the Sanchez Library site, we could conceivably use those funds as part of our local gap subsidy to attract the other forms of subsidy to actually build affordable housing at the Sanchez Library site.

Yes. Which we'll be coming to talk to you about next month.

Yay. But yes, maybe I needed an example. So a simple, clear example. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

I JUST HAD A FOLLOW-UP TO THAT PARAGRAPH. AND I NOTICED, AND I'LL COME BACK TO YOU, GREG. SO ONE OF THE OTHER, OH, SHOOT, I LOST MY NOTE. ONE OF THE OTHER FEES, OH, FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF RENTAL PROPERTIES, IT SAID THE CITY CAN CHARGE FEES FOR THAT. THAT WAS ON PACKET PAGE 402. So can we not charge for inclusionary monitoring costs and administration costs so that those don't have to come out of the housing in lieu fund? Because I've just noticed how, I mean, the money that we had from the Harmony One project has just been whittled away, whittled away at paying administration fees and never went to any affordable housing projects. So how do we protect this money a little bit better?

I think that one of the things that we may see in the residential feasibility study could You know, maybe looking at some of the administrative fees. But those, you know, the monitoring is an important part of affordable housing. So it is a critical piece to ensuring compliance and continued compliance, you know, including verifying income for eligible households and so forth. But it will be interesting to see if there's any kind of additional information that comes out of that nexus study in the residential feasibility study that directly addresses kind of additional fees, right, beyond the in lieu.

Also, you can establish fees through your Master Fee Schedule for monitoring activities. It can be, for example, you're not going to want to charge the first time home buyer any fees for buying an affordable unit, but you are charging the seller of the unit. For rental units, there can be a small annual monitoring fee that you can include. We have worked with Brisbane on setting those fees, and there are a couple of other cities that will be working on that as well in the near future. So you can, through your regular Master Fee Schedule, set some of those fees in place.

Okay, well, thank you. That's something I definitely would like to look at. I have a question about the fees.

Mary, to your point, I wanted to... The fees are expensive, but I was saying if they are so expensive, how are we going to build affordable housing if the fees are so expensive. But I would like to have a different fee for affordable housing to make it affordable in a way.

Well, this is for market rate developers to opt out of building affordable housing. So you want them to pay a lot of money so that we can build the affordable housing.

Well, I understand that. But I was saying, if we build affordable housing, so they don't need to pay an in lieu fee. OK. So that's what I wanted to know, if they had to pay the loan fee.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's only if you're not building them. Okay. That's correct.

Yeah. I have a question.

Okay.

Greg had a slide. Oh, Greg's next. But Greg already talked twice. I know.

Sheesh.

I wasn't done.

Oh, you're not. You're not done. You're still up, Mary.

I'm going to speak later. Okay.

I just wanted to have planning staff reiterate why it is with the, it being able to be called up or appealed to council, why they're not comfortable making some of these decisions. It's planning staff or planning commission, both.

I would pause it and I'll leave it to Director Updegrave to correct me that because staff recommending something different than what your planning commission is recommending that staff is probably more comfortable than we are I think that these are complex decisions right you are either allowing someone to convert an existing apartment to like I like to you know deem these different solutions like the creative solutions and there's always place for that creativity but It's not the purview of the Planning Commission to make decisions about the city's finances, right? And so if we as a city have said we want this percentage of low, moderate, or very low-income units, right, as our inclusionary ordinance, but there's a really great thing that we should be spending inclusionary dollars on, I don't think that's a decision that we as a commission should make, and that's what the whole Planning Commission agreed on when we reviewed this. That is something for this group that has insight into the budget.

But then we miss out on all your wonderful land use experience and expertise. And I value that so much sitting up here as a perspective, as part of the consideration.

I would say that because we are a recommending body to you, that you will get that insight anyway. But I would defer to the city attorney's office to confirm my understanding.

Thank you.

I would also add that in terms of the staff recommendation, reviewing this ordinance, reviewing the criteria for approval, reviewing the percentages, the in lieu fee, the fee resolution, that is the city council making a policy decision on you know, on alternatives, you know, on in lieu fees. So I think that, you know, from staff's recommendation, you know, with keeping these things with the review authority that, you know, this ordinance in and of itself is council's right policy decision. You know, I guess the point that I just want to make is that, you know, these are objective criteria. And so if it goes through a process and it comes to council and you have objective criteria that you have to approve if they meet it, then we've just added process to housing development, which is, right, is time, time is money, is staff, resources, commission, council, and so forth, and so One, you know, there's an opportunity here for council to kind of, I guess, maybe do that work ahead of time, if that makes sense, you know, to determine that.

