Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Gary, we're all getting close to being good. Perfect. All right. I will call to order the planning commission meeting for the city of Rockland for 10/07/2025. And I will first open up my agenda and say, we have a pledge of allegiance done by Commissioner Thomas?

Would you please lead us? Thank you. And could we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Armstrong? Here. Commissioner McKenzie? Here. Commissioner Thomas?

Present.

Chairman Barron? Here. And Commissioner Cortez is excused tonight.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to item one, approval of minutes. We have item 1A and 1B. I will first open it up for public comment. Do we have anybody in the audience tonight wishing to address us on either 1A or 1B the minutes? I see nobody. I'll bring it back up to the dais for any discussion and or a motion. So moved. We have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Minutes are approved. Okay. We'll move on to item number two, which is public hearings. But first, we're gonna offer I give citizens addressing this commission an opportunity to speak on anything that's not on the agenda. So if there's anybody here that wants to speak on anything that is not on the agenda tonight, you're welcome to come up and speak. Seeing nobody, I will bring it back up to the dais and open it up for public hearings. Item number two, and I'll open it up to staff.

Evening. Arwen Watt, planning manager. The item before you tonight is the, inclusionary housing requirements, which is a zoning ordinance amendment, z zero sorry, z o a two zero two five, zero zero three. It is the proposed, zoning ordinance amendment to is the proposed excuse me. To amend title 17 of the Rockland Municipal Code to incorporate inclusionary housing requirements as chapters 17.95. This proposal was initiated by the city of of Rockland at the request of city council. I've been more recently involved in this, Ali's gonna take the lead in the presentation. Excuse me. Ali Zimmerman, our city manager.

Thank you. I actually don't think

I've ever presented from this space, so thank you. Good evening, chair Baron and members of the planning commission. Thank you for your time and for letting me speak to you tonight. Ali Zimmerman, city manager, city of Rockland. As Arwin mentioned, the project before you tonight was initiated by the city at the direction of the city council during the 08/12/2025 city council meeting.

But before I speak directly to the project, I did wanna offer some background and context as to why we are where we are at this point. Most of you know, in fact all of you know, that the last few months for the city have been a struggle as we work to regain housing element compliance with HCD. And I am pleased to report that we are back in compliance and we've completed the zoning for the 5,661 housing units, the additional housing units that have been required for the city as part of our six cycle housing element. So that's 5,661 units at all levels of affordability that the city has obligated to zone for. And as a side, I do also want to express my appreciation to this body.

You had a very difficult hearing to sit through and to consider with a lot of emotional members of the community and a lot of information before you as we went through that very difficult process. I appreciate your time and I appreciate the effort that you guys put into that. I know it was difficult. So back to our number. We have 5,661 zoned spaces, and that's for a city that's not growing, a city where our boundaries are not getting larger, a city that has a very tenuous balance between residential and non residentially zoned property in our general plan.

We met this challenge with the zoning, but there's more to come because zoning for affordable housing is one hurdle, but actually producing it is another. Of those 5,600 and such units that we have zoned for, 3,062 units are required to be zoned for deed restricted low and very low income housing. So that sixth cycle, we've got 3,062 units that we're supposed to zone for, and then they wanna know how many we're producing. And over the same, course of about four years, we've produced so far 293 units. 293.

And we are not it's not for lack of trying. We're working with developers. We've established an affordable housing incentive program with funding support from our low mod program. We have fee deferrals. We're working to produce a city owned affordable project on Pacific Street with Community Housing Works, and we are working with a consultant at Kaiser Marston on a comprehensive inclusionary housing study that will have a potential commercial linkage in lieu fees.

And that should be coming before both the planning commission and the city council for consideration, probably the winter for the planning commission and then '26, to the city council. But at this moment, we have 293 units produced of 3,062. And until that inclusionary ordinance is in place, all we can do to try to get more affordable housing produced is encourage developers. We have no obligation to mandate, require any sort of development or production of affordable housing into their market rate projects. And when they're trying to build affordable projects, while there may be developers who want to do that, the financing can be so much more difficult that it takes a long time even after entitlements to potentially get something to and through to production.

So while we're trying, we have nothing right now. We have no carrots. We have no obligations that we can do until our inclusionary program is in place. And I share all of this and I keep saying the number over and over again because I just want to underscore the urgency that the City Council expressed when they directed staff to bring back a short term ordinance and bring it forward for consideration while our comprehensive study is underway. So the project before you tonight contemplates both an urgency ordinance and a regular ordinance and the reason the reasoning for the urgency ordinance is a matter of timing.

If considered and approved by the city council on October 28, which would be the next available meeting date after this hearing, the regular ordinance would not go into effect until 01/10/2026. That is based on the timing of the calendars and the regular and state law, We would not be able to have that ordinance go into effect until the January. Therefore, an urgency ordinance is the only way that we could affect an immediate requirement for affordable housing to be included into market rate developments that were proposed in Rockland between now and the time that our comprehensive program is done next spring. Well, other than the urgency findings, the ordinances that are being presented for your review are identical, so I'm going to speak to them as they're singular. I'm not going to go into specific detail.

We're here to answer any questions you may have. Both of them would require that for sale and for rent developments of 10 or more units provide for a percentage of housing that's affordable to either low, very low, or extremely low income households. And the percentage of the units that would be required decreases as the affordability deepens to incentivize the production even on a smaller number of the units that are harder for us to have developed because they're more expensive. So the ones that are going to be affordable to both the extremely and acutely low income households in our community. So that's what we're trying to incentivize the most by having them at the lowest percentage.

There are both exemptions to the ordinance depending on a number of criteria that are included in the exhibit as well as alternative methods of compliance that are built into the ordinance as well. And the ordinance also does allow for the establishment of an in lieu fee, but at this time, staff is not recommending the establishment of a fee. And this is because the in lieu fee goes into a fund for future housing, and we need housing now. As well, the comprehensive study will provide a proposed fee to the city council for to consider as part of the long term inclusionary housing policy. But for this interim period, the goal is housing, not partial funding for future housing.

So I'm gonna stop there. I wanna thank again staff especially for all their assistance putting this together and the commission for your time and consideration and appreciate Jeff Short with the BIA for talking to me on numerous occasions as we went through this process. And with that, I'm available with staff to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. I will start to my left with Commissioner McKenzie for questions. You have a wry smile on your face. I'll start with one. Okay. Fair enough.

Then I'll weave the others in depending upon where you all go. So thank you for coming this evening. First time in front of the Planning Commission, we were talking, trying to go, when was the last time a city manager came to a planning commission hearing? We see Ken on occasion, so thank you, councilman for coming. So my first question is, you know, given where we're at in the build out of the city, we're nearing build out. Why the immediacy? Do we have projects coming forward in the next sixty, ninety days that we wanna capture? Or is there a project that's ripe for needing to condition to produce units?

So at this time, there is no project we are aware of that we're trying to get ahead of. But we don't know what we don't know. There are no projects in pre application that that our market rate that we're trying to get in front of. We do have a few projects that we are in, I would call the pre application stage or even pre pre application, but all of them have either some or all are affordable units. So they would be exempt from this this ordinance.

