Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Okay. So after some technical difficulties, I will recall the meeting to order. We had a roll call vote with all commissioners present. We had a salute to the flag. And I am going to read the next advisements again. Before we get into administrative business, any member of the public wishing to make public comment on any item should complete a speaker card and bring it to the front and hand it to staff. On the card, please indicate the agenda item number on which you wish to comment, or oral communications for items not on the agenda. If participating via Zoom, please raise your hand on the item on which you wish to participate. If dialing in, please dial star five to raise your hand and then star six to unmute yourself when called. 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 a second warning to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or on topic. If the warning is not followed, 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. And that brings us to our agenda proper. So for administrative business, I do not have any speaker cards, and I do not know if there's anyone who has comments on the administrative business online. All right, then we will... move into the actual items. I would like to move staff communications ahead of oral communications, if you'll humor me. And with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the order of the agenda. I move that we approve that revision in the order of agenda.

Second.

All right. We've got a motion by Vice Chair Berman, a second by Commissioner Ferguson. Let's do a roll call vote, please. Let's please vote. No, we'll do a roll call vote.

Motion made by Vice Chair Berman, seconded by Commissioner Ferguson. On the motion, Chair Hauser?

Yes.

Vice Chair Berman? Yes. Commissioner Davis? Yes. Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Ferguson? Yes. Commissioner Redfield? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Sanchez.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. We do not have any minutes to approve tonight, nor do we have any liaisons, but I do want to just confirm that for this commission's presentation to council, which is on May 26th at 5 p.m., both Commissioner Redfield and I will be attending for the commission. Is that still the scope of what we need to confirm?

That's correct.

Okay, fabulous. And then that brings us to staff communications.

Director Updegrave. Thank you, Chair Hauser. Good evening, Commissioner Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director. We have a guest this evening. Sean Chaffentier is our new city manager. Today is his very first day. And so we invited him here to Planning Commission to meet everyone and say hello. Hello. I'll turn it over.

Thank you very much. Again, my name is Sean Charpentier. I'm the new city manager, and I timed my first day to coincide with the planning commission meeting. Really appreciate the work that the commissioners and the committee members do. It really provides a solid foundation for advising the city council, and I'm just grateful to have this opportunity to serve the council and the people of Pacifica. And I have no role tonight, so I will not be saying anything. But thank you again.

Well, we so appreciate you. And I'm looking forward to working with you.

I think you're probably aware our city is unique in geography and in our community. We have a very involved community. And it's wonderful to have you with your experience to help shepherd us. Looking forward to working with you.

All right. Oral communications. There's no one in the room, so I have no yellow cards. Is there anyone online who wishes to make an oral communication? Reminder to folks participating by phone to press star 5 to raise your hand.

There's no one online.

All right. So then we'll close oral communications. There are no consent items tonight. There are no presentations tonight. And that brings us to continued public hearing TA-129-26, file number 2026-006, text amendment initiated by the city to repeal and replace Article 41 density program and Article 47 city of Pacifica below market rate inclusionary program. If we could have a staff report, please. And if staff could just introduce everyone that's here tonight, that would be great.

Great. Thank you again, Chair Hauser, Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director. And I'm joined this evening by Alex Wagner and Tim Davis from the heart of San Mateo County and Assistant City Attorney Karen Murphy. And we're very excited to be here tonight to present long overdue updates to Pacifica's density bonus and inclusionary housing ordinances. Oh, wait. Where's the presentation?

Is that computer? Okay.

Here we go.

Sorry, it's just really hard to control this.

It's not a computer.

There we go. We've just got to keep up with the tech difficulties tonight. Thank you. Okay. Next slide. Before diving in, I did just want to note that we sent a memo earlier today. We got some comments from the Coastal Commission that we want to take some time to review and research and coordinate with them. So our recommendation tonight is to hold the hearing, take public comment, discuss, that way staff are aware of any changes, revisions, and that will give us time too to coordinate with the Coastal Commission, then we can come back. So we'd like you to continue the public hearing to allow us the time to do that and come back. So tonight we'll just do an overview, a summary of the joint session that Planning Commission and City Council held last year, talk through the density bonus and inclusionary housing ordinances, their relationship to the housing element programs, some miscellaneous edits, and staff recommendations.

Next slide.

First, I just want to introduce the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust of San Mateo County, or HART, for those who are not familiar with them. HART is a 20-year-old joint powers authority created by San Mateo County jurisdictions to help facilitate the creation of affordable housing. They have a housing consulting services program to help local communities improve their housing programs, launch new programs, and meet their housing element goals. And so Pacifica is one of the eight cities that HART provides services for. So again, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Davis are here with us this evening, and they've been helping us with the ordinances.

Next slide.

Okay, so we are here tonight with the draft code provisions. Both of these make a significant impact on the development of residential, residential mixed use and commercial development within Pacifica. However, neither have been updated in quite some time. So the density bonus ordinance is based on state law and allows developers to receive additional density for their developments in exchange for deed restricted affordable units. It also allows developers to get waivers and concessions from development standards in order to accommodate that additional density. Our ordinance was originally adopted in 1984 and has not been updated since 1992. Our inclusionary housing ordinance mandates a percentage, right now it's 15%, of market rate residential developments to be deed restricted as affordable to lower income households. The current ordinance also provides some alternatives to on-site units such as an in-lieu fee or off-site construction. This will be further updated by the Affordable Housing Study or Grand Nexus Study. But right now we're just coming with a smaller packet of changes. So this was first adopted in 2007 and has not been updated. Next slide. So there's been a lot of changes in state housing and planning laws. I really like this graphic by Berkeley artist, author Tu. It shows all of the housing and planning laws that passed in 2025 and were signed into law. I don't know if you can see, but there's some grayed out things in there also. So that's the suite of what was proposed. And then this is the graphic of what was passed. So really important to be updating our ordinances. Um, so as I was saying, we, uh, Pacifica is participating in an affordable housing and grand nexus study, which is a multi-jurisdictional affordable housing, um, projects that's underway, but the data won't be available until later this year or early 2027. Um, those updates will help inform, um, uh, affordable housing policies that are applied to new development, such as residential affordable housing impact fees, inclusionary requirements, in lieu fees. Because we don't have commercial linkage fees, Pacifica is only participating in the residential feasibility portion. And like I was saying, those will be used to inform future substantive changes to the inclusionary housing ordinance.

Next slide.

So why do updates now? So our rezoning program and certification of the city's housing element has really laid the framework for new development in the city. And that framework has opened doors for more projects. So amending these ordinances now to comply with state law and align with best practices is a priority. As we're getting projects in, we want to be able to apply these codes. So these amendments will facilitate better outcomes for the city, clarify the requirements for developers, and help streamline the review and approval by establishing application requirements and review procedures. So again, these are just the initial updates. And they'll help make the code easier to understand, review, and consider, and then incorporate future amendments. Next slide. We held a joint study session with Planning Commission and City Council in October to kind of present the history of inclusionary housing density bonus and this two-phased approach and talk about some potential amendments and the direction from Planning Commission and So we've taken that feedback and incorporated it into the draft amendments. And with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Wagner to walk through the density bonus ordinance.

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having us here tonight. You can go to the next slide. As Director Updegrave already went over, state density bonus law allows developers to increase density of their projects and waive out of development standards in exchange for deed-restricted affordable housing units. You can go to the next slide. As was previously talked about, the City of Pacifica ordinance has not been updated since 1992. However, some of the changes that we are proposing to bring it into context with state law include fewer units to qualify, longer affordability periods, mandated concessions and waivers, application to more housing types, and then alternatives to construction of affordable units. Next slide. Many of these changes are detailed with more detail. in the staff report, but in summary, we are amending many of the definitions to cross-reference state density bonus law and adding requirements for the application review. We can go to the next slide. The next section discusses some of the requirements for an application for density bonus. We've incorporated a number of best practices, including how to outline and demonstrate the different requests that are being made under density bonus law, and this is all in line with state density bonus law and best practices, as well as adding requirements for some of the disclosures that developers have to make at the time of the application for density bonus, such as a tentative map and phasing for the construction of the affordable units. We'll go to the next slide. Further, we have included in the ordinance a number of different requirements for the housing or density bonus affordability agreement. This is what's recorded against the property to ensure the affordability of those units and that even on turnover of the property that those same restrictions are maintained in place. Those include a number of requirements that ensure fair and equitable construction, lease up or sale, and timely recordation of the agreement to be in place. We've also amended the affordability terms to be in line with our recommended updates to the inclusionary housing ordinance to ensure the affordability term for 99 years for those units. Go to the next slide. We've also updated the calculations for how density bonus units are calculated under the current ordinance. The calculations are not in line with state density bonus law and are therefore not enforceable. So we've updated those so that they are in line with that as well as requiring rounding up for those fractional units. So even if it's .1 unit, a fractional unit that comes from those calculations, you have to round up to the next whole number. So that will maximize the number of on-site units that the city of Pacifica receives as part of density bonus. We also added a section in line with the state law to allow commercial developers to utilize a density bonus. And to do that, they would partner with an affordable housing developer to have those affordable units either on-site or at an off-site location. Go to the next slide. And then there's a couple of miscellaneous items here, including consistency with the local coastal program and subordinating this chapter to state law. Any questions at this time? I'll pass it on to my colleague, Tim Davis, to talk about the updates to the inclusionary housing ordinance.