And how does that differ from a staff report that we would get from you when we were reviewing the item, other than the staff time required to make the staff report?

I think it reminds me of bringing final maps to council for approval. Years might pass between approval of a project and the final map. The final map comes and suddenly there are a lot of questions about the development. Well, the development's already been approved, the project's already been approved, and you're looking at this different kind of independent piece of it, but not able to reach back right into the project. And I see this as, it's not a perfect analogy, but as somewhat similar, so that if a project goes through its approval, the project itself is approved, and the only thing coming to the council is whether they can do an in lieu fee or not, and it's an objective criteria, you're limited to just that question, unless the whole thing is called up or appealed, of course. And so it's adding... can't think of the term that I want to use, right? But I think there's just this sense of the whole project being on the table when really it's one objective element of the project.

And that brings up another question. When is it that we find out whether someone is going to want to implement in lieu? Is it at the time of application or can they do that AFTER ENTITLEMENTS. LET'S TAKE A WILD EXAMPLE, SOMEPLACE LIKE ON THE COAST THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE 1200 UNITS IF WE APPEAL THIS, CAN THEY BUY THEIR WAY OUT OF THE AFFORDABLE UNITS?

THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION, VICE MAYOR. I MIGHT TAKE A MINUTE TO JUST READ THROUGH AND SEE HOW WE STRUCTURED THAT. TYPICALLY PEOPLE WOULD DECLARE THAT AT THE BEGINNING. ONE OF THE REQUIREMENTS IS FOR APPLICANTS TO PROVIDE AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING plan that outlines how they're meeting those requirements. They may be able to change how they meet those requirements. So if you could give me a minute, I'll look through. CHAIR BAILET.

And I'm sorry, I really should have thought of that before.

DR. No, that's okay. It's a legitimate question.

DR. Yeah, and I will note that in looking at the proposed ordinance, the proposed ordinance in Section 9-4.4706 on the affordable housing plan. If we look down to section, there's a lot of, C2.

This is packet page, sorry, if I may interrupt really quick. Oh, yes, of course. Packet page 401. Thank you.

Could you put that on the screen for us as well, please? We can have Minnie Karen up in the corner.

But it does require an applicant to note if they're requesting alternatives in their affordable housing plan, which is a requirement for completeness. So right at the beginning of the process, the developer needs to indicate what they are requesting.

Thank you very much. That makes me feel much more comfortable.

Council Member Beckman?

I want to go back to this issue of fees and appropriate use of affordable housing fees whether in lieu or What was the other one? Housing Action Fund that Is there a place in this study that's being done or elsewhere were these that appropriate and potential uses of those fees is codified and

I think that the Housing Action Fund is not part of this action. I know that the housing element program is fund an affordable housing action fund. I read that a little more broadly to include our housing action fund and our housing in lieu fee fund. I think the housing element is certainly directly addressing the need for affordable housing, including funding, whereas the housing action fund is not restricted to AND IS MORE BROAD. I'M NOT PREPARED TO SPEAK ON THE HOUSING ACTION FUND. I KNOW WE HAVEN'T HAD OUR INCOME STREAM COMING INTO THAT, UNFORTUNATELY, THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS. AND MAYBE ASSISTANT CITY ATTORNEY MURPHY CAN SPEAK TO THIS A LITTLE MORE, BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THE HOUSING IN LIEU FEE FUND I BELIEVE IS REGULATED BY STATE LAW. AND SO WE HAVE OUR CODIFIED PROVISIONS TO HELP ESTABLISH THAT FRAMEWORK.