The urgency that I heard as conveyed by the city council about the June meeting and the August meeting where this was discussed is every time something does come forward between now and when this ordinance goes into effect, we are losing that opportunity. And because we aren't going to grow ourselves out of this problem by annexing land in the county, you know, hemmed in by three incorporated cities and a county that is does not have an interest in having us grow any larger. So we are going to we're going to be governing with it from within. So all of our building, everything that we're gonna do for ourselves is happening on these borders. And so this is a stopgap for us to try to catch anything we can until we have our larger and more comprehensive program in place.

If I did my math correctly, at the current rate of 293 every four years, that takes forty or forty one years to get there.

We do have some projects that you never know when they'll start coming together and we'll get some credit. Vast majority of that two ninety three I think might have been they're not I think that terracina that just opened in '25 will get in next year I see or did we get them last year and it's okay so that's part of the February but we do have some larger projects the the Steven with Sierra College is almost done with its funding our CHW project has gotten all of its funding so we should see some larger ones come in but it's not gonna be in the thousands. And then what about the seventh cycle? What's happening next? How are we gonna address the next the next in the future?

Maybe if you don't mind, I'll double down on that question.

Double down, please. Okay.

So,

we're

to to

do

current land use patterns and and what's in the city that's left to build

out. For the sixth cycle or beyond?

For the 3,062 units.

Well, they're in the the rezones we just did.

Okay.

And so the zoning is there. The production so far we haven't been completely held accountable for producing things that we don't produce. City zone developers build for the most part. So right now the state hasn't put us on the hook for that piece of it as well. You never know what the future will hold. I do not know what the report says in terms of the long term build out of the city. That's probably component of the report, but I'm not familiar with it. I haven't been a part of that project. You.

Okay. Commissioner Thomas?

So in the world of sticks and carrots, right? And that's where we are right now. We've got the bureaucrats typically use sticks, and the state of California is obviously beating us with a stick here. Right? I mean, it's it's threats and and things like that. Have we explored in the state of California, I'm sure we have, but like what are there any options with the state of California to, like, are they giving us any carrots at all to go after or anything that we can use, you know, to buy time, to buy anything, you know, to get some No. Get the stick away from us at all? Yeah. I figured that was the answer, but

At this point, there are incentives through grants for certain types of development, and our affordable housing developers will typically go after that. Their financing packages have a dozen or more different components, including traditional construction loans, tax credit financing, bridge loans, grants, project vouchers. There's a from the federal and state level as well as the private market they are funded in all sorts of different ways. The state has done some things to make it easier, in some ways, but maybe more difficult on jurisdictions in other ways because in in some instances, we all know time is, sometimes time is money more than money is money. And so they'll streamline processes which then puts us in a position where we're having to quickly get things to hearings when we may not have the resources to to comprehensively do the the a thorough review the way we want to or we are having potentially environmental review that we are being told we don't have to comply with or has be taken a different way.

So there are some things that they're doing, but they're typically to incentivize the housing, not to incentivize the jurisdiction to be able to then make the housing more easier to come to fruition.

And then so I'm assuming that our strategy as a city is to try to be compliant with the state of California and their regulations. We're doing our best to be compliant with that as opposed to I mean, there's got to be other jurisdictions out there in our very similar situation that have finally just gotten we can't fight this one anymore. You know, we're gonna give up the fight and just do what we do and suffer the consequences. I mean, I'm just kinda gauging where we are terms of the city and what we think.

It would always be my recommendation. It's in our best interest to do everything we can to be compliant. The state of California does not know anything about silos as it relates to what they will punish you with. And if you have so if you're not complying with your housing element, then maybe you're not eligible for a law enforcement grant. They will pull funding.

They will take away other regular you lose a lot of things and there's a lot of There's lot of sticks. There's a lot of sticks and there's a lot of There's not everything that we're going to always be able to do and we're going to push back where we can, But it's pretty difficult if you are not a completely self funded jurisdiction, which very few in the state of California are, to be able to decline the state. It's very difficult.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Guess a quick question and statement. Booing up what McKenzie and Thomas both said, we've got a reality of two ninety three units in four years. We've got a state who's not very honestly answered. They're they're they're not here to work with us.

And so it it does my history has always defied, but I think we've realized as a city that it makes sense. Obviously, we wanna be in compliance, and we've worked really, really hard to be in compliance. And I I guess one question I have on the urgency side, because that seems to be the crux of the matter right now, is do we put an urgency clause in and and and make this immediate so we can capture any potential projects that we might get before January 1? But in reading the memo, which I thought was very, very helpful, while all these areas may or may not be defense or are legal, it puts us in a maybe a tougher defensible standpoint with developers if we go down the urgency path. So I guess my question is, are we in a housing crisis in Rockland where we could justify an urgency or an urgency move, an urgency policy?

My answer to that is we we used an outside counsel who's our affordable housing expert. He's the same attorney who helps us with our development agreements related to affordable housing to craft the both the urgency and the regular ordinance. And he drafted findings for us that he felt were defensible. Urgency findings are they are what they are. They're as strong as the first person to challenge them. And so are they are they ironclad? I don't know. But are they defensible, and are they legally defensible? Yeah. Those

are my questions for now. So if we don't have any further questions or comments on mister McKenzie commissioner McKenzie, back to you.

Yeah. One more. And this I'm I'm sure the BIA haven't talked to the BIA about this proposal yet, but it struck me when I read the the staff report and in there is a statement. It says developers have the responsibility to see that affordable housing is produced. I'm wondering where that is. As you know, I've been dancing around this thing throughout my entire career on the developer side and now as a government employee in my night job and so I'm seeing it from all angles. I'm, I wasn't I aware of

appreciate that. It's not a legal mandate but I think it was in that I made a reference a little bit ago about it's our obligation to zone and it's but it's not our obligation to build. We work with our partners to develop that affordable housing. So maybe it was a little bit out of context how it was written, but that's what we're going for. We want to do our very best to create an atmosphere where housing of all affordability levels can be built in Rocklin.

We have some unique challenges in addition to what I mentioned before. While our our internal city fees are very comparable in the region, once you add in on the things that we don't have control over, our outside entities, and and we love our partners and the utilities, but we don't control those fees and they're significantly higher than our neighbors. So that's another challenge that we have that we have no control over in terms of how all levels of housing and actually commercial development happens in Rockland. It's very difficult and it makes puts us at a competitive disadvantage. So we're really kind of talking about from that pace.

We can lay the groundwork with all of the zoning and all of the financing and all of the fee deferrals that we want, but it's up It is the private development community that brings housing and and creates the housing. So that that's really what we meant by that statement.