Thank you, commissioners, for having us here tonight. I'm Tim Davis from Heart, and we'll speak to the inclusionary zoning ordinance. The inclusionary housing ordinances are built into the zoning code and require a certain percentage of housing years to be income-restricted. targeted to specific income groups. The policy in place was put in in 2007. A lot has changed. We've learned a lot about what makes a good inclusionary housing ordinance in the last 19 years. They were fairly new to have inclusion ordinances at that time. And so this package here is to mostly help to bring your policy in line with best practices, what other cities are doing in the region, and also recommendations from organizations such as MTC APAC. Next slide. One of the really technical thing is there's a number of changes and additions in the definition section. These are just to kind of bring it in line with other best practices in other cities and to make it more clear. Under the question of unit size and design, We're introducing a new option that where a developer who is doing very small units that were in coordination with the city, they can actually create more family-sized units instead of always doing comparable units. It's like you feel there's a need for family-sized units, but they're creating all small units. Or if they're all creating large houses and you actually need smaller houses for other income families, that that's something you can do. Also adding a section to allow some flexibility around interior amenities. Next slide. There is one, in terms of applicability, there is a clarification. We are not changing the threshold for the units that you need to have to have the inclusion of housing ordinance apply. However, we are excluding accessory dwelling units and junior ADUs to that calculation. We are increasing the affordability term to 99 years for both ownership and rental units. We are adjusting the AMI requirement for rental units. Currently, for both rental and homeownership units, you're requiring half of the units at 80% of AMI and half at 120% of AMI. We are finding that there's a very limited audience for 120% AMI rental units, and those units are actually fairly close to market. We are following recommendations from MTC ABAG and doing incomes at a range, including 50, 80, and 110, which means an average of 80 percent of AMI. We are also, unlike under density bonus law, if you have a fractional unit of any amount, you have to increase it to the next unit count. Under inclusionary zoning, it's very typical to round, you'd round up after .5, and anything less than .5, you would do it in lieu payment. So that's what we're doing there. Next slide. I think it's some direction we got from the joint council and commission hearing was we want to make this policy something that is coherent, that is easy to apply, and developers have some flexibility and some objective standards. So in doing so, we decided that we would make it easier for a developer to choose in Luthi or off-site construction if they wanted to in terms of the approval process. However, the council and the commission also expressed a desire to keep units on site. So in this respect, the process for getting an alternative is easier, but they have to do a higher percentage of units to get it. So we're still incentivizing developers to keep their units on site, and if they want to do one of the alternatives, they have to provide a higher percentage of their units towards that option. We've also added an offsite preservation as an alternative. That's where a developer can purchase an existing building and income restrict it as an option. Next slide. We have updated the requirements for the affordable housing plan. This is mostly just to bring us in line with other cities and make sure that we're getting all the information we need from a developer from the very start so that you can make your decision easily and quickly and that it's objective standards for the developers to meet. Also, the affordable housing agreement, some updates about when that is needed, that it's in These are just very legalistic requirements around that it runs with the land and binding all future owners, and also making sure that the housing agreement is in place at the time of the building permit. Next slide. We are also adding a requirement the onsite affordable units must be built at the same time as the market units. This is something that's just what we do in this business, but it's just to clarify something that wasn't in your policy before. that many cities on the peninsula have actually been, have had their inclusion housing ordinances operational without a manual or guidelines. And so every time a developer approaches them, they say, well, this is what's in your ordinance, but how do we actually implement it? So we have been working with a number of municipalities across San Mateo County in an effort to create a model BMR, or Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Manual, and implement similar policies across the county. And so what we would do after these are passed is we would complete a manual for Pacifica that would cover all the little things that happen as part of the process, setting the sales prices, What does the marking look like? What is the resident selection process? All those little pieces that tend to fall through the cracks that doesn't necessarily belong in your ordinance but does need to have an approved policy. So, of course, the next steps are, of course, after the approval would be completion of the Affordable Housing Manual and then Samantha's already mentioned the Grand Nexus study. At that point, we might further recommend some adjustments to the units, number of percentage units required. It will provide you the ability to revise the NLUFI. We'd love to revise the NLUFI today, but we have to wait on the study for that. And results at the end of 2026 or early 2027. And I think I'll turn it back over to Samantha.

Great, thank you so much. So as detailed in the staff report, the proposed amendments conform to the general plan, housing element, and the local coastal program. I did want to highlight the relationship to some of the programs in the housing element, which is a mandatory part of the general plan that is updated every eight years. Our housing element contains 14 programs with various actions that outline the city's commitment over that planning period. So if you will, like a roadmap of how it's going to satisfy those requirements. The updates to density bonus and inclusionary housing touch on three important programs. And see, it's 2026 right now, so our mid-cycle is coming up in 2027. It'll be here before we know it. Okay, so the first is HEI 5, which is fund a housing action fund to support housing projects or other supportive activities to remove constraints on housing production, and promote development of multifamily rental and for sale housing. So specifically, the amendments would make changes to the provision of the in lieu fee, which would, I think as Mr. Davis was saying, requiring a larger amount, 20%, for the in lieu fees would create additional funding sources for the city's Housing Action Fund. One, by requiring fractional units under inclusionary that are below .5. to pay the fee, and then again increasing that rate. Although it's outside of the Planning Commission's purview, we will be preparing an update to the in lieu fee resolution, which was also adopted in 2007. We discussed that quite a bit at our study session. And that would reset the amount per unit based on changes in median sale prices and CPI, and then also clarify the timing and method of annual adjustments. And then again, upon completion of the 21 elements affordable housing study, we can consider really revisiting and revising those in lieu fees so that there's alignment between surrounding communities and project feasibility. The next one is HEI 6, strengthen inclusionary housing. This said to commission a study to evaluate revisions to the current below market rate inclusionary program to increase the minimum required proportion of affordable units and incentivize production of units with deeper affordability than the current program. Although there is this phase two that will, so the study has been commissioned. We are participating in it. We do expect there to be changes as a result of that data. The current ordinances will strengthen the inclusionary housing for immediate use by aligning it with state law and implementing best practices. Clarifying application and implementation. Increasing the length of time units have to remain affordable. Adding the provisions for the split, including that 110 AMI. Increasing the requirements for alternatives to on-site construction, which will provide more flexibility for the city and developers in meeting those requirements. Next slide. And lastly, there's HEI 14, state and federal law conformance, requires us to amend the zoning ordinance and other local policies to remove inconsistencies between local policies and state and federal law. And the proposed amendments do just that, updating both density bonus and inclusionary in conformance with current state housing and planning laws, including state density bonus laws. Since we are continuing the hearing tonight, I won't go over this in a lot of detail, but it was included in the memo. I realized that we had some errors in our cross-references, so I've provided those in the memo, and then we'll make sure that these are corrected the next time it comes back to you. And with that, I'll conclude with staff's recommendation, again, to hold the public hearing, discuss the proposed amendments, and continue the public hearing without action to a date certain to allow for additional coordination with Coastal Commission staff and then commission review of the draft ordinance, of the revisions to the draft ordinance. And that concludes our presentation. We are available for questions. Fantastic.

Thank you for a really awesome presentation. It was very detailed and helpful. if my fellow commissioners will allow me, because I think that as we go through this, we're going to have both questions and comments, I'd love to just go to public comment right now. And again, we don't have anyone in the public here, so reminder for folks dialed by phone. Do we have anyone dialed in by phone or on Zoom? No. No. Okay. So we'll open and close the public hearing and move it back to the commission for questions and comments. I would like to organize this as kind of general questions first, and then I would like to go page by page as we have done with other ordinances. So with that, I don't see any lights on. Does anyone have any kind of overarching questions before we start going page by page?

I do.

Commissioner Ferguson followed by Commissioner Davis.

OK. I'll start with the most broad one, and I asked this at our previous meetings about exactly this thing. If you polled the residents of Pacifica, they would say a lot of different things about the city and city staff, many of them not positive, but also many of them unfounded. I don't think you'd find a single person that would say that the city is overstaffed or underworked. Given that Given that we already have language for subordinating this to state law and that state law trumps the local ordinances, and we haven't updated it in 25 years, it's very clear that somebody put a lot of work into this, and I think that's admirable. But is there really any value to doing this each year? And before you answer that, you looked at the graphic from the artist that showed 50 new laws. Are we going to do this exercise every year that we have 50 new laws?

Thank you so much, Commissioner Ferguson. Those are all really great questions. I think one of my goals is to get our zoning ordinance in good enough shape that we can come back every year and do a state legislative and technical edits ordinance. And so that is definitely something that we're moving toward. It's very difficult to do that right now because our ordinances are so out of date that you can't just go in and make a technical change. It's just like with the density bonus and inclusionary, it requires an entire rewrite of the section, and then that section touches another section, touches another section. So that's why we are working on, in the coming fiscal year, a zoning modernization to bring our zoning ordinance in alignment with our general plan. And so once it's in that shape, it's really not a big lift. It's a pretty common occurrence. But I think what the importance really is that if our entire density bonus ordinance or our entire inclusionary doesn't meet state law, we run the risk of losing all local control over those particular provisions. So it is important for us to be making these initial updates.

But for a savvy developer, you've already lost all local control because they can take advantage of state laws, and it doesn't, unless you have exactly the same ordinance, it doesn't make any difference, right?

I think it does make a difference.

I guess where I'm coming from is why not have a simpler, pared-down legislation and then just have your subordination clause I admire your ambition and what you're trying to do, but even that little bit every year, right, with a staff that's been habitually plagued by turnover and new people and vacancies and contract planners, I don't understand. I've sat here and done this now a bunch of times, and I'm trying to understand why it's worth our time to keep doing it over and over when anything Sacramento does is out of our hands anyways. Right.

I think that now that we have our housing element certified, we have seen the return of a lot of local control. And then in addition to our housing element does direct or does commit the city to doing those things. And what we definitely don't want to do is fall fall behind or not meet those commitments and risk the certification of our housing element, you know, which, you know, I mean, that's why we have builder's remedy projects because our, you know, our housing element was overdue. And so I do think this is important and valuable work. And the extent of the updates, of course, are, you know, up to the purview of the commission and the council. But that would be my recommendation.

Director Updegrave, if I may, and I'll get to you, City Training Murphy, in one moment. But, and let me say, I almost always agree with you, Commissioner Ferguson, but I don't agree with you on this. I think, and I would love for staff to correct me if I'm wrong, but the density bonus ordinance has requirements for getting the benefits of of what's outlined in that ordinance. But we have affordable housing requirements above and beyond. So, like, you get a density bonus at 10% for sale or 5% very low or whatever it is. But we're requiring 15% and 20%. We also have those timelines for policies and implementation required in our housing element.

I have thoughts on that separately.

Okay.

Fair enough. Asked and answered.

Okay.

Yeah, I did just want to note for the commission's information that also with respect to the density bonus ordinance, although state law governs a lot of the provisions, it doesn't govern how the city processes density bonus applications. So for example, there's a new, you know, a long section on application requirements. So things that we require of developers when they come in and submit an application. There are also findings so that it's really clear what the acting body needs to find with respect to density bonuses. And in some cases, we do just cross-reference existing law, but we do add some things with respect to our local processes.

Do you have other questions, Commissioner?

I have some, but they're more specific. Okay.

Then let's go over to Commissioner Davis.

So I just had a couple about the, from the presentation. And it was, you know, we kind of went through it pretty quickly. But there was on one of the first couple of slides about the density bonus that, and I apologize, I can't remember your name. But you know it.

Yeah, sorry, Alex Wagner.

So, Alex, thank you. So it was either part one or part two of this slide. And I'd need to see it again because you flipped through it really fast. It was probably somewhere around slide 4. Slide number 11 is where it starts. Slide 7 is where it starts? Okay. Nope. When it went into part 1 and part 2.

Keep going.

Oh, right. I forgot about all that. Sorry. Okay. This one. Density bonus program. More restrictive and more discretionary than state law cannot be enforced. What can't be enforced?

Sorry, that's the...

I mean, that to me wasn't clear, and you didn't talk about those three words cannot be enforced. If you could just clarify that, I'd appreciate it.

Yeah, so that's referencing the existing ordinance, the one that was updated in 1992. Basically, there's a bunch of local controls, different requirements, that sort of thing, subjective evaluation criteria that are out of line with existing state law, so that's why it can't be enforced.

Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that. And then on Part 4, this was in the 47. Maybe keep one more. Let's see. Hang on. Oh, require rounding up of fractional units to the next whole number for density bonus unit calculations. And then Director Epigrave You mentioned something about if it's 0.5 or below, then it's an in lieu fee instead. So is it two different circumstances where we're applying? Or was this rounding up of all fractional units of recommendation, but we decided we'd go the other way?