THE REASON I BRING IT UP, AND THE CITY MANAGER ALLUDED TO SOMETHING I WAS THINKING, THE IN-LIEU FEES WOULD BE USED FOR FILLING THAT GAP FUNDING, THAT I ASSUME, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, FOR EXAMPLE, YOU GET ADDITIONAL FUNDING THROUGH HEART OR THROUGH THE COUNTY PROGRAMS. BAFA presentation three times now, it's all imaginary conjecture for me because we haven't done it in Pacifica. So I put myself in the place of one of those places. They refer to two projects in Daly City, two projects in South San Francisco. And I've heard about various projects throughout the county. And so I always kind of go, huh, I wonder what that would look like in Pacifica. And I'm sensitive to Council member, Mayor Bowles and others have expressed concern about us approving the use of these funds for things other than affordable housing. But what I've always observed is that we're using them for working on the affordable housing documents that we need as a foundation to be able to get to an affordable housing project, right? In our housing element, all of the stuff that we had to do with rezoning, with doing the fit analysis of our own city properties. And to me, that is a legitimate use of those funds. It feels like it's all administrative and it's just going in some, you know, down some drain, but I don't see it that way. And so maybe I'm, So the reason I ask my question about codifying is now that we're getting caught up and we're not having 40-year-old documents anymore, perhaps there is a way to put some list of purposes. Because I keep thinking in the future this base work is going to have been done and then THESE FUNDS WILL BE USED FOR THE GAP AS CITY MANAGER MENTIONED AND OTHER PURPOSES. SO IF YOU COULD JUST COMMENT ON THAT. SORT OF A RAMBLING COMMENT, NOT REALLY A QUESTION, BUT I DO WONDER ABOUT THAT CODIFYING OF FEES.

IT'S A REALLY GOOD POINT, COUNCILMEMBER BECKMEIER. AND I WILL SAY THAT THE FUNDING FOR THINGS LIKE HELPING TO CREATE THOSE FOUNDATIONAL know documents do the work on our public sites you know work on the rezoning program um you know that some of those funds have come from the housing action fund which again is a is an unrestricted um fund whereas the housing in luffy has a very narrow use tied to the provision of affordable housing And that does include the cost of monitoring affordable housing within the city. But it is much more narrowly construed and it is codified, or would be codified, sorry, in the ordinance. So that that's very clear.

All right. Thank you.

I appreciate it. As currently drafted in the ordinance, it does, as noted by Director Updegrave, that it allows for the provision of affordable housing and monitoring costs, and then admin costs are capped at 15% of any... deposit into the funds, into the city's account. So that is how it's currently drafted. So if in lieu fees are paid, at least 85% of those would have to be used to provide housing or for monitoring or a home buyer assistance program.

Thank you.

That's helpful. And that's not 15% every year that you can use and take out of that?

it is 15 percent of any deposits. So, any basically, you know, any developer that pays a fee and 15 percent of that fee would only be able to use for administrative costs, as currently drafted. Female Speaker 1 Yes.

Male Speaker 2 Through the Mayor, just a little bit of context on the Housing Action Fund. One of the largest drawdowns on that in recent years has been the support for the temporary safe parking program. We've been funding a lot of that out of that fund. And it may not be immediately applicable for the in lieu fund. So it is serving that purpose.

Yeah. And economic development staff too. Okay.

I think one little I think friendly amendment to all of this, which I think has been a great conversation. One thing is that we have been helping cities to further define what exactly those funds are used for, and we use that through a notice of funding availability process. So we actually are meeting with Portola Valley next week to go through a NOFA for their money that they've had sitting around for a long time to make sure that it is... really clear how the money can be used to make it really publicly available so that developers know it's there and know what the constraints are of the money and what it can be used for specifically. whether it's to be used for home ownership or rental or both, or to just make it really clear that A, the money is available, what the process is to get it, and what the city's interested in funding. And we've also done this with Burlingame. They have a public NOFA out now for if a developer just shows up and says, we need a million dollars to make this project work. Berlin came can respond who has a process to do so and so that NOFA might also come forward to this council to be approved That makes a lot of sense.

Thank you through the mayor part of the discussion this fall about the public sites will hopefully Define a program for the sites at the Sanchez library and a program would be what what population at what income level at what tenure And once we have that information, we can chart out the available funding sources and what the most likely ones are and, frankly, how much more local gap we're going to need to pursue, in particular from Measure K at the county, just to be successful. Okay.

Thank you. I have a few questions that I want to, if it's possible, to pull up the staff report, page 397. because I think it'll be easier to see them. And while that's being pulled up, I just want to do a time check. So I'm hoping we can finish everything by 11, and we don't need an extension. That's our goal, and we'll check in.

We don't need to be talking about the closed session? No, no, no.

No, that's right. We still have to go back into closed session, but to finish the regular meeting by 11. I'm hoping we can do that, but I know we usually do a check-in at 10.

So... And I need you to be mindful. I have to go to work early. So if you just don't...

Okay. Okay.

All right. We're all right anyway. Okay. So just a general question about the in lieu fee payment. So at the bottom... Item 4 says the council shall approve the in lieu fee alternative if all of the above requirements are satisfied. So this seems to me to say that we don't really have a lot of say if a developer is proposing an in lieu fee and we don't really want to take it.

