City Council - Regular Meeting

So we are going to get started. We are using a new voting system. So I appreciate everyone's patience as we get started. Everybody on.

Okay. We're going to get started. Thank you so much for your patience as we ran a little bit late. Good evening. I hereby call the Palm Springs Regular City Council meeting of January 14th to order. Ethan Carrera from Palm Springs High School will be leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you for being here. You can actually go right to that microphone. Yeah. Thank you. So we can hear you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ethan. Appreciate it. I acknowledge that the land we gather, live and work on today, currently known as the City of Palm Springs, is the original homeland of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The Sovereign Band of Agua Caliente people have stewarded this land throughout the generations and continue to steward this land for all future generations. We honor and respect the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land. City clerk, can you please conduct a roll call? Let the record reflect that all members are present. Wonderful. We're going to get started with presentations. We have an update from our fire department on our fire station facility design presenting. This work is going to be Chief Alvarado. Maria Song are the lead architect, finance Director Mooney for budget questions and city engineer Montalvo available for construction related questions. Thank you staff. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a real quick comment. So as council members know, we have been working diligently, 2026 is the year that we want to

get started on construction of our new fire station one and make improvements to other facilities throughout our system. So we wanted we thought this was a good opportunity. We wanted Fire Chief Alvarado, Maria Song, our our architect for a lot of our facilities to come forward. Just give you a quick little update on what they're working on. We're not asking City Council to approve anything this evening. Obviously we're we would like to receive any observations, thoughts, ideas you have as we move forward, but we want to keep this process going along. And I think the fire chief has a has a brief PowerPoint presentation he wants to go through. And I know Maria will be chiming in on some of the design aspects of things we're working on as well. So go ahead, chief. Thank you, city Manager. Good evening. Mayor, mayor Pro tem council members Paul Alvarado, Palm Springs fire chief, and with me, Maria Song, architect. So my goal tonight is to provide you with an overview of the fire department facility assessment, the conditions, limitations and recommendations for the following three fire stations. Station one on Indian Canyon Drive station is approaching 70 years old. Fire station three on East Racket Club station is just over 60 years old, and Fire Station five on Bolero, 44 years old. I want to start off with just a brief overview of those three stations. So Fire Station three during our assessment through our standard of cover was deemed to be too small for current fire service needs. The land is too small for a major rebuild, and more significantly, the station is deemed a historical site and its non gender

inclusive. There's one bathroom, one sleeping area where everyone shares. Fire station three on each racket club. Again undersized, non gender inclusive, does not meet current and future needs of the growing north end of Palm Springs. Fire Station five on Bolero. This is an undersized station on the golf course. It was deemed worn out and poor condition, non gender inclusive and there's no drive through capability. The fire engine has to back in every time it returns to quarters. So now a little bit more in depth on Fire Station one. This is a station on Indian Canyon. So deemed a historic site. A major renovation can't be done on this fire station. We wanted to determine what the best location for a rebuild would be. We determined that by identifying the most specific response location that would achieve the best response downtown, and after having our consultant work on it. The current fire station location on Indian Canyon serves the downtown area. The very best, so we needed to find something close in that proximity. So that red shaded area is where we're limited to to looking for any properties. So you'll see what the team and I looked at starting with. Number one was a parking lot adjacent to the O'Donnell Golf course. Number two was Frances Stevens Park. Obviously we don't want to put a fire station there. Number three was a tribal property that we worked with the tribe diligently, but there was no movement on that. Number four, this is an allottee land not available. Number five, the same. Allottee number six, the same Allottee and number seven unavailable and wouldn't meet the needs for our current fire station. So

again, adjacent to Fire Station one is a parking lot that was served the rebuild of the downtown fire station to what we need for currently in the future needs of the fire service deployment downtown. I'd like to turn this over to Maria to provide comments on that site. So the downtown fire station, built in 1957, is restricted really by the entrance on Indian Canyon, but opportunistically available are seven parcels that are adjacent, taking really a big advantage of the fact that there is a parcel on Palm Canyon, as well as entries from Indian Canyon. So we looked at these parcels and figure out the best circulation and site design. So here we have the new fire station, one on the south side of the existing fire station. The key here was that we needed to have access for the new modern equipment, engines that will be circulating into the side after emergencies. What was very important is that we have multiple ways of coming into the site from Palm Canyon and then two from Indian Canyon as well. So what you see in gray is the circulation of the four type of different engines that will be circulating onto the site. The historical 1957 fire station one will stay intact, and the new firehouse will be constructed in the parking area that is there today. What we were able to do is from the public parking

spaces, is able to relocate and relay out about 35% of the parking spaces for the public. And then also we were able to centralize the trash enclosure area to service the downtown businesses. Also within this parcel, you see that on the orange hatched area on the right side. So with this, what it allows us to do is provide four bays for different type of engines. The are you, do you are you able to use the pointer ♪to show where you're talking? Oh beautiful. How about that. Thank you, thank you. Happy new year. Okay. We have the four apparatus bay. Three of them are for Tillies and T3's. And then the remaining could be for the attacks and smaller vehicles. To the south we have the accessory and also workshop. But in addition to that, we have the state of the art emergency generator as well as the fuel tank and then the trash enclosure. So pretty much on the south side of the building is where the utilitarian areas are. Here in the center area is the gear support area, and then more. To the north is where the crew quarters would be located. The apparatus bay itself. It doubles in size actually more than doubles in size, and then the crew quarter area triples in size, mainly because currently it's a crew of three, where now we're going to be going into a quarter of ten people, the captain quarters, there's two of them where they will have their office and dedicated restrooms. There

will be a meeting room for training, the day room, as well as a large kitchen area for staff. Going to the second floor, you'll see that the. You have a stairway. We have elevators and then centralized. We have all the restrooms, but along the west side, as well as the north and east side is where we have the sleep quarters for individual and also assigned for genders as well, and the fitness area as well, and the outdoor deck. So all in all, we're looking at more than tripling the size of the crew quarters. And we're talking about doubling the size of the apparatus bay. The beauty of this opportunity of the expansion is that the current crew could remain in the existing. In the existing. Oh, okay. I guess it only goes one way. I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. So the current historical building would remain in service as the new construction of the new firehouse. It's able to have the excavation and all the activities, as well as the fact that a new courtyard or arcade is being proposed between the two buildings in order to respect the design of the historical building. And, Maria, if I could just chime in real quickly, we were very cognizant throughout this. Obviously, the original 1957 fire station is an important, architecturally significant building in the city designed by Albert Frey. So we wanted to make sure that

we were able to preserve that building. And at the same time, as they indicated, it would allow this to be a turnkey operation or firefighters would remain in that building. And over, over one weekend they'd move from one space to the next. So. The moving, the moving. So and then we are trying to bring a fire pole back into the design because everybody's asking for it. But this is just a conceptual idea of what the building would look like. On Indian Canyon to the left is where you have the apparatus bay, and then to the right is where you have the crew quarters. And symbolically we have a clock tower in order to make a civic presence on Indian Canyon for the firehouse. And here you see it from the skies, and you're also seeing the circulation of one of the engines as well. Okay, now we're going to Fire Station three, another historical building here again, a a crew of three staff are managing here. What we have decided to do is add about 20% of additions, which is in this area here where the day room and the kitchen, as well as the fitness would be added onto the historical building. What we have done here is we have organized the the apparatus bay access by relocating the driveway further north so that the engine is able to make its turn, and then also be able to give room for the addition as well. So in the middle, in order to control the air circulation, we're able to provide this

support spaces, then a hallway in between, and then all the new six sleeping rooms with individual use restrooms have been laid out and designed. And with that, this is the addition that is being proposed next to the historical building. We wanted to be modern, but we also wanted to be respectful. There's the new driveway that would be coming in, and then this is a view looking into the southeast where the apparatus bay is access. And then there you have the new addition as well. I'll turn it over to the chief for Fire Station five. Thank you Maria. During our presentations to Council, Councilmember DeHart asked that we take a look at Fire Station five to be included. We haven't done any architectural work or really dug into it, but just wanted to provide you with some of the findings for Fire Station five. Again, this is a station on the golf course, undersized by modern fire station service standards, including apparatus for living quarters and the kitchen space, the station lacks gender inclusion and privacy. The station is very worn and in poor condition, and lacks drive through capability. Moving on to next steps. So the first thing that I want to start is with a community meeting and open house. We had one very early on with the surrounding business leaders and it was really eye opening. They had a chance to walk into the existing fire station, one to see where the firefighters live and how that's a 24 over seven operation. A lot of people were unaware that the fire fighters stay there overnight. They sleep there, they live there, they cook there, their kitchens are

there. And again, 70 years ago that small station served a couple people well. But as that downtown area, we have vertical growth in the downtown, expanding call volume. It's important that we meet those needs with a modern fire station and staffing. The next step would be to prepare a request for proposal for a progressive design build agreement with a guaranteed maximum price. After selecting the winning firm and forward the contract to City Council for approval, the firm prepares 100% design drawings and a construction estimate in line with the guaranteed maximum price. City council will then have it for consideration and approval of design and construction cost. That's the end of our presentation. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you so much for that. Great summary and really exciting prospects for a really important public safety facilities. Any questions from Council? Thank you, mayor, Chief and Maria, I had a question when we you had given us briefings on on this. We had looked at that possibility. If you could pull up the the one for the new station downtown. Sure. I did it again. You're doing work all over this town. Whatever magic hand that was. That one right there. So obviously, you know, the the downside of putting the station there were were eliminating

public parking, but obviously the the new fire station has has has priority. And so that's a good thing. But when we talked about that middle area that if you move the proposed station closer to the fire station, the current one, then you would be able to salvage another row of parking there. And you indicated that was something you were going to look at. Is that not possible to do? You don't have to have that space in between the buildings so much. That is a possibility. That is a possibility. We looked into it. There's a SE volt utilities that actually runs. We believe along that area there from that bolt all the way to the street. So we were not able to move the building over the utility. And further research needs to be done. So we didn't want to take the chance of promising you something that may not be able to be done. You said. So the utility vault is there. Utility vault is in that driveway and it's being fed from Indian Canyon, we believe. But if it is found during the design build that that's not the case. Then there is the opportunity of having a little more room on the south side. Do you know if it's the whole width of that or how wide is that utility? So normally it's about a ten foot easement. So that's the room that we have provided okay. Thank you. Councilmember Garner. Did you. So thank you. Can you just talk a little bit about what kind of engagement you've had with the firefighters that are currently in these spaces and what what the process

will be going forward? Thank you for that question. Councilmember. So this has been over a two year process to get us to this point. So starting off with this, we started with our strategic plan and our master study. And during that time we also brought on another architecture firm just to look at the fire stations from a from a spacing standpoint, could we provide temporary spacing without going full construction. And during that time we actually had working teams from the fire department and we did a survey. What were the things they liked about our current fire stations? What would they change if they could? And obviously the things that they talked about were there's no privacy, right? You walk into your your sleeping area and someone may have a laptop open and you're trying to go to sleep. There's no place in the bathrooms for any type of privacy. A lot of people talk about they have to go to their car if they want to have a conversation with their family members. So we engage with our firefighters to see what they wanted in new fire stations. And from that, we grew from the space plan to bringing on Maria, the architect, to what we're presenting today. Great. Thank you. So are you continuing to have those conversations in terms of showing them these designs and kind of walking through what's being proposed to see if they have any feedback there? Of course. Absolutely. So these are conceptual designs, right. Again, once the request for proposal goes out and the contract and architect come on board, the true design would then be designed at that point where we're showing you today is that a working fire station can work in this location. The size, the dimensions, the staffing and the apparatus would fit and deploy well from this location. Okay, great. Yeah, I would just encourage those conversations since they're the ones that are there day in and day out at these facilities. And then the other question I had was just in terms of engagement with the businesses, is there on I know there has been discussion with the businesses, but is there ongoing discussions so that they can see conceptually what would be working out and see if they have any thoughts as well? Because

obviously this impacts those businesses that are on the other side as well, especially the trash. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. We plan on doing that would be our first next step to engage again, have an open house and some good conversations with our neighbors. Great. But I'd also like to add, council member, that we're building these fire stations for the people who aren't working for the City of Palm Springs yet, right? So we need to make sure that we're cognizant of that. I have no female firefighters working for the fire department, so it's very important that we're also thinking about the people who don't have a voice yet. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Switch down there okay. Thank you. Oh no. Mine went on. Oh my gosh is that on. No no it's on on one side but not the other. Is that on. Yeah. Yeah okay I think I might have to hold it. All right. So I guess a couple of questions. So you also talked about building up the people who aren't working here. Are you building this? I mean, this is 70 years old and obviously going to cost a lot of money. I mean, is this going to be the fire station for the future that we need? I'm talking about the downtown. Absolutely. Council member. So as we talked about, the priority is fire Station one, but station three isn't that far behind as far as the priority goes. So when we did our study on response times, we found that those two districts, station one and station three, were taken resources from each other. Those are our two busiest areas. So by adding a truck company to Fire Station one and in the future adding a paramedic squad to station three, we would keep those

resources in their respective areas and that would grow for the future. But absolutely, we've looked at that during our master plan study. Okay. And you talked about the ladder truck. So that's what you actually need for these big for the bigger hotels, for the Plaza Theater, for everything that's downtown that we we can't do right now. Absolutely. Even the Thompson Hotel, where you look at that three, four stories. But the setback is so far that requires a long ladder just to reach. If we had a rescue people from the upper floors. Okay. Another question, Maria, you mentioned that Fire Station three is historic, but is that designated historic or it's not class one like the one downtown? I'll go ahead and respond to that Miss Song. Thank you. It is a class three historic site, so it doesn't have the formal designation of a class one or class two, but it is eligible for designation and something that we would pursue as part of this process. But this the the extension won't won't how will that affect that? It would need to go through the process of a certificate of appropriateness. And so we would absolutely review that as part of that process to make sure that the addition is compatible with the existing historic structure. Okay. Thank you. And just to follow up on the parking, so you're going to lose two thirds of the parking that's currently there. Is that what you were saying? Yes. But because the fire station is tripling in size, the additional parking spaces are really designed for fire staff within the fire campus. So we had to squeeze in another ten spaces. So all in all, the reason why is only a third is because we also need to provide firefighters parking within the campus as well. Okay, I see, so I guess the question obviously that matters to the businesses. You know, they're there. And I know I

think next council meeting we're talking about parking study. So you know, our parking study did show that we have more than enough parking. But we should specifically look at this area because those businesses and those customers of those businesses, even though we may have enough, should be considered in that parking study for them. But I think this this looks I mean, I'm glad we're doing this. I'm glad certainly. Fire station one and three and hopefully five. I'm glad we have a fire pole downtown. That would be fun. So so thank you for the hard work. Thank you. Councilmember Hart. Yeah. Thank you. Excellent. I appreciate the presentation. And, you know, just so the community is aware, this has been a long process to get to this point. So I appreciate everything that that you've put in in the city manager and staff have put in to, to get us to this point. And you had mentioned by name on station five. And I appreciate the fact that we are looking at the big package just because what you pointed out that, you know, we're not we're not meeting modern day standards. And if we are going to address the other key stations in the in the city, we cannot not address five or we're never going to get there. It's going to be 25 years from now. And then our firefighters are going to be living in conditions that are just beyond anything that we should expect anybody to be working in. So I appreciate including this, and I hope all of council will continue to support as we go forward, understanding

it will cost some money, but we're better to spend the money today than get into a situation down the road where it's going to be four or 5 or 6 times as much, so thank you for including that on the station. Number three. I have a question on. Well, first, we mentioned the historic designation. The. I, I want to make sure that we are as creative as we possibly can in the design and the use of that lot so that we don't compromise on the standards that we need for the next 60 years in this building, while at the same time balancing the the effort to maintain the historical design. So I think it's going to be a fine balancing act. But Maria, I know you can do it. And and again, this is, this one is. Looks like a really good plan right now going on to. Oh no. The other one on number three. It looks like where, where is the parking for our firefighters. How how many spaces are back there. So there's a brand new parking spaces off of Miraleste. So they're apron type of parking bay which is straight off the. So this lot is only 20,000ft, which is your sort of medium

large residential home. So we try to squeeze in all the functions. So the staff will be parking off of Miraleste. So you see this in central Palm Springs where the sidewalk runs behind you. And then there's a parcel. There are stalls that are right off the building. So is it is it secured? It's not secured. The security happens to be on the driveway where the engine comes in. So. Councilman, that you're hitting an area that really needs to be resolved on how do we secure for staff parking in this very small lot area? Yeah. Well, I think I think that that needs to be a priority. And city manager, I would really request that we, we we solve that challenge so our firefighters know that their, their vehicles are are safe and secure while they're working. And, and we don't continue to have situations where their cars are being vandalized. No one wants to be in that situation. And we certainly don't want our firefighters having to go to work and think about that. So I think that would that's an important piece to make sure that we we find that solution. And on on number Station one, I think hats off to a very creative and unique use of this lot. So thank you for listening to what everybody has brought to the table. And I think the next meetings with the community are going to be very important to, to share the reasons behind the design and, and how we're

using or what the proposal is to use this lot to its fullest extent. I I've. Had a question all along about the this the living quarters. Are we are we really building? Is there enough space so it's not feeling cramped? Are we utilizing as much of this second floor space as we possibly can? So the you know, all the firefighters are you know, it's it's a nice place that they call home and it's not cramped. So have we maximized the potential of that second story add on or use of that second story footage? I would like to work there. I would like to live there. The views, the space, the concentration, the fact that at the end of each of the hallways we have natural windows. It would be a very nice space. And it has been maximized because from three we're going to ten now in the next phase, if the next consultants feel like they need more room, which I would not agree to, you also have the area above the apparatus bay, because what is really limiting where we can grow is that on the east side we have Palm Canyon, I mean Indian Canyon, so we can't go that way. And then on the west side, we cannot go there because we need the driveway for vehicular circulation. Yeah. So the only way to go is up. Yeah. So moving, going south on

the above the apparatus bay isn't an option to add more room. What I'm part of my concern is, you know, this has got to last 60 years plus. And look at what we've added in the last 40 years. Just imagine how this station is going to grow over the next 40 years. And we we're we are not giving ourselves space to expand, even if we're adding staff from an ambulance standpoint. If there's other apparatus that would be added or teams added through the years. So I would like to see us taking advantage of a little bit more of that space above the bay, if it was possible, and if we were able to add a couple more sleeping quarters that would aid into that future planning. I think that would put us in a very, very good position, because we're not going to do it in 20 years. Is is my concern. You know, we're going to be challenged. We're going to have 100 reasons why we can't do it. And just look at the state of our stations today. So I want to be realistic and let's build what we need today. And if it's a little more space, then I think we we we should look at building a little more space. And the, the, the training room. Would that be the fitness room? A training room is on the ground floor. That area there. Oh. Got it. Yes.