And it's gonna be get another question. How deep can we get into the in lieu fee right now? I guess not the number, but how it would be applied. To And of going do Are we still manifesting how that's gonna come to I mean, talk to me a little bit about how that would apply, who to who it might apply to. Have we gotten that far? Am I just asking a question so we're not ready

for it? So I'm I'm sure that our consultant has gotten a lot further than I'm familiar with. But typically what they're doing is evaluating the feasibility of a well, they're actually I might I'm gonna dance for a little bit and then I'm gonna put Nathan on the spot because he is more involved in this committee, I think. So they are evaluating what is a reasonable in lieu fee for Rockland given how much land we have left to development develop, what that fee would do to the affordability test of actually developing anyway, and how it compares with the neighboring jurisdictions because we don't want to not only make the housing unaffordable but also make us at a less of a competitive advantage. Where they are in that process, I don't know.

But the reason we're working with Kaiser Marcin on this is because this is what they they do. This is their bread and butter. And so they are technical experts and financial analysts, and they do this all the time. I don't know if you have more to add to that or I'm just sorry. I haven't been on that project.

No. I don't I don't have much more to add than that. I mean, I know that they're working on it to find the nexus in terms of what the fees would be. They're looking at a bunch of different jurisdictions in order to determine what the appropriate fee is. But I don't know much more than that at this point.

Is the likelihood the fee applies across the board to all commercial projects or is it just multifamily projects? Is it a certain number of units? Is the same criteria they're gonna be using?

So they will make a recommendation that then will come before this body and then the city council, but it's likely that there will be a threshold of how many and maybe what percentage and then there's a difference between an in lieu fee related to residential development and then potentially a an in lieu it's not an in lieu fee it's called a commercial linkage fee that potentially would identify a separate fee that commercial projects would be assessed to assist with the support for affordable housing in the region or in excuse me, in the the city.

Okay. But we're not there yet. Do we have any other questions while we have Elliot? Okay. Thank you very much. And so at this point in time, I will open this up for public comment. Look a the

at you to chair board. And commission members. I I'm didn't see a card but I'm happy to fill take one out. Jeff Short with the North State BIA. A lot to cover.

I wanna start by though thanking Allie for her level of communication, high level of communication. I have shared most of these concerns with her so hopefully not too many surprises the the biggest thing that we're gonna come and that we want to convey is without a in lieu fee option in place a fee that's payable we are going to remain opposed to any sort of inclusionary ordinance simply put we don't think that it is fair to put the entire demand of affordable housing on the residential development community We are the industry that is building housing. I understand that Rufflin is in a particularly rough situation by the unfair state Rina laws. I agree with that. But punishing the industry writ hole because of this isn't fair especially when commercial development and existing residents aren't being asked to pay their fair share at this point.

Developing residential, you know, single family traditional what you see in Rockland or even market rate apartments and building an affordable housing project, it's like asking a Thai food restaurant to serve hot dogs. Yeah. They're both food but different clientele, different preferences, and a different process of acquiring and and making that product. It is not the same business. Yes, we have some affordable housing members, builders in our membership.

We have five thirty residential companies in our membership. But the product of making an affordable housing project is not the same as a market rate project. And it puts an extreme burden on a residential project to ask them to build an affordable housing project. So much so that if you put an, inclusionary ordinance on residential project, not only will you not get the affordable housing, you're not gonna get any more housing. So that is going to be the effect of this ordinance as written.

With a reasonable and loo fee which is target which we would define as targeted toward what would typically the subsidy that a residential or that an, affordable housing project would typically ask of a city which in the Sacramento area tends to be about 50 to $60,000 per door. If you aim for about a 10% inclusionary requirement, that's roughly $3 per square foot. An ordinance that included something along those lines is something that I think we could remove our objections from at the very least. To that point, this ordinance calls for 15%. That's higher than we typically see in our region.

Most places in the Greater Sacramento area look that have an inclusionary ordinance at all ask for a 10. So this is asking for even higher than what those others without having that in lieu fee option. The other main objection we have is we wanna we are concerned that this ordinance doesn't make it clear enough that projects at any point in the pipeline are exempted. It it says and slash or, a little worried that that might be interpreted as and. It also says approved.

We wanna just be sure that if a project is making its way to approval that it doesn't get caught up in this even if it is in that pre pre application point. I'd encourage the city to reach out to the Housing Trust Placer. They work very closely with the county. They are an independent nonprofit organization but the counties in lieu fees that they collect go directly to them. Then the nonprofit is able to mingle those with grants that they're able to get that no government agency would be able to get providing more money.

They were incorporated at the unfortunate time of January 2020 but even with losing their first year essentially of effectiveness they are in the process of bringing hundreds of units online in Placer County that otherwise would not have been possible. I think those are my comments. I just want to reiterate again that as written, this ordinance will stop development. In Rockland, We'd encourage you to direct staff to come back with a with an in lieu fee as part of this, which was part of the original recommendation that council member, Broadway asked for, back in June. Thank you.

Thank you. Let me Jeff, stick around for a second.

I'm a

see if anybody has any questions for you. I'll start with commissioner Thomas. Any questions?

Jeff, thank you. You alluded to the how do we how do we get more hot dog vendors Yeah. Absolutely. To build here then? I mean, we've got the Thai vendors for sure. Right? We got the Thai restaurants. How do we get the hot dog restaurants in? Because I mean, that's that's where it comes down to. Right? So what what do we do to to get them to build here?

We live in a capitalist society. It's the same thing that motivates almost every action. It's money. And that's why I'm saying that, hey, we are not saying that we would oppose any sort of inclusionary measure. Despite all of our other objections, philosophically, I think if a reasonable in lieu fee is available, we can remove our objections.

With that money, you can basically give it toward an affordable housing project to close that gap financing. Look, I use the city of Rockland's affordable housing incentive program as an example in other places of things that they should do in lots of other places, have starting adopt have started adopting those. But without that, finding some sort of mechanism to address that gap financing, that's the number one roadblock. Thank you.

Thank

you. Commissioner McKenzie.

Thanks for being here Jeff. I think generally you've answered my question but just to confirm kinda reading that statement that I mentioned that in the staff report the same way I am that, you know, developers, you know, they're the unfortunate, you know, best, most available target, if you will, to go after to produce affordable housing. It's yeah. And I see it not only come up here, but in other jurisdictions routinely. And it's from my perspective, you know, it's not where the focus should be.

We should be focused on a solution, not on encumbering developers with an obligation to produce housing that they didn't really cause. The state actually caused it as a function of all the other regulations and fees and costs and things we deal with in the state that is actually pushing up the cost of housing, including inclusionary affordable housing requirements. Yes. Okay. So we're on the same page.

Yes. And then and then yes. Absolutely. Commissioner Armstrong.

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it.

Also, I

appreciate the partnership

with the

city. Agreed.

So thank you.

Thank you. I think I think what you said about and we've we've been saying it since the days of the original committee when we sat on this and started picking sites. They're two separate animals. And every time a project comes in here, I sit up here, whether it's at the chairman's shop or somewhere else, and I'm thinking, they can't get it financed. There's no way it's gonna work.