That's a great question, Commissioner Davis. Thank you so much. State density bonus law does require that any fractional unit get rounded up. And so under density bonus law, that is a requirement. When we come into the inclusionary requirements, we get to decide as the jurisdiction whether we round up or down. And so one of the things that we heard in the study session from Planning Commission and City Council is this desire to get more funds into our Housing Action Fund. And one of the strategies for that was if it's a fraction less than 0.5, let's require that fractional unit to be paid Gotcha. Into the housing in lieu fee. So, of course, these things stack. So if you have a project, as Chair Hauser was saying, you can get a density bonus by providing 10% affordable or whatever the percentage is. They still have to meet our inclusionary requirement as well. And so they may have an additional... an additional requirement. Um, and so at that point, when you're looking at the inclusionary is when that fractional unit may turn into an in loop. Okay. And density bonus requires all those sites to be built on set, to be constructed on site, um, except in some limited circumstances when, when working with an affordable housing developer.

Okay. That's perfect. Thank you. And then, um, so to that point, um, it, Now we're talking about in lieu fees. So I had a couple of questions around that, and I'm going to kind of throw them all in at once because I think that it will put them in context for your answer. So one, I'm wondering, you know, we talked about HEI 5, which is to fund a housing action fund, and that in lieu fees will go in there. And then we talk about we can't do anything with the in lieu fees until the study is done in 2027. And yet they haven't been changed, I think you said, since 2007. So I don't know how the original ones were calculated, but okay, this is where my math brain goes. I think, well, if the in lieu fee is some percentage of the value of a unit, and we haven't changed ours since 2007, and I think my house was worth about $500,000 then, and now it's worth $1.25 million or some ridiculous. So how are we even close to imbalance, and why do we need to wait for the study?

That's also a great question. The original resolution in 2007 did provide... some provisions for how that number would get updated. But it wasn't very, it's not very clear. It's a bit murky. And so what we heard during the study session was that Mr. Davis took that starting number and then went through the adjustments that are in the resolution for every year to get us to a larger number. So what would that number be in today's dollars? And I want to say it was like 270 in 2007, and maybe now it's more like 5, 550. So we did make that adjustment. We really can't make a more substantive change until we have that data. Because what we don't want to do is start creating additional constraints. And so that's the importance of that feasibility. But we absolutely are adjusting upward from that 2007 amount.

So has that been done then? Or is there a plan to do based on Mr. Davis's analysis, nice name, by the way.

Yes, that will be going to the city council with the ordinances. Oh, awesome. So that's adopted by resolution with the city council.

Okay, and that is the number we've landed on is 550,000.

Don't quote me on that.

Okay. But something akin to that.

But it is a significant increase utilizing the method. FROM THE ORIGINAL ORDINANCE. GO AHEAD.

THE NUMBERS I RAN LAST YEAR, IT WOULD INCREASE ON A RENTAL UNIT TO 280 ABOUT 288,000. And for detached singles, it increased to about $700,000, and for townhouses and condos, up to about $450,000. We'll rerun these numbers again before we submit it, but that's the general estimate I did several months ago.

I appreciate that. Frankly, I'm just thrilled to hear we're doing it, because I remember a presentation last year, maybe a year and a half, where Pacifica's fees are so far below everyone around us, not just in lieu, but all of our fees. And I know the council was worried about, oh, gosh, that seems like so much. But, you know, if it is current day prices, current day standard, and we struggle with our budget, it seems like it's really important, I think, to bring those up to date.

thank you that was all really really helpful from both of you i appreciate it can i dovetail on the in lieu fees that i was going to wait on you can and then we'll go to commissioner redfields um it struck me i was reading about the housing action fund i'm thinking about how many units we have built in the six years i've been on commission that you have to build units for a housing action fund historically speaking we don't um I don't disagree that you cannot build any kind of unit for $270,000 in Pacifica now, but adding $300,000 fees to a developer that's going to somehow make this more attractive, we're going to build more units? Someone will have to square that circle for me. That's my opinion on it.

I'm going to just, as the developer in the room, I'm just going to say that developers can usually work around things that they can predict. So as long as an ordinance is clear and our fees are clear, then that can be put into underwriting and it filters back into the way land sellers price their land.

Sure. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to kind of go off what Commissioner Ferguson was saying in the first place. That was a lot of work that went into this to update. And it seems we have a... It's much better now, but a chronic issue of 20, 30, or 40-year lapses in upgrades to our ordinances, which I think the GP was 40 years, which is phenomenal. You know, some of these people probably weren't even born at that time.

They did such a good job.

Is that it? It stood the test of time. So my understanding, if I'm kind of going off that thing, is that this is bringing us up basically into the 21st century. And with that incredible amount of state laws coming into effect. Oh my goodness, I have a visitor. Thank you. I had a little... My admin at work would have screamed crazy. But this, so this can actually bring us current, if you will, to state, obviously state standards, bring us into comparison with other cities as far as the affordability and the density bonus in comports of state law. And we can then add in as basically minor additions to that going forward with the addition of state laws? Because it's been just a deluge of state laws coming down. I mean, I think that was, was that actually 50, was it 50 state laws?

It was a lot in the last year.

In a year, so I mean, that's two, one a week coming out, you know, so it seems crazy. So my thought is that that will slow down a little bit over time as every city in the state is working towards the same goal, essentially, by mandate. So it seems, just in my view, that that will kind of be easier going forward with adding to that or amending an existing update to this. So we're not going to have massive rewrites like we're doing tonight, essentially, working towards that goal. So in my view, that's a good amount of work to a good result at the end. And that's it, but that's essentially that's it. So we'll update to the 21st century and then add to that as things are thrown at us.

That's correct. And I think, you know, as we discussed in our study session too, that, you know, state law really is trending more and more toward objective standards, right? Whether those are design standards, development standards, findings, right, and so forth. And so, you know, those are also things that we're working in. And so I think that allows us to provide codes that are going to stand the test, right, also of state law.

Okay. So my only fear on that is, like, you know, we do something and then that's just, you know... you know, it's not enforceable.

Right, and typically one code provision, you know, that doesn't meet state law doesn't necessarily nullify the entire code section or article. It might overwrite some provisions, but it doesn't always kind of throw everything out.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, everybody. So I think we're going to get a little bit more specific now and go page by page. I have both survived a lot of these ordinances and thrived under a lot of these ordinances, and I really appreciate this is a very well-written, both of these are very well-written ordinances. I do have questions and comments. They are both a little long, to Commissioner Ferguson's point. So maybe we just start with the resolutions. Does anyone have comments or questions on the resolutions? I have two.

Packet page number 12 for the resolution.

Okay, seeing none, I'm just going to ask for my one change in both. In section E of, sorry, in section 4E on the now therefores, I think it's confusing to add the provision for housing affordable to 110% AMI households without qualifying that that's only part of rental. So I would just propose adding the word rental. before the words housing. So it would read, adding provisions for, quote, rental, housing affordable to 110% AMI. And then in that same study, or I'm sorry, the same section, if we could just fix the two typos in the last sentence, affordable housing, and then get rid of the ING after clarify.

I'm sorry, which section was that?

This is still in 4E. It says strengthen and clarifying the program in the interim, and then instead of housing, it says hoosing, just my own, like, being anal.

Oh, I've got a couple of those.

Perfect. We'll get there. Does anyone take objection to that?

I don't take any objection, but I had a question on the 110. I believe I saw that it was being changed from 120 to 110, but the percentages are all changes. Maybe a dumb question. There's not somebody that's currently at 115% of AMI that's going to then miss out on the program in the future?

Oh, that's a good question. Does this retroactively apply to rental housing that is in existence that has current deed restrictions?

It would not do anything retroactively. It would be only for new units. Okay. Yes.

I also was like, why wouldn't we just do moderates? but you so succinctly answered my question when you calculated out that 120% is like above market rent anyway, so. Okay, then the only thing that I had a question on was, it's only in the planning commission's reso, but under the be it further resolved, when it quotes the three housing elements implementing policies, Those are really big programs. And Director Updegrave, I thought you did a really good job of specifying the parts that were pertinent. I guess my one question is on HE-I-14. That is a super big policy that only a small portion touches affordable housing. Would it be helpful, and I guess Attorney Murphy, this question is for you as well, would it be helpful to specifically qualify which subsections of HE-I-14 Maybe it's not. It's not in councils.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair Hauser. I think one of the, it's difficult because the actions can either be very broad or very specific and obviously just can't address every situation. But I think what I'm hearing is maybe adding some kind of a language that's not saying, hey, we've just satisfied these three big, all the things that we're supposed to do for these things. but find a way to maybe qualify. Like the portions pertaining to affordable housing or something. It's part of the overall, because there's no one single action, no one ordinance. So we can work on drafting that, and if you have an idea that you want to share, please feel free to email us, but we can work on adding that.

Does anyone else have questions or comments on either of the rezos? And I'm so sorry, Commissioner Davis, but I did this in the actual attachment. So if you could just give the section number, that would be very helpful to me.

Oh, both?

Could you please speak into the microphone, too, so our transcriptionist can hear? Yeah, sorry. I was talking to myself. I have a bad habit of that.

So let me find it. There was something on page 18. It is Section 3, Findings. Letter C, 1C. Longer terms of affordability. Two words. It should be one. Again, it's the anal thing, but it also goes to the meaning in a formal document. I think it should be. And then...

I'm sorry. Could you repeat for me where that was?

Package page 18. Section 3 findings, 1C. It's the fourth sentence down towards the end of it. Longer terms of affordability. Ability two words when it should be I think affordability Thank you so much. You're welcome and then section on that same page section one recitals Hereby find are true and correct and materials to the adoption of this ordinance. I think it should be and material to the adoption This ordinance. I don't think materials should be plural, but maybe I'm wrong Again just because it's a formal document

And we won't nitpick the ordinance in the same way.

So yeah, just know that I don't focus on typos throughout the narrative content of your reports and that. But when it comes to the formal documents, I feel like they should be. No, it's much appreciated. Thank you. Yeah, and especially since it's draft right now, right? And you're going to, yeah, you're taking it back to do some stuff anyway. So to that page, page 26. Parenthetical number three, waivers. The second sentence, waiver request that the applicant shall include shown on a site plan and the City of Pacifica's required development standards. I think that and is extraneous and could come out. And I swear I didn't have too much time on my hands. I was just actually... And there's one more. Hang on. Only in the resolutions that I did this. Okay, this one's on packet page 30. Oh, you're going to hate me. It's an extra comma. Parenthetical one. Sorry. On packet page 30. Yeah, under 9-4.4106. Parenthetical one. That I'm not going to mention. This one I think is important. Hang on.