Can you explain that a little bit?

Yes, that's correct. It basically allows the fee as an option provided that they're paying the fee you know, 20%. So for 20% of the units paying the fee that's adopted and paying it, you know, at the time that's required.

Okay. And is that 20% something that's limited by state law or?

No, that the 20% is our inclusionary requirement is 15%, but in the desire to encourage the construction of units on site, um, the fee would be calculated at 20% of the units, so an additional 5%.

But that number was recommended to us. Like, if we wanted to make it 25, could we make it 25? Or are there limits to make it reasonable as part of a nexus study, et cetera, et cetera?

You know, if you're getting too high, it may look unreasonable. 20% is, you know, 5% more. So I think that's why we came up with that number. But Director Updegrave, if you have further thoughts on that and that, you know, 5% number.

Yeah, Assistant City Attorney Murphy is correct. I think one of the things, you know, that we talked about in the fall is, you know, needing to be careful about making changes to this that are really too substantive ahead of the residential feasibility study that we're participating in. The 5% jump seems like a reasonable difference between Our 15% inclusionary requirement and the alternatives, if we start to ratchet up, it may be okay, but it may start to cross that threshold where there are no longer reasonable or viable alternatives, which we are required to have by state law.

And then that's what triggers like a takings risk or something that you're making it so that it's just an impossible...

I'll let Assistant City Attorney Murphy answer that one.

Yeah, that's a good question. I'd be concerned less about a takings risk rather than developers going to HCD and saying that our ordinance doesn't provide for alternatives or the fee is somehow calculated as being too high and not meeting requirements for adoption of a fee. Okay. All right, thank you.

Can you pull it back up, Sarah?

Because I've got a few more questions. And then on item three where it talks about the use of the money, can it also be used to buy land for affordable housing? I guess I didn't see that as a specific possibility. Yes. yes yes okay that would fall under the provision of affordable housing okay great okay and then um on the next page um item d the off-site preservation option um d is in david right here on the screen now um does this help us with rena at all or this does it not if So I mean, if they're providing units, then we count those. If they're providing money, hopefully we're building units. But does this help us with our RHNA or not if we're allowing this option?

My understanding is that the off-site preservation, because it wouldn't be creating new units, would not count toward the RHNA, which is the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. However, it does meet other, I think, goals and objectives of the housing element, which includes preservation of existing housing and existing affordable housing.

There's a new law that was actually just signed, which allows jurisdictions to claim credit for homes preserved via affordable housing preservation for up to 25%. OF THE RENA CREDIT IN THE RELEVANT INCOME CATEGORY. UP TO 25% COULD BE CONSIDERED FOR THAT.

WONDERFUL. THAT'S SOMETHING. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A HARD TIME GETTING TO THOSE NUMBERS. LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY. THE LAWS ARE ALWAYS CHANGING. I WASN'T JOKING WHEN I SAID THERE'S BEEN AT LEAST 100 CHANGES IN STATE LAW.

AND THEN THE BOTTOM OF

Page 398. April 1st, 2027. And a little bit further down because it goes on to the next page too. So this is just about the appraisal of the land to get a valuation. And it says costs associated with the appraisal will be borne by the applicant. I think I've learned from Council Member Espinoza that appraisals can be done a number of creative ways. And I want to make sure that the city is driving the appraisal process and not the developer.

Absolutely. And again, the land dedicated... City Council retains full discretion over land dedication, you know, and over all of the terms of that.

Right. But if we're presented with an appraisal... We are...

we would be engaging the appraisers, the developer would be paying the cost of that appraisal. It's similar to what we do during the development projects. They pay for the EIR, or the environmental review, but we are the lead agency.

I wanted to make sure of that, because I didn't see that clearly in this language. And then on packet page 400, There's a combination option, which also includes a portion of land. And then this one doesn't say the city council has to approve it, or the land is really, the land seems to be more up to the city council to make the decision whether we want to take it or not, or the planning commission will make that decision. But with this one that includes land as part of it, is it still going back to we have to approve it if it's reasonable and meets the laws?

Yes. But for the, again, though, for the land dedication, the council does retain full discretion over that. And so if in the event where there's a combination, it would still be going to the review authority. So if they were dedicating land, that would absolutely need to come to council. Okay.

Mayor Bowles, if you go to packet page 396.

Can you talk into the microphone? Yes.