Just from a forget the numbers, forget 10% fit, it's just not gonna work. So the vendor comparison I think is really pertinent and important. I think what you said and I because we're going down a path philosophically, whether we agree within LUFI's or inclusionary policies, I could go all day long on that. But I think as a city and as a jurisdiction, we've come to a realization that we've got to get down that path. Where have you other cities where you see this happening? You mentioned 15%. What numbers are they coming up with? I'm just kind of just curious.

10% is kind of the regional standard.

And they all have in lieu fees as well?

As far as I can think of if they have an inclusionary policy I can think of one example that that neighboring town whose name I dare not say they have a hard inclusionary and you see almost no housing get built in Loomis. They do not have an in lieu fee option. They actually are working to develop one but haven't gotten there yet. Off the top of my head that's the only one I can think of that has an oh and I believe the city of Davis has an inclusionary without a in lieu fee option.

No, I appreciate your comments and I'll certainly take them in, you know, it brings a lot of common sense to the approach. We've got to maintain building, get the numbers up. The only question I have and I'll save for later, I think it was in the packet, we don't get credit. In lieu, we get no credit. So we get the money, we can throw it towards some gap financing which certainly helps, but there's a credit that we don't get for the numbers.

I would like to address that if I could.

Please do.

One thing that you could do with the in lieu fee though is tie up land and hold it for multifamily development. You know, we think it works best when targeted toward the subsidy that is asked for but it doesn't necessarily have to be used for that gap financing if the city has other mechanisms of providing that.

Okay. So you're saying there's some other options in there we might be able to pursue. Jeff, I appreciate it. Thank you. Of course. All good? All right. I think we have some other people who wanna speak. So next person, please come on up. I'm letting people speak. Haven't put a timer on anybody because we don't have a small audience. I want you guys to be able to say what you're gonna say.

Mister chairman, members of the commission, Marcus LaDuca, 1508 Eureka Road. Thanks for the opportunity to come before you. I've been dealing with this issue my entire career which is now in its fortieth year. I did wanna echo some of the things that Jeff said. In a market based economy, most of our builders at the BIA who produce 90% of the units in this region are national builders.

They build in multiple markets and if it's too difficult in one market, they just move to the next one. It doesn't they'll just walk away from projects. That's how the system works. The local people that you'll deal with will come up with projects. They have to go before their real estate committees and they have to fight against people in other parts of the state, other parts of other states for capital allocations from their company.

Again, other than so you're looking at what competing jurisdictions do. Your question was right on relative to who else, what else is out there. Again, other than maybe Lumos or Davis, no other jurisdiction in the region with an inclusionary requirement doesn't have it in LUFI. And I can tell you right now, Davis and Lumos are not competition for projects in Rockland. First of all, takes about ten years or so to get a project approved in Davis and then it's litigated and it takes fifteen years and Loomis still doesn't produce the housing.

Again, looking at that 15% versus 10, the ones that do have an inclusionary ordinance and not every jurisdiction does, yours is a 50% increase above that. So it's not just a slight increase, it's a substantial increase. There is no requirement that I am aware of other than, again, Lumas and Davis where there's a requirement for a fixed percentage to be built for sale housing to be built for low income. For example, in Placer County, which has a whole range of options available to a builder, you can build ADUs to satisfy your low income requirement, and they are what's called low income by design because their ADUs are no more than 750 square feet. I've now well, I spent three and a half hours at a hearing this afternoon getting a project approved in West Placer at 332 units 322 units, and it has 33 ADUs.

And it will have also a deed restricted, very low income ADU. And that's how they have satisfied it. None of the actual homes in the subdivision have that restriction. I did have a few comments. On page three of your staff report, unlike the ordinance itself, it lists the four exemptions.

And after the third one, it says and or. If it's and, that means that all four have to apply, and I would bet there isn't a single parcel in Rockland that would meet that. So your ordinance does not say end. The ordinance in exhibit a just lists the four. But again, the very first one of those exemptions, it says a housing development project application determined to be complete by staff or deemed complete by law.

That always that talks of a current project, but nowhere does this say approved projects. I have two approved projects that are under construction. So, you know, they're asking me what do we do? So it needs to say not just projects whose applications have been deemed complete either by staff or by law, but also all approved projects are not subject to it because they've gone through the hearing process. One of the other areas where it says deemed complete by law under SB three thirty and its subsequent amendments, there is a process that has been created by the state called the preliminary application that when that is submitted, it's just a checklist.

17 items. Local jurisdictions cannot add to it. It's just 17 informational items. When that is thirty days have passed, it's deemed it has to be deemed complete or it triggers other problems from s b three thirty. That vests all the ordinances and rules, codes, requirements.

So the ordinance also needs to conclude that. Otherwise, you've created a situation where you may have been in a situation where you'll create a violation of SB three thirty. I also did wanna note that sometimes people point to Roseville. What's Roseville done? And I I mean, after I've I've represented nearly 50 projects in Rockland that have approved over my last thirty nine plus years and probably 85 projects in Rock Roseville.

Starting in the mid nineteen eighties, when it went through with a specific plan process, it required development agreements. Development agreements had a requirement there for for certain for sale units designated in a subdivision to be affordable and it was to specifically middle income units which is a 100% of median income. In Placer County, the median income for a family of four is a $114,000 as of this past May. The requirement was paired with a requirement for Roseville to provide a subsidy and you're required to market those for thirty days and if you didn't find a qualified purchaser, it went to market rate. That was true from 1985 until 2010.

In 2010, I represented a group of property owners in the Sierra Vista specific plan, which is a baseline and fitment, approximately 2,100 acres, about 8,800 units. There was one builder in that group that agreed to have middle income for sale because they had a product type that they could build. It was a very stripped down house. I mean, you want air conditioning, you paid more, those kind of things. But since that time, the next specific plan that Roseville approved with that requirement was the Creekview specific plan immediately to the north of that in 2012.

Nine years later, that specific plan came forward with an amendment to the development agreement that eliminated all those middle income units. So since 2010, there has been no for sale purchase requirement, affordable requirement in Roseau. It only applies to rental. And everyone's been taking their entire affordable housing program, putting it into rental. The reason why an in move fee is so important is what Jeff mentioned.

I helped create Housing Trust Placer. I'm still their legal counsel years later. And it's that gap financing. When the state of California stole redevelopment and closed down redevelopments in 2011, they removed one of the last tools that local government had in the state to fund help fund affordable housing. The in lieu fee program, whether it's in Elk Grove or Folsom or the county, is being used to fill the gap because otherwise you don't have the funds available.

So it's not just a fact that, well, you're gonna have in lieu fees and you're not gonna get credit for that. Well, you are gonna get credit when you produce the units and you meet that gap. And we have a 44 unit project for low and very low rental project in the Dry Creek plaster West Plaster community that will be finalized in December. We're going to hearing on a 280 unit 240 unit project in Penryn. And Folsom is using its in lieu fee to fund projects.