March are you in the I think you're now in the actual ordinance. Let's let's stop. Okay. Did I go into the ordinance? I did. Yeah, my apologies. That's okay When we get to that I have okay another one, okay So let's start with article 41 Does anyone have anything on 9-4 point 4100 I did have one that I think will hopefully tie into what Commissioner Ferguson was saying Okay Attorney Murphy, at the end of 9-4.4100, I would love some sort of sentence that just says, like, in the event of a conflict with this article in state law, state law shall govern. I know that that already happens. I still would like to proactively say it. Okay. And I'll send my red lines after this if anyone else has red lines they want to send, but I'll try to do what we typically do and, like, make an amalgam. Does anyone have anything in 9-4.4101 definitions? Yes. Okay, I have a kind of overarching, and I don't know if this is for Hart, I think this is for our city attorney. For F, identifiable and actual cost reduction, the way we've defined this throughout the beginning of this document is not consistent with what HCDL owes. And if you get into, let's see, I can't give you a packet page, but if you get into 9-4.4105 on attachment A-8, subdivision C, that one is correct. That one says the decision-making body shall grant a concession requested by the applicant unless it makes a written finding based upon substantial evidence of any of the following. And there are two HCD letters, one to the city of, I want to say, Watsonville, and one to the city of Manhattan Beach, both in 2022, where HCD has taken a very strong position that we cannot ask developers to do this. We have to provide substantial evidence. And so there are several places throughout this document where I'm going to make a recommendation that we write this in concert with HCD's allowances. And I would ask if Hart has anything to add on that. I would love to hear your thoughts.

I think it's good that you bring it to us and we look at it some more. It is very difficult to define what is an actual cost reduction in this case. So we understand that and it's something that we're still grappling with. So I think we'll take some more time on that.

Okay. In my red line, I'll put in the two, like I'll include the two letters from HCD to make it easy so no one's having to search. Okay. So that was F. On 9-4-4102, for B, at the end of B, I would like to add, nor shall it require additional CEQA studies for bonus units above the site's maximum density if bonus units are provided.

I'm sorry. Could you give me the packet page number and reference again? I was still taking notes. Attachment A4. Okay.

It's the 9-4-4102 applicability. Okay. It's packet page 24 for those following.

Okay.

And it's in section B, the granting of a density bonus, waiver, concession, et cetera, et cetera. It essentially says that we can't require a zoned text amendment or that by doing a density bonus, waiver, concession, et cetera, that we can say someone is inconsistent. And one thing that has been very, I think, well deliberated but difficult because we folks have to go through the process of finding it is what happens with CEQA. Like if we have our state housing element that says you can have 60 units on a site and then someone is entitled to a 20% density bonus, they should not have to redo CEQA to be under our programmatic. And that is, I think, all I have on this page. Does anyone else have anything?

Did you have a specific language that you recommended? And we can also research that some more.

Again, I will send you what I put in this red line. I very not in poor legalese wrote, nor shall it require additional CEQA studies for bonus units above the site's maximum density if bonus units are provided.

And maybe we even add a new subsection that deals only with CEQA.

I think that's a great call. I'm just going to keep going until someone says I have something on the next page. I can provide the packet page numbers. So on A-5, the bottom paragraph, little romanette 4. That's packet page 25. So I think we need to make it more clear if the units were affordably rented or occupied in this section to be more consistent with state law.

I just found the second. Could you repeat your comment again?

The way the semicolons are in here, it's very punctuated. So this is all about the last five years of occupancy consistent with SB 330 in the Housing Accountability Act. And what's not clear is whether or not these units were occupied affordably or at affordable rents. So that's something that I would like clarified. I think the intent is there. It just is unclear with the punctuation. Understood. Thank you. The next page, two, concessions. Little romanette two is the same thing I just talked about with the HCD letters. And then three... This one I have never seen. So for each waiver requested, the applicant shall include shown on a site plan and the City of Pacifica's required development standard from which a waiver is requested. I would propose we strike shown on a site plan. I don't know how you show increased building height. I think we can ask for a site plan if we want, but I don't think we should mandate that a developer provide that because it doesn't apply to half of the things that are going to be asked for.

Vice Chair. Just recalling what we discussed in our study session, does this potentially relate to what we were discussing about requiring a tentative map and identifying where the affordable units are to ensure that they're just

Justly located? That's located later in the phasing section of Article 47. Okay. Really well written.

Thank you, Vice Chair Berman. I believe what this is getting at is a visual representation of the standard and then what the deviation from that is. So, for example, if the zoning requires a 20-foot front setback, and they're requesting a waiver for a five foot setback, it would show both of those lines on the plan. And then that's a very clear illustration of what the waiver is. And I think because the way planning entitlements are approved and rely on the plans, I believe that that's the reason why that's often shown. Although I don't necessarily know that it's It's required. And there's probably other ways.

I was trying to think if there's a benefit for the city to have it on a site plan before we strike it.

Right. I think it's typically to document in the actual plans what the waiver is.

We gain control later in the process.

Yeah. And yeah, and actually that is probably one of the, may really be the only place where that's documented in the physical plans, which are the approved document. Things can get a little squishier when it's, you know, particularly if it doesn't have a discretionary review, there isn't a, like a decision necessarily to fall back on. And so I think that's why it

I just think there's things like the Sharp Park specific plan where we said we're going to have 15 feet of clear space on a floor to ceiling that someone's going to want to wave out or whatever the thing is, the key corners.

Would you please talk into your microphone? Oh. Thank you. Yes.

That's the... I just don't think it's fair to ask for a developer to put everything on a site plan. It doesn't make sense. But putting the units and the stuff on the phasing plan of 47 makes a lot of sense.

I guess in... With respect to asking for concessions and waivers, is there at any point where a developer, and you being a developer, would look for a concession and effectively taking advantage of the ordinance and not implementing ultimately what the city would want?

That is not governed by whether or not it's on a site plan. The concessions and waivers are under 65915 of the government code. And no matter what we say in our municipal code, we're not going to override what they allow or don't allow. So all we can do is write something that's consistent with that. Does that make sense? Did I get that?

I think that's correct, Chair Hauser. Another thing is that sometimes when projects change, which is not uncommon when they come in for construction documents as they start, you know, as they refine the design to actually be able to build it, some things may shift. And sometimes there's a threshold where, you know, maybe something changes by 5%, and that's not very substantive. But if it changes by more than 5%, it needs to go back, right, to the review body. And so that's another reason to document the extent of the waivers.

We should definitely document the extent. I think my only comment is just that a site plan is not how to do that, right? It should be documented the way our... So in Article 47, the Affordable Housing Plan, has a lot of requirements. And I think that's the way to document it.

So I think what I'm hearing is that staff will bring this back and we'll think about what the best way is. I personally love a good matrix in the plans. And so maybe this is an opportunity to put something like that in there so that we really have it spelled out And then it might not be something that's necessarily on the site plan. Like height wouldn't be on the site plan, for example. Yeah. Necessarily. So we can look at that and come back with something.

Would it be unusual to create a waiver document and include it as an amendment?

No, you have to. And that's, again, what Article 4 is. So just...

Create this matrix and submit this form, waiver form.

I think when I... So I think... Just for everyone's clarity, in Article 41, the way waivers are written, it says, for each waiver requested, the applicant shall include, shown on a site plan, and the City of Pacifica's required development standard from which a waiver is requested, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just getting rid of shown on a site plan. So what it would say is, for each waiver requested, the applicant shall include the City of Pacifica's required development standard from which a waiver is requested and the requested development standard.

Yeah, I understand that.

Okay. Does anyone have anything else? I don't have anything until 8.10. Commissioner Redford.

If I may, thank you, Chair. On packet page 26, item 4. 26, 26, yes. Parking reductions. I brought this up in a study session, and it's just been a concern of mine. So my understanding is that with the density bonus, depending on the size of it, you can have up to four concessions, if you will. Is that correct to add? No, it is not.

The number of concessions is based on the percentage of affordability provided. So it varies. I think it goes anywhere from one to four.

My thing with this, under government code 65915P, an applicant can request this parking reduction in addition to the concessions. So my concern is that we're going to lose parking if that concession is granted. And given that Pacifica is essentially an island with almost zero public transportation options, To me, that's a serious concern because once it's gone, it's never coming back. You don't want excessive parking. You don't want major underground parking or whatever, but it's got to be applicable to the amount of units, in my opinion, because almost everyone is going to be a commuter from Pacifica in one form or another. An excess of parking is a waste. It's also a huge expense. But, you know, to do that, to me, is just, is that a ministerial decision on that?

That's correct, Commissioner Redfield, because we are, again, we are held to that state law standard.

So that would be obviously the overriding thing, but you would still have ministerial judgment on what can be done?

There's no judgment.

Under?

Right, because they're just objective.

So there's no...

The overall project might still be subject to a discretionary review. The Planning Commission would make the findings that it's consistent with state density bonus law, but there's no... we don't have the ability to deny certain waivers or concessions or reductions.

Thank you.

Does anyone have anything else on this page or the next? What packet page is that? 26.

26.

Okay. I'm going to try to find the packet page that I...

Chair Hauser, if you give me the attachment number, I can share that.

So I have a couple things on A10. A10 is packet page 39. I mean, sorry, packet page 30. So one is a comment and one is a question. But I think on my comment, I don't know if it's allowed. So in section one, where it says if a house is not purchased by an income qualified household within 180 days after the issuance of a CFO, then the unit must be sold pursuant to all of these codes to a non-profit housing corporation. And I was wondering if it would be appropriate to add unless otherwise allowed by the city, just in case someone is really close and maybe maybe the CDD is the decision maker, but something that just gives us the discretion and flexibility and not like it shall be sold to a nonprofit.

We can certainly look at this. I think that may track some of the provisions in state law, the revisions and density bonus, but to the extent that we can build in some discretion, we can do so.

Okay. And then for this whole section density bonus agreement, I think that this is what we're doing, and if it is, I'm really pleased with it. But I think the density bonus housing agreement and the affordable housing agreement are the same agreement. Okay. Some cities have had major issues with having two. Great. The only other thing I had was a question on the very last page of this article, which is A13. I wanted to get more information on the commercial development bonus. This is super interesting. I kind of like that the commercial has the right to do this. Is there something in here that would make it explicitly available that anybody that is in a commercial zone can just do this? Like, are we allowing, I'm going to use my favorite Eureka Square example, but are we allowing the Eureka Square folks to just add a bunch of housing on top of their commercially zoned parcel?

Sorry, could you repeat the last bit there? I kind of lost it in the mic a little bit.

And are we still on A10? I'm sorry.

No.

Packet page 33. Okay, thank you.

Commercial development bonus.

Yeah.

Okay, so I want to understand if we are somehow imbuing a buy-right residential building ability on our commercial properties in Pacifica through this section. I don't necessarily think we are. I just want to know if there's any weird state law about this.

I don't believe so, but I can do more research to be sure.

Okay. Does anyone have anything else on Article 41? Does anyone need a biology break? OK. I'm going to keep going.

I appreciate the office. I'm not pregnant. OK.

So moving on to Article 47, inclusionary housing, My first one is on B3. Does anyone have anything before that?

B3 is packet page 36.