Yeah. And we've made that as big as it could be in that space or that could be a little bit larger. The training room. It could be. Yeah. So what would keep it from getting a little bit larger going taking coming out to the, the coming to the left in that bottom corner. It's defining the utility easement line. Yeah okay. Yeah. All right. Well I think I'd like to see us look at that opportunity because, you know, the increased training room would be a valuable tool as, as we grow to in the future. So I think those are those are good things and then I. The. The the care and the time and the effort that's been put into assessing the location and the time distance from throughout the city. I really want the our residents to know that there's been a significant amount of work and research going into, is this the right place? Is this the right location? And all of the studies have come back that that fire station one is in the right place and it's in it's the it's the right location for many years to come. So we got to do it right. And, and that's, that's my, my call there. And just reiterating what Council Member Gardner had asked, I really would like to see that we have a concentrated effort or not a concentrated effort, but that we we make sure that every step of the way in the planning, the design process that we keep the firefighter team engaged in that process. I think

that's an important piece as we as we go forward. But I think it's we're off. We're off to a good start now. We just got to keep the cost down so we can pay for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Just a couple closing thoughts. My colleagues have already given a lot of great feedback. This is a lot of really beautiful, well thought design on both of these facilities. And even kind of helping us brainstorm around Fire Station five. Just a couple of things that I think is also interesting. So particularly for Fire Station one, can you go to the slide that kind of shows it what it will look like from the street, that kind of the Indian canyon? Yeah. And that one. And then maybe the next one too, just to remind folks. Yeah that's great. I think one of the things that really impresses me with these two slides is really this is this has the potential, in my most optimistic view of this, of really being a facelift for the whole blocks of Indian Canyon overall. And so while I am very relieved and very glad that our firefighters are going to get the facilities they deserve, this is also a rejuvenation on the city blocks themselves. Really inspiring what, you know, investments in in the neighboring buildings, businesses. We've done incredible work on Palm Canyon, and I'm really proud of the city of kind of invigorating, exciting the next block over. And so I think that's really incredibly well done. And I think it has the potential to really kind of be that center point, kind of an icon of a building on Indian Canyon. So excited to see what that momentum looks like, particularly around Council member Bernstein mentioned parking. One of those things about that Park City was signage.

And so this is a great place. Parking is changing, and really even just exploring the little things that we can do, even during construction, to make sure people understand where that parking options can be. And then lastly, this is tied to facilities, but also in how we're using our fire stations now is maintenance. It's going to take a long time to build these buildings, assuming we find the money, assuming we can get it going and we are moving at lightning speed, it still takes a long time to build buildings like this. And I just want to underscore how important it is that we are using our maintenance funds to really make sure that the living quarters and the and the workspaces of our firefighters are repaired on a timely basis, that people can keep their patients and their stamina up while they're waiting for these really new, great facilities. And in the meantime, we're still doing those basic maintenance costs that we need to do because your your team, your firefighters, they spend a lot of time. They're practically part time residences. And so I just I don't want us to lose sight that we're not going to save money on maintenance while we wait for these big buildings. We have to actually do both at the same time. So there are no other questions. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Thank you for your time. I appreciate the support. Thank you both. Next for proclamations. We had a busy month in the city with the holidays and the film festival, which is a little bit leaner than usual. Proclamation period. There was just one proclamation given, and that was to Barbara Rogers and Gary Gorski on December 11th, 2025. Moving next to the acceptance of the agenda. Our next item, the City Council will discuss the order of the agenda, may amend the order, add urgency items, note abstentions or no votes for the Consent calendar items or request Consent calendar items to remove for a separate discussion. I know staff is we want to pull

item one E right. Mr. City council or city manager? That's correct, madam Mayor. One e we have a bit more work to do on that item, which is a cannabis ordinance, and we'll bring that back to council at a later date. Okay. So we'll put e any council members would like to remove be removed from the consent calendar for separate discussion and or vote. And if you could know if it's an actual separate discussion or if it's a comment. Yes. Thanks, mayor. I'd like to do a comment on one D and pull one J for a separate vote. Great. Any others? Really? Okay, great. Okay. If those are the only ones I would like to entertain a motion for acceptance of the agenda. Noting the two. The changes for E! How do we do? It'll it'll come up. They're going to guide us. It's already popped up. Noting the exceptions for D, E and J, I would like a a motion. Do we have a motion? Wonderful. Thank you Councilmember. It did. It was here. No it's on the it's on the screen here. So I thought we were supposed to do that. Yeah right. Yeah. We are supposed to do it on here. Don't you guys see this? Yeah. No it didn't show up here. But it is on the hard screen. I saw it for a second I. Know, but it's on here, all right.

I don't see a motion on here. They're not getting the pop up. I am, but. After this there will be a pop up that says second, right? Yeah. Sure. I think we have a motion to do. We have a motion. We have a motion from Councilmember Hart, second by Bernstein. We have a roll call vote. Council member DeHart. Yes. Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Councilmember. Garner. Yes. Yes. Council member. Ready? Yes. Mayor. Soto. Yes. Motion carries five zero. Great. At this time, I invite City Attorney Ballinger to provide a report on the closed session, please. Yes, madam mayor, members of the City Council and members of the public. The City Council met in closed session, both at the regular session at 4 p.m. In the special session at 3:30 p.m. The council met in closed session earlier tonight to discuss with the city attorney a potential Brown Act violation arising from the council's November discussion about the Frank Bogert statue. Based on the advice of the city attorney, the City Council's of the opinion that a potential inadvertent violation of the Brown Act occurred at that November meeting. As such, and in the interest of transparency, in the spirit of the Brown Act, the city views the January

7th action of the Arts Commission as void, and the city will treat that action as such. This means that the Bogert statue will remain in storage. Other than that, there was no reportable action. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is public testimony. This time has been set aside for members of the public to address the City Council on nonpublic hearing agenda items. Only two minutes will be assigned to each speaker. You're asked to please begin your time by telling us what agenda item or items you're speaking about. Please note that the testimony for public hearings will be taken at the time of said public hearing. General public comments on subjects not on the agenda will be taken later in the evening. If there's a written comment that you wish to distribute to the City Council members, please hand it to the City Clerk, first speaker we have is Michael Joseph Pitkin. After that will be Celeste Flores on standby. Michael Joseph Pitkin for all agenda and council meetings, a knowing violation of the Brown Act with the intent to deprive the public of information to which it is entitled, is a crime. I do not feel in five years this council has correctly followed the Brown Act. I am now asked if I know what a hearing is. I know there is a motion hearing, evidentiary hearing, preliminary hearing and a sentencing hearing. Hearings are about probable cause to proceed or if a motion should be granted. Hearings resolve interim matters where a trial concludes entire disputes leading to a verdict or final judgment. California appellate court upheld three minutes for public comment and two minutes if a heavy attended agenda. Items. I'm not in a courthouse.

I am at a city council meeting exercising my citizen rights to be engaged for myself. I ask this council to correct the confusion on all public comments and post where public comments can be made. Over five years I've been told by City Clerk's office it's two times, then it's three times as of yesterday. Now it's four times. I do not consent to LPs without my knowledge. There is significant possibility of litigation against Palm Springs. Thank you. We e Celeste Forrest. Hi. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Celeste Flores and I'm here to express my support or support for agenda item three. B I serve as Associate Director of Policy and Research at Lift, the regional backbone organization that coordinates more than 70 partners working to expand affordable housing across the valley. We're here to express our support for agenda item three b the proposed financial assistance for the 110 unit affordable Housing, Pacific West Community Development Development at McCarthy Road in San Rafael Drive. From original housing perspective, projects of this size are critical. If the Coachella Valley is going to keep pace with demand and 110 unit affordable development represents a substantial contribution to Palm Springs housing supply and reinforces the city's leadership in advancing housing production across the Valley. I also want to note that in the Pacific West Communities team have been active participants in Lift Arises Housing Collaborative Action Network. We have seen their work across the Valley and their commitment to collaborating with cities to deliver successful affordable housing projects quickly and cost effectively. The city's approach of supporting this acquisition and structuring fees as a

loan reflects a thoughtful and effective way to move projects forward, while protecting the public resources. We encourage the city to approve this item and continue its strong leadership in advancing affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Flores. Next, we have Crystal Granados and Lisa Hoff will be on standby. Hello, mayor and council members. My name is Crystal Granados. I'm the chief operating officer at Lift to Rise and a colleague to Celeste Flores who just spoke. We are here tonight to speak in support of agenda item three a the proposed city funding commitment for the 82 unit, 100% affordable rental multifamily development at 305 West San Rafael. This project directly advances Palm Springs housing goals by delivering new deed restricted homes for residents who are increasingly being priced out of the market. An 82 unit affordable development is a meaningful addition to the city's housing stock, and the city's decision to provide gap financing and fee reductions demonstrates strong leadership in moving projects from concept to construction, and Palm Springs has been a consistent leader in supporting housing solutions, and this project builds on that commitment in a real, tangible way. Lift to rise appreciates the city's continued investment in projects that create real homes for real people, and we strongly encourage approval of this item. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Granados. Next we have

Lisa Hoff. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Lisa Hoff, and I'm the chairman of the committee of one PS that is concerned with the inequities that exist in the northern part of Palm Springs, called the Food Desert. While we support and encourage the development of affordable housing, we are concerned that the city continues to approve projects that add population to that area without providing attendant services. In particular, we are concerned with the lack of food markets that can provide healthy, fresh and affordable foods to an already underserved community. We know that Palm Springs is already committed to the need to improve this particular area because you have your general plans. Housing element table 330 calls out grocery stores as one of the unmet needs of fair housing requirements for the Desert Highland Gateway area. Back in 2020, you approved changes in ordinance 2028 with the purpose of establishing Food Desert Overlay Zones to encourage the development of qualifying businesses. Palm Springs has already committed to improving the situation. And by the way, one of your developments, 305 West, for example, is, according to Google, 2.2 miles from the closest supermarket, which is Albertsons. The federal, state and city government define a food desert as being no more than a mile away from the closest supermarket. If the city can come up with creative ways of supporting the development of affordable housing, contract with organizations like Blue Zone to improve healthier living, then excuse me, it's the city can create a very sophisticated economic development plan. Surely you can find a way to incent the development of food markets in this area. Thank you, Miss Hoff. Madam clerk, are there

any members of the public registered to speak online? I think that the the online or for two a. Okay. I think we are good. So nt on the next item is the consent calendar. I would like to entertain a motion to accept the consent calendar, with the exception of item J which was removed for separate discussion. Do we have a motion? Anybody verbally want to say a motion? Okay. Thank you Councilmember. Know it did but. Great. Isn't this. Did you get that motion carries five zero. Thank you. We are now moving to item J. Can we actually let's do a comment on first. Yeah. Thank you. Just a comment on the city manager. This was on the approval for the Verizon Wireless on city property. So obviously it's this is a very good thing you're renewing that lease. I just wanted to make a comment, to the extent possible to you and to members of the staff, if there's any way

to do more of these, particularly in the south of Palm Springs, South Palm Springs area, to get that where the cell service is, is, is spotty. That seems to be a big concern. So anything that we can do to to further locations on property in the south end of Palm Springs would be appreciated. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Can we have a staff report for J please? Good evening Council. My name is Wayne Olson. I'm the chief economic development officer. Mayor Soto, council members of the public. I'm here tonight to present to you on item one J. We are here to request for additional detail and transparency regarding consultant scope, staffing and hourly effort for the district improvements portion of the Palm Springs Convention Center Modernization Project. If the council will recall, the report presented in December, outlined the project scope and procurement process and identified a first phase not to exceed amount of $1.25 million for these services. At that meeting, council requested that staff return with additional contract detail, specifically additional detail on consultant roles, labor categories, and hourly effort, and requesting the option to consider approval of the full amount of the design of this component of the project. The current report before you directly responds to that request. It now presents the full $2.072 million for approval of the connector portion of the project or district modernization, as we're calling it, which is exported, supported in your documentation by the expanded task descriptions, labor breakdowns, and clearer articulation of how consultant hours are distributed across project phases over the three year term. This action authorizes two professional services agreement one with milk. Who is on the phone. Jerry Van Eck is the principal of that firm, and he is available for $1.5 million and one

with multi studio. And we have Amanda Harper, also available by zoom if necessary. For $572,000. Milk will be supporting the urban planning portion of this project, and multi Studio will be helping with the branding and marketing of the district of the of the Convention Center District. The district plan is a critical public investment that intends to link the Convention center to downtown and downtown to the Convention Center. This is one focused on urban design and connectivity and the other on excuse me on branding and marketing work. The work is funded by measure J, with reimbursement from the future issuance of project debt. However, tonight's action does not authorize construction, design, or construction of the district improvement. Rather, it allows the city to move forward with the critical elements of design, coordination, public engagement and implementation planning portion of the district. Updates. Staff will return regularly to the council, with progress updates and reports from the City Manager Stakeholder Group, which include council members DeHart and Bernstein. That summarizes the staff comments. I have Tabitha Richards, our procurement officer, as well as Chris Mooney available and myself for any questions. Thank you. Thank thank you, Wayne, and I appreciate the the additional information. That was very helpful where it outlined the number of hours for for each tax task approximately. So just a couple of comments that I would like to make. First, obviously this, you know, support the project 100 plus percent. This is certainly that the connector is going to be an important part of the convention center project. The couple concerns I had with this is is I just wanted to note and there's two contracts here, so I'll address both of them individually. The global Mac, which is the design and visioning. And again as you mentioned, this is not even the actual design. So this is a million and a half. But but one of the the part

of the components of this million and a half, there are 212,000 approximately, as they've outlined here is an assessment of the current condition, which you know is fairly well established. Another almost 300,283 for visioning. And then another 200,000 for public engagement. So that's roughly about 600,000 for these sort of assessing public engagement. And then on top of that, $70,000 to present it to council. So I guess my my concern is that the bulk of it, you know, now you're about 700,000 of the million and a half. And the actual design idea is only about three. And this thing called the kit, which I presume is going to kind of be the menu of items, is 250, so long and short of it is approximately 700, 800,000 is the assessed public engagement, and only 500 or so is, in essence going to be what they produce for some options. So, you know, my my concern there is that, you know, we have. PS resorts, Palm Springs Hospitality Association Association, the chamber Main Street and the CVB, which, you know, we provide quite a bit of funding for, for our tourism and the millions of dollars they get from our taxes that, you know, they focus on engagement, they focus on the visioning, they focus on these things. And I just my concern is that this money could be better spent into the project itself, as opposed to that kind of community engagement, where these stakeholder groups have the real pulse of what that marketing and stakeholder should be, specifically because it's about convention people getting downtown.