Elk Grove is using it to fund the gap. And one of the critical things that whether it's Rockland or any of the local agencies and I work throughout the region is facing is that in 2029, you're facing another housing element, three and a half years, but they're looking at what you've produced. And the city manager very accurately showed what you what you have produced. So the ability to fund that gap, not just with the other 12 funds, even after the 12 different sources of money come together, an affordable builder still has a gap. I've represented most of the affordable builders in this region over my career and the gap is growing and the in lieu fees are the only source that's providing that gap after taxes on financing, tax credits, all the other financing that's coming from the state or federal government.

And so the in lieu fee is a critical component to actually producing units. Because you're right, just having a pot of in lieu money, what does that do you? Not much. We have a pot of money. But the affordable projects coming forward, you know, are looking at your incentive program, but you gotta fund the incentive program.

You don't wanna take general fund money and say we're gonna take all this money now, not provide services and shift it to this. You need a new source of money and the in lieu fee program is that. In the interim, again, you're coming forward with your permanent ordinance that hopefully will have a fair in lieu fee that can be workable. But what it'll mean is that from the night that the urgency ordinance gets adopted until the permanent ordinance is adopted, you won't have any new applications for sale product coming forward in the city. It just that that's just the reality of it.

I had to advise a client today that's about to enter into contract on a housing a large housing site, one of the few left in Rockland today that they had to insert certain language in their contract. It'll likely be rejected by the seller and the deal will go away simply to cover themselves if in fact there is a inclusionary ordinance without an in lieu fee because otherwise they it wouldn't pencil on what they're paying for the land. Thank you. So thank you.

Before you go, any questions? I'll stop with Commissioner Thomas.

So to clarify, mind the gap and make sure we include in lieu fees is what

we're Yeah, if looking you want to produce housing, and that's the whole object, everyone's scrambling around trying to produce it, you need another fund. And so the in lieu fee is provided whether it's Sacramento County unincorporated, full Seminole Grove, that fund. And they are producing housing. They are having projects come out of the ground because as the city manager mentioned, it takes a long time sometimes for these affordable projects to get to get all the financing and upside is ten years.

Right.

Well, you you can't wait ten years. You need it built in the next three years. You absolutely have to have it built and that's gonna be the only way to get that done. Thank you. Commissioner Armstrong? Thank you, Marcus. Appreciate it. Thank you.

We still have public comment going on. So we have anybody else in the audience that wishes to speak before us? Okay. Please come up. I know who you are, but please state your name for the record. Nice to have you here. Yes.

Thank you. Ken Broadway, Rockland resident for twenty eight years. Thank you commissioners for the opportunity to speak. I actually wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but I feel compelled to do so. I wish we really weren't here in a place where we have to consider this type of ordinance, whether it's an urgency ordinance, whether it's putting an ordinance in place initially without an in lieu fee, or ultimately putting an ordinance in place with the in lieu fee, which is ultimately what will occur.

But it's required because for nine years I've served as a council member for the city Of Rockland and two years prior to that I had the honor of serving as a member of this body as a planning commissioner. And over that entire period of time, the city had a process in place where it encouraged the development of affordable units. And I can't tell you how many times we had projects come forward on Rina identified parcels that produced zero affordable units. We encouraged. We asked.

We got nothing. And what did that do for the city of Rockland? It produced no units. It prevented us from having a compliant housing element. And what did that do for us?

It created challenges and it continues to create challenges. The question that came up, from commissioner McKenzie asked, why if we're approaching build out is an urgency ordinance necessary? Well, actually, that's probably the reason it's more important than ever that we do so. Because we don't have the ability that other communities have to look elsewhere for parcels. We can't go on the Westerly Side Of 65.

We can't look easterly towards Loomis. We don't have those parcels. We have a specific set number of parcels. And in today's environment, if a parcel or a development comes forward on one of those parcels, that movement can occur with that project without a single affordable unit, not one. We have no means within the city of Rockland to ensure some production of affordable units occur.

That is a huge problem for this community. How do we fix that? Well, I will reference back to a comment that was made by mister Marcus DeLuca. He spoke specifically to SB three thirty. And the fact that there is just a short checklist of items that have to be met, and you complete those within thirty days, guess what? We don't have any way to require anything. Even if we put this ordinance in place in May. If they submit it next month, the month after. That's why this ordinance is necessary now, not later. We can't keep kicking the can down the road.

I heard the word unfair. You know what's unfair? It's unfair to this city and its residents that we continue to have projects brought forward on areas that we've identified as a city that should produce affordable units. And we, based on our state and developers, can do nothing to prevent these developments without any affordable units today. We can fix that.

And you're presented with the ability to do that. Finally, the 15%. It was mentioned the low numbers on the 15 you know, the 15% and that's a high number and, yes, it is. But if we're going to move that 200 higher, we're going to have to produce units. And the way we do that is with a higher number.

And that's why we need to set an appropriate number. And I think that number has been set. So in closing, the price of inactivity is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. So if we have a little bit of risk associated with this, so be it. Do what's right for our community. And that's what we're being called to do. Thank you. Thank you.

And with that any other people that wish to speak addressing as public? Okay. I'm gonna bring it close public comment. I wanna bring it back up to the dais. And I'm gonna have Ali

I actually just wanted to, clarify two things, and then, of course, if there are more questions or comments, I'd I'm happy to answer them. The ordinance, as contemplated, the two, I'm going to call them temporary ordinances, it's a range of percentages. So if you are going to provide very low income units, it is 10%, which is in line. Jeff is correct. That's the most common 10%.

And if you are going to produce, extremely low income units or provide those within your your market rate development, then you are only obligated to provide 5%. It's if you are producing those higher of the deed restricted, the low income category, which is a category that is easier for the city to produce, that we put it at 15. Because, again, we're trying to incentivize the units that are harder for us to develop. And this is in line with the city's affordable housing incentive program where we are using our limited low and moderate income housing dollars to incentivize only very low and extremely low income units. We are not using those dollars for projects, while deed restricted, that are providing units that are at 60 or 80% or higher of the area median income even though those do count as affordable in the cities in the excuse me, in the state's RINA calculation.

So there is a 10% option in there. It's just you have to provide a unit that's providing a deeper level of affordability. So it's a little bit of a blend there. Part of this is to see if we can get some units. And again, this is a temporary measure, and I don't know exactly how that will pan out with the larger, more comprehensive study, but it's something that we thought might be a good way to incentivize some of the deeper affordability that we're looking for in the city.

It was referenced that we won't get any unit or any projects if we don't have an affordable or an in lieu fee. I would counter that by saying we won't get any market rate projects. We certainly are welcoming any affordable projects that want to come our way at any time. We certainly we are talking to a couple developers right now, and we do have preliminary commitment letters of our low and moderate income housing fund in for three projects right now. So we are doing our best to incentivize and help to produce that affordable housing.

And in the future, with the larger and more comprehensive in lieu fee that I anticipate bringing before the council and recommending and hopefully getting adopted in the spring, that will help to further our gap financing opportunities that right now we're using our very small low mod fund to do. That fund only has about $6,000,000 right now, and it's not regularly replenished. It only gets replenished when certain things happen, like there's a refinancing or a unit that we have some for sale units, and sometimes when those are sold, we get a little bit of money back. So that fund will continue to dwindle unless and until we establish a MIN and LUFI program, and so then we will be able to continue to provide that gap funding that was identified by some of the other speakers. In this interim program, we do have that gap funding to offer to incentivize affordable housing.