Don't really stretch it. That's okay. If you go to 9-4 4705 General 1, this was what was added by the Planning Commission to make sure that all of the alternatives B through, I want to say F, had council discretion.

Right.

But Based on your comment, I think what you're saying is that it's unclear, based on placement, that item 1 is supposed to apply to B through F. And maybe there's a clarity of placement and notation that would make that more clear. Because as you're saying that, I agree.

I think that what we're looking at on packet page 396 It has to do with alternative mixes of unit types to comply with the section. It's not the alternatives. This is the unit size and design. So it's a little bit different.

»» But if you think that line needs to go someplace else.

I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, so sorry, just to note that under F, each of the alternatives would go through the process that's set forth in B through E. So there's four different alternatives. So if the applicant proposed a combination of alternatives, each one of those combination would go through and need to meet the findings set forth in those sections. Does that help you? It was currently drafted. Every alternative and combination would go through the council. As staff was proposing, land dedication would, but other alternatives would go through the approving body.

Yeah, I think that what I was saying may not have been clear, but I still am going to stand by it. So in this section... 9-4.4705. And this section that you're reviewing has not been changed from the resolution that the planning commission passed. It's the same one. Unless I'm missing something and then stop, please correct me. But A of this section has item one that then says all of the alternatives are supposed to go through council's discretion. And then if you look at B, it's an in lieu fee payment. C is off-site construction. D is off-site preservation. I'm going to get there. I think I skipped E. There we go, land dedication. And then F, which is what I thought you were asking about on page is still falling under the same section. So what I was trying to say, maybe not so gracefully, is that that section that says that all of these alternatives are supposed to be council's jurisdiction could probably be clarified to your point by pulling that A1 out and making general more formatted general.

Do you mean by like moving F under the general section? So maybe it's like an A4?

No, that's a great question. I think what I'm saying is general and 1, 2, and 3 have to be clarified to supersede, or not supersede, but govern B through F, which was the intention. But I think what the mayor has pointed out a deficiency that I did not notice, and I don't know.

A1 says, unless otherwise provided, the use of alternative or combination shall be subject to approval of the city council. So I think it's covered. We can definitely look into that more.

If we want to combine, you know, move F to A so it's general to, you know, add that in there, you know, as a new, you know, or maybe even at the end of A, where it says general, an applicant may comply with this article through one or more of the following alternatives improved in accordance with this section, and then say the applicant may propose compliance with one of the alternatives below or a combination. I think that's really what we're saying, and we probably already have some of that language in A.

Does that satisfy you? Yeah.

Samantha from Planning Commission. So could you tell us what you are seeing there? Because I'm not, you know, most of this ordinance, I'm like new here. So could you explain it to us, please?

Sure. So when an affordable developer comes to many cities in the Bay Area, and there's an inclusionary ordinance that says you have to provide 15% of units on site. That is objective, and if they follow it or the developer follows it, they have complied with the ordinance, and there's no subjectivity that we as a city or that city would be able to provide. But many cities, including South San Francisco, say that if you want to pay a fee or if you want to do – they almost have the same ordinance that we have here. If you want to do off-site preservation or anything like that, that that then has to go to the city council, not to staff, not to planning commission, not to any lower review body. And so when we put, when we asked for the language to be put in and changed from what was originally brought to the planning commission, the language in on packet page 396 and yeah, in, A1 was how we addressed that. And the language we decided as a group was effective, right? It's good language. But I think what, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mayor Bowles, but I think what you're pointing out is that based on where it is in the indent It's not 100% clear that city council is the one making these decisions. Did I understand you correctly?

Right, right. And especially for the last one, because some of the others, it talks about the city council, but this one didn't say anything.

Well, and I think that we, hearing this, concurred that that formatting is not quite consistent with the intent of the commission. So I think if in the council's discretion you wanted to keep the same language but reformat that, I think we as commissioners feel like that would be clearer than it is currently.

Through the chair, can I ask a follow-up on that? From a fee perspective, how do we recover all those additional costs from all the staff time to put all that together to bring it to council?

You can have a separate fee for considering an alternative compliance option. That's one thing that many of the cities we work with have. So there's a fee for if you're just complying with the basic 15% on-site, and then there's a different, larger fee if you're going for an alternative option.

Can we address the language that Samantha's talking about? So let's just not jump into other things. Let's fix that. That way we can move forward.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

I think that's what they were talking about, is whether should the language be moved from that.

Yeah, and then we just had a little diversion here, yeah.