And then I would just finally just note the same kind of thing on the multi studio. So that's a half $1 million contract. And that one is about $55,000 for discovery and research and 320 of the 500 for community engagement. So again, you've got another three 400,000 engagement there, 500 engagement on the other one. What's the overlap, what's the duplication? And again, it would seem to me those other organizations, PS resorts CVB that focus on marketing for tourism and these kinds of things may be just as well suited to do that. So we could save this some of these dollars to put into the actual project itself. So that's my concern on on the contracts. And I just wanted to voice that mayor, just to indicate why I'm voting against this particular contract. Not all of it, in essence, just part of it, but the project I support 100%. Thank you. So thank you. Any other questions? No. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Council member. And I hd some of the same along the same line of questions that Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem had. And on the 283 that he mentioned, thousand for community engagement. I was questioning that cost also, but it also includes the district wide vision and the connectivity. It says hierarchy. But I'm not sure what that means in this situation. But the connectivity, vision and components, is that right? Councilmember DeHart, I believe that's the hierarchy would be where the focus of the urban design, excuse me, the

urban plan would focus. For example, would it be on one road, would it be on several roads in the hierarchy would be, as I read it, the attention focused on an individual roadway versus multiple roadways. I believe that's the intent behind hierarchy. Yeah. So where, when and when the public might see this, we're not really spending $193,000 on community engagement meetings because we're only doing one community engagement meeting and two key stakeholder meetings. Is that correct? That's what I'm reading here. Councilmember DeHart, the way I read their exhibit, which is a detail item seven in their addendum, details the presentations and that includes ten presentations along with three council presentations, I believe. And number six is where they detail the the amount of community engagement. I believe that number was four was community engagement for that number. I believe if I recall, I'm going to number seven. Are you going to number seven okay. So I. But it it's broken down as separate. So there are there are quite a few meetings planned with the community. And I know council member Bernstein has been a champion and I think asked specifically for making sure we had that community outreach. I'm just I'm just pointing out that we've asked for this community outreach and it's coming at a big cost. So the community needs to also understand when we're asking for these outreach meetings, they carry a large cost to make them possible. And Mayor Pro Tem was suggesting some ideas. That may be ways

where we could save on some of those costs. But it's not inexpensive to do this stuff. But on on item seven, the presentations working Group and City Council, I had asked in in my brief meeting this week that to understand what what working group was and and I understand what city council is and working group you defined it as the convention center modernization stakeholder committee, working group. It's that group that we're talking about. And and we've got the breakdown of those meetings. And I appreciate that. The only question is the additional information that you provided is the update. There's an asterisk on the bottom that says travel is an additional is additional at $1,500 per person, but travel is included in the not to exceed bid of 1,000,005. So this is item seven in the million five. So I just want to make sure we're not we're not having additional expense when this agreement calls for travel included in the not to exceed million five mayor. Excuse me, council member DeHart. Yes. That's we'll take that under advisement and ensure that we're monitoring that both the travel and the expenditures under seven. Cool. And hopefully an easy question for you. We know the cost of the construction cost is going to come as a result of this project and the work that's going to come from the scope of work here. But what are we planning? What are those engineering costs? What have we budgeted? What are we planning? Those

engineering design costs to be that will fall outside of this million and a half? And before we start spending the construction expenses. Right. Councilmember Hart, you're correct. The approximated connector budget or the district improvement budget was set at $25 million very early on in this process, we assigned about 2.1 million 2.072 million to urban planning and district branding costs, which is the contract you're looking at tonight. That leaves the remaining connector capital budget of about 22.9 million. I spoke with our city's engineer. He feels that in current environment, the costs of engineering design would range between 12 and 15% of the capital cost. So by my calculations, at 12.5% on the lower end, that'd be about $2.9 million of design costs that we would then reduce the overall capital investment in the district, improvements that would leave $20 million remaining for district improvement. Application for capital capital expenditures. And I was remembering 2.7. So I was I was remembering correct that that's where we were talking about the engineering expenses, but it's all included in the overall estimate that we're projecting of 25 million. And and some of this, we won't learn until we get this current contract completed, which is going to give us those rough cost estimates. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. I think that was it for me. Thank you. You're welcome. Councilmember Bernstein. Mark. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I know we asked them to provide this breakdown of costs. Did we, like, go through the

reasoning and sit down and talk with them like how they came up with it? I'm going to ask our procurement officer to step to the microphone. She spoke with the consultants. I'll say broadly, yes, we did have discussions as we broke that down, but I'll let her describe those conversations. Hello. Tabitha Richards, procurement contracting manager. So we did go through after the last meeting and went through the schedule with both consultants, met with both Wayne's team of himself and his consultants that have been assisting with the actual convention center project aligned the schedule that they have currently projected. That's been developed with the stakeholder group to identify possible community engagement meetings, how many meetings they would be hosting to provide feedback between both the stakeholder groups and the owner's rep once they're on board, and the engineering team to try and identify the most engagement. And that would be required through each phase of the project. Then we went back and forth with them, as we had previously done on their hourly rates, incorporated that, and came up with the estimation of time. We went through a couple audits of that before we incorporated it into the contract. Now the meetings are at probably the max. That would be necessary, but given the involvement that council had asked throughout this project, we'd rather include everything up front rather than be coming back continuously adding additional projects. It's much easier to scale down once they actually kick off, rather than requesting prices that are harder to negotiate when you're in the middle of the contract, rather than upfront before they have funding approved. Thank you. And city manager. They're going to be meeting with the entire convention center stakeholder group at the end of this month. Is

that correct? Councilman Bernstein? Yes. Should this contract, this contract be or this agreement be approved? We are scheduled kind of a kickoff meeting with the architects, the urban designers, the planners. I think on the 28th, 29th of this month to kind of give them an orientation to the project in general where we're going. Of course, you and Council member DeHart are City Council's representatives on the overall convention center stakeholder group, and we have another meeting with that body on the 29th. We anticipating we anticipate introducing some of those designers and consultants to the stakeholder group on the 29th. I think there'll be some good questions that, you know, the two of you can help me lead with all of the stakeholders on, you know, all the work that they're going to do and cautionary advice, things, you know, like council Mayor pro tem already is suggesting. So, you know, we want to get that kicked off later this month. Okay. And we do have in those meetings representatives from PS resorts and the chamber and visit Greater Palm Springs as well. Absolutely. As you know, we have a good representation of a lot of stakeholders who are all involved in the in the, you know, hospitality community, both larger hotels, smaller hotels, vacation rentals. We have restaurant tours. We have a lot of folks in those meetings. Okay. And, you know, I just want to say, I mean, I agree with Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem, ready? When you see these numbers sort of broken down, it looks odd, but it's a hard thing for a design to actually break it down, because often design and visioning and strategic planning is a very large part of the actual design work. And then the creation comes, you know, once you actually know what you're going to create, it's a

little bit easier. I mean, I've seen this in other types of design and marketing and art as well. So I think you have to be a little bit. It's something that will I mean, if it's gone through the evaluation committee and it's gone through all of this, I think part of it is really having the stakeholder group now nail it down so that it's not, you know, a lot of wasted time and in a very small amount on design. But the idea is that when you get to the design, you actually know exactly what you're doing. And and so, you know, what I would say is that with these organizations say they often do hire other people to do it anyway. So even when you go to visit Greater Palm Springs, they're hiring consultants for a lot of their other work. So I don't think they would be able to do all of that. But I think that's part of this concept is that they're going to be an integral role in all of this, and that's how we approached it from the beginning, I would say. So, you know, I did ask to see the work that they've done in the past. And both companies are very impressive. It's hard to define how they actually get there with a design thing, but certainly if it's comparable to the other work that they've done, then I think, you know, we've hired some good firms there. So thank you for that. But I think we do have to keep very close eye on how it's spent and what they're doing, and that we're getting the product that we that we expect out of this because it is a lot of money. Agreed. Yep. Who's supervising this team? Our owners rep. Yeah. Councilmember DeHart. So if you'll recall, we are went out for RFP for owner's rep and delayed that process. We're going to be going back out for RFP for owner's rep in the interim. If you'll recall, we have conventional wisdom who has built and managed an owner rep. Over 300 convention centers worldwide. They are currently acting as the interim owners rep and will be responsible for managing this process on the city's behalf. And then once we elect a new owner's rep, that person would step into that role. Yeah. So who

is that? That's David O'Neill and Rick Schmidt. Yeah. And will one of them have the point on it or. It's they're sharing. The point will be Rick Schmidt. His background is in architecture and. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thank you. You're welcome. Just as a follow up, we're hiring an owner's rep later, went back to. Correct. Owner's rep. We have an interim owner's rep for now, and then we'll be bringing one on board in the spring. Could I ask you will be the same one for both projects? Yes. Convention center and the walkways. My understanding is, as that scope develops. Yes, that's the intent to have a rep for both. Is that correct? Okay. We have all our questions out. Yes. Can we get a motion to accept item o. If we're going to retry. Can we try on the can we try on the iPad one time. Can we see it. No. Where are we voting okay. They can't see it I don't see it on their screen. Go to your desktop in front of you to the oh wait, I think I have everybody except Mayor Soto. Do I have motion carries three, two. Vote. We want to revoke. I voted on. So noted for one. Thank you mayor. Okay. Thank you Wayne. Next up, we we're moving to public hearings. Thank you for everyone's patience. The next item is two a an appeal. The planning commission's decision approving a major development permit to construct 82 100%

affordable apartment units per section 93.23.17 of the Palm Springs Zoning code for density bonus on a 4.5 acre undeveloped parcel located at 305 West San Rafael Drive, zone R2. May we have a staff report, please? Yes, madam mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and members of City council. Chris Hadwen, your planning director. I'm joined tonight with Glen Maluquer, who is an associate planner on and our planning team, who's going to walk you through the details of this project, as well as the grounds for the appeal as expressed by the appellants. I know that the applicants and the appellants will all be joining and having that conversation with you. I just wanted to briefly introduce Glen and acknowledge that I'll be here as well for questions following his presentation. So thank you. Thank you. Chris Glen, Associate Planner project planner for the the case before you. So in looking at where the project is located, it is on San Rafael, a 4.5 acre parcel bounded by Puerto del Sol on the right and then Virginia Drive on the left. The the parcel that is in red is the vacant lot. The two appellant houses or owners of the houses are the starred, which are along Santa Catalina, which is at the bottom of the slide. So the proposal is for three buildings consisting of one, two and three bedroom apartments, 100% affordable for working families, and there are income requirements 34,000 to 78,000 a year for a family of four. The project meets all of the R-2 zone standards. However, they are asking for a state statutory density bonus for height, density and parking. So they're asking for up to three stories on

portions of the buildings itself. Density of 19.2 dwelling units. The. The general plan requires 15, and they're asking for 19. And then parking of 137 spaces. So just some quick slides to orient the council onto the si. Plan the three buildings that front along San Rafael with the parking on the south. It's a a entry from Virginia and from Puerto del Sol. And in this slide you'll see carports, which are the X's. The trash enclosures that are proposed are located here and here. The appellants houses are located in these two spots. They're. Just some photographs of what the project will look like. This is the frontage along San Rafael. I'll note that this is showing the three story portions of the building, which fronts along San Rafael. And in this side slides, you'll notice that the three the third story does not go the whole way across the entire building. It only is on the frontage along San Rafael. So the portion that faces the parking lot is a lower at two stories. On the third floor, that that faces the parking lot or where the appellants live, there are no windows other than three clear story windows that are about 6 to 7ft tall. This is a kitchen for each of these units, and there's no other openings that face south. Can I make a correction? You I heard 6 to 7ft tall. Right. The window will be up here. Clearly A22 foot window right, six foot wide, isn't it? And 6 to 7ft from the floor. From the floor. So if you're five foot two,

you can't see out the window because it's higher up on the wall. It'll be for me. And are you sure they're all in kitchens? Sill height. They're all in kitchens. You said they're in the kitchens. Yeah. So bedroom and kitchen. Sorry. There we go. They provided a landscape plan. And the landscape plan that is presented here is not fully developed. When the project goes to the Architectural Review Committee, the landscaping will be further refined. So they're applying a density bonus, which is a state mandatory affordable housing density bonus. Incentives for very low, low and low to moderate income housing and this is, as I mentioned, allows for increase in building height, density and then some waiver of parking requirements. The Planning Commission on November 18th approved a major development permit for the project in in approving the statutory density bonus, incentives of height, the density, and the off street parking. When the Planning Commission approved the project and added a condition of approval, Planning Condition Number three stated that the applicant to record a 55 year long deed restriction that the property remain low or very low. Or and moderate income residents. One of the other conditions was there's underground. Underground utilities is deferred per engineering requirement number 53. The Planning Commission also made recommendations to the Ark to include landscaping around retention basins, reducing the heaviness. Heaviness of the upper floors. And keep in mind that we have not worked on this yet. The the project has not gone to Ark yet due to the appeal of the

project. Provide past of the playgrounds secure bicycle storage. There's a dog park that the Planning Commission would like to see enlarged, and then we are going to work with the police department to look at any kind of crime prevention that can happen. So on December 2nd, two appeals were filed by the residents to the South. There's a list of of reasons as to why they are appealing, and I won't go through them all. The applicant will be the appellant will be on the zoom when it's when we're finished. So according to a staff analysis, state law prohibits the city from imposing requirements that prevent the use of the statutory density bonus provisions. The privacy concerns can be mitigated through the design review at the Ark level. The refuse, the trash enclosures. The locations comply. They are, as I've shown in the previous slide to the south of the property. The law does not allow us to consider overconcentration. There's been some discussions. We have vacant parcels in the north end of town in this neighborhood, and we seem to be having several of these types of projects located there. The city does not consider Overconcentration. The project will serve working families, and the applicant can describe what this project is aimed for. The income levels and it complies with all the municipal code and state law. There are no additional requirements as it's an infill development. And as I mentioned, architectural and landscape will go before the Ark at a future date. So just a few more slides showinge setbacks. So the third floor of the buildings that

face San Rafael, it's 139ft from the third floor. And I just want to mention this is this is the appellants houses here. So it's 139ft to the back of an existing cabana structure, which is about 12ft tall. The applicant supplied you a packet which was handed out to you today. This is a slide from that packet that I wanted to show you the sight lines and the windows of the third story structure. They also provided a sight line, as if you were standing in the building and looking out of the window what you would see. That's what this blue sort of vision would be. You'll notice that the windows for the third story are on the San Rafael side, and just these upper clear story windows to the south. They also included a trash enclosure detail. It will be fully enclosed with a lid and then a simple carport design, which is along the south end of the property. This is a picture of the existing wall that is at the back of the appellants property. It is over height. The requirement is a six foot tall block wall. This has been added to and then on top of it is a metal corrugated steel structure. There's also a design of what the trash enclosure will look like. And then just a brief view of the amenities that would happen in the proposed open space on the project. Oh okay. So yeah, right. This is also showing additional landscaping that the

applicant is prepared to propose that could go to Ark. In this design. So our recommendation is to deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission decision. Approve, which was to approve the major development permit. Determine that is categorically exempt in per sequa. And then to advance the project to the Ark. So, mayor, that is the end of my presentation. Thank you very much. Couple of questions. Just to kind of help start us off. Just to reaffirm some things that you mentioned earlier. This project is utilizing state density kind of opportunities and stipulations that override what would be would be traditionally looking at for for housing. Correct. Can you just elaborate a little bit on. That's correct. So there are a whole menu of options and many criteria that need to be met to take advantage of certain of those density bonus provisions. But per state law and per the government code, we cannot apply any local development standard or any local requirement tt precludes them from using those where they're eligible to do so. So in this case, as a 100% affordable building looking at a mix of incomes, what they are proposing complies with state law, and we have to grant it to them effectively. So it is again statutory. It is something that has to be granted when they meet those those requirements. The planning condition three that Glenn had mentioned just seeks to give further assurance to the city that by the time they go to pull their permits or obtain their certificate, certificate of occupancy, we confirm that they have registered the deed restriction that confirms that 55 year affordability requirement, which is what they need to do to take advantage of those. Great. And this was all also explained in the

planning Commission process as well. Correct? Great. And one question around the trash enclosures, can you go back to that? There was one like a helpful picture, a picture of the trash. Yeah. There's that one. And then I think there was an actual yes, this one right here. So covered walls are covered on all sides. Also a standing cover over the top. Can you share a little bit about kind of these areas where kind of waste is stored. Kind of some requirements in terms of how much distance and where they're required to be on the property, for how many units there are and how many buildings. Well, as far as the number of trash enclosures required in the site plan, they are located in convenient locations, which is at the. When you come out, come out of the buildings here, they're located here and here. There's not a requirement of number of of trash enclosures per number of units. There could be three. We certainly wouldn't want one. But the size is of the unit is appropriately sized for a dumpster, whether it's a four yard or five yard. And then the other blue bins, green bins, so forth. Great. And they're pretty equidistant depending on what unit you're in to each one, correct? Correct. I mean, we we explored or talked to the applicant. Can you move them somewhere else. And they'd be moved up here, which would be where the playground area is. Could they be moved down here. So if you live in the middle unit, it's a long walk to

get here. Great, great. And some of it's based on our understanding and expertise. And and having dealt with projects like this before, how the waste management companies need access to the site, how they're picking up the frequency, and again, convenience for residents. But also, you know, you can move it around, but you might create other conflicts. So sure. And then speaking of kind of kind of trash requirements and and Palm Springs disposal, there's quite a bit there's organic there's recycling and then there's actual trash. And the size of those of that trash enclosure was confident could fulfill all their trash needs. Right. There wouldn't be like roaming containers around the property. No, you wouldn't see blue containers on the exterior of the dumpster. Okay, great. And then can you I know that the landscaping that you mentioned that the they're willing to present to arc, I think that was the last slide. Yes. Right here at the bottom. Right. That wasn't part of the discussion at Planning Commission. Right. That wasn't was that included at that point, or can you share how what motivates a little bit of that design that they're willing to also share at Arc? This detail was not presented. So the landscape plan was not within the scope or purview of the planning Commission's decision. They certainly talked about it, and they made some requests for additional shading and to examine ways of improving that landscaping on the southern boundary. And so this is the response to that. This will go to Arc with Planning Commission's recommendations and the full record to, you know, to do further evaluation of this and have that conversation there. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to pass it over to any of my colleagues. Any questions? Councilmember gardener, I know this is in your district. No, no, it's district two actually. Oh, it's is the other side of the line. Yeah. So one project is in mind, one

project, and the other one is yours. Yeah. Thank you so much. I so one thing about the the sightline analysis, I understand we're kind of looking out based on somewhat of, I'm assuming average height. But say someone is very tall basketball player moves into the building and they can see clearly out the window because it's set farther back. Is it correct that you still wouldn't be able to see down into the back properties? I think we might want to defer to the applicant to speak in more detail about their analysis since they undertook this. But from my experience and understanding of this, your setback 139ft. Right? So if you were on a stepladder looking out that window, your line of sight would be fairly far away from any of the structures of the pools. I think. In addition, it's important to note that they have the cabana structure along their northern property boundaries on the other side of that wall that is 12ft tall. So from that perspective, looking down, I think that's what you're going to see before you see anything else into the property. Right. Okay. Thank you so much. I think that's really helpful. I think beyond that I have questions for the the developer when that time comes. So thank you so much. Yes. Councilmember Bernstein. Thank you for that. So just so going back to trash cans, besides the fact that there's not a lot of places to move them, they do comply with all legal. So that correct? Okay. And they also the appellant, the appellant said to me that the height is actually 40ft and not 31. Do you know why they have a I didn't speak to him. I just got a message and I didn't want to call them back to some of the drawings here. There there