And that's what we'll continue to do.

Thank you very much.

Oh, and I also want to mention that we aren't having a problem producing the market rate units of our Arena. There is. I I went on and on about the 3,000, but there's another 2,500 or so units of moderate and above moderate, and we're doing fine there.

Thank you. Do I have to open up public comment again with just asking procedurally? No. Okay. Just making sure. Just I was just procedural. Just making a question. Okay. So we're back over the dais now, and I'm gonna, leave it for questions. I'll start with commissioner McKenzie. Do we have any questions or we wanna bring it for Ali or we're bring it up for comment? Any questions for Ali at this time?

I do have a question. It may go to the city manager, may go to the city attorney's office. We'll see, you know, one of the to council member Broadway's concern, you know, we've seen these projects over the years come through and rezone general plan, our commercial and property or not property, but sales tax and job producing lands into housing and we haven't got anything for that to his point. It's been, I don't know, ten, fifteen years worth of discussion and, you know, here we are reaping the downsides of of that. Is there a way to focus at a bare minimum, lots to discuss here, but general plans and rezones, when those types of projects come forward from this ordinance state forward to say, you're gonna have an inclusionary requirement as a function of to get that rezone and general plan amendment, or is that conditional zoning which isn't legal?

That's a good question.

If you are asking, I'm gonna tell you back what I think you're asking. If we only applied an inclusionary requirement for housing projects that needed to get a rezone in order to develop, so they're, for example, they're changing from commercial. I think that could be an option to present if just applying it to those types of projects and not any residential, I think that could be a legal option to look into.

Yeah. I think it's one of the suite of options, but one that should definitely be on the table. Councilmember Broadway and I sat through, I don't know how many years, the city manager who, you know, kept sending this our way. And it was, you know, part of the strategy at the time, which we didn't necessarily agree with and kept asking for fiscal studies to help us understand what the ramifications of that were. We know what they are relative to affordable housing. We didn't get anything out of it. So thank you.

You

may have answered this, and it's a terrible question, but I mean, okay, we're going to the plan is to is to pass this in in the spring or to get this implemented in the spring. And I'm assuming that the plan is also to have that in lieu fee at that time. What I mean, what's so what if we don't build anything or we don't pass anything over the next six months? What's that what are the ramifications of that?

I don't know that there's any ramifications per se. I would I would one of my the conversations I had with Jeff was, do you know everything in the pipeline that we might be impacting? And he he doesn't know everything, and we certainly weren't trying to beat a project to to get ahead of someone. That wasn't the intent. The intent was to address, you know, the urgency that we're feeling in general.

But I would push back. I guess I would say is our planning department knows how often projects are coming in and of what size, and so I don't know that what the potential is of projects that we aren't aware of. Because typically by now they would have been talking to us about their plans even if those plans were just sketching around.

So mean looking looking at it from an arena standpoint, right? I mean, we we have these parcels that are dedicated towards that. Right? So, I mean, if we stop building for the next six months or so, we don't lose anything from that side of it is what I'm trying to get to. Is that is that correct? I mean, like, we

If if we stopped project applications?

Yeah. I mean, if if I mean, he Jeff's Jeff's argument is and and I'm not disagreeing and I'm playing devil's advocate here for sure. I'm not it's not what I'm saying. I hope happens. But his his his his argument is if we put this in place right now, we will not get any we won't get any applicants. We we're not nobody's gonna build here. They're just gonna move on. You know, at least for the next six months. That's the let's let's assume that that we get nothing. Right? How does that hurt us as a city?

Speaking simply to what we are obligated to, we have completed that obligation with the zoning. The housing that would likely be produced between now and the end of the calendar year that would go on our affordable housing or housing production report for next year, that housing is well underway and would be exempt from this process whether it was approved tonight or approved in January or next spring. So I think it would probably be minimal impact. Looks

like a terrible question, but one that needed to be asked.

And I will start with commissioner Armstrong.

So, I appreciate the opportunity to address and I'm so glad that we did get those who are impacted to come in and speak to us. Very much that, community oriented planning commissioner who wants to hear from as many people as possible. I did go back and take a look at the June 12 meeting as well as June 24 as well as August 12 meeting and was very encouraged by the robust conversations that city council had with regards to this issue and see why it's very important. So, I am inclined to commit because there's I mean, at some point, you gotta rip the band aid off. Right?

So we can rip it off or we can have the state rip it off. However we wanna do it, you know. We can rip it off, and then they can feed us hot dogs. Yeah. So I'm I'm at some point, you just gotta rip the band aid off.

I and and as hard as it is, and I will say to you, as I say to everyone, we live in a really good place. And it it is because of decisions that have been made in the past why we choose to live here. Those of us who choose to live in Rockland recognize that decisions were made that really appeal to our sense of community and why we want to be here. Sometimes we disagree with those decisions, but we live in a really good place. So, I am inclined to rip the band aid off. I am. I am inclined to make sure that we do what we need to do to continue our legacy of living in a really good place.

Thank you. Commissioner McKenzie.

Thank you, mister chairman. So it's not abundantly clear already. I generally don't support inclusionary ordinances just, you know, given my career on on both sides of the equation. However, in this case, I do support it what with an in lieu fee program. And why in my simpleton way of thinking about an in lieu fee program, especially if you have an odd percentage required for an even number of units, you're gonna have some spillover.

Right? You need a quarter of a unit here, unit a half a unit there. You have to have an in lieu fee program in order to make up those differences or you start swapping out numbers with other projects. And so you gotta have an in lieu fee in order to support that. And it's supported by the industry and I think we're seeing good results in our region through the use of those fees. It's probably what's gonna generate units. I don't know that pushing this obligation on to the developers who really aren't the cause of our local issues with affordable housing generation. You know, it it's really a state. Right? We're trying to effectively treat the symptom and not the disease.

But we're to commissioner Armstrong's comment, you know, put the band aid on this thing is not gonna cure it, unfortunately. So, you know, I would much rather see just from a even number perspective and even percentage applied to all these of even if it was ten, ten, and five instead of fifteen, ten, and five. You lose a little incentive there, but I think it's just if for no other reason, I see the number. But you still have to have that in lieu fee program there because you're gonna get a project with, you know, 11 units or some weird number that you have to have a fee for. You know, I'm a market free market fiscal conservative.

I live in the right city for that. I don't live in the right state for that, unfortunately. And, you know, the the state is creating these issues as as I mentioned before. What these ordinances tend to do is they are putting an obligation on every, you know, 10 unit project to basically cover the cost of that one unit at 10% or one and a half units at 15% based upon those other units. And what's that doing? It's driving up the cost of housing. That's effectively what's happening here. And it's unfortunate. And we haven't figured out at the state level that that's the problem. It's the problem.

