City Council - Regular Meeting

pleasure having you today will you all please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance 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 Item 4 is changes to the order of the agenda. Staff, are there any changes?

There are no changes, Mr. Mayor.

Good evening, Council. I just wanted to make a quick note. You may have already noticed that the City Manager and I have swapped seats. We also have a few technology updates that we did over the summer break. I'm just going to ask that you bear with us as we get adjusted to everything tonight. Thank you.

Council, are there any changes? Mr. City Attorney, are there any reports from this evening's closed session?

There are no reports tonight, Mr. Mayor.

We have two presentations this evening. First, we'll be presenting a proclamation recognizing August as National Emergency Management Awareness Month. Receiving this proclamation is Fire Chief Baraka Carter.

Do you want to help me? Hello. Thanks for being here today. And thank you to Sean and your team for making our mayor of the day so special. We got to ride on the fire truck and the drone, right? Yes. So we were made to feel very special. Okay, ready? Whereas emergency and disasters can occur unexpectedly, posing significant threat to life, property, and the environment. And...

Whereas local emergency managers across all sectors, community leaders, state governments, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency dedicate countless hours to developing Preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Programs to protect the lives and property of people throughout the United States and U.S. territories.

And I gave the long one. Whereas emergency managers serve the nation by responding to countless emergencies and disasters each year, demonstrating their commitment, compassion, and professionalism in protecting the public and...

Whereas emergency managers serve the nation by responding to countless emergencies and disasters each year, demonstrating their commitment, compassion, and professionalism in protecting the public and...

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Puneet Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, on behalf of the entire City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of August 2026 as National Emergency Management Awareness Month, and express sincere appreciation for emergency managers in every sector who work diligently to prepare and protect our cities, counties, states, tribes, territories, regions, and organizations against all hazards and risks, presented this 10th day of August 2026.

Well, good evening. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, council members, and community members. So this is a great opportunity for us to really take a moment to express to the community the importance of emergency preparedness and to communicate that emergency preparedness begins way before the emergency begins. So really, with your leadership, your support, the support of the staff and the community, I really appreciate your leadership in supporting emergency preparedness and the work that the city staff has done to continuously make San Carlos a resilient community. I really appreciate this and thank you for the time.

Thank you, Chief Carter. just want to say thank you for helping with the foster city fires and the fires in washington also it takes a team so thank you for going out there you're back on are there any questions or comments from the council crystal do you have any speaker slips

I do not have any slips for in-person and there are no hands on Zoom for this item. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to item 6B, we'll receive a presentation from Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District on updates to project from Mid-Pen Board Director Zoe Christine Tucker.

Well, good evening, Mayor Basu. And Mayor Venkatesh, members of the council, staff. Delighted to be here this evening to talk to you a little bit about MidPenn. My name is Zoe Kirstein Tucker. I'm president of the board of directors and I represent Ward 7, which includes the lovely city of San Carlos. So I know time is of the essence. I'm going to fly through this presentation. Questions at the end. If I talk too fast, tell me to slow down. First slide, please.

Zoe, would you like to control it on your, I'm right here.

Okay, Midpen's mission really can be summarized with five words. preserve, protect, restore, educate, and enjoy in that order. On the coast side, our mission has expanded to include protection and support for agriculture as well. This slide shows the extent of our district boundaries. It runs from the east to the bay to Highway 1 to the west, north to Pacifica, and south to Los Gatos. The dark green areas that you see are Midpen Preserves. The light green areas are other protected lands in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This map depicts the ward boundaries, there are seven of us on the Board of Directors, five of us, five of the wards are in Santa Clara County, two are in San Mateo County. My ward includes San Carlos and extends all the way over to the coast, which is where I'm from. Of the