is a parapet that is not part of the measurement of the. So if you see in this slide, this is the the top of above the windows is the 30ft. The zoning code allows you to have parapets that go higher to do mechanical screening and everything else. So this is higher than 31ft, but it's not condition usable space. I see it says there are 41ft 40. And that's standard of any development in the city. The zoning code does allow those allowances for mechanical screening and other allowances. In addition, above and beyond what our height limits are, okay. And what does that mean? Yeah. Can you just explain what that means? Mechanical screening. Just so that we are on the same page along the building there, there's a the, the roof and then there's a parapet that goes above the roof that could go the whole way around the building. And there's mechanical equipment, HVAC, solar panels that sit down in there. And we want to screen those from view. And that's what that parapet is for I see. So otherwise we would see all of that on top of the building. And it's not as sight pleasing. Yeah. As I even I would just add even for our single family homes we typically require a mechanical screening. So if you notice in a lot of, you know, the Alexander Homes, for example, you'll sometimes have, you know, something up on the roof and it's screening the HVAC and other units that are up there so that as you're driving through it, that's not what you're seeing. You're seeing something more visually appealing. Great. Thank you. Okay. That's okay. And just to be clear, this building doesn't have roof access. There's nothing on the roof like people can't go up on this roof. There's no roof decks or usable space on the roof. Okay. And so again, I mean, the sight lines, I mean, I can see what they are now, it would be helpful to see if you actually stood on a ladder

what you could see. Just to clarify what the applicant is saying. The the appellant also said can you remove the clerestory windows? But these are like in kitchens for light and. Yeah, correct. I think that there are building code and other requirements that would require light and air and okay, okay. So and just to be clear this is going to ask some of these questions can be asked of them in terms of like the they want to hedge between the buildings. And and that's something that Ark could address. Sorry I missed the the appellant has asked for a hedge between that hedge, which I think is on the new drawings, and that could be something for Ark to require if they absolutely the amount of planning the even down to the species of planning, I think and certainly if council so wishes to pass this on, that could be certainly included in your recommendations along to Ark, depending on what you'd like to see in terms of addressing the appellants concerns. Okay. They also mentioned something about not mailing out notices for the hearing. Is is that accurate. So the A major development permit does not require a it's not a public hearing. It's a public meeting. So there's no requirement that notice be mailed. However we do send out emails to the PS1 representatives and folks can sign up and get agendas emailed to them if they're want to be kept abreast of the meetings. Okay, so there's nothing that we has done wrong. We've followed the complied with both our requirements and the requirements mandated under state law in terms of noticing this type of application. Okay. And I just I want to just one on one slide. You talked about the Army what this range goes up to. So we talked about 34 to. I mean to $78,000 a year. And I and I just want to caution, I think that we should ask the applicant to maybe speak to this more fully.

But this is this is the range in Riverside County as set through HCD for a family of four at the very low through low income categories. So I think the applicant can speak more to what income levels they're they're looking to serve. And here's our housing okay. Thank you as well. Who is the one who helped me with these numbers. Hi everyone. I actually Ariel Bishop Williams, housing service administrator, City of Palm Springs I'm actually going to touch on the affordability during my presentation about the same property. Okay. So we can wait. No no no, that's totally fine. We can either wait till then or I'm happy to go over it now. I'll wait. I'll wait till you do your presentation I don't see thank you for that. I think the only question just is the mayor asked about the state density bonus is, is this is what's allowing these these the ability here. So yeah, this is in my district. So I will keep my comments later. Thank you. Questions. Council member DeHart. So the. What's the response when we're told that this project has illegal setting and encroachment of the multifamily refuse enclosures of the trash enclosures? I'm not sure where the appellant was getting that information, but again, from our perspective, it complies with our requirements. And what about are we breaking the law on the structural encroachment of the appellant's private property? I certainly wouldn't characterize it that way. They did raise one point in there that I would like to touch on for one minute. We touched on it sort of if you could maybe go to the slide. There is a requirement in our code that multifamily development on an R-2 site, which is this when adjacent

to a single family zone on an R1 site, which is the appellant's property, has a 150 foot setback for any height over the first story. So they're not wrong in raising that. However, under the state density bonus law and under the government code that that implements it, we are unable to apply any development standard that would preclude them from taking full advantage of the density bonus law that the state provides. So if we were to strictly apply that 150 foot setback, they would not be able to get a second or a third story here. It would be very narrow. It would be unusable space largely. And so we have to set that 150 foot setback aside, and we have to defer to the state and give them those density bonus provisions. And in this case with the applicant has done, is maximize that setback to the fullest extent possible. They're getting to 139ft on that third floor, and that's sort of the minimum that they could achieve while still getting usable space and taking full advantage of the statutory state density bonus law. So the setback on building one is how many feet. There are. They're basically all the same. They're to the third floor or to the first floor, to the back of the building, to the to the west of the building, to the appellant's property. So from the edge of the building here to the edges, probably around 100ft, 100ft. 150ft only applies over the first story. They comply with the setbacks on the ground floor. Yeah. You mentioned that there is not an over concentration of income restricted housing in the area. How how do we come to that conclusion? I don't believe that's what we said. I think what we did say was that we acknowledge the concern. However, it's not something that we can consider in

siting housing projects or in granting approvals, especially under the very complex layering of state law that really, really pushes affordable housing. So it really limits city's ability to deny residential projects that include affordable housing based on an overconcentration. That's not a consideration that we are able to take into consideration in considering these projects. Yeah, okay. I think that was it. Thank you. Let's see the setback. Do what? Why would I don't know what. Why are we asking. And planning Commission to defer the undergrounding of the utilities. What would that reason why would we do that. Right. So there if I go to a site plan, there are very high powered lines that run along the back of the property that were not undergrounding. However, there are other lines that run along Virginia here, and they are. The engineering department has agreed to defer the undergrounding of those lines. Oh, why wouldn't we be looking at the undergrounding of the lines along the west of the property? That's an engineering condition. I don't know if the engineering director is here. I think two answers. I'm going to try to to recall what engineering had indicated since it was something that they were okay with. But as I understand it, it's not undergrounded elsewhere in this area. And so to underground it here creates challenges with the infrastructure in the rest of the surrounding area. But in addition to that, what I would say from planning perspective is in addition to us not being able to impose development standards that would preclude them from building this project, we're also unable to apply other

measures that would substantially increase the cost of the project. So that's another section of the government code that we had to take into consideration. And the applicant didn't indicate that the undergrounding of those utilities would add a substantial cost to the project. Well, undergrounding always has to start somewhere. And I think I would like to. Look further at how could we make that happen. You know, we're already putting in how much money on this. You know, how how do we make it happen to enhance the quality of life on, you know, for these 82 unit folks living in it and also for the backside? Yeah, I think certainly we can continue that conversation with engineering. I think we can certainly in your conversation with the applicant, sort of get a better sense from them what they might be able to do or willing to do. And perhaps, you know, again, if you wanted to give direction to the process as this moves forward, it's something that we could work out through the architectural review process. Just a thought. But certainly, you know, and I know Ariel and team are going to come up and present the financing side of this to you momentarily. We can maybe also see what her thoughts are on that in terms of the link to the funding. So Arc could weigh in on the undergrounding of the utilities. No, but I think with direction from city council, what we could do is and through your conversation with the applicant, we could look to revise that condition and the plans that go to Arc to indicate that it would be undergrounded if that's what you so wished and came to an agreement with. Okay. All right. Well thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Any questions? Okay. Seeing no other questions for staff at this time, I'd like to open the public hearing. The applicant, Redtail

Multifamily Development LLC, is invited to speak for five minutes. Is the applicant? Yep. Good evening, Madam Mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. I'm Bob garrison, and I'm representing redtail multifamily land development and affordable housing access. And by the way, both principles for those companies are here to answer questions that I cannot. Economic or income levels and so on and so forth. So I won't try and go there. Also in attendance behind me, we have our architect, our civil engineer and our landscape architect also answer questions after I've finished, should you. So desire to have more technical responses than I might be able to to provide you, we appreciate the opportunity to present our project to you and to respond to what the appeal has identified as issues that they're concerned about. And we produced a presentation copy for all of you, which I believe you have. So thank you. If you could just turn the page, please. These are the discussion topics, and these are the items that were brought up in the appeal. And I'm not going to read those to you. I know you can all read that, so I won't waste your time with that. I would like to note to you that Linda Sackett, one of the appellants, and I have talked on three different occasions and we work through just discussion topics of all these elements. That was that finally turned to the next page. This is real. I wasn't we don't have the the presentation is physically to you. We can upload it but we can't. You know we didn't have the presentation. He bought it tonight. Thank you. I was advised that I

need you to provide it to you in hard copy, not on a PowerPoint. So. Okay. So just what you're seeing here is a sightline analysis. And the windows that are two foot high by four foot wide and they're six foot above finished floor. Okay. The video sorry the visual that you see. Let's go ahead and turn to the next page, the visual that you see with that sightline analysis that's of our landscape architects height. And he is six foot two. Just so you know, just for clarity. For context, the distance to the face of the third floor for building one, which is the building closest to Virginia, is 140ft from the from the property line on the south building to the middle building, which is the one that's that is directly in front of the appellants two properties. Okay. And that one to the third for that distance to the property line of the south is 132 foot six inches. Okay. Building three, the building that's closest to Puerta del Sol, the distance to the face of the third floor is 139ft. As we mentioned, there are as I mentioned, there are three clear story windows for each of the three buildings, and they're in bathroom. Sorry, kitchen and bedrooms. And it varies between the three buildings. Really. As you know, you can see that basically the sight line is up into the sky. So I want to mention a ladder. Someone I guess could hop on a ladder. But please remember the distance that we have to the property lines. We have no other openings or balconies on the south elevation. Just for clarity, please turn to the next page please. Now I think what you're seeing, I hope you're

seeing the same thing I'm seeing, which is a black wall and a steel corrugated metal on top of it. It's on the appellant's property. This is what they put on that property line. No comment from me other than that's what the photo shows you. If you go to the next page, please, you're going to see measurements. Hopefully you can read those. I need to get my glasses out. But what you're going to see there is that the boundary wall and screen wall on top of it, on that south property line, that height varies from eight foot three inches at its lowest to nine foot six at its highest. Not only that, there are additionally ficus trees planted on the appellant's properties that increase the screen to a minimum of nine foot up to ten foot six. So that also provides some pretty significant screening. So please turn to the next page. In my discussions with the applicant. Again, these are cordial discussions. She asked if we could plant trees along our southern boundary to provide further screening. One of the things that we're going to go through now, and we have been going through is with Southern California Edison. I believe we're going to need to have an exhibit that we can show Southern California Edison, because those lines are right there along the southern boundary line. And what I know is that there is a distance from the lowest power cable to the top of a tree, and you don't want to have trees up there any closer than ten feet, because Edison won't let you. It's either 10ft or 7ft. Depends on who you talk to. We we are at time for five minutes. Oh, shoot. Okay, am I out? Is that it? We are at time, but this is a great presentation. We really appreciate it. Can I okay, I have another minute or two. Or two minutes. Thanks. Let me go quick. Anyway we're going to work on t

regards with Southern California and I'll keep moving. Go ahead. We don't need to look at the landscape plan anymore. The building elevations you talked with us about or you talked with Glenn and the director of planning about the elevations that was discussed clearly, I believe trash enclosures. I want to confirm to you, mayor, that that includes organics, trash recycle. We've got them. I actually, if you look at my at our presentation, you're going to see all three fit inside there. You saw the trash enclosure itself. And I also want to say that one of the other items that was mentioned by the appellant is great comment. Great question is wait a minute. If it really rains hard and it does rain hard out here, Bob and I know that I've done a lot of work out here. We have our main drainage is essential right down the center of the parking lot. The water, the storm water will flow to the center ribbon gutter and go straight out to the streets. That's the way it is. It's not going to go over and flood on her wall. The other thing that was mentioned in the appeal was that we would structurally encroach on her wall. We are not putting a wall next to her wall at all because that would occur number one. And number two, if we try and pull it a foot off or two feet off, it'll be a dead space between the two walls. All right, I just and also there'll be a rebuttal. We'll have two more minutes as well. Thank you. We will now invite the appellate Gordon Phillips invited to speak. We'll give you seven minutes. Since we gave the applicant seven minutes as well. So are they here? Oh, hi. Sorry. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Hi. Thank you guys all for your t. It's been great hearing you ask all the questions. And a lot of information was given that I didn't know would be talked about tonight, so my speech may be a little bit. I can't modify it in real time. So

I'll kind of speak to what I was going to say already. And hopefully we can kind of go over some things with the the applicant later. My name is William Phillips. I own the single story property immediately south of the project site. I wanted to be clear from the beginning, because I know it's important to say we're not opposed to affordable housing, and we're not asking to deny this project. We understand the state density bonus law, and we understand the city's obligation and desire to facilitate housing production. I think we all share that goal in Palm Springs. What we're asking for today specifically is much narrower and well within the Council's discretion. I may concern beyond what we've just been discussing right now, is a privacy impacts from having these 35 to 40 foot tall structures that look down into our single story backyards. Even with these third story setbacks, the approved clerestory windows at this height do create direct and diagonal sightlines into our yards and our living spaces. For a one story home, this impact is unavoidable, and this proximity and elevation, any window that allows lateral visibility creates a permanent loss of privacy, regardless of glazing type, sill height, or assumptions about how the units might be used or how the occupants might behave. I understand just now that the applicants provided sightline analysis, but it doesn't account for occupant behavior. Furniture placement in the bedrooms. Sorry to be blunt, but a bad actor can buy a stepstool and be able to stare at my naked two year old son running around my yard. So any window that's visible to us is a pair of eyes or a camera on us and our children. 24 seven everyone on the block. I've spoken to myself, the sacketts, the next door neighbors. We all have children. We have grandchildren. So while the pool area might be blocked from the sidelines, the rest of our yards are in plain view of the site of the sight line, including bedroom windows. I know from my property from my bedroom window I can. Even with my focus in the wall,

I can see the tops of the buildings across San Rafael. So I know this is going to be a an issue to just keep discussing for myself. For the two year old son and all of our neighbors who have children and grandchildren who actively use our yards. This changes how our homes function day to day. It affects whether outdoor space can be used comfortably, and whether our families feel secure in spaces that have always been private. These are real land use impacts, not esthetic preferences. I know the density bonuses themselves are mandatory, but these specific design features that cause foreseeable harm are subject to reasonable, enforceable conditions. Unless the city makes a finding that mitigation would somehow preclude the project. The record doesn't include any analysis of whether these unusual circumstances of the site's height and proximity could result in significant impacts, and it doesn't include any finding that mitigation would be infeasible. So what we're asking for is straightforward. We're asking the city council to impose targeted conditions on these residential facing third story elevations, either eliminating windows altogether that allow views into our single story yards, or alternatively, allowing daylight in those areas only through skylights, with an explicit prohibition on balconies, decks and access those elevations. From what I can see from the drawings, the third story units already receive substantial light from north facing balconies that we believe meet housing standards. But these conditions don't reduce unit count. They don't remove the density bonus. They don't affect affordability or project feasibility. What we're asking for is not a redesign of the project. It's a modest refinement that protects adjacent existing residents while fully preserving the city's housing objectives moving forward. We did speak to all of our neighbors about this project, everyone in our block. It was the first any of them had heard of it. I know it may not be a legal requirement to mail notices, but this is the first. You know, these these properties are the most affected by this decision. And you're you're hearing nothing from

anybody so far. I think this will be the first you've heard of it. So this this appeal. So I think your record doesn't have testimony from the properties most affected by these design choices. I'd like to say directly to the council members that you're still early enough in this process to impose these clear, enforceable conditions that easily prevent avoidable harm to the neighbors without delaying housing delivery or putting project funding at risk. We request that these conditions be incorporated as binding conditions of approval that allow the project and its funding to move forward immediately, while ensuring the neighbors concerns are addressed. Before moving to IRC, I understand that a funding vote is following this agenda item, and I want to be clear our goal is not to jeopardize the project's viability. We just want to ensure that these conditions approval are included to protect the immediate community. Your record should include a signed statement by nearly everyone on our block affected by the development. I don't think they'll all be speaking tonight, but they did all read offer their opinions. They were all very surprised and a little disturbed by this. I think all the properties will have sightlines into their yards depending on where they are from. These the new structures. I hope you had the time to read that letter from the neighbors, and I hope you'll take our concerns into consideration. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. At this time, the public is invited to speak on this matter for up to two minutes. The first speaker is Linda Sackett. You're invited to speak for two minutes. . Okay. Thank you, Madam mayor, mayor Pro tem and council members. My name is Linda Sackett, and I own a property to the south of this project. And I am also