No, no. Yeah. I was looking at something else because I think we might have zipped past one I had. But go ahead. Marge, let's go back to what you had. No, no, no. I'm having to read it. Hang on. Okay, so, yeah, and I apologize. It's on page, page 31, number 2. It says the park, it talks about 55 years when I think we talked about changing that to 99, but I was reading it to make sure. Sorry.

Yeah. This is Mark.

I think we're changing 55 years to 99, correct?

I actually am really glad you brought this up because I wanted to talk about this in the inclusionary housing section. And I would love to get staff and Hart Housing's opinion here. I think personally that 99 years makes a ton of sense for rental. And I think that developers are agnostic of whatever this timeline is, because they're not going to be around in 55 years on for sale. I think my question is, if you are buying an affordable house, and Tim, I may have asked you this in the study session, but if you're buying an affordable house and you are coming up with a down payment, which is not inexpensive for an affordable buyer, at the end of 55 years, how do you build generational wealth for your family if you don't get to own the house? And so I think a lot of cities are at 45, 55. I love the idea of going to 55. I don't know how I feel about 99. I'm totally open. But I would love to hear your thoughts, and I would love for the commission to discuss that.

Increasingly, jurisdictions are interested in making sure that these units are affordable for perpetuity, both rental and homeownership. And so it is clearly a policy decision on your and the council's part to change it to 99 years. The state law for density bonuses is 45 years for sales and 55 years for rentals. So anything beyond that is a policy question. What I have found in my experience is that because of the formulas we use, we actually are giving people a lot of room to build wealth in their units. And so there is a wealth building exercise there. What you're not giving someone is basically a windfall of the fact that they may have paid you know, $500,000 of a house that was worth $1.5 million, and then when that time period is up, it's worth $4 million, and instead they're getting, you know, they're still getting $3 million instead of $5 million or something over that 55-year period. So it does limit the wealth building, but it doesn't give them a windfall off of something that was a public exercise.

Yeah. I'm torn because I feel like the 55, like waiting 55 years as like a teacher or a firefighter or whatever, like the people that are qualifying for these houses, like they should, I don't know. I don't want to like get my own opinions too deeply in this. Does anyone have a thought?

And as I said, that's a discussion, you know, we're not staff, they're staff. But I would say if I were staff, I would say that we would follow the direction of the commission and the council. On that point, it's a policy decision in that respect.

Okay.

Commissioner Sanchez.

Yeah, I have a question. It's hard for me to visualize or understand what these numbers are without seeing some examples of them or understanding what appreciation is for a single family home versus some of these BMRs at the different percentages. Is it possible to get that laid out so that we can actually have numbers behind these decisions?

I think we can figure out a way to do that. I know that in terms of if we're tying this to an increase in area median income, those can go up 5%, 8% per year in cases. In fact, we just got the release from HUD for the new area median incomes for this region, and they're up 8% from last year. The county and the state haven't processed the numbers and given us the official numbers that we're going to work with, but the numbers they built them off from HUD were released on Friday, and they're up 8%.

Yeah, it's over $200,000 now, up from $186,000 last year for a three-bedroom home.

Yep. I have a question on the timelines that I tried to look into but couldn't quite figure out a clear answer. If a 25-year-old teacher buys a house and they move some other house 35 years later, whatever the long-term holding average is for a house in Pacifica, and we tend to hold ours pretty long here, does the time clock start over when you're still within that 45 or 55, or are you just given an incredible asset to the next qualified low-income buyer who only has to wait out this clock for the the marginal 10 or 15 years to get that windfall? Because at some point, there is the windfall, right? At some point, it just becomes a market rate unit.

It kind of depends on how you run your documents. I mean, for some cities, that's the clock. It's 99 years, and then it's up. And it's whoever happens to be that owner at the 99 years.

It's like hot potato.

Yes, but other cities often will also do something where it is virtually in perpetuity. because they restart the clock at each new buyer.

Yeah, I was going to ask if you could do that or say, like, you know, you have this 99-year period, but to have been owned for no less than 25 years by that buyer or something so that you don't end up with a – because someone could then market this and, like, they're going to know what they have, right? Someone's going to come around and take advantage of a one-year –

A developer is going to buy it when there's only five years left.

Right.

No, because they won't qualify. They've never found a way around it. Here's what I would propose. Here's what I would propose, I think. I think we keep the rental at 99. And I think we move the for sale to 55 years. But... it resets with every buyer. And that way, if people are changing, fine. But if somebody locks down at 28, they pay the $30,000 or $35,000 deposit, which is a big number for a person buying a BMR, then that person gets the windfall, we'll call it, if they live in it until they're 80. So it's a lot of dedication. And then they get to pass that to their kids. That's my proposal.

Yeah. If you're going to do that, 55 is too large a number, right? You have to lock it down by age 30 and then hope you live to 85.

What does each see? I mean, a lot of the below market rate for sale housing is first time home buyer housing. But I would actually ask, I would ask staff in heart to make sure that I'm not speaking out of left field.

When I was going to say it as well, I don't think we can go below the requirement from on the density bonus units. Which is what?

45?

Correct, yeah, which is 45 for the ownership units.

45 for sale and rental, or 55 for rental?

Yeah, 55 for rental, yeah.

55 for rental, 45 for sale.

But what I'm saying is that people who are renting a house, you're not building equity in any rental. So I would be supportive of the 99 or the in perpetuity for the rental.

Understood.

Does everyone feel good on that? I'm seeing head nod, head nod, yes, yes. Okay, so back to for sale.

So could, just to that point, just to make sure it didn't get lost in the discussion, on packet page 31, number 2, it does say 55 years. I think we've got an agreement on that. It's talking about rentals.

So we can, let's make sure, yeah, we have to change the wording if we change. We're going to have to change the wording either way to your point. But maybe we should conclude what we feel about for sale and understand that we're recommended.

I have an idea that could address both issues.

We will not, I promise. Yes, I promise.

I think the idea of like a 55-year windfall is like it's not a windfall after 55 years. That's my point. And I think you've then this windfall only pertains to people that are under the age of 28 or some number, right? I would prefer to see it say 45 years, whichever is the later, like 45 years or at a minimum 25 years from the date of purchase, right, so that you don't have someone hold it for 30 years and someone else hold it for 20 years because that's not the purpose of the ordinance?

That's interesting, yeah.

Or just make it restart with every five years.

I would have it restart, and I think that's more consistent with the state law. Great.

Then I'd support 45.

How does everyone else feel?

I agree. Resetting with each buyer, 45.

Okay. I see nods and agreement from everybody. Before we recommend that to city council, I want to make sure that if staff or housing, we want to be respectful of your guys' opinions. So if you disagree, let us know. Can you restate the recommendation? I believe the recommendation is that rental will stay at the 99. For sale, we'll go to 45 years, but we'll restart with each buyer and shall not expire after 45 years in total. So if I buy it and then Lauren buys it and then Chris buys it and Chris is the last one.

It restarts the clock.

Yeah, he still has 45 years and not 15 left. Okay, okay. I'm seeing concurrence from all. I bet that's going to be more effective than 99. Yeah. Okay. So going back to Commissioner Davis' apt comments on A11, sorry. 31. 31. Okay.

Well, it's sequential. I just needed a mark in the sand originally. Yeah. You were talking very fast, and I couldn't hear you very well, so I was. Okay.

where it says on the first paragraph, continued affordability of the for sale unit. Instead of for 99 years, we're going to say for 45 years, which shall restart at the purchase of each new buyer. And then you guys can figure out how to craft that into something real.

Yeah. OK.

So then for two on that same page, the qualified applicant for their suit of density, parking reduction. So this one says 55, and I believe Commissioner Davis' point is that this one should be 99 years. Is that right?

That's right.

Okay. It is in the document. And then that will kind of filter into the inclusionary housing in 47. Anything else on Article 41 at all? Okay, fabulous. So if I go to B3, and again, if I skip anyone, please stop me. But if I go to B3, packet page 36, and I go to section C, this is the one that says projects with one or more buildings or projects including multiple contiguous parcels under common ownership, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, shall be considered sole residential development project. And I was wondering if we could add for avoidance of doubt phased applications on the same project shall be considered as a sole residential project.

Phased applications on the same site? Is that what you said?

Yeah. I have it written as on the same project. So if the site is a new APN introduced later, that it still has to comport to whatever the first project was required to do.

question on that actually let's say a phased project is 10 years of phases and state law or our city law ordinance changes they'd be grandfathered into their original I just want to I mean on the development side that's beneficial and it's predictable to your point before but are we okay with that on the city and resident side

I think that it would be grandfathered if they filed it with a housing account, like with an SB 330 application, no matter what. And if they didn't, then it would be based on whatever the current ordinance was.

Yeah, and I think, too, it would also depend on how the project was approved, you know, you know, expiration dates, certain requirements to file or pull building permits.

I think there's a lot of different... As we're talking about this, I think that adding what I read is going to create more, like, less flexibility for staff in the future. I think we just leave it at, like, staff can interpret it later.

Yeah, this is as much a provision that lets us get developers who are trying to skirt the whole policy. It's like, let's build two units here and two units there and two units there, and it all adds up to eight, but we're going to pretend it's four projects when it's really one. That's really what this provision is for. To make sure that we're getting folks who are not trying to skirt the problem.

That's where my language was coming from, too. It was like 8 and then 16 and then 24. And, like, we never had to do in a single affordable unit, but it was 24 units the whole time. So I'll leave the comment in here, and staff can take it or not, depending on what we think will protect us.

Please. I'm jumping back again. Page 31, if you look down at the last paragraph D, I believe it's not making a distinction between rental and sale, but we have now gone from 99 years on both to 45 and 99 as a recommendation. So that's another place that might need to be changed.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. And to that point, we'll make sure we do a consistency review so that we're making conforming edits with the direction received.

Thank you. On the same page that I was on where I was just talking about phasing, I did not understand the exemptions the requirements of this article do not apply to. And then number two, it says residential development projects that propose or will include the number and level of income restricted units required by this article and that generally meet the requirements set forth in this article, including but not limited to term of affordability and size and unit amenities, I feel like those would specifically be included and not exempted. I feel like this is, right? Like, what is this supposed to mean?

I believe that this is supposed to mean that if the project is affordable in and of itself and it meets all the requirements of the article, then it's exempt. You don't need to apply an additional inclusionary housing requirement on it. So let's say it's an affordable housing project where it's 50% low income or something like that, then this isn't going to apply to it because it's effectively already complying by the nature of the project.

But wouldn't we still want an affordable housing agreement and an affordable housing plan and all of the things that...

The important thing is what we sometimes find with affordable housing projects is that then there's this really strange little inclusionary agreement attached to a 100% affordable housing project that makes it kind of more difficult to manage it. And so if the project has an income restriction, maybe it's from another entity that meets all of the criteria, then it's kind of like, well, why does the city need to be part of it? And now if there is a reason for the city to be a part of it because the affordability period is too short or something like that, then they would still have an affordability agreement with us. If it's a density bonus project, there still may have to be an agreement because of the density bonus requirements of state law. But if it's just an inclusionary project, this is a way to kind of simplify management of the project and they'll not have to go through another hoop of city agreement.