Sorry, and I think in A1 it does say that any combination of alternatives shall be subject to approval by the City Council. So it does mention the combination there, but happy to clarify the language if the City Council determines that.

I think it's important. Okay. Yes. Okay, so would that be an amendment that you'd make

tonight that we'd approve so that we don't have to come back yes if we want to do the first reading tonight we would want to clarify that now um by adding language you know perhaps to section a to clarify um I'll see if there's some other language, but perhaps add language to the end of A. The currently raised applicant may comply with this article through one or more of the following alternatives approved in accordance with this section. I mean, in a way, it already says that.

I do think that that was the intent of the drafted language. I understand the concern. that the planning commissioners are making, but that's not a planning commission decision. That's a decision of those two commissioners who are sitting there, very well versed in what the planning commission may want. So if the council wants that to be more clarified, we can do that. And Karen will work on some language while you move on to other questions. And then at the end, if that's the consensus of the majority of the council. Yes. OK. Karen Murphy will work on that language and bring it back to us. But I will say, as I read this section, that is absolutely the intent. But we can clarify it more if there's any confusion. Okay. I appreciate you doing that.

Thank you. From your city attorney brain. Yeah. Right? Okay. I think two more questions. I think we need clarification. On packet base 401. the for sale BMR units at the bottom. 4707. And actually scroll down a little bit further. Goes on to the next page. So this item two says for sale BMR units shall only be occupied by their owners. Renting, leasing, subleasing, or subleasing shall not be permitted for more than two months in any year. What came to my mind was our short-term rental ordinance that now allows for more than two months in the coastal zone. So might this be a conflict with that? Or can we just limit it to two months anyway and someone can't sue us for not allowing them to rent it for the $120,000? John Aucott, M.D.

: And perhaps owners and their family. Female Speaker 2, M.D.

: Thank you. I will note that that the affordable units are subject to a different statutory structure than other units. So the intent of this ordinance is to provide housing for affordable families. So it is fairly standard to ensure that the families don't rent out those units and that they live in the units as the intent is to provide the housing for families. your families and individuals in the jurisdiction that need that housing. So I think the language is okay and can stay in there. Okay.

And then I think I brought this up at our study session, but one of the difficulties I'm hearing about affordable housing and multi-unit buildings that have HOAs and HOA fees are just the burden of those HOA fees, right, that make the projects unaffordable. And I didn't see anything in here that touched on that. Is that something that's being considered in the NEXA study? I mean, can we restrict raises and HOA increases?

I'm afraid we cannot. That is state law. I have worked in another state where we were able to set the HOA fees for the affordable units separately from the market rate units. That is not allowed under California state law, much to my chagrin.

So we should work on our legislators.

Right, right, right. But I think one thing that is true, though, is that when we set the sales price for the unit, we are looking at the affordable housing cost to the buyer. And therefore, the actual sales price of the unit is less because they do have to pay the full HOA fee. Now that doesn't protect a homeowner from if the HOA fee explodes sometime down the road, but at least the initial sales price does reflect the fact that they're paying that higher HOA fee. So that's where we can, so it kind of puts it back on the original developer as sort of supporting it instead of the other condo owners supporting the HOA fee for the individual unit owner. Teri Manolio. Okay. Great. Thank you.

That's all I had. Do you have another question still?

I would love to express my appreciation to legal staff and give them fair warning that I intend to make a motion including inheritance language and fixing that language we discussed earlier and fixing the fee adjustments around the in lieu of fees as well.

Okay. And then you had several questions for us that we haven't talked about or answered. So one was the opt-in investing. I don't see any downsides in that. I mean, do you see any? I do not see any downsides. Because, I mean, if they choose to accept it, they'd be paying more. They can pay an NLUFE, but they'd be paying more than they were. That's correct. Yeah, okay. Do we want, like, a vote on each thing that you're asking?

Yeah, I think it would be helpful for us to see it on... on the screen, too. If we could just, like, exactly what decisions we are making, please, because there's been a lot of different discussion tonight. And also, you know, after seeing the Planning Commission's work and then having all of these new options, to me, it was just like, I don't know. Yeah. Yes. It was more than I bargained for.

The Planning Commission did so much work. It's on packet page 391. Could you pull that up to make more coffee?

And Samantha from the planning, so like I said, don't be shy. We want to hear from you.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm no shrinking violet, so I find a way to get the comments in when I come down.

Even one of them is shy, I say.

It's just a way to say, to be. Speak up. We want to hear from you.