an appellant. As you have probably gathered, the reason for our appeal is to bring attention to the fact that I believe there are conditions and requirements that can be placed on the project to protect our privacy and quiet enjoyment of the property. I spend a lot of time at my house and my family, friends and young grandchildren, and I did build the house for my retirement. I humbly request that some simple conditions are put on the project. I did discuss these with Bob garrison, and we had very amicable discussions, which I'm grateful for. The primary condition for me is the planting of high hedging along the southern border of the project. I did talk to Southern California Edison, and they confirmed to me that these power lines are distribution lines. They're not transmission lines. So therefore it's allowed to plant hedging. And the hedging can be high as long as it's not touching the lines. I heard someone say they have to be seven feet below the lines. That would still give approximately an 18 or 19 foot hedging possible along that south wall. I would like this to be a written condition for this project to go forward. Another main condition that's now been discussed several times is the clerestory windows on the rear of the third floor of each building. I, I still believe that this people standing and looking through the window directly will be able to look actually into my house, because I have windows all the way along the back of it, and it worries me. And I really, really want this to be addressed. The removal of the windows I don't think would cause harm. There is light coming in from the front of the building that should be

sufficient for that particular room. The height is an issue. I know we've got 31ft and then we've set a parapet, but a parapet of nine feet up to 40ft makes the building. You're at a time at the two minutes. Thank you for your comments. We are going to continue on with public comments. Next we have Ken Cathcart. Nope. Okay. Bob garrison okay, you're on my list. There are no other public comments at this time. Yes, Steven. Are you see Steven. Oh yeah. Ken and Bob are not have Steven and Henry online Jeremy rebuttals. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Hi, this is Steven Tcholakian. You're welcome to speak for two minutes. Steven. Thank you very much, mayor. Just like the previous two property owners on the South said, you know, we we are not objecting to the property. You know, the low income property. But we just recently purchased this property is to spend time with our children. You know, we are from Los Angeles and this was our, you know, place to spend time with our kids and family. And just like the other two previous, you know, people said, my concern is the, you know, privacy. And we don't want to have anybody like overlooking to our property. And so if we could have some kind of, you know, hedge or

something that would block or, you know, change the windows to a skylight, that's all our concern is, you know, again, our goal is to just have our privacy. So that's all I'm asking for. If they could look into this and possibly, you know, make some changes to their plan that they have just to have some kind of hedges that are, you know, are allowed by this, you know, the Edison company, just so we could have our privacy. I mean, you know, it's just unfortunate that, you know, we just got into this property and now we're going to have a three story building that's going to be overlooking to our property. And one of the main reasons, again, we we bought this property in Palm Springs, me and my brother is to have some family quality time in privacy without having anybody to watch over us. That's all our concern is if you can make some changes that you know, that could avoid that, we would appreciate that. Thank you, Steven, for your public comment. We're going to continue with our online speakers. Next we have Henry, Henry, Leon Chiloquin. I think that's your brother. You have two minutes. My brother is the same. So, you know, his concern is the same as just privacy. So, you know, no need to waste anybody's time. It's going to be the same exact thing that I requested for. So thank you to have very similar voices. Okay. Next, we have Mr. Carl Thibault. Are you on, Mr. Thibault? No. Okay. And last public

comment, we have Michael Joseph Pitkin. Are you for item two A. Thanks for waiting. Michael Joseph Pitkin, this is for all public hearing items. I'll just speak just this one time. It is my understanding that Governor Gavin Newsom awarded San Bernardino 600 million for affordable housing development. Of that, Coachella Valley received 400 million of it. On Lift to Rise website. They had a portal of affordable housing, and it shows every housing development in the entire Coachella Valley. It lists the developments from 1 to 7. One and two are in city councils all the way to six and seven. They're moving individuals in with leases. The word on the street is developers attain millions for planning and drawings from these funds. The NIMBYs then block the developments in various city councils. The developers pocket the millions and claim they have to start something new as an unhoused. When I hear this and millions are pocketed, I look at this trend as fraud. I ask this body to look at safeguards of public funding and planning and development. There is significant possibility of litigation against Palm Springs. Thank you, Mr. Pitkin's. This time we will provide both the applicant and the appellant. Time for rebuttal. You have two minutes each. We're going to start with Red tail multifamily development. You have two minutes. It'll go yellow at 30 and then it stops at after two minutes up on the screen I'll pay attention okay. All right. Thank you very much. The okay. So we understand as I hear it and I and as and I appreciate Linda's comment. We had very cordial conversations. Three of them. It's the

privacy concern that's the big headliner, at least in my opinion. We do go back through Arc Architectural Review Committee, and I think that is where we can really address that, and we'll walk our way through that in terms of, you know, potential, oh, do I need to do something? Sorry. All right. So privacy concerns Arc will be going through Arc. We'll discuss it at that point in time. We have to deal with the Southern California Edison and where the power lines are versus where the planting can be. And as you have seen, we have added planting along there. Now it needs to be determined what plants can go there. There was a discussion or a notation. Well, hey, why don't you put some potential skylights or so on into the roof above those back rooms in the south? We don't like roof penetrations. It is a real problem for us in any kind of commercial or even residential, to have penetrations because you have leaks. So we avoid those all, all the time, every time. So we'll leave it at that. Architectural review committee will look at the windows but again hedging potentially. But with Southern California Edison we'll have to work with around them too. So that's really it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next the appellant Gordon Phillips. You also have two minutes to reply. Mr. Phillips if you can hear us you have two minutes. Hi guys. Sorry. Yeah I appreciate all the back and forth I wasn't expecting this. I appreciate your commitmt to at least work with us a little bit. I know that Linda's been speaking to some people as well. I do get concerned that if pushing this to arc doesn't

sound like we're putting enforceable conditions on the developer, I worry that this could drift back into a direction that we're not comfortable with. I know all the neighbors feel the same way as you've heard. I know there's other neighbors didn't call in today or weren't able to be heard. I understand there's a concern about putting penetrating the roof and having skylights. We will be open to discussing a roof lights, which are like, I guess the windows at the very, very height of the almost the roof along the edge of the ceiling. I go back to that anytime a window is visible to us from our bedrooms, from our yards, it does feel like a pair of eyes or a camera on us. We don't know if someone's looking, if there's someone on a set, a pedophile, a stepstool to be blunt. And it does diminish our ability to use these these homes and these yards. I think all three properties you've spoken to tonight, all purchase these homes for a retirement home. I've been coming to Palm Springs since 1995. It was always the place to go to get away from the chaos of LA, to have privacy and serenity. That's not going to happen with a window staring down at our yard. Not with not even just for me, but for kids and grandkids. So I understand that this idea of clerestory window and technically is nice, but in reality it's not. It's not enough. I do think that the the occupants behavior could change the way those windows are used, and it definitely affects the way we feel about the windows, not knowing how they're being used. So skylights are an option. What are the other options, and is there a requirement for having windows in the back at all? If there are other options for windows facing west or east or north to supply light to these these rooms, can that be discussed? Again? Pushing it to arc concerns me because it's not an enforceable condition. The developer is not is not. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Your your two minutes are up. Thank you for your rebuttal, madam clerk. Do we have any other

speakers? No additional speakers. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed. Are there any discussions or additional questions from the City Council? Councilmember Garner, thank you. Thanks, everyone for for participating and for your your comments. I, I spoke with the developer and I spoke with the appellant, one of the appellants, prior to this meeting, and I appreciate just everyone giving their thoughts and in advance and allowing us to really review this fully. So we are limited in in what can be done because of state law. But I also, it seems very clear from, from what's presented to us that everything that that the applicant is doing, everything that they can to make sure that there's privacy for the neighbors. I appreciate that you're looking at this additional hedging along the back. I think that's great. I think that one way this council can give a little bit of. Assistance in terms of the appellant is to ask that this is that there is some sort of hedging that but that that it's further discussed with Arc to determine exactly what that looks like, exactly what type of hedging. But just so that that we do move it forward. With that in mind. But I, I would like to deny the appeal. I don't think that. Changing the windows is going to is is something I think changing the windows is going to negatively impact the residents who are living in that building. I also from the sightline that you can

see, I think it's it's going to be extremely difficult for someone to look into a yard at that distance, especially when we're talking about hedging that already exists and additional hedging that will will be there. So I would like to move forward with denying the project and going along with staff's recommendation, with denying the appeal, denying the appeal, sorry, denying the appeal and moving forward with staff's recommendation. Sorry guys, but but still requesting that for sure. The applicant moves forward with hedging. Yes, Councilmember Bernstein, thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, and I, I agree, I think the Apple and the appellants have some real concerns in their privacy and and other things. But I think I've talked to the applicant. I played phone tag with the appellant. But I think you have done really tried hard to the the applicant has tried hard to to address all the concerns of the neighbors. And, and I would agree with Councilmember Garner that if you can do some kind of hedging or privacy, I mean, you're going to be there. You want to have good relationships with your neighbors there, obviously, you know, not opposing the project. They're just trying to make it work for everybody. And and so I think the fact that it's a nice project, that it is a good looking project, you know, they should be happy with. But, you know, privacy is a real concern. So I would do what you can talk to AR, AR I know that's that's that's your plan. I understand the issue with skylights. I've been in places with skylights and they are a problem. And so I think the clerestory windows, understanding how high they are and somebody who is not six foot tall, I can't look out them. So I get it. But I, I also, you know, I

would I would vote to deny the appeal, but I would really continue to strongly urge you to work with the with the appellants on addressing their concerns going forward. And I think it'll it'll work out much better for everybody. And I know you have tried that already and will continue to. So thank you. Is anybody else have comments? I have a comment. Yeah. Just really want to say thank you to both the applicant and the appellant and the residents. This has been a very fruitful process, including the discussion at Planning Commission. This is why we have public hearings where people can really hear this feedback, and it can inform next steps both to staff and and now with HRC. And so I just not all of our public hearings sound like this, as productive as this. And just want to say thank you to the residents who gave public comments on this, but agree with my colleagues on what they have said. Any other you know, I would like to motion and a second by to deny the appeal. Oh I'm sorry. Motion passes. Thank you very much to the applicant who came. Do you guys want to break? Okay. It's 852. We're going to come back at 805, and we're going to try to run through

this in an hour. The remaining of the agenda. All right.

Yes, mayor. And members of the City Council, this is a second reading of our triennial adoption of our building and fire codes. It's a little bit different. State law provides that the public hearing is required at the second reading, as opposed to often these public hearings are conducted at the first reading. The Council did conduct first reading of it last month. The text of the ordinance remains the same. We have our building official and fire marshal here in the audience. If you have any questions, technical questions about the code. Otherwise, we'd recommend a second reading and adoption of this ordinance. Hearing. The public is invited to speak on the matter for up to two minutes. We have Joseph Pitkin Joseph Michael Pinkard for to be want to speak on that? No. Okay. Any other online speakers? Madam clerk? We we have no speakers. Okay. The public hearing is now closed. Are there any discussions or additional questions from the city Council? Great. At this time I would like to entertain a motion. Motion by Councilmember Bernstein, seconded by Rhonda. Councilmember to heart. Motion passes. Next item is item two C. Other question okay okay, great. Thank you. The next item is to see an urgency ordinance of the City Council of the City of Palm Springs amending section 93.23.14 of the Palm Springs Municipal Code relating to Accessory Dwelling units and Junior Accessory Dwelling Units to comply with the recent changes in state law and finding the action to statutorily exempt from Sequa under Public

Resources Code 21080.17. We have a staff report, please. Absolutely. Good evening, mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and members of council. Chris Hadwen, planning Director. So just by way of background, this is an urgency ordinance being brought forward to you in response to changes that were signed into law in October of last year and which took effect on January 1st, and which required municipalities to update their Adu ordinance to comply. Obviously, in very short turnaround. And just to clarify a little bit of information, because I know there is a letter circulated by HCD pointing out that we are not in compliance because the laws took effect 14 days ago, but we are bringing this forward as an. And that letter gave us until February to respond to them with an action plan to come into compliance. I want to clarify that we are doing this now as an urgency ordinance, because technically, being out of compliance, we would have to set our current ordinance aside and and it would not have any force or effect unless we adopt this urgency ordinance tonight. The February date that HCD is is is referencing is to have a fuller response or they can take additional enforcement action against us. So we really do need to move this forward tonight just a little bit more background. Junior ADUs or Jadus as will be referenced in the slide and ADUs provide more affordable housing options as well as income opportunities to the properties that they are located on. As I mentioned, the new laws took effect January 2026, and I just want to point out that our local local rules are already quite permissive. We have, you know, through through council action, through our housing element, through prior actions, really tried to be as permissive as we can be on ADUs and as compliant as possible with state law. The changes that are before you tonight are relatively minor. They don't really have a lot of material effect on how we are operating within the city of Palm Springs, but they are

designed statewide to facilitate more Adu production. So there's a series of bills. I'm just going to kind of try to go through them relatively quickly and just point out what the changes are. So Assembly Bill 462 was passed also as an urgency bill in the state, largely in response to the fires that happened in Los Angeles at the beginning of last year. They largely deal with coastal development permits and do not apply to Palm Springs. However, there is one change that is being made through that bill that would apply to us. And today, you cannot we cannot issue a certificate of occupancy for an accessory dwelling unit before one has been issued for the primary residence. What Assembly Bill 462 does is says in this in the case where an emergency, a state of emergency has been declared by the governor and where the primary residence or residence has been substantially damaged or destroyed by an emergency, by a disaster, we would be compelled to issue a certificate of occupancy for the Adu, even if one had not yet been issued for the primary residence. And I think the reason for that is somewhat obvious, but it's to just make sure that we are getting housing back online as quickly as possible. Assembly Bill 1154. So currently we're proposed. We're proposed a junior Adu where a junior Adu is proposed on a property. The owner must either occupy that junior Adu or it must occupy the primary residence. The changes in AB 1154 would clarify that the owner only must occupy one of those if it shares restroom facilities, so in the event that it operates separately from the primary residence and there are separate sanitation facilities, the owner would be required to be on site. And I guess, again, I think this is intended to just expand the pool of housing beyond owners to renters and other users. It also prohibits the use of junior ADUs for short term rentals. But I just want to clarify, this is something we've

already done through local law that was adopted by council previously. So that really doesn't have any material effect in the city of Palm Springs. But the state is making that change statewide Senate bills. Senate Bill nine, which was previously adopted but has been amended in October, and Senate Bill 543, which is new due a couple of things. So and mostly this is administrative and related to the letter that I was referencing earlier. So currently municipalities are required to submit to HCD a copy of their Adu ordinance within 60 days of adoption. So should you adopt this ordinance tonight? We will have to provide it to HCD within 60 days. The change establishes penalties, including that the local ordinance is null and void and set aside. In the event that we don't do that. And it also sets aside any ordinance that HCD determines is not compliant. If we don't respond within a time frame that's given to us. So, for example, the letter that was provided to us, if we were not to respond within 30 days, HCD could take enforcement action and say we no longer have a valid Adu ordinance. Therefore, we have to rely on state law to regulate ADUs and it removes local control. Senate Bill 543 currently states that junior ADUs up to 500ft. Sorry that we must permit junior ADUs up to 500ft in ADUs of at least 800ft. This change clarifies that this relates to interior livable space. And again, I don't think this has any material effect on how we have been implementing the program here in Palm Springs. But I gather other cities have been a little more creative in their interpretation of how they're calculating those square footages. In addition, the current law says that ADUs less than 750ft are exempt from development impact fees, but it is silent on junior ADUs. The change would say that junior ADUs less than 500 square, 500ft would also be exempt from development impact fees, and both, if they're

less than 500ft, would be exempt from school impact fees. So that's a change in what we're able to charge in terms of development and school impact fees. Senate Bill 543. Also, historically, it's been a little ambiguous, but many municipalities and hkdse position has shifted over time. But it has precluded you from combining different types of by right ADUs. So there are four different types of ADUs in our ordinance. You know, detached ADUs, junior ADUs, which are some converted portion of of of of a residence. So there are several of these contemplated in our current Adu ordinance that are by right that just go straight to building permit, but different interpretations by different cities and by HCD over the years have led to inconsistent applicability that has largely said you can't combine those. And so you can only sort of pick one Senate bill 5543 changes that to say that you can combine and therefore get multiple ADUs on a single property where that where it complies with the underlying requirements and standards. In addition, it speaks a little bit to timeline. So today we are obligated to make decisions on ADUs within 60 days. But it doesn't really get into any more detail than that. The change that is established through Senate Bill 543 would also establish other timelines within that process. So, for example, we would have to complete our completeness review within 15 days. We would then have to once they resubmit, we would have another 15 days to undertake that rereview. We would have a certain amount of time to give them very clear and understandable sets of corrections, what they need to do to correct if we if we say it's incomplete and we would have to make a final determination within 60 days of determining that it's complete. So a little bit of a shift there. The 60 days isn't going away, but it's just establishing other timeframes that I think, again, some municipalities have been creative on in terms of trying to extend these processes. So it's it's really holding us accountable to move these things through very quickly. That's it. In summary, if approved, I just

want to clarify the urgy ordinance takes immediate effect and is permanent. The changes to comply with the state law that again took effect January 1st. They are intended to further incentivize incentivize ADUs, which provide more affordable housing options and income opportunities. And I just want to clarify, you know, obviously these are very targeted changes, but it doesn't mean this is all we're doing on ADUs. As you all recall, in our housing element, we made a series of commitments to to look at going above and beyond what state law is requiring. We're doing that work through the zoning code update. So we'll have a lot of those conversations through the outreach process that's underway, as well as when that comes forward for public review. We also are looking at a pre-approved Adu plan and program. So we recently the response period for an RFP process that we had initiated to look at getting those pre-approved Adu plans ended. We're working through that and hope in the coming weeks to have selected those pre-approved Adu plans. And really, that is meant to give a cheaper, quicker option to folks who don't want to engage an architect or don't want to purchase a plan from somebody. We would have a series of options that they could choose from that have gone through review of planning and the building department that would expedite the process and save costs. So we hope to roll that out shortly. And then the rental registry that I know is being looked at in Virata's team. One of the things that the housing element commits us to doing through that is including ADUs in that rental registry to again connect Adu potential renters with existing ADUs in the city. So lots of work underway on that. I just didn't want to have this presentation without clarifying that we're doing a lot of other work in this arena. With that, I can take any questions. Great. I have a few questions. So this last slide, just to underscore, we have to do this really to make sure that we're in