It's the regulations. It's all these affordable housing requirements that locally jurisdictions can't meet without getting really creative. So from my perspective, yeah, I would support a a lower number, a ten ten five, and an in lieu fee program because you have to have it. You know, I get the urgency. You know, I think you, you know, you avoid the whole moratorium discussion with an immediacy clause and an urgency ordinance. That's a good thing. We don't wanna talk about moratoriums because that definitely chases away projects. We have to do something. I don't disagree what that is. I don't have the crystal ball on what's gonna work.

I know it's not gonna work, and that's being overly prescriptive on projects and chasing them out of town. We have to work with our developers, come up with something that works. Hopefully, includes an end of fee program, and that's what I would support.

Thank you, commissioner McKenzie. Great conversation with everybody. I appreciate everybody being here and with all the input. I too am philosophically opposed to these types of ordinances and policies. I think the city of Rockland's done a pretty darn good job getting to where we've been without them.

But I think the input tonight has has brought me clarity on a couple of things. One, I'll echo what my fellow commissioner said. I I I think it's incumbent upon us to to sooner than later come up with an in lieu fee because the answer to your question is, and you said the quiet part out loud, it doesn't matter, right? Because if we if there's no risk if they don't build, but the only risk is they go down the road to what somebody said earlier. They go to Roseville. They go to Loomis. They go somewhere else. So you lose the market opportunity. That's the risk. I mean, that's the risk we play every day with the game we're playing.

And that's the state of California is putting us in this game. So I'm opposed to all of it, I think the city of Rockland has proven that time and time again, we're on the forefront. We take it seriously. Whether we agree with the policies or not, we know we have to do something to get the numbers. I'm gonna the urgency thing, I've I've come full circle on that.

And I and I will say that short of an in lieu fee, which I think will keep people from building if we don't have an in lieu fee until we get one in place, the urgency statement that you made doesn't make sense to me. I mean, we had a small amount of acreage left and if we don't get people building affordable now, we're gonna lose those acres. So I I in the moratorium, I I agree with you. So I could support the urgency, component of this. I think the ten ten antenna is a lot more viable.

It puts us a lot more in in in consistent with other jurisdictions. But I think most importantly is that in lieu fee because the 10 to 15 to five is not gonna matter if they have it in lieu fee. It's gonna matter. But it's gonna give that developer an opportunity to say, okay, I can I can pay money and not have to build the affordable units and it does give us some gap financing down the So I don't know how we approach this if we want to go ahead and make suggestions on because I overall support what we're doing from a city policy standpoint? We have to. We got to play with the state. This is how we do it. And I think we play with the state by showing them we're playing the right way, but we can't drive our development community out of town. Our development community has been critical to building this town out the way it has been. So we have to work step with them.

And and so, I would look for a motion or comment. No. Oh, I'm no. I think you spoke. Did you not speak? You I didn't give it to you?

How did it get to me? How did it end up here with me and I didn't give it to

you? Yeah. I'm gonna go to you then.

I was I was really digging what

you're saying.

You know what's funny about that

is I I usually go to you and then come back to me at the end. I got a little selfish

there. But, I mean, I don't know that I'm gonna add much to it. It's

it's Add.

Wait. Please. We all I mean, we're all saying the same thing, is that you have to play the hand that you're dealt, and we're we've been dealt a terrible a terrible hand. And and sometimes you you have to to step on the people that that you like and that we want to to support and that we want here just because that's that's what we have to we had to play it. So I mean, I I I'm with you guys on this one.

As far as the urgency goes, like I there's there's some questions in terms of of the only place that that concerns me the most, yeah, we we stopped building for a little while. Hopefully they come back. I don't know if they will. You know, we're we're assuming they will. The legalities of it concern me for sure, you know, opening ourselves up to a lawsuit.

I'm assuming that the the attorney's going there. But luckily, you know, as planning commissioners here, we we are gonna kick this up and and put this on on the the city council to to make this all important decision. But but in terms of a recommendation, much as it pains me to, you know, to admit it, I think we have to do it. I don't like it either, but that's how I feel. The same as you guys.

Thank you, Commissioner Thomas. And with that, and I appreciate your patience, and let me talk over you there. With that, I would look to I'll look to my left, if it's appropriate to add the commentary, if we wanna add changes to that or pass forward with I mean, I'll allow it I'll look for a motion.

Yeah. Was actually gonna ask staff relative to the in lieu fee side. It's not in our current proposal. If our commentary is enough to get us there as a recommendation to the council that that come along with it. Obviously, there's work to be done there. Right? Can you get that down the amount of time necessary? Is is that enough from a commission if if that were where the votes went?

That's a good question. Does that crunch our time down?

And, you know, we didn't discuss this earlier. It was referenced that during the original recommendation from council member Broadway, he did, request an or, I'm gonna call it urgency lowercase ordinance in terms of timing but with an in lieu fee. One of the reasons that staff was not recommending at this time is that that is a technical item to calculate. We could certainly select an in lieu fee, but that would be in some ways as maybe legally squishy as some urgency findings. They are as strong again as whoever's going to legally challenge it.

So if that's something that the commission would like the council to consider, I can see you maybe recommending they consider it. But it would take some work from staff, so I don't know that it would be a part of the official recommendation on the twenty eighth considering I have to get it to the Herald this Friday.

Let's then let's discuss that. Commissioner McKenzie used to you with some comments or you would have

Yeah. I probably have lots of comments. I'm trying to choose them carefully. Yeah. My day job, I manage a $1,200,000,000 in lieu fee program. So I appreciate where staff's at. That takes, you know, nexus work and getting that right is very difficult. And you gotta come back to it every five years at a minimum. You should do it more often. You know, there's all kinds of discussions around in the fee programs. But I really don't see this being successful without it. So that would be, you know, part of any motion I would be making would be to bring forward an in the fee program because otherwise I don't see this working ultimately. Might get along for a little while without it. Maybe that's something that follows. But this is really for, you know, council's discussion.

So, yeah, that would be my recommendation. You're relative to urgency ordinance. I did have some thoughts on that. Not that I wanna give anybody any ideas, but, you know, why do you bring forward this as an urgency ordinance? It it's really a stop gap measure. Right? We're trying to make sure that we don't have more applications come rolling in the door the day after the council makes a decision to not have it be urgency between now and when they can get a, you know, a normal ordinance in front of the council and approved and then it goes into effect six days later or whatever it might be. So it's not the way I wanna give anybody I'd any ideas but I'm not opposed to the urgency side of it from that perspective.

Commissioner Armstrong, commentary?

Thank you. The same comments with regards to the in lieu. As I was reading the material and doing the research, that that is something that really and truly takes a lot of time, like you said, with the nexus. So I'm not inclined to rewrite what staff is asking us to approve. Again, I think those discussions are gonna take place at the city council level, and they can do it, especially since council member Broadway brought that up with his original back in August or June 24.