So on packet page 391, it's subsection D. An applicant for a residential development project vested by a preliminary application submitted under California government code may opt into the provisions of a subsequently adopted version of this article by submitting written notice to community development director and including an affordable housing plan as required by the code.

»» Okay. So this was something you wanted a specific vote on or this is just part of approving the ordinance? clarifying that that's in here and been added.

I mean, it, like I said, was added prior to coming to the council. So I wanted to pull it out and highlight it so that council was aware and was making an intentional decision on it. Okay.

And director, what, I think the question is, what are the specific changes that the council is going to be asking for tonight? That's what they want highlighted.

Well, no, but I was asking about this in particular. So we don't have to do a separate vote on this because it's in... Right. It's just in the ordinance.

Right. I think the question is whether you want to adopt... the, in terms of the alternatives that we were just discussing, having all of the alternatives come to City Council for approval, or going with staff's initial recommendation, which is in attachment H. I'll find the packet page number. What section are you recommending amendments to, Director? 4.4705.

And we've prepared those and provided them in attachment H. »» And just as a follow-up question to that, at some point you mentioned that anything can be called up. But under the planning staff recommendation, You know, some of these projects are ministerial, and so nothing would ever be in the public. You would just be doing this yourself. So how could it ever be called up if we don't know about it?

Any decision by the zoning administrator is subject to Planning Commission appeal.

But how do we know about it? Like, I have no idea what you're doing right now with all these different projects that you're processing.

And to be honest, I want to follow the Planning Commission recommendation. It makes me feel much better. And I won't say anything. I'm ready to go home.

Okay. If City Clerk Coffey, if you could pull up packet page number 669.

I think part of the concern, and for me too, and this is where I'm leaning towards the Planning Commission's recommendation, is that there were some shady things that happened with the Harmony One fee. in Luffy that were the units and a dedication of land were part of the agreement that was hard won by the public. And then somehow something happened that didn't come to the public where all that changed. And, and especially if some approvals are happening that aren't in the public eye, you know, at least while we're sorting this out for a while, I personally would rather see any alternatives come before us. And maybe after a while when we have our processes down and, you know, that's something that we could look at changing. But I feel more comfortable with all those coming to us right now. And I hear that from. I agree. Okay. All right. That's three. So I think you have direction on that. Okay.

So based on that, it appears that the council will be moving forward with the ordinance, not the staff alternative language, but the ordinance in the packet. And there were some additional changes as well. I heard, but I do want, as we're working on preparing revisions, that there would be a request for language regarding exempting inherited, um, or property BMR for sale units that are inherited. Um, and that would be carved out.

So I think, I think Ms. Murphy, I think we need to ask the council, is there a consensus on the council? That's yes. To, to what vice mayor Wright was talking about with regard to allowing descendants of initial, um, affordable housing agreements to pass them down to descendants with an understanding that they would benefit from their inherited property by way of not being subject to new affordable housing terms, meaning that they would be obligated to comply with the terms that were in existence at the time that they inherited it. But you recall Ms. Murphy talking about generally we have them enter into new regulatory agreements, and those new regulatory agreements are for a new term. So what was being proposed in my understanding from Vice Mayor Wright is that we would eliminate that obligation and simply allow descendants to hold on to that property with the existing affordable housing restrictions, but it would not extend further than the original owners. So that's a That's a discussion point for the council.

It wouldn't create a reset of the...

They call it do on call. They don't have to sell the property to another person.

They wouldn't necessarily have to anyway, but they would have to enter into a new regulatory agreement, which usually extends the same term, 45 years. That property could be tied up with a regulatory agreement, not for 45 years, but for 90 years.

So just for an example, as it's currently drafted, if a current homeowner passes away and their descendants qualify to occupy and continue to occupy the unit, we would require them to enter into a new agreement. It would be a new 45-year term. And that is in Section 9-4.4707B1, Packet Page 559. And if the desire is to not require the reset, we could amend the first sentence in B1 which ends with, which shall reset upon transfer or resale, and we could say, except upon inheritance by a descendant. And that would be the language we could add if the majority of the council agrees with the change that was mentioned by the vice mayor.

Thank you.

Okay, and before we get into that, it's 5 to 11, so I'm going to make a motion that we extend the meeting to 1115, and let's try to be fast and do this. My concern with all this is that we haven't really thought it through and it's really late. And the nice thing about a reset is that it means that it still continues to be an affordable unit for generations or otherwise it becomes a market rate unit at some point. I understand what you're trying to do with generational wealth. But I also heard that the property still will be increasing in value, so a family would be making more money over time by holding on to it. So I don't feel like I have the analysis to make that decision right now.