compliance with state law. These some of these are very targeted that have very minimal effect on our kind of potential Adu stock. Right. That being said, can you share the zoning code. We're still like a solid year of community engagement. Correct. Can you speak to the rental registry and the pre-approved Adu plans? And if there's any of those that are like 2026 opportunities, 2027, if someone is really thinking of building and expanding or really adding to the housing stock in our city, when, when does some of these other opportunities that we as a city have jurisdiction over? When might those come online? Excuse me? I would very much like the Adu pre-approved Adu plans to be certainly in the first half of this year. Again, we have the RFP responses. The deadline was over the holidays. It was the end of the year, so we're just now working through those. We have some great responses, so we just need to go through the process of selecting and then having those plans drawn up and getting them implemented. And there'll be a bit of, again, coordination between planning and building to make sure that we're, you know, making it as easy and fast as possible. So as you can imagine, it implicates electrical permitting and all of these kinds of things. We just need to go through a process of easing that burden to the fullest extent possible. So there's a bit of work to do there. But certainly I hope the first half of this year to have that done. The rental registry I'm not super familiar with, I'm looking to see where J is or if anyone has. Okay, so I don't know if Jay wants to come up and speak to it, but I do know that it's being worked on. I do believe that we had engaged and contracted with a firm to build out the technology behind that, but I think it's still being worked on. Jay's coming up while Jay's coming up, one quick follow up on the pre-approved Adu plans. And I think to your point that this is complicated, this is multiple department approvals and review

really thinking through how we communicate this to residents, to homeowners. I would love us to be a leader in the Valley. On why and how we are making this simpler. And it for if we want residents to really take this up it we really streamlining not just the approvals, but the kind of branding and awareness that this is the city the city wants to work with homeowners if this is something they're interested in. So that whole like comms piece is, is really key and thank you. And that there are actually also commitments in our housing element that speak to that. So we are committed to once we have more information on all of this, to really doing some targeted outreach, especially in the communities where, you know, more affordable housing types are needed or where the income could really help populations as well. So that is absolutely something that we'll be looking to do. Thanks, Chris. Madam mayor, I'm going to respond to the question about the rental registry. We've been working on some mir revisions to our draft proposal to have a voluntary rental registry, which we hope to have in place probably before summer of this year. So it should be coming out relatively soon. And that way we can address the the comments from HCD about having that type of program in place. Thank you. Any other questions on this item to see on ADUs? No thanks Chris. Seeing none, I would like to entertain a motion. Motion. Mayor. Thank you, mayor Pro Tem, we have a second by Garner. Councilmember Garner did I I hope I hit the right one. Wonderful. I know you need to do a little reading. An urgency ordinance of the City Council of the City of

Palm Springs, California, amending section 932314 of the Palm Springs Municipal Code relating to accessory dwelling units and junior Accessory dwelling units to comply with recent changes in state law and finding the action to be statutorily exempt from Ceqa under Public Resources Code 1208017. I'm sorry. 2108017. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. We're moving to business and legislative items is item three A, which is a request to approve the to approve the request for financial assistance and a loan commitment for development of an 82 unit affordable housing project located at 305 West San Rafael. May we have a staff report? Thank you. Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem Council members Jay Virata, director of housing and community Development. Before we get started into the specifics of the proposed projects, I do want to go over the current year's housing program budget. We've got a lot of questions on that, so we do want to try and answer those for you. You'll see on the screen. And I believe in the package that you may have received, that there are two primary sources for our housing budget being the housing set aside that was established a few years ago in the lump sum amount of 10 million has been spent down, and the remaining resource there is approximately 2 million. And of course, the vacation rental housing fund that was established more recently, where a share of the Tot is allocated for housing projects. So with that, we have an available amount of approximately $11

million to start the current fiscal year with. And this is FY 26. Just getting caught up now, it's important to point out that $10 million I mentioned earlier, the housing set aside funds have fully been allocated. We anticipate expenditures from all of those, just not necessarily all happening this year. So on the expenditure side, what you will see is a combination of what I would refer to as current year and future year expenditures. So of the housing set aside funds is 1.6 million for the desert Highlands scattered site projects. That expenditure will still have to go out and is estimated to go out this year. The residential rehabilitation program we have also incurs costs of about 235,000 for this particular year, and the rental software system, which refers to the rent registry program, is the maintenance costs we have going into future years. So this is all part of the rental registry program. On the vacation rental housing funds. On the expenditure side, we also have more funds for the Desert Highlands Scattered Site Family Housing project. So it's funded with the two sources. It's kind of blended the Mission Juniper project, the city committed to covering costs for the entitlement. So we've allocated $800,000 for a portion of that. We're not exactly sure what that's going to come out to, but we do have several meetings going on to try to narrow that down. And of course, the projects proposed for tonight, the San Rafael Apartments and the 305 West San Rafael Red tail

affordable housing project in the amounts of 2.2 million and 3.8 million, are also recommended for expenditure, which would leave us with a balance of just the vacation rental housing fund of $2 million. So that's where we're at in terms of the availability of funds that we have. And I would mention we are actively in discussions with other developers for other projects and other portions of the city. And I'd like to turn it over now to Carol Bishop Williams, who will provide presentation on the projects. Hi, everybody. Ariel Bishop Williams, Housing Services administrator. Today, my presentation is going to provide an overview of the proposed affordable housing development. 305 West San Rafael. I'm going to be focused on the project, the project team, the scope, the affordability mix, the financing structure and the city's proposed funding participation. So you've heard a little bit about Red tail, who is developing the project. They're experience multifamily developer and long term owner. They've developed over 13,000 units nationwide, including market and affordable housing. Their experience includes navigating complex financing structures such as tax credits, public private partnerships and more. The project team includes Red tail multifamily development, affordable housing access as their nonprofit partner, the Creed Group for the project manager as well. And this team structure is typical for affordable housing developments, using tax exempt bonds and low

income housing credits. So this project is located at 305 West San Rafael, within the Racket Club West neighborhood. There was a typo in the staff report. It is Racket Club West, and it is proposed as a garden style apartment community with a total of 82 units on approximately four acres. So you've seen the site plan, and I want to make sure that you guys also see the unit mix, which I believe was talked about a little bit earlier, but just wanted to put a little bit more focus on it, and it went through planning commission and it also will be going through IRC. So they will finalize all of those details. So on the screen right now is the affordability level. This came up earlier in the presentation. So I did just want to put up. These are the income limits of 2025. So it might change as the project goes along. But this is where we are at right now. The project includes units available affordable at 30%, 50% and 70% of the area median income, including an on site managers unit. And the mix of one, two and three bedroom units is intended to serve families and a whole range of household sizes. The final affordability restrictions are going to be memorialized through regulatory agreement as we move forward. So this slide provides some context on. Where are we at. Oh nope. Sorry I skipped a slide okay. So just going a little bit through the timeline you saw we went to planning Commission. We had that conversation. And the developer is targeting a first round 2026 application for 4% tax exempt bonds and low income housing tax credits. And that application is due on

February 3rd. Which is why, even though there was the appeal earlier, we wanted to get this in because if we were to do it next meeting, that would be a really tight timeline and we want to make sure that they can put the application together, and it is our goal to support them in this so this project can remain competitive. So on the screen you will see why public subsidy is needed. This is a typical affordable housing financing structure because affordable rents are restricted. Restricted tax, credit, equity and debt alone are normally insufficient to cover all of the development costs. The difference between total development costs and available financing creates a funding gap and the local a local subsidy like a city loan is commonly used. And what we're bringing forward tonight. So speaking of public subsidies, the proposed city loan is $3.8 million, with funds anticipated for disbursement in the first quarter of 2028, which is calendar year, not fiscal year. The loan would carry a simple interest rate of 3% and a 57 year term to align with long term affordability requirements. Repayment would occur through residual receipts, meaning payments are made when the project has sufficient cash flow, and in this case, that's going to be around the 17 year mark. And this loan would be secured by a deed of trust and a regulatory agreement. As stated. Okay, so before I conclude, I want to also take a step back and put tonight's request into a broader city context. Over the last few years, the city has made several strategic investments in affordable housing to address our housing needs and to leverage state and federal funding. From 2019 to 2025, the city invested approximately 16.1

million, which helped deliver 192 homes through developments like Vista Sunrise to Monarch and Aloe Palm Canyon and looking ahead, 2026 through 2028. The city has an active affordable housing pipeline representing approximately 10.75 million in city investment and more than 400 available units in the pipeline, including Mission Juniper, San Rafael Apartments and 305 West San Rafael. So, like I , we have a strong track record of making these small investments that help the developer leverage into getting more funding. So I've got a couple examples on the screen for Vista Sunrise two. It was a $30 million project. The city contributed 3.6 million, which was roughly 12% of their overall budget. For Aloe Palm Canyon. It was $44 million. The city invested about 7 million, about 16% of their overall development costs. For monarch, it was 36 million, and the city's contribution was approximately 5.5 million, which is about 15% of the total development costs. And on this development, which is about 52 million, the city would be investing 3.8 and also including. Waiving of permit fees, which accounts for about 9% of the total project costs. And in each of these cases, again, a small investment from the city helps them unlock tens of millions of dollars in outside financing so we can get high quality, long term affordable housing for our community. So the recommendation please approve a $3.8 million. Oh, just the commitment letter. I'm sorry. Please approve the commitment letter for

$3.8 million loan to go towards the project at 305 West San Rafael Drive, and that's it for me. That's great presentation. I love your PowerPoint templates. Any questions from City Council? Yes. Councilmember Bernstein, thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. I think a couple of these ones, the slides at the end are things I had asked to see. So the the percentage of costs for these last four projects range from 9 to 16% to get the total projects. And so it's really a tremendous way that we can leverage our affordable housing funds to create these great projects. And so and from what I understand, the monarch was the first project that we actually opened in more than a 12, 12 years or something like that, 13, 13 years. And now we've had these four and you've got another 3 or 4 in the works, I think. Yes. And some of them were just donating land to, I think, Gene Autry we've talked about. Yeah. So Gene Autry is land. And as Jay said, we're paying for the entitlements. So we're changing the zoning. We're going to the airport land use Commission. We're doing some of that more technical work. So once the once the land goes to the developer, they're able to jump right in and get started with their building permits. So I mean, it's it's tremendous the amount that we've got momentum we have going. So thank you. And the whole team I want to mention because we you know, this one is in right across the street from another one. We're going to talk later next to the navigation center. And there's, there's questions about whether they're all being concentrated in one area. But I mean, I know that Aloe Palm Canyon is in, I guess old Las Palmas and Vista Sunrise, too, is in Rogers Ranch and Gene Autry. And if you look at existing affordable housing throughout the city, yeah, they are throughout the city. A lot of the projects were built in the late 70s, early 80s, so you will see quite a few on Tahquitz as well. So that's another area that has a concentration. Okay.

And in cases like this where I mean, it's the developer for various reasons, it makes sense for them. And they're coming to us. We're not saying go to this area and do it. Correct. Yeah. Redtail did come to us and say, hey, we think this would be a great place to have this project. We think we can really add something to this community and we agree. We think it's a great project. It looks a lot better than just, you know, an empty dirt lot. And plus that's 82 families that will have somewhere clean, safe and healthy for them to stay in. And that's great. But if I might Chris had been planning director. Actually, redtail reminded me of something quite important, and it relates to the complicated way in which the state assesses their funding requests. You have to be in a qualifying census tract, which meets all sorts of criteria about proximity to services and amenities for affordable housing projects. And the reality is, where we're seeing a lot of the development is where you can qualify for that state financing. So this happens to be in an area where it's just easier to qualify for the funding. That really makes these pencil out versus other areas of our city that might be further away from amenities and things like that, that wouldn't qualify. So that's another reason we're seeing this. Thank you. So just speaking of amenities, because we heard public comment is there is not a grocery store near here unless you consider the tower market an actual grocery store. Is that being considered a grocery store? I can't speak to that. No, I, I don't think we're considering that as a grocery store. I'll look back at the developer. Nope, not considering that. Okay, so in terms of amenities, I mean, that is something. And I agree with the public comment. I know that's not the discussion tonight, but that is something that, you know, if we're going to build this, another one's in this area is needs to be a focus of the city. Something else to consider, because I have talked extensively with the economic development director, Wayne Olsen, about this. And part of

the issue on the northern end is not having enough people to get a grocery store. So having developments like this, bringing in 200 more families does help get enough people. So grocery store can consider coming on the north end. It sounds silly, but it's it's one of those it makes sense. I mean, I know Racket Club and Racket Club West have a lot of developments, not not necessarily affordable, but just developments in general which which will help because it's in help drive it. Yeah. And and what's interesting so this is a plan. So three three quarters of these are at 70% ami. That's on your slide 456012. So it looks like yes they are sorry I had to look at that again. I was getting both of the projects confused. So I wanted to make sure I had an answer. So I think these numbers are also very helpful because for a family of four at 70%, I mean that's that, that's 80, almost $80,000 a year salary, which is. Yeah, that's our that's the working class, the city of Palm Springs. Right. And that's people who are working in our hospitality industry and our and other types of jobs in our city and keeping it going. So, yeah, another question just on the loan, because we talk about it's a 3% and 55 years, do we actually expect this to get paid back at the 17 year mark. What's that at the 17 year 17 year mark? We expect it all to get paid back or that's what that's what we're hearing so far. These projects do take a long time to come to fruition because we are putting in that investment really early. We have multiple projects that are having that 55 year mark. So. So go ahead. Council member and we had this discussion. But what I confirmed with the developer is

that they plan to re syndicate or refinance a project around year 17 of its existence, and the loan is a lien on the property. So it is there requires repayment. Okay. And when we get paid back that money goes back into our affordable housing funds. So that's the intention. Yes. So it becomes like a catalyst fund to help move forward. Okay. Those are my questions for now. But thank you for this. This is great information in this document related to all the the other ones as well. So thank you. No problem. Thank you. Councilmember. Any other questions Councilmember Garner. Oh any questions. I did have a question. Jay. I thought this was a forgivable loan. It is. So it's not paid back. It's forgivable. At year 57. So as a generate residual receipts and pay off the loan if they get to year 57 there is that forgiveness. And let me clear the documents have not been drafted yet. But this is our typical loan agreement. So in this case with the anticipation for recent vacation or refinancing, that repayment does come into play. Except I mean, I mean, I'm not saying this is a negative. I mean, it's anticipated that it will not be paid back. Have any of them ever been paid back? I don't think we've ever had any paid back. We've had. Portions of the feedback. Okay. So just as a I don't want anyone's expectations to expect it, but that isn't the point of it. And when they do refina, there's going to be significant capital costs

they probably have to put back in, which will basically make that void anyway. So anyway, that's fine. But my other question was Council member DeHart raised the issue of undergrounding, which is a great thing. So I'm just curious what would that add to the cost approximately, if they did undergrounding of utilities? I'll ask the developer to come up in case you guys have an idea. That one is squarely outside of my knowledge. But I will say, because this is an affordable development, we don't want to add any extra costs to make it prohibitive to build. So that's for me. But I'll let you run. Rendezvous rental multifamily land development for the undergrounding. We have about $600,000. Yeah, that's the estimated cost. So is a policy matter. And I get it. It's always a great thing to do. You have to start somewhere. I guess the question is, do we want to put another $600 100,000 into it, I presume would have to be us doing it. So it's more of a rhetorical question at the moment as a policy matter, but I guess it's something to think about as we do this one and other ones. If if that's an important policy position for us to use our resources. So I guess that's an open question for my colleagues. Can you clarify? You said you were spending 600,000 or that's what it would cost to do the the other portion that's the preliminary estimated cost to underground power lines, the ones that you're not doing. Correct. Okay. Any interest? Council member DeHart. That seems like a bargain to me, I think. I think we should we should incorporate that cost into the project. And why why should affordable housing be excluded from the opportunity of having these, these utilities underground?

So I think it's something to explore. But I have a question on well, two nowhere in our in our staff report do we say forgivable loan. So it hasn't been presented as a forgivable loan. It's a residual receipts loan which indicates residual revenue off. The project does pay off the loan. Yeah. But in many cases that is typically a forgivable loan. Well, could you explain what that means? What what has to happen for them to actually pay it back. So what would have to happen is excuse me, there income would have to start exceeding the cost of running the project. So there's these receipts. They generate revenue at that point. Up until then it's structured to be breaking even and repaying other priority debt that that may be in the picture. So when they do start breaking even, typically 50% of that amount that breaks that is that new revenue is split between the developer and the city. Okay. But but that but that's likely that never really happens often because then and you said in 20 some in how many years. Well 2017 wd trigger a repayment. And if oh you mean a different year, that's in the past. Oh I'm sorry, 17 years your future. But then just just for clarification then it needs a new roof. It needs a new this it needs a new that. So that takes away from so so that's why we will not see that money back. Yeah. There there's definitely yes capital costs and yeah ongoing things like that. Now

undergrounding council members if that is a suggestion that the city pay for it. The trade off would be another affordable housing project or underground power lines. Underground power lines are great, but where we're at now with the third project in discussions, is we have to wait an extra year to accumulate more funding to be able to make that commitment to that project. So we are right now we can't bring that forward without tapping into anticipated future, future funds. Yeah, okay. So that's understandable. But at least it's on our radar screen for for the next project and the next project. So Ariel, in your presentation you used the word permanent financing. And we don't use that word in the staff report. What what's the difference. So the permanent financing generally comes after the project has been constructed. So it goes through conversion where, you know, at the beginning there's a construction loan, there's money put into it to make something out of nothing, basically. And then once you can get people moving in, it goes through a conversion, and then it's the permanent financing that comes in. So something is paying for the project to try to break even and pay for like staff costs. And, you know, the electricity for the building and different things like that as they wait for that revenue. So I'm not following though, because permanent is not used in the staff report, but it was in the in the presentation Council member. So construction loans are very short term and temporary. So after the building is constructed and Israel said

conversion happens where you achieve say 90% lease up, then developers typically refinance at that point and change out the funding from that short term construction loan to something that's a little longer term loan, and that's considered to be permanent financing. And in our case, what's being requested is for the city to just come in at the permanent financing phase, which is reduces the risk of the city funding up front and a project stalling out. So it's it's not a bad place to be. Yeah. No, I think it's a it's a positive, but I'm just wondering why can I it wasn't pointed out in the staff report. Can I just clarify. Some of this was I had these questions very similar and just underscored. These funds are not used needed to construct the project, but it is necessary to make the project viable at the point of construction being complete. So that is why it's coming in later. And it also lowered, like Jay said, lowers our risk and kind of but we have had instances where they were construction loans in previous projects. So I think there's like a distinction at all phases of the project before it just it depends on where the developer needs it. And for us, honestly, based on Jay's slide, you saw where we're at with funding. So it's like, yeah, we're not going to be able to give you this full amount until a couple of years. Thanks for waiting. That work. So thankfully they're they're good partners and willing to work with us. So great. Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions? Council member I just didn't get to finish, but I think it's an excellent project. I'm happy to see it coming o the table and look forward to supporting. Any other

questions? If nope. Comments from Councilmember Garner. Thank you so much for this. Really appreciate it and it's wonderful to see everything that we've worked really hard on, to make sure that we're attracting as much affordable housing as possible in our city. This has been a long time of setting aside funding and making a real, concerted, concerted effort to attract these types of developments, and we're really seeing it come to fruition in a huge way right now. So I'm just really proud to be part of the group that's making these decisions. I just want to point out to people that if you make $20 an hour, which is above minimum wage before taxes, you working full time, you earn $38,400. So that puts you in this 40 to 50% range for income. And I think a lot of times what we hear about affordable projects is people think that people are not working, that they are making poor choices. And that's not the reality. When you look at just a review right now of what it what you get paid at various establishments in our cities and, and the hospitality industry. A lot of it starts at $16 and goes to $21. So these are critical for supporting our economy, our tourism economy, our hospitality economy. And a lot of the people who are making these wages at the 70% mark are young professionals. So I just want to make sure that everyone really understands and removes the stigma of these types of properties. We are helping people to survive in a really tough economic climate. The wages

that we earn have not kept up with the housing, the cost of housing, and that is it is getting harder and harder for people. So thank you so much for this, for coming to our city, to building this project. And thank you, Ariel, for for putting together this these slides that make it very clear who we're supporting in in this. I'm, I'm really, really proud to be on this council and to be moving projects like this forward. So I, I enthusiastically would like to make a motion to approve this. Thank you. Do we have a comment or a second or both? I did, but I just have a comment I forgot to say. And I wanted to. Just because you talked about the affordable the vacation rental housing fund. And I think for people who don't know, council made the decision to take a percentage of all t.o.t from vacation rentals on an ongoing basis to put into affordable housing. And so when you talk about that replenishment and also taking the vacation rental tot and which is generating money for our city and how we're using that wisely. And I just wanted to make sure people are aware of that because it's a great use of those funds. So but yes, I enthusiastically support this as well. Great. We have a motion. I don't know where it is now. I didn't want both places it came up on yours. Yeah it is. I made the second I think on this one. So noted. Right. We have a motion by Councilmember Garner, a second by Councilmember Bernstein. The motion passes. Nine stuff I don't know, I've got my my whole screen is working now. Mine stopped. We are going. Thank you Ariel. No problem. I have one more. You have? Stay up here. I just want to be on the lookout for time. It is 852. We have three more business items

and public comments. And so I'm going to urge my colleagues to really keep our questions very focused, very tight. We want to respect the our staff and public side. Alright. We are moving to item three B, which is a request to approve the to approve the request for financial assistance and loan commitment for the development and construction of a project located on McCarthy Road in San Rafael. This is at 110 unit affordable housing project. Hi Ariel again. Hi guys, I'm waiting for my PowerPoint to. There we go. Okay. Good evening. Tonight I will be giving an overview of the proposed housing development on McCarthy Road and San Rafael. What will be the San Rafael Apartments? Just like the previous one, tonight's discussion focuses on the project team, project scope, affordability, mix, financing structure, as well as the city's proposed funding participation. So this slide gives an overview of the Pacific companies who I'll refer to as TPC. So I don't trip over that a few times. TPC operates across a full life cycle of development, including real estate development, financing, architecture, construction, asset management, as well as long term ownership. This vertical integration allows TPC to control costs, manage risks and maintain consistency from concept through operations, and since 1998, TPC has developed more than 265 housing developments, representing over 20,000 affordable housing units nationwide. In addition to that, they also have developed charter schools, commercial projects, which just demonstrates their experience across multiple asset types. This long production history reflects the firm's ability to deliver complex projects over multiple market cycles. So this highlights the project team members who

will be involved in delivering the project. Each consultant has worked on similar projects in California and specifically the Coachella Valley, including Arroyo Crossings phases one and two in Indio, which is about 300 units, as well as projects that are under construction in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage. And this project includes a nonprofit partner, the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing. And nonprofit partnerships are common in projects like this, which help strengthen long term affordability as well as oversight. So the proposed community consists of 110 units serving households. Betn 30 and 70% of the area median income, which we just went over, and the unit mix includes one, two and three bedroom units to serve a range of household sizes as well as families. Amenities are focused on livability, including indoor community space, outdoor recreation areas and drought tolerant landscaping. The developer has already had two community meetings to gather feedback, as well as share project information, including one just this past Monday and has a few more scheduled and one will be via zoom. These projects are part of an are. These meetings are part of an ongoing outreach This is a rendering of what the project will look like, and it is going to Planning Commission at the next possible Planning Commission meeting, which I believe is either at the end of this month or early next month. Okay, on this slide where the red circle is, you will see the ask. They are requesting two related city financing actions to support the project. The first is a 2.25 million city acquisition loan to help secure the site, which would be the senior city loan. And then second, the

developers requesting that eligible development impact fees and developer fees be structured as a city fee loan, not a waiver in an amount not to exceed $2.5 million, and that will be subordinate to the acquisition loan. Both loans would accrue simple interest at 3% and be repaid from residual receipts over the long term affordability period, and the structure is important because it helps close the project financing gap while protecting the city's investment through repayment, recorded agreements and a clear loan priority. So my recommendation please approve a funding commitment in the amount of $2,250,000 to TPC or Pacific West communities to assist in the acquisition of approximately five acres. Located at the northwest corner of McCarthy Road and San Rafael Drive. And number two author. Nope, we changed it. Number two, approve a commitment letter for up to 2.5 million for a city fee loan repaid from residual receipts. And then please authorize the city manager to help us execute documents. And that's it for me. Thank you. Questions? Council member. Bernstein. Thank you again, Ariel. So question because on this one we're being asked to loan money to buy the land to build it. Yes. Is that normal to do it? To buy the land? I mean, we've I know we've donated our own land, but have we made loans for other people to buy land to build? We have not done that yet because we have had city loans. We have had city property that we were able to give out. I am going to ask Darren to, that is the developer to come join me to talk a little bit about the process. But in this instance, because of the developer's track

record, we feel like it would be a good idea. And we do see that through the Coachella Valley. Their team has completed many projects, and we think that the acquisition loan could be a good idea. Darren, I don't know if you want to say anything. Sure. Hello everyone. I apologize, I had surgery last week, so I'm a little bit hazy, but that's actually typl practice for cities to loan on land. And a lot of times they have land that they give us. So Palm Desert, that was land the city owned Rancho Mirage, that was land the city owned. But when there isn't city owned land, we utilize the funding to actually help secure the land. And all of this together as a whole actually not only allows us the funding to go forward, but it increases our tie breaker. And that's when we submit for financing. There's a score that comes at the end of it. Everybody typically scores the full points, which is 120 points. So after that there's a tie breaker score. So that's why we've asked for these loans. These subprime loans actually boost our tie breaker scores up. So we've been doing this for a very long time. You actually see a less request from us than any other developer, because we actually have our own bond, privately raised capital that we deploy on these projects. So we reduce our ask to the city, give you guys the least amount of exposure possible, and we build these projects. I mean, I think we have over 1200 units under construction currently just in the Coachella Valley alone. So it's jt a little creative way to produce more housing. So in that tie breaker is by us doing the land loan versus you paying that and us doing another loan, you can consider. Oh sorry. So having that city support shows the financiers that this project is going somewhere. It's not just someone who has like created this idea and they they're requesting funds. The city is on board. The city is supportive. And so that just helps again, so that that's why we're showing it upfront versus us coming at the last dollars. Correct. Yeah. We call it a loan for the land.

But that's kind of just how we generated that number. It's not it could be just a funding commitment from the city. But you know, we're trying to secure land. And we just figure utilizing that number is the lowest amount of number that we can provide to actually move forward. Okay. But with the other projects we're often paying at the end. Are we paying this at the end or at the beginning? It would be at the beginning. So they can close on the land, which I believe is supposed to be at the end of this year. Correct. And if they don't build the project, what happens to the land? It's our land. Yeah. We have a we have a clawback and we're going to include clawbacks in there. So we will have the land and then we can give it to another developer. But we do think they were going they're going to go forward. But just in case. And with the fees, it's I mean because other people have just asked to waive the fees, but you actually want it as this loan increases that tie breaker for us. So sorry. It increases the tie breaker score for us by giving it as a loan. A lot a lot of people will take a waiver, but we would rather have it as a loan so we can do that. Okay. And we could actually generate more basis in the tax credits because it's a loan on the project. I got that okay. So and just also clarify on this particular land, I mean it's we didn't tell you to go get this particular piece. We just don't have a lot of land to give anymore. And this is available so. And will it's going to be near the navigation center. Are you going to work with the navigation center or. Yeah, we've had several meetings with the community. And I think what we got to do is, is have kind of a monthly meeting between the managers of the different projects that will be living on site with the navigation center and have a kind of a community forum every month and see what we can do to enhance things, take care of any issues, etc. I think communication is key. Okay, and I know there was a letter from the desert Highlands about trying to work with the neighborhood on amenities and other things around the area. I don't know if that's gone anywhere or have

you seen the requests amenities wise? I mean, the, the, the community, based on the two meetings that we've had, is really the same thing about kind of grocery stores, and I totally get that. But I agree with what staff and everybody's been saying before is that you need population. In our experience. You know, we've developed a lot, even just at the Coachella Valley alone, where actually transit is not even perfectly, you know, enabled for these residents. But as we started building these projects, sunlight would come up and say, you know what? All right, we're going to put a a route there. That's going to be the same for I think. I think they actually asked for different types of things. They asked for landscaping for access to the fitness center. I don't know, I mean, it's way down the line, but I guess at least have discussions. I think that's the other project, not not ours was requested. No access to fitness and things like that. I wasn't on our project. I don't know how to get to. Well, I saw the letter in public comment, but you can. It was from. I think it was from them. But anyway, as long as you're talking to them. Yeah, we've we've had two meetings. We have one more zoom that we're going to do next week as well. Okay. All right. Well I mean I like this I like the idea that my biggest concern was about how if we don't build the project, but we own the land and certainly the, the percentage that we're paying is quite low on this. So, you know, I'm glad to see another project moving forward. Councilmember Bernstein. Member Garner. Yeah. So part of the discussion that that came about with the community is that this project works with a nonprofit to provide different services and such to the residents at the site. And the request was, could those be expanded, and would there be an opportunity for residents that were live nearby to also take advantage of

those nonprofit services? And so that's something that I would like to see further discussion of, to see how we can bolster something that's already existing on this site and the nonprofit that's already working with this project to increase the number of of, you know, I think there was like resume building and job training, all sorts of stuff like that to increase the number of times that happens each month and to see what opportunities we could do to expand that to surrounding neighborhoods and, and residents. So that's that's what the request was. And so anything that we can do to just continue that conversation, and it could be that we would be something it probably would be something that would have to come back. But that's that was the the concern. Well, I don't know if it was in the letter, but it was what was conveyed at the the community meeting. The other thing I just wanted to say, I just wanted to echo this comment about grocery stores. So when we have more development, housing development than we see more opportunities for retail development as well and the surrounding areas. So these projects can help with that. And that's also part of the site specific plan. It goes heavily into a how to attract a grocery store and how to put us in that position. So all of these, these things that we're discussing are coalescing to create a just a very robust and beautiful community. So I again, want to just enthusiastically support this funding request as well. Councilmember. Mayor Pro Tem, any questions? Comments? No. See, we have a motion. We have a second. I don't that Argent take on there. No I did you're not

you didn't make the motion again this time I, I made it up. We both voted on here. Oh I didn't didn't work. The motion passes. Thank you Ariel thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is item three C, which is the introduction of an ordinance, adding a new chapter 3.29 to the Palm Springs Municipal Code, providing for the establishment of City of Palm Springs Tourism Improvement District law. Yes, Madam Mayor, members of the city Council. I'll try to make this as quick as possible. It's a fairly straightforward agenda item. This is a proposed ordinance that would amend the city's municipal code. We currently have a municipal code provision dealing with tourism improvement districts. This would amend that to if the council should ever wish to implement a new tourism improvement district. This would allow the Council to do that and extend the term of any bonds for up to 40 years, as opposed to 30 years, which is what our current ordinance does. To be clear, this ordinance is not actually adopt a tbid, nor does it issue any bonds or expend any funds. It really is. Just adopting an ordinance kind of lays the groundwork for that. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, we'd recommend adoption of this ordinance through the introduction today. Questions or comments? No. Seeing none. We have a motion. Is there a second second by Council member DeHart? Motion passes. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is item, madam mayor, I read the ordinance. An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Palm Springs, California, adding a new chapter 329 to the Palm Springs Municipal code providing for the City of Palm Springs Tourism

Improvement District law, including general provisions and definitions, powers and procedures to issue bonds for the purpose of providing financing for specified purposes and certain other supplemental provisions. Thank you. We are now on item three D, which is the review, and discuss the remaining external Committee. 2026 Roster of City Council subcommittees, appointees, liaisons and representatives to external organizations. We have a staff report, please. Just those are what we had to do, right? We just have to do madam Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and council members, the item before you are the four items that were left open for council to feel as it relates to external organizations and staff is asking for direction or your appointees at this time. Great. Any. So there are a few things just to come up. There's four that are listed here. Three. And then I would recommend a fourth for us to reexamine. So we have the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Palm Springs Hospitality Association, one that are identified as yellow. And I'd like to also relook at PS resorts. So Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce. There was a discussion between council member DeHart and council member Bernstein. Would you be comfortable Council member DeHart as the appointee and council member Bernstein as the alternate for that? Yeah. Can I just if you don't mind, can I start with some of this? Because I was making an issue last time and I apologize for that. So I know Council Member Hart wants to do visit Greater Palm Springs. I want to be clear that

that's fine with me. And I would be the alternate if that's okay with everybody else. I know. I think PS resorts, I think if you the mayor, I think they would. It's best to have the mayor on there and you could replace me as the alternate. I would like to keep the hospitality association, and I think council member DeHart wants to be the alternate, but we often go together and we could reverse that on the chamber. And he could be the main and I could be the alternate, but we would go together as well. I wanted to mention two more things. One is on the film festival. I'm going to be a nonvoting board member. If clarified that, and I wanted to add one that I talked to the city manager a while ago was the the tourism advisory board that we had required Oakview to start. And my strong feeling is that there should be, since they are the our agency doing our tourism and our brand, there should be a council liaison and ideally a staff liaison with the city manager is okay. I know in the history we've had, our communications department has been a liaison with that, but I know that they're working on a stakeholder group and I think the city should be involved. I think with that it yeah, that's I think miss something. But we're going to go through them. Right. Well I was just clarifying because I was they were these were the ones that I was on. And I know that council member DeHart and I were were I was I we worked some things out. And so I think which I just think we're we fix everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to confirm some of the ones that Councilmember Bernstein went through. And forgive me if you want, if you wanted to change anything, I didn't want to do it. Although could you clarify what was it you said about the film festival? Yeah, there was a question about me being a voting member. I'm going to be clarifying.