So I'm inclined to make sure that they know that we had the discussion and that the recommendation is that it includes the in lieu but in light of the time frame with getting it posted and in light of the work that's being done for the permanent one, I'm still I'm wanting to wait on that one.

Okay. And you're good. Okay. And I'm actually gonna jump in and say I would the complexity of it certainly, but I would on the side of let's

do

the hard work and get an in lieu fee sooner than later. So I'm inclined to put it in the motion so that council has an understanding of the importance we place on that particular fee. Because I think it's the linchpin not only from the developer standpoint, but commissioner McKenzie makes commentary about incremental, fractional, how do you assign numbers. There's gotta be a fee to take care of stuff. And so if we're gonna do the the urgency, which I think makes sense, I think I think it does have a a certain amount of, you know, it it keeps us from a moratorium and and allows us to cover that gap between I think we gotta work on putting in an in lieu fee.

It might be tough. We might not make it. But I think I'd like to recommend that that is a part of this motion moving forward so council has an understanding of the importance we put on it. And with that, whomever would like to summarize and bring this back in a motion format,

feel free. Could I ask a question for clarification, too? There was some comments from Mr. Short and others about ambiguities in the exemptions. And as far as whether or not Commissioner McKenzie had raised that question as well about whether or not the exemption clearly applies to projects that have been improved or other stages and also if a project has submitted a completed SB three thirty application, I think those are good things to clarify in here. If you want that to be part of your motion, staff can include that.

Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. In fact, put my glasses on and see exemptions on here. That that is if we could get it's just clarity in the policy on the objection. And then also in it was brought up in public comment on the is that inclusive of the and or ordinance?

I believe Mr. Lodugo was saying that was misstated in the staff report, but it's not in the ordinance. That way we'll just make sure and correct that for the city council.

I do Either think it makes

either of these exemptions can apply. Not all of them don't have to apply as how the ordinance if we feel

we can clarify.

If we need any clarifying language, we can go back and look at I

actually looked at the ordinance, and it does say or. So the and or is in the staff report but not in the ordinance. I think the ordinance reads correctly. Okay. Let's just make

sure we verify that as it moves its way up through the process and all But I appreciate that input. And with all that

I think the first two are easy. I'll need help on the third.

Okay.

Fair enough. Let's take them one at a time. So I will move approval of the resolution of the Planning Commission of City of Rockland recommending approval of a notice of exemption pursuant to CEQA as written.

Slide. Then then And A carries. We'll move on

to item B. So I'll recommend or move approval of resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Rockland recommending approval of an urgency ordinance to amend title 17 of the Rockland Municipal Code as written.

We have a motion on two a section b. Do we have a second?

Sorry. This would include the clarification with the exemptions because they're in both ordinances. And then did you want an adjustment to the affordability percentages?

So that has to be here as well, and the urgency as well.

Yes. They're they're identical additions to the zoning code. So if you want it in one, you can make it in I mean, unless there's a policy reason for not having

my motion to clarify the exemptions and to what was the other side of that? The percentages. Oh, yeah. And to recommend to the council that the percentages instead of fifteen, ten, and five be ten, ten, and five.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Okay. Motion carries. Item two a c.

Two a c. I will move approval of the resolution of planning commission city of Rockland recommending approval of an ordinance to amend title 17 of the Rockham municipal code to incorporate inclusionary housing requirements as chapter 17.95. With the changes to the percentages of ten, ten, and five. Also include as part of that motion, a recommendation of the council to bring forward with those requirements in in lieu fee program. Just simply state it without too much other detail. I think they'll hear our commentary on that. What am I missing?

The exemptions, a clarification language also.

Also the exemptions including those. We have

a motion on item two a section c. Do we have a second?

A second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Okay. So now we're on to item 2B.

Thank you very much. Good evening. Nathan Anderson with Rockland Planning Division. I come to the Planning Commission tonight, although Ali stole some of my thunder with good news that as of September 26, staff received a letter from HCD that our housing element has been recertified. So that's great.

Staff wants to thank the commission for the hard work, late nights as we collectively brought the housing element back into compliance mostly, which brings us to tonight, following conversations with HCD, staff has made aware of two additional changes. They were very minor. They're text changes to the general plan, but they help further clarify and explain these recently approved revisions of the housing element. So, these adjustments weren't considered substantial enough to delay recertification but we wanted to bring these forward as quickly as possible to fully close closed loop on housing element for the year. So the first change is to housing element table seven forty six, which now includes a new estimated completion date column.

It reflects actual or projected completion dates for approved projects. So data's been added for the Terracina project at Whitney Ranch, Sierra College Senior Apartments, which is now called the Steven, Pacific Street Apartments, and University Avenue Apartments. So, those are projects that have been recommended for approval by this body, ultimately approved by the council, and now are reflected in the housing element as well. The second change adds clarifying text, Chapter seven-two, which explains that the approved alternative arena sites are substantially consistent with the previously approved sites in terms of assessment of fair housing. So in other words, the alternative sites are located in generally the same areas and share similar circumstances as the original sites and don't change the findings that staff had with regard to fair housing.

So no other changes are proposed, and thankfully no sites are proposed to be modified tonight. As part of this one, staff recommends the commission approve the resolution recommending the council adopt the or approve the general plan amendment to provide these minor text clarifications to the housing element. That includes staff's presentation. If you have questions,

I'm here.

I'll start with commissioner Thomas. Any questions for staff?

No questions.

Commissioner Armstrong? No. Commissioner McKenzie, I have no questions at this time. Let me take it out to the public and open it up for public comment. Do we have anybody wishing to speak on this item sitting in the public? Seeing nobody, I'll bring it back up to the dais for further comment and or a motion.

So moved.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And then we'll move on to item three, nonpublic hearings 3A, general correspondence reports for the city staff.

Good evening, members of the commission. Excuse me. David Mullenbrook, community development director. Just a couple of brief reports for the commission's information. As just referenced, on August 26, the city council did approve the alternative RHNA sites.

There were four sites that were ultimately removed from that effort. That included the property at the end of Argonaut, a portion of the Del Mar site that had the Jaybird Place connection, College Park site, and also the Willard Way site. So those four sites were removed. But ultimately, as Nate just mentioned, we had enough sites to get the housing element back into compliance. On the September 23, the city council approved the Montreaux and Skyview final maps.

Those are two subdivisions within the overall Clover Valley project. We anticipate bringing forward in the very near future the first portion of the Zone Rocklin update project. We've been working with our consultant on that for some time. We had check ins with both the commission and the council earlier, and hopefully we'll have be moving a work product to you shortly. Wanted to also recognize, and this is overdue, that Nathan Anderson was promoted to principal planner. And so wanted to congratulate him and publicly recognize that opportunity.

Congratulations, Nate. That's awesome. Right there. Perfect.

And also we are in the process of trying to backfill his position with recruitment ongoing and applications. The first round closes this Friday. And then lastly, the October 21 planning commission meeting, we expect that to be canceled. Look for cancellation notice for the official notification. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Item three b. Any reports discussion items from planning commissioners? Alright. This meeting is adjourned.