Could you give a concrete example of what you're talking about?

I think an example would be a 100% affordable property. Those are often built with different levels of affordability. Let's say there's a 100-unit project that's 100% affordable and it has the one-third R

110%, one-third are 80%, one-third are 50%, then basically they would be already fulfilling what is required under the inclusionary housing ordinance. And so they wouldn't need to deal with the requirements and approvals related to this ordinance.

If a site, I think, but I'm not sure, if a site is mapped in like a DDA and QCT and they're going for some crazy financing, they may be... harmed in getting their financing by, okay. Got it.

Yeah. Mostly LIHTC projects would be the example.

LIHTC financing. So if, I think we should do that. I think this is really confusing. Because the way I read this is like, if you do what our ordinance requires, you don't have to follow our ordinance. I wonder if we can just restate it to be more clear. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Does anyone have questions or comments on that?

Just trying to visualize a concrete example like Commissioner Ferguson mentioned and also a hypothetical. So if an affordable housing developer met the requirements to a T and therefore is not subject to this article, What if they go bankrupt or something happens and then they end up selling the property? For example, the deed restriction. Like, would that still apply?

Okay, even if... Deed restrictions are typically formatted so they survive foreclosure.

Okay. Even though this... is stating that they're exempt from all of these requirements.

Yeah, because the deed restriction is what says that they're... That is the most important piece. The gun runs with the land that makes sure that they have sufficient number of units, their income restricted at each level, and for a period of time that is as long as you're requiring or longer.

So there's a separate...

Right, right. It might not be the city that is monitoring. It might be the state or another agency. I think that to kind of give a concrete example that I did run into was it's a, what do we call, LIHTC project. It has the right income units, but what they do in many of these projects is they have what are called floating affordability, meaning someone becomes there to, their income goes up, they're no longer qualified for the 50% unit, So what they do is the next available unit becomes a 50% unit. you have what's kind of, it's floating. So your AMIs are kind of shifting around the building as the building ages. But when they, and the inclusionary units that are there are usually tied to a specific unit. And then you've got like this monitoring problem between the city agreement saying, this is our unit and this is this floating unit.

It's in the tentative map and yeah.

So it becomes kind of this like logistical nightmare trying to kind of coordinate it and make sure you're doing the right thing. And there's other people monitoring the units and then What are you getting as a monitoring agency as well? So it's kind of like which units are our units becomes a question after a while as opposed to what are the affordable units in general.

Okay. So this needs to be rewritten. Karen's going to rewrite it. Okay.

I guess we'll be looking at it again. Yeah. Okay.

I've seen the town with massive confusion like which ones are our units and which ones are we supposed to monitor versus that are monitored by another agency.

It's like if Eden or like an affordable non-profit or hip housing. They wouldn't want to be but they're subject to all these other things so we don't want to preclude them from getting financing.

But if they have to sell the property which happens then still it's deed restricted

Okay.

In the language that we're adding, we can clarify that it is otherwise deed restricted to remain affordable for the same term as a city would require. We'll rewrite the language to provide.

Or just clear that it's like for 100% for housing that qualifies for state or federal programs.

Programs.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Anything else? Before we go to B4. Okay. For E on B4 where we're defining AMI, I don't love using HUD instead of HCD to define our AMI. So that's one of my comments. And then an Maybe we can, just because of the clarity of the future definition for residential unit, maybe we can just change F1 to say BMR unit for sale means a BMR unit, or sorry, means a residential unit offered for sale. Because if we try to define all of the product types and ownership types, we're going to miss a type, and it should just be any residential unit that's for sale. G compliance agreement this is a defined term but it was nowhere in the ordinance so I think it's probably something we started to do or something that came from another city but didn't make it into Pacifica's unless I'm missing something sorry I missed that what was the G compliance agreement can we delete it okay okay So let me just catch up. It's B4. Samantha, what packet page is B4?

Page 37. You're talking about the definitions?

Yeah. Commissioner Redfield is looking for G. Oh, yeah.

Sorry. It is packet page 37.

Jay, on the next page. Packet page 38. Just get rid of the Hang on, was it any planning entitlement discretionary? So it says any planning entitlement, comma, discretionary or ministerial, comma. I think that should say approved under the zoning ordinance. Was that what the attention was?

I think it's to cover any possible approval that may arise.

I'm rereading it. That makes sense. Okay. That is all I have on this page. Oh, except, sorry, on M, for 1 and 2, I'd like to add as defined by HCD after median income.

And we can look into what we want to make sure that we're using the correct. Okay. Dataset so is it HCD? Is it HUD? So we'll we'll be sure to follow up with that and make those Clarifying edits and report back.

Okay Q We want to probably specify a ministerial in there as well so or any other creation of dwelling units or lots for housing that is authorized by a added ministerial or discretionary land use right? We don't want to just have this apply to discretionary, I think. And then S1 little romanette 4, which is on B7 now. I just packet page 40. Yeah. I just removed planning administrator and changed it to CDD unless planning administrator is defined somewhere else.

I think it's supposed to say zoning administrator. We can look into that. We have a zoning administrator chapter. Okay. That's fine. Which I think is where it's supposed to fall under, but I think this is another. It's just because planning administrator wasn't defined, so I'll just put it as zoning in mine.

Does anyone have anything else in the definitions? Okay. Okay. I did not understand on B7. Still on packet page 40. Yeah. C, on-site BMR units. I didn't understand what two meant.

What number two? Two.

Yeah, BMR unit that is constructed to qualify for a density bonus under government code 65915 that otherwise meets these inclusionary housing requirements shall also qualify as inclusionary housing and a density bonus unit. Right. Yeah.

I was going to say, it's just basically saying that units that are used for, that are density bonus units also can be used to qualify for inclusionary housing. So, you know.

Got it. Yeah. That's smart. It would have to meet the whatever the stricter of the two were. So if, for example, your density bonus unit was only 55 years, but your inclusionary was 99, in order to meet the criteria for both, it would have to be 99 years affordable.

Okay. At the end of B8... Sorry, packet page 41. Yeah, number five. This is where you're going to see the developer in me. I wrote it to say that are comparable with the standard market rate units. Just so that there's no confusion when developers offer upgrades. And then in the same section, I made a six.

I'm sorry, I think we would like a little clarification. Oh, sure.

On that.

Yeah, so five on the bottom of that page. Packet page 41.

Yeah.

That are comparable with the standard market units. Just so that someone doesn't walk a model and think that they're getting a wolf range and I don't want, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so here's my biggest question on these off-site... Are we on the off-site preservation units yet?

No. The next section is the alternatives. Is that where you were going?

Yeah, I think my comment got moved, so I'll come back to that one later. So under 6... On the next page, which I think was that 42, Samantha?

Packet page 42.

Yeah. So for have the same proportion of unit types, I wonder if we can change it to say have the same proportion of number of bedrooms and average size as the market rate units. I think if you make this about unit types, it gets really complicated. Hmm.

Could you clarify? Because unit type typically is studio, one bedroom, two bedrooms.

So the way developers usually are naming these on their plans are complicated. And so if you have a plan one, a plan two, a plan three, a plan four, but three of the plan fours are plan four end because they're the ones that have the view. I don't think it's fair of us to say to a developer, your most marketable unit He has a different unit type and proportionally one of those has to be deed restricted. If you have the same, if all of them are, let's say 1800 square feet and three or four bedrooms, I don't think you should say developer, like that's the, I think we want people to be able to build here. I think we want family housing and I think that the sizes should be very important. Number of bedrooms and square footage. But unit type gets into this like dicey.

That is the intent here. So we would just clarify it. That it's number. It's for unit. It's bedroom types. Okay. Yeah. That is the intent to just be bedroom types. Okay.

Perfect. And then this. And then the average. Yeah. The size averages of the units.

So we can clarify. We don't want people in like 600 square foot homes that are BMRs. If everybody else gets an 1800 square foot home. But. The developer can still make money by saying, this is my premium home. It's at the end of the building.

Should unit type be in the definitions?

No, it's just the...

Okay, and then I think there's a... We'll just reword that. We won't use the term unit types, but we will reword it to McClaren 5 bedrooms.

Yeah, yeah. Would it work to use standard unit types like you use standard in that other place for?

No, because then you're relying on some really funky planning that developers have to do like two years prior to when they actually go to market.

Okay, I just thought I'd add. It worked somewhere else.

I think just crossing out unit, like leaving it the way it's written, and instead of saying unit types, i.e. number of bedrooms, just have it say number of bedrooms and average, like it's already there.

Yeah, I think we're just getting caught in kind of like Hauser lingo versus developer lingo. You know, we think of unit types, we're thinking bedrooms.

I know, I know. Okay, I think there's a typo in the next, in the little Roman numeral, where it says comprise at least 15%. That should say like 75%. Like, we don't want 15%, right? That's teeny. Oh, I'm sorry, where are you? In the same, in six, I... An applicant may propose an alternative mix of units to comply with this section by providing BMR units that comprise at least 15% of the residential unit floor area. So in this example, 2,000 square feet, that's only a 300 square foot home.

So I think that's actually meant to be talking about like the total square footage.

So what you would get from that is you might get smaller BMR units, but you get more of them.

So just add total in front of residential floor area.

Okay, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Should unit after residential be removed? 15% of the total residential floor area.

Yeah, that's the problem, because it says residential unit floor area, so at least 15% of the total residential floor area. That's smart. Okay. Okay, here's one that's going to be a little controversial and is definitely going to need some discussion. We've allowed alternatives to be... approved by the review authority and most cities require that these go to city council. I think my question is, do we really want us or staff deciding if someone could dedicate land or pay a fee or whatever the thing is when we're not in charge of the nexus study or the economics of the city?

Thank you, Chair Hauser. So this is section 9-4.4705, alternatives to on-site units, which starts on packet page 42. And do you want to, should we jump to land dedication first? Or do you want to, how do you want to go through it?

I just think that if Joe Schmo developer comes in and says, we're not you know, it's a planning commission and we're approving their tentative map and there's no city council. And they say, we worked with staff and we looked at your housing funds and you need these $2 million. I don't think that this commission is prepared to say, yes, we need these $2 million versus these 12 units or whatever the number is. I think that's a council, like we're not in charge of collecting fees or approving nexus studies. I don't want to be in charge of something financial.

Right, understood. I don't think it's our preview. Thank you, Chair Hauser. So part of what we're looking at and we included within the alternatives are the approval criteria. And again, kind of going back to those trends in state law that are going toward objective And so the approval of, say, an in lieu fee is really, you know, I'm going to find it here. Like, I think we added the criteria for approval. So the review authority shall approve in lieu fee alternative if all of the above requirements are satisfied. And then in the event of approval, residential development project would be conditioned. to require compliance with whatever those things are. And so there's not necessarily discretion built into that.

I would posit that the objective standard is we want inclusionary unless you're below .5 fractional fee. That's the objective standard. If they want to ask for something subjective, then it should be reviewed subjectively. That's my Every other city that I've ever worked in says a creative alternative has to go to council.