And we would also need to clarify, it couldn't just be descendants, as the city manager was just pointing out to me. We would have to clarify, are you just talking about children? Or what if they gift it to... charity or what if they gift it to you know I mean we don't know what their estate planning is going to be so you don't know who they're going to be you know giving their property away to so it does you know there are a lot of I what I'm saying is while we could draft something I'm not sure we we could really draft something adequately tonight because I have to think about two generations right Is that something we can revisit when we come back?

Yes, that's an amendment. That's what I was going to say.

Yeah, because I want to revisit it, because what I heard was, like, usually this happens, or generally this happens, and so to have a little protection would be nice for them. But we don't know what that looks like tonight.

People aren't going to build generational wealth through this vehicle, so we're just fooling ourselves if we're trying to say that that's one of our goals. It's just not true. So that's what it is I'm trying to address, and I'm okay to be outvoted on this, but I just want to speak clearly that I want future Pacifica families of lesser means to be able to build generational wealth.

Absolutely, and I don't think you're being outvoted. I think we need to, I would like to address it, to see it on a future agenda.

But there are many components to that. That's why the city attorney wanted to, if you want to give the property to the widow with three kids.

To the children or the grandchildren.

Yeah, the children.

Yeah, I would definitely like to see it on a future agenda so we can talk about it more.

Okay, so are we at the point where we're just looking at the revised language from city attorney?

No, because there was a fixed income or fixing the adjustments. for the recapturing of fees in lieu of that I didn't think was in there that the gentleman mentioned that we could do for the alternatives, the additional staff time fee, that additional fee.

Oh, but I think that would come with the next assessment.

I think that would come later. Exactly. Yeah, that wouldn't be part of that. I just want to make sure we address that too.

I think so far my understanding is that the only clarification, and we can do this clarification tonight because that's what's, that was, the intent, as, you know, Chair Hauser mentioned and as Karen Murphy mentioned. That was the intent of the ordinance, and we're just clarifying it. My understanding is that Ms. Murphy does have some additional language she can read into the record.

Okay. So with respect to the change that was discussed earlier, Section 9-4.4705, the alternatives to on-site affordable residential units, I'd recommend deleting subsection F entirely and then modifying A so it would read as follows. General, an applicant may comply with this article through one or a combination of the alternatives set forth in subsections B through E below, which must be approved in accordance with this section. Does that sound good?

Well, I think you need to say approved by the council. The section one below talks about approval by the council. Well, you should put it in that section, Karen. Okay.

Yeah. Which must be approved by the council in accordance with this section. Right. Okay. By the city council.

Right. I'm so sorry. Can we reread it? Yes.

Yes, an applicant may comply with this article through one or a combination of the alternatives set forth in subsections B through E below, which must be approved by the city council in accordance with this section.

Yeah, that works.

And then section one is somewhat duplicative, but still sets forth the requirement.

Karen, should we revise that section then to take out the repetitive language?

I see a little concern from Chair Hauser, too.

Well, if we're going to say must, then do we need to say, like, at the city council's discretion or, like, may be approved by the city? Like, must be approved seems like shall be approved.

Yeah.

But I'm not an attorney.

Well, I think the sections in and of themselves do have the approval authorities. So, for example, you know, they all, when you're looking in the sections... have but language like if I'm looking at the land, but the land does not say must so The land is not does not say must know would be also as be because which may which shall be sorry the the the criteria for approval for the dedication of land is a

probably one of the most discretionary decisions in all of the zoning ordinance. There's something left. And so shall would not be the, City Council shall approve a land dedication, I think is not appropriate.

So maybe shall be considered in accordance with the requirements of this section.

Like that much better. Thank you.

Okay, Samantha. She's still shaking her head a little bit.

Samantha. I think that if we're changing it to be amply clear, we should be amply clear. Right. Right? But I also feel like I'm overstepping my jurisdiction here. No, no, no.

You're appreciating me so.

If you have an amply clear suggestion, please make it.

Thank you for... Oh, I apologize. I'm joking. But thank you for raising that issue. I think each of the sections does include the requirements for approval. So like if you look at B4, that says that the council shall approve the alternative if the requirements are satisfied and then also says it's going to be a condition. If you look at C4, that has the same language, that if the requirements in that section are satisfied, it will be approved.

What about just the city council shall review and make a determination in accordance with the language below or something? Yeah.