I'm a non-voting member. Okay. So. And you're the appointed appointing. I'm the alternate. You're non-voting. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Let's go through them so we can confirm that staff has this documented. So visit Greater Palm Springs. The appointee council member DeHart, with alternate Councilmember Bernstein. Yes. Resorts would be the point. Appointed as council member. DeHart alternate Soto. The chamber appointment. Council member DeHart. Alternate. Bernstein. Hospitality Association appointment Councilmember. Bernstein. Alternate DeHart. And everyone else. Advisory and the tourism advisory. We. Mr. Scott Stiles, can you give us an update on the feedback that we sent and the status of that development? Certainly, Madam Mayor, I know the our our Bureau of Tourism is taking some efforts to try and put together an advisory board that would give them some advice on marketing and other stuff related to that. I know we sent some of that to council members, and all of you gave us some different suggestions. You know, maybe put a little focus on this. Not so much on that. You all had a few different suggestions. I forwarded those all on to the Bureau of Tourism. They would like to put to finalize their advisory committee and assemble that group and start working with them. But I also told them to sit tight and not do anything until we had more discussions with our city council. So that's where it's at right now. And kind of I think we're all

waiting for maybe some more direction and feedback from council mayor. Maybe, maybe I missed that email. Scott. Excuse me, maybe I missed that email, I don't recall. So tourism or CVB wants to create a tourism advisory committee. Well, it was I think it was at the wishes of City Council where we, as part of the management agreement with, with Oak View, that we asked them to create an advisory committee. This is an advisory committee to the Bureau of Tourism staff, not to the city, just within their own organization, to give them advice. And I had I sent that to all the council members and said, here's a list of of some of the folks that they're considering. And some of you got back to me and said, hey, think about this, maybe think about that. You know, it wasn't major stuff, but I just wanted to share all with all of you. Some of the some of the organizations and folks they were thinking of putting together. So so they're not asking for a council member to be on if I, if I could just maybe clarify. So this was part of when we did the Oak View contract. And because Oak View is now overseeing our Bureau of Tourism and, you know, there are new company involved in a new company in this area, we had suggested having this. We had required them to have a tourism advisory board made up of stakeholders in the community. There's been discussion, but it wasn't. I don't know if we put City council on there, but I think there should be a liaison as a board member because they're going to be coming up with our branding, our marketing. That should match the vision of the city. And so having a liaison there is to determine the at the organization that's determining our brand is what I'm suggesting. I you know, I think it's purely a decision of council members. If council wants a representative or a liaison

to be a part of that and attend those, I'm sure they would be welcome to have that person be a part of it. And but again, this is a group that they want the Bureau of Tourism wanted to put together to advise them. And so if there's a council member that wanted to serve on that as liaison, I think that would be perfectly acceptable. Yeah, I think we should have one. Just just clarify because. We the CVB does our tourism now we we pay them to provide our tourism director. So what is Oak View doesn't manage them. The CVB does. Got it. It's a dotted line. So the the Oak View is oversees our Bureau of Tourism. But the the the director of tourism reports dotted line to the convention center and the Bureau of Tourism in Palm Springs and to the to the visit Greater Palm Springs. So we used to have Kimber Foster in that role. And she had a dotted line between visit Greater Palm Springs and Rob Hampton. I yeah, I don't think any of that has changed. I think with the change of the management company at the time, it was the thought of some of the council members that we have a new management company coming in. It might take them a while to get up to speed with everything with the city, and it'd be good if they had staff in that role, a group of stakeholders that could give them some advice. And part of it just makes we have an economic development strategic framework, where we've highlighted diversity and arts and culture, and so that if we can help convey that and also come back to the city and say, this is what the tourism Bureau is looking at, how do we ensure our whole city is on board with this, our office, our neighborhoods, and how do we expand our efforts? I'm I'm fine with having a council member or someone from council on it. I just

want to are we going to hear back on what feedback was incorporated when, with all those comments that we sent in? Or I guess I'm kind of curious as to the other members who are also going to be shaping the Palm Springs tourism marketing strategy. What I'd like to do is get back to them, have them give some more thought to all of the comments that you submitted, and if there's any other direction that you want to give me this evening, I'll convey that to them. And I'd like I know they would like to anxiously try to finalize, put their own advisory group together so they could start meeting with them. So is this Oak Oak Views Advisory Group or the Cvbs advisory Group? Well, no, it would be the Oak View, the Oak View Bureau of Tourism. It's their staff that would be putting together an advisory group to help. Just advise them. It's an odd it is odd. It's an odd dotted line. But what happened is the city of Palm Springs, where we used to have our own Bureau of Tourism, and now we we did it with Palm Springs, but Oak View and Convention, it's combined with Oak View now. It's really a convention center. It's in order to ensure that Palm Springs to the greater, Greater Palm Springs. And so that's why you kind of need to have a pulse on both this. This was a request from the city of for the city council to do this. So they're trying they're trying to follow the wishes of the council. Right. Their interest in who would like to be that liaison. Happy to do it.

Nope. Council member. I'm okay. I'm fine not doing it. And having council member Bernstein okay. Any other thoughts? Although I would think are we going to formalize it? So it'll be here every year on this sheet when we we should I think it needs to be formalized. And and you know, this is an important part and it seems to me that this should rotate to other members of council, not just be, you know, still at it all the time. And then we can discuss it all. All the council members really need to be have an understanding of this. I think it's so important. I don't disagree, that's fine. Okay. When I didn't mention Madam City Clerk was one PS and that would be me as the appointment and alternate at Bernstein. Thank you. Okay, any other just on that I questions or comments. We've done it semi jointly before so it could be the same way. Yeah yeah yeah. With that okay. Any other discussion or items. If not. Vote on it. Well no vote. I'm about to say the words I'd like to entertain a motion to approve those remaining. Do we have a motion? I said a second, but I voted instead of motioning. We have a motion by Council Member Gardner. Do you want to be our second? Yeah, second. Second by Councilmember. The heart motion passes. Thank you. Next, we have public comments. Next item on non agenda items. This time has been set aside for members of the public to address the City Council on items of general interest within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. We value your comments. However, pursuant to the

Brown Act, we generally cannot take any action of items not listed on the agenda. Each speaker has two minutes. First speaker is Mr. Dominic. All right. Well, good night, I guess. Madam Mayor, Mr. mayor, pro tem, members of the council, Mr. Mayor pro Tem and Madam Mayor, congratulations on your appointment for your positions as mayor. I wanted to discuss something that happened almost a year ago. From now, I wasn't able to discuss this item because of litigation, but that litigation has since closed. I was involved in a vehicular accident on Tahquitz Canyon Way, literally down the street from where we're standing at right now. If you can see right here, that helmet is what I is. What I was wearing the night of my accident. The car was illegally parked on a class two bike lane in front of a fire hydrant. And now, if I didn't have this helmet on right now that night, I would not be standing here right now. I also have a broken hand right here. I'm asking and urging the council to add an ordinance requiring all e-bikes and e-scooters to wear Dot certified helmet, which is motorcycle helmet, or that for all ages, not just 18. And under state law states that motorcycles, quads,

dirt bikes, all that stuff, those types of vehicles require that we wear Dot certified helmets. But the state has not done anything when it comes to the e-bikes and e-scooters. Now the picture right next to my helmet is I'm sorry, is my time up? I don't see the clock. Okay. The the picture next to my helmet is a woman by the name of Lauren Turner. Ten months after my accident, she was struck by a box truck on a class two bike lane in the city of Fullerton outside of my apartment complex. So on top of me having to deal with my situation, with my accident, I had to witness a car accident in front of my apartment. The difference between me and Lauren Turner is that she didn't wear a helmet, and six weeks later, she passed away and she was set to be the next captain of the women's soccer team at Cal State Fullerton. So this is not really a debate. It's more of common sense. Wearing a helmet saves lives, and I, I urge that the council add an ordinance. I would like to ask. I would like to request that public works consider class for bike lanes on Tahquitz Canyon Way, because I'm not the only person who has been has either hit a car or has been hit because of a car being parked on that bike. On on Tahquitz Canyon Way. And I would like to also ask if this council could send a letter to our state legislatures to require helmets for e-bikes and e-scooters. As a state law, if the city can't pass an ordinance. This is also a newspaper from the Titan Daily. Saying the exact same

thing to the Fullerton City Council. So thank you. Very much. Next, we have Celeste Flores. Hi. Good night mayor, council members, staff and attendees. My name is Alyssa Flores. I am here on behalf of Lyft Arise, an organization that coordinates partners to move affordable housing forward across the valley. The City of Palm Springs has made choices to advance housing. And I want to clear choices. And I want to begin by recognizing your leadership and commitment. I actually moved from Texas four months ago, and I'm pretty impressed by all the work that you do in the city. And I'm a proud member of and resident of the Coachella Valley now, so thank you for that. I'd also like to share a brief update on our work, and extend an invitation for the City of Palm Springs to continue shaping what comes next. Lift your eyes. Allowing cities, developers, and capital through the We Lift Catalyst Fund to move housing forward across the Valley. And that work has helped put more than 9700 affordable homes into the pipeline, including here in Palm Springs. Palm Springs has taken meaningful steps to expand affordable housing by actively supporting a wide range of development. Palm Springs is one of the most active cities in the Coachella Valley. The city currently has over 600 housing units in the development pipeline, making Palm Springs a major driver of housing progress in the region. Lyft is proud to partner with Palm Springs through our We Lift Catalyst Fund to support two affordable housing projects in the City of Institute, together delivered 138 affordable housing units for Palm Springs residents, supported by 11.8 million in Catalyst Fund investment. And we're also currently financing an additional 2.6 million in fund financing with Mphs for their home ownership project in Desert Highland Gateway State's neighborhood. What we've seen is that when cities bring their experience together into planning, the work gets stronger. Palm Springs is well positioned to help

inform what comes next. We're preparing. We're preparing for 2026 2028 Action Planning Retreat on January 28th and 29th, and we sincerely hope Palm Springs will participate. And we want to recognize the city's ongoing engagement in affordable housing, your insights of the challenges that you faced and how you accomplish them would be really valuable to us and all the partners that will join us. So thank you and good night. Well done. Look at that timing. Good job. Net last speaker of the night's we have Mr. Oh no, we have a couple more. Mr. Bill Sanderson on deck. Michael Joseph Pitkin. Good evening, madam mayor pro tem and city council members. I'm Bill Sanderson from Tony bagels on Sunny Dunes. I'm actually here for the south of Downtown Association, the city recognized business association. One of our members, Rob Cole from the Tool Shed, have put in over a year ago to have our parking in front of our two buildings go from parallel to diagonal, which would go from 15 spaces to 35, giving us 20 additional parking spaces in front of our retail stores. It was moving along quite readily, but the last several months we've been getting what needs to be scheduled into into engineering. It needs to go to engineering, it needs to go to. But we're not getting a date when it's going into engineering or how long it's going to take, but it's a $37,000 project. Rob Cole, the owner of the tool shed, is going to give $10,000 of his own money to go towards that 37. So it's a win win for the businesses. The city is going to save $10,000. So I don't know why we're not moving a little faster on this project. Thank you. Thank you, Mister Sanderson. Next

we have mister Michael Joseph Pitkin. Michael Joseph Pitkin, I am who am just as you are. Who are the Israelis? Believe their savior will come in 4000 years. The Palestinians believe their Savior was born 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. Myself, I believe the God of all creation, both light and dark, is already here. My Jesus is Forza of Dubai and you all would be so lucky to have him as your friend. Each of us are God's creation and we are of God. I am the world's only publicly out theistic Satanist. Today I give a decree. No killing of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wicca, Satanists, nonbelievers or any other religions. I speak this today in the name of coexistence. If any of you cannot respect my religion, then why should I respect your religion? Your rights end where my nose begins. Satanists are not about chaos and death. We are about the spiritually enlightened future of humanity, all without force. For five years I have publicly spoken in favor of religious freedom. So it is written. So it is sealed by the blood of my heart unbroken. So mote it be. Hell, Satan. You, Mr. Pitkin. Next we have Aaron Wheatley online. Is she still online? Okay. Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. You have two

minutes. Okay. Thank you for having me. Yeah. We, my sister and I purchased an investment property in Palm Springs about a couple months ago, and we are rolling right along. And then we got a citation for $5,000 that we had no idea that we were going to get. And we are also banned from the from the vacation rental business short term. Are you guys aware of the municipal code 5.25040 that I just spoke about? You guys are talking about affordable housing, and you seem to have a lot of money and loans to give out to all these businesses. But what about the people that want to invest? I'm I'm a single mom, my sister and I, we don't know how we're going to how I'm going to pay this $5,000 back. It's just it's atrocious. Like we had no idea that we were going to get this. Fine. I've. I've asked public records from the city about how many more people this has affected. It's about $30 or 30 people per month. And that's almost over $1 million a year that you guys are collecting from us. And we got no warning at all. We got no warning from the state, from you guys. I hear the state gives you guys warnings for

noncompliance. Why don't we and I don't I don't understand why this policy is. I mean, I do understand why it's in effect but not giving any warning. I, I don't understand I mean, you guys are talking about millions and millions and billions of dollars here to develop stuff. I'm just a young person coming in, but this is really greatly affecting me. So I'm asking that you reconsider this violation to somehow. Miss Wheatley, thank you for your comments. You are at your two minutes. Thank you very much. There's Madam Clerk, is there anyone else registered for online? We have no further speakers. Okay. Next we have the City Council and City Manager's request for upcoming agenda development. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council members, just taking a quick look at the upcoming schedule, which we've started to put on your agendas at the end of each agenda. Now for people to see. You'll see at the next meeting. We do have our hotel incentive program ordinance that council members have asked us about that we intend to bring forward, along with the parking study implementation plan that was mentioned earlier this evening. We do have a historic designation item and then our meetings in February. We have you'll note that we have some upcoming financial reporting out that we're going to be bringing forward to you both our annual comprehensive financial report. And then and then in February, also our mid-year financial updates, our revenue forecasts, which will be a good peek at, you know, where we stand from a

budget, revenue and and spending standpoint. And then we've also had a request. I know, Madam Mayor, I think originated from you about on street parking ordinances for, for people selling vehicles on the street. And we're working on that. And we want to bring that forward next month as well. So that's it for me. Yes, Councilmember. So, Mr. City Manager, what does it mean? Parking implementation report. Business and legislative. What is what are we going to be looking at and required to do. Yes. So we've had questions about people that park on the street with for sale signs on their street. No, that's that's the the third bullet, 28th January. That's the downtown parking study implementation report. I haven't seen it yet. It's I yeah, it's it's a a recap of the recommendations from PS resorts and what staff recommends they could do in the short term, long term mid-term. So we'll be there will be an action on our part feedback direction. And then we'd have to come back with more specific things. But these are there are things we think we can recommend. And do we need a agendized item item to address the public comment about the sunny dunes, parking and being able to move that forward? I'd have to talk to the engineering department. We can move it forward. They'll probably tell me they're going to slow down some other projects somewhere. So I you know, they've the engineering department has a huge amount of projects going on right now, and we're trying to help them manage it. We can we can stop what they're doing and

give full attention to this. It's I agree, it's not the biggest item in the world, but you are backing up cars into traffic. They want to do it right. And if it's council's direction to give this top priority, that's what we'll do. It's I don't think it's top priority. The question he's asking is, is do we need to agendize this discussion? We have we were all hearing this from the neighborhood that is paying $10,000 to help me do the street parking, and if we need to do an agenda item, that's what we should do. If not, you're hearing us all, or two of us at least supporting it. Yeah. I'm not quite sure what an agenda item would accomplish unless you're going to direct it to happen. Direct staff to slow down other projects and pick which projects you want to slow down. Well, I would support my other colleagues and we can advise on how not to have to slow down another project. Perhaps it might be a good idea for the city staff to provide an update to the entire city council, maybe a memo or something. And then if council wishes to have an agendized discussion, you can you can ask for that to come back at a future council meeting. I mean, we we're working on the engineering staff is working on getting to this next month. Okay. Thank you. And and we're hoping to do it internally with our own staff rather than sending it out, which would allow us to do it quicker. Any other items? Yes. So so sort of related to that, you know, what I like to recommend is that, you know, like we have quarterly budget meetings. I think it'd be helpful to have a quarterly update on capital projects. And that way it's we'll be able to understand, you know, which projects

are moving along, which ones are delayed. And that's fine because and when they are, then, you know, the burden is on us to help staff. Well, what does staff need? More resources. You know, what is our priorities. And so then we can offer whatever help that they need. We can give them resources if it's important. Maybe we realize we don't need to. Maybe it's something important to move something quicker. So I just think it'd be important to have that at least quarterly update of where we are on capital projects. Now. The the universe of that could be, you know, obviously has to be by the city manager. It doesn't have to be that the large universe we could pick the projects we want, like for example, the progress on the South Palm Canyon Bridge or the bridge at Sunny Dunes and Palm Canyon, the larger projects, and with the convention center coming up. So we know when they're on track, when they're falling off track, and if there's something we need to do to provide resources for staff to get them back on track. Actually, I think it could be helpful. And I also think not to make it harder, but there are capital. We had this discussion recently. There are capital projects that are on the horizon that we may not all be aware of, but staff has in mind. And it would be helpful because if there is a whole electrical upgrade, we have to do that on the line. We're hearing comments about it, but it might be good to have a brief discussion and council. So we're all aware of what could be down the line as we're looking at budgets and things. So I would support that. I don't want to make more work for staff, but they have a list. But some kind of update would be helpful. I kind of see also this. Maybe the first one is as we might be a little bit longer, but after that, if there could be some concise project green, yellow, red and we're just looking at ones maybe who have moved or things that have slipped to yellow or yellow, that's

the projects that were yellow that slipped to red. And just to know how to identify how we can best support staff, I wouldn't be and also for for community members to understand. So I would I would support it. Okay. If you have three maybe in February if we could. So what what's the request quarterly updates on capital projects. Very good. Anything else? No. All right. The next city council meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 28th at 530. It's eight 4941. We are adjourned.