Yeah, and I think there's a mix of discretionary and objective within alternatives. I did just want to address the land dedication, that any land dedication to the city would need to go to the city council, and then to differentiate if it's being dedicated to an affordable housing developer that that wouldn't necessarily have to go to the city council unless the project itself were going and so I just you know just to your to your point um about you know who's the best person to make the decision so really like keep like I just wanted to point out that that's something that would be a recommendation from planning commission to the city council In the case of dedication.

For the land. But, like, let's say something is, like, let's do a completely different example. Let's say something's ministerial. It's a housing element site. It's ministerial. And we've all said we want inclusionary housing. We need these units. We need arena. And the developer is really nice. And they say, you know, really help us out if we could pay a fee instead of providing inclusionary units. Staff is then the one making the decision that we're not getting inclusionary units. I feel like that's a council decision. Yeah.

Right. And in that case, on those housing element sites that are by right, they're by right if they provide 20% on site. And so, right. So they can't fee out. If our inclusionary requirement was 30%, and they only needed 20 to qualify for ministerial, then that difference might be a question. But with those by-right sites, they have a higher requirement than inclusionary, and they also have to be built on-site.

I'm with you on this. I think this is not going to come up that many times. It's not that big of a burden for city councils to review. I'd be uncomfortable leaving it the other way.

I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

That wasn't for you. For her to kind of gauge the temperature of the room, but I would agree that I think that decision should live with the public body.

Seeing nods.

And not this one.

We're not the money body. So just to confirm, is that Any alternatives or really just the land dedication?

Any creative alternative. The land dedication already has to go to council the way this is written. Any creative alternative, I would posit, is not objective and should go to council. I'm seeing like three yeses and some four yeses. So off-site, any of those? Off-site, half fee, half, you know.

The purpose of the whole program is to build low-income housing. If you're not going to build low-income housing, you should have some more discretion.

Right. Um, I would love to hear heart housing things as well.

I, just because I bring it up from time to time, I'd imagine there may come a case where some other, um, aspect of our zoning that is a part of the creative solution will then make it come to planning commission as is often the case with any coastal development permit. Um, I don't need a response from anyone on that. I'm just saying, even if we changed the language and I agree to have city council be the body that reviews these creative changes or land dedications and strike planning commission from here, I am guessing there is going to be a case in 10 years where no matter what, it still needs to come back to planning commission because they need some CDP approval for their offsite units.

Yeah. I mean, it's not just us. It's like if it's a staff level approval, staff's approving the change. If it's us approval, we're approving the change. And I would say that this is a council enacted ordinance and council does the fees. Tim, what do you think? Are we making this harder than it needs to be? You can say yes.

I think the goal of this was to make it where you're approving the project, you're approving everything at once, so they're not taking extra steps if necessary. I think that's the primary goal of this. If there is a deep interest in it going to the council anyway, that's the decision of you and the council. And I worked previously in a very large city, and we didn't have the council involved in any development projects. We had the planning commission really had the say, and we kept the council out, and it actually kept a lot of the politics out. So that was very useful in that regards, but that was also a very large city.

So that's helpful. I'm going to propose two things. One is, if we are going to make it the review authority, that the only creative solution that would fall into that is off-site units, because then we're still getting the units. But anything having to do with money or land dedication, which also has to do with money, would go to council. I will also ask that when staff do this or write this up, that we flag it to the council that this is not what staff is recommending, but the commission felt heartburn about. Now, I'm saying this without, I've only seen three

commission had nods so folks in agreement yep okay I see consensus all right and may I ask a follow-up please um so the you know to to Mr. Davis's point we did um kind of draft it to keep it so that it's a your one-stop shop I guess if you will in terms of all of your approvals. And so the criteria is also written that way. Are there different criteria that the Planning Commission is recommending? Or is it more really just about who the ultimate authority is in the decision?

I think that if it's not with our objective standards... which include building inclusionary with a fractional payment, then it should be treated like a discretionary review that goes to council for the creativity. And I would be open to saying if it's just off-site units, then that can be whoever the review authority is. If it triggers something financial for the city, money in, money out, then it should go to council.

Before we move off of that, I had a question about the off-site preservation.

I have a lot on this one.

Option. Go for it. I'm trying to kind of understand, A, how that works or how that is in any way like the spirit of this whole endeavor. And then what is stopping... Sort of like a pass the potato of off-site preservation between for-profit developers that just hand each other back and forth.

I think what it's intended to say, the way I read it, was that if there's a market rate apartment project and a developer bought the apartment building and converted all of those to deed-respected affordable, that that counts. Was that okay? Yeah.

Yeah, and there would be housing agreements, deed restrictions, and so forth. So what we heard really throughout the housing element, throughout the rezoning, in the study session, is a really strong desire to protect some of our existing housing, and in particular, our existing affordable housing. And so a lot of our... what you might call naturally affordable housing isn't protected. And so this is one avenue by which you would, you could protect and preserve.

I have a rebuttal to that logic, which is that building one unit BMR offsite while leaving this apartment building as is, is better than buying one unit in that apartment building and not adding any marginal units because a huge part of this push is to add units. If you're not adding units, you're sort of defeating the purpose because the adding of units is what suppresses the inflating cost of each unit. I don't know how to do the calculus on what that actually is. Someone has studied that, I assume, but it doesn't feel like that is in keeping in the spirit of what we're doing and

So I didn't have that problem with this section, but now that you say it, the thing that I did have a problem with and something that we heard earlier is like making me rethink. So my concern was that there would be market rate apartments, but they were being rented at current affordable rents. So even though they were market rate, someone would be paying $1,500 a month for rent. And we just heard that the 120% is like 5,000, right? It's like a big number.

So my concern, like yours... You're going to buy a dumpy apartment building, lower the rents by 3%.

Yeah, by deed restricting them, you're maybe rent stabilizing them, but you're not creating new... Like, I would posit that all of our rentals in Pacifica are probably already affordable. Probably. They are not. They're not? Okay. Corrected. I don't know. I agree with what you're saying.

Yeah. thoughts? I think taking a $2,000 a month apartment, and there are a few of those left, but whatever, we're making up a number and then making it a deed-restricted $1,800 a month apartment while displacing the person in the $2,000 a month apartment. That person now needs a new apartment within Pacifica. It doesn't make any sense to me, really. I don't know if I was clear The offsite preservation has to be done within the city of Pacifica or can be done outside?

That is correct. Okay. Let me ask a question. What if we made this very housing accountability acty and there had to be like a five-year look back. And as long as units had been above, above affordable levels in the last five years, then they could be converted. But I don't, what I don't want is like an apartment owner who, jacking up all the rent and being like, we don't have any affordable housing here. And then someone comes in and converts it. Okay.

Yeah. I, I would want to look into that a little more because I think we also want to be careful about displacing, like potentially displacing people or illegal eviction.

The standard process in these conversions is that the existing tenants can stay, and then if they are over income, then the unit, when they leave, then the unit is converted to an affordable unit. Or the income restriction is there, but they can stay. And so it's rented to the next person, has to be income qualified.

I figured that.

You're not trying to kick out the tenant who's already there who may be over income. And I... I have generally worked with this kind of policy in cities where rents have been going up and gentrification is happening, and so you're really trying to preserve those units for the long term because you know that in the long term they're not going to be affordable. They may be somewhat affordable now, but in five or ten years they're not. So I think that if you feel like that's not the question here, then it depends on how you want to look at it that way.

Yeah, I have no problem wrapping my head around the land or the in lieu. This one, it doesn't seem in keeping with the spirit. That's my opinion. People can share it or disagree with it.

I think there's also the case of different income or of different rents. So if you have 20 apartments and half of them are being rented at $2,000 and half are being rented at $5,000, and then someone deed restricts the whole thing, she'll only get credit for the $10,000. and not the 20. They should have to build or find like a spot for the 20.

Yeah, I've just never worked with that particular way to implement it, but I can think through that. I mean, I can see that as that's one of the requirements. You know, you can always put, okay, these are the requirements for the building that it needs to, you know, if there's any repairs that need to be made, they're being made. That's kind of a standard requirement. but this would be just another one. It's like, okay, we don't want you to just go out and buy a piece of low-income house that's already affordable and convert it.

Or buy a big apartment building and indeed restrict some small percentage of units. Yeah.

I hear what you both are saying. The one thing I like about the off-site preservation is that we have, we currently have nonprofit companies focused in San Mateo County that do this. And they'll purchase older apartment complexes that were formerly market rate and designate them all senior living or affordable units. With the current state of San Mateo County and Pacifica and the not-for-profit companies that focus on our county, I think this is beneficial. But, I mean, that's not to say 20 years from now someone could skirt the system.

It just doesn't add any housing.

I know. But I'm conflicted. Because when I read this, I like it from the standpoint of we have... Like hip housing, Eden housing.

I think I like portions of it. And the part that I don't like is the idea that if something is not deed restricted but is by nature affordable, that it somehow gets counted in here. And then we've kind of...

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. And then we're not building the units. Exactly. So maybe we can rewrite it with a little more guardrails.

It's in the developer's interest to buy exactly that property, right? It's already affordable.

Right, because it's going to cost them less. Because we're going to continue this item.

Yeah.

So maybe, I don't know, if staff and Tim and Alex could work together to kind of take our concerns and maybe form something that checks all the boxes.

I think that would be good.

Yeah. There are many buildings that are not affordable, but there are many Pacific apartment buildings. I've lived in some that are and will, until they're raised, be affordable.

I did also want to share, if I may, Chair Hauser, that with the conversion to deed restricted, there's like a formula or a percentage of those that count toward our RENA numbers for affordable units. So it's not a one for one, but like a certain percent. Yeah.

Okay.

Do you also lose one against the market houses we have to add?

I don't think so. I don't believe so.

I think just making, I think let's study it. Yeah. I think you heard. One more on the proceeding page that I just realized I didn't mention. In C3, it says BMR units shall be located on sites that are appropriately designated in the general plan zone for the intended residential development. Package 44? Yeah. This is for like the off-site construction. And I just wanted to ask Deputy Attorney Murphy if It's consistent with state law to require it to both be general planned and zoned. Does it just be general planned?

Just to make sure I understand your question correctly, is it that just having the general plan correct would work? Is that what you're saying? I think because this is our alternative, our off-site construction alternative, we can require the zoning as well because before the construction... it starts, we'll want to make sure that the land use entitlements and the zoning and the general plan are in place and correct.

Do we want to require it to be zoned? Because we just did our general plan. I don't know if we rezoned, like I know we rezoned our housing element sites, but I don't think we rezoned everything to be consistent with the general plan. So I just don't want to preclude someone. Oh, I see. Like if they want to have best fit zoning to their new beautiful general plan residential designation, I don't want to stop them from doing housing there. Especially affordable housing.

I think we should look at how that could work procedurally because a project would still require rezoning to move forward. We couldn't approve a project that wasn't consistent with the zoning. So maybe that's something we can look at.

Unless the general plan and the zoning conflict.

Yeah, and then we could take the position that the general plan governs. overrules it in accordance with the Housing Accountability Act. Correct. So that's something that we can talk about internally and look at potential revisions to that. Okay.

One of the concerns here is making sure that you have a project that's ready to go. Because you're wanting to make sure that the off-site units are constructed in tandem or nearly in tandem with the on-site project. So that's why you want to make sure that you're not having them to go through all these other hoops before they can build. So it's like, oh, then they might build the off-site units and you're stuck.

That's a good point. Maybe it's some sort of like sufficient land use verbiage. And then I like, you guys have other verbiage about the timing of this that I think is super important because it's prior to building permit of the on-site. So I think, okay. Okay, E, land dedication. Okay. I would love to add something that says that when the land is dedicated that all property taxes be paid by the applicant and that the land is dedicated free of liens and encumbrances unless otherwise allowed by the city.

That was all property taxes and what.

It'll be on what I send you but I have it as all property taxes paid by the applicants and free of liens and encumbrances unless otherwise approved by the city. So if they're going to give us land that has a big fat easement on it, we should say that that's okay.

Yeah.

Does anyone else have anything? Okay. Moving to B14.

That's packet page 47.

Just for a little Roman numeral 2 under C, I didn't understand what tenure of the, it says number type tenure, household income categories. Can you just tell me what that definitionally is?

Tenure means home ownership versus rental. Got it. Okay.

Okay, on the next page, B15.

Packet page 48.

For little Roman numeral 7, I feel like that should be moved to the affordable housing agreement. I feel like usually, like if this is requested during entitlements, folks are not going to know. And I think because it's the CDD's purview. Is that okay? Okay.

I think that provision is consistent with density bonus. So it's just information that we want to have up front versus in an agreement that may come later in the process. So that's why we want to have it included in their plan.

Okay.

We want to know what's coming.

Okay. And then under D on the same page, we should get rid of the word permit before applications. No one has permit applications in at the time that the affordable housing plan is being submitted. So simultaneously with any other applications.

Okay, thank you.

For B1, It says Citi has an option to purchase the for sale BMR units. I'm just adding the language for the maximum for sale price because as written, this could be for any dollar amount that we decide. I know that we wouldn't do that to a developer, but I don't think it's fair as written. At the end of the page on B15. 48.

What was the, I'm sorry, what was the section number again? It's B1.

B1. So it says the city has an option to purchase the first, like, we give ourselves a city option, but we don't equate it back to the maximum ASP. Right. And I think what I would love to see is that we specify what our down payment is and percent of income that we're gonna use would be so that we have predictability for developers. I would assume that's gonna be 30% for low and 35 for moderate, but I will defer to Hart on what you'd like to see. I just think it needs to be called out.

Are you referring to the assumption we use in setting the for sale price?

Yeah. I think developers are trying their best to calculate this two years before it actually happens. And if you don't give them a down payment amount or a percent of income, it's going to be really hard for them to be close.

We always include that in the guidelines that follow. And that's where we would put it in. If there's a real interest in putting it here, we can look at that. But it would be in the guidelines that we would follow up this with.

Okay. I would posit, just because this got a little long, I would posit that 3 on this same page belongs in the resale agreement and isn't really appropriate to the ordinance, but I'll defer to you guys.

That was on packet page 49? Yeah, B16, number 3.

I want to make sure I understand your comment that three belongs where?

In the resale restriction agreement that's discussed in the same ordinance.

Okay. I believe that this Section B, but perhaps we need clarity on it in terms of the deed and resale restrictions. I think the intent of these three is to describe the different documents, but that may not be clear, so we can just say be clear that three is a resale restriction agreement.

Okay. On the next page, under eligibility requirements, just to protect ourselves, I would add if we're going to have preference criteria that we add in accordance with Fair Housing Act and other applicable laws. Packet page 50? B17, I think that's right.

I'm sorry, could you tell me what number are you on? I mean, or what section? The eligibility requirements section.

Eligibility requirements, got it. Yeah. I just don't want to put us at risk.

Is that part of our disparate impact analysis? Yeah.

Yeah. And we are right now participating in a disparate impact analysis to look at our local preference policies.

It's great to be able to do it. I just want to make sure that we're going to put it in the ordinance. Absolutely. We're getting close to the end here. Sorry. Thanks for bearing with me, everybody. So on B20 under implementation, that is packet page 53. Yeah. So A says no permit, license, subdivision map, or other approval or entitlement for a residential development project shall be issued. including without limitation a final inspection for occupancy until all requirements applicable to the residential development project have been satisfied. I would argue that we've already made that amply clear. But if we're going to keep, like if you made this section just one and two, I think it would be fine. But if we're going to keep A, I think it needs to be reworded to tie specific milestones of the foregoing ordinance to each of these things. Approval of an entitlement, what does that require? a final occupancy, what does that require? It's just not clear. And then I think my last one is on the last page, B22, penalty for violation. Let's packet page 55. So this one, I've just never seen this in an ordinance, that if somebody violates this, that it's a misdemeanor. I'd rather have it say we can prosecute or whatever the legal, to the fullest extent allowed by law. But yeah, someone explain this.

This is your current ordinance.

This is our current ordinance?

This is your current ordinance.

OK, should we remove it and make it?

But I thought it was supposed to be our new one.

We can remove it. I mean, I think... We can or cannot? We can remove it because we're redoing the whole thing. Should we? And I think we could just say generally that we can exercise any and all remedies. I think realistically what we would probably do is pursue a code enforcement action or use the time... requirements. You don't get a building permit if you don't have it finished. So I don't think we would ever issue a misdemeanor. So, okay. So then let's take it out and put it in that.

Okay, that's all I had. It is an unusual requirement, but it is there. And from a certain perspective, I actually do appreciate that we could go to that length. But I understand that as the attorney has suggested, there are many other ways that we can enforce it.

It wasn't that long ago that our entire purview was putting hedges on rapacious development.

I mean, I'm open to however he wants to do it. It just, it seems like an aggressive way to end this ordinance. Is that actually written? I'm sorry. Yeah.

Is that actually written as a code? It'd be a penal code with the city? Because it says listed, it shall be a misdemeanor that has to be by statute.

It's a city-created misdemeanor, yes.

In the city code violation. So it is a line item...

Oh, I don't know whether it's in any other documents.

It seems funny to say it is a misdemeanor without actually stating what that misdemeanor is by code.

So the misdemeanor is if you're violating anything in the provisions of this article. It's a misdemeanor.

Different.

Okay, let's make it more loving. Does anyone else have anything? We're at the end.

Understanding that we're going to continue this item, is it possible to receive a redlined amendment with the next public hearing?

Yes, we can provide a redline and a clean version with the staff report.

Thank you, Lauren. I appreciate that very much.

It's always asked after these ones. No, no, no, no, no.

I remember when we did it that way. That's right. You have to make a compare.

Do an overlay. Thank you for listening to all of that. The fact that there was very little that materially changed here except the years is like, this was really, really well written. Thank you for entertaining my nets. Does staff have any questions?

I believe we have everything we need in terms of proceeding with revisions. We do request that the Planning Commission continue to a date certain so that we have some certainty about when we'll be back and also too to just keep keep this important ordinance moving forward. So we would like to hear from the Commission, you know, check people's availability.

Since you know our future agenda better than we do, did you have a meeting in mind?

Yes, and now I don't have my calendar.

Because we have no control over what's on the future agenda.

We don't have any large projects that I'm aware of coming in the next month or so. Staff would like at least four weeks. And so I believe that would put us at...

Does that give you enough time to go back to Coastal Commissioning?

Yes. Yes, that's a great question. We spoke with staff, and I think it will be a fairly quick review once we get something to them. So I think June 15th, June 1st or June 15th, June 15th is a little more generous. Is staff available on June 15th?

I am not. I'll be at a town floor.

And what about June 1st?

June 1st is tough, but I could do it.

Is staff available on June 1st? Wait, when do we have to publish a report? No, the 28th.

Yeah, so June 1st.

I guess I would advocate for June 1st because then the first meeting in July is July 6th, so it's after the fourth holiday, and oftentimes we don't have a full commission.

Yeah, I certainly will not be here on July 6th.

I would be here on July 6th, but I would, yeah, I think you want to be here, right?

No, I don't actually care.

Okay. July 6th?

Or July 6th or June 1st?

Can we just poll the commission? We'll start with Commissioner Davis. Either one.

I'd probably prefer, if I was forced to pick, I'd say June 1st. Okay. Even is fine.

I'm good for either.

Either.

I'll be out of the country on the 6th.

Okay.

Does it give you enough time, June 1st?

I believe we will have enough time.

Let's go to June 1st. Does anyone want to make a motion?

I put it up on the screen.

I move that the Planning Commission continue the hearing to a date certain on June 1st, 2026 to allow for additional coordination with the Coastal Commission staff and the Commissioner review of any revisions.

Is there a second? Second. Let's do a roll call vote, please.

Chair Hauser.

Yes.

Vice Chair Berman?

Yes.

Commissioner Davis?

Yes.

Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Ferguson? Yes. Commissioner Redfield? Yes. Commissioner Sanchez?

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

All right. Commission Communications. Does anyone have a communication?

I have a couple. One, the website still lists the former commissioners and their email addresses. I think that should be updated. I'm not sure whose role that is, but

I thought it was updated. I will check on that.

Not this morning. And I have another, and I've beat this drum before, but I'm going to beat it again. I know that the San Mateo Daily Journal technically qualifies us as a noticing board. I think if you polled Pacificans, you're going to have less than 1% that reads the San Mateo Daily Journal at any kind of regularity. I think that's like It's a disingenuous notice. I personally prefer the meetings where we have a raucous and rowdy crowd in here participating in their democracy. Having zero people on something that's as important as this is like we have failed to notice the public. There are lots of people that would like to be a part of this discussion, and they're not here, so we've done something wrong.

Thank you. The municipal code does require us to post in the San Mateo Daily Journal. We did also include it in the Connect with Pacifica newsletter that went out as well.

What about on your social media?

The planning department does not utilize social media at this point in time.

I wonder if we... Ask Coastside News. I wonder if we ask Coastside News, who's doing all these AI news reporting stuff now, if they could just have a little blast on theirs for free for us. Because people do read that. But we do have to. It's not the right, like it's not a formal one.

We had Tribune when we had a paper here, right? Yeah, but now we can't do it. Nobody reads the San Mateo Daily Journal.

I do. I'm just kidding. I do, but I hear what you're saying, and I agree. I think if we could ask Coastside News if they would do that for us just to get engagement, I feel like they're pretty aligned with that vision.

I can raise the issue with the city.

Any other? No? Does anyone want to make a motion for adjournment?

Yes.

I move we adjourn.

Second, okay.

Oh what customer sure David seconded it vote, please Move by Ferguson seconded by Davis on the vote chair Hauser. I vice chair Berman. Yes, Commissioner Davis Yes, Commissioner Fisher. Yes, Commissioner first. Yes Commissioner Redfield. Yes, Commissioner Sanchez.

Yes We're adjourned. Thank you everybody

Where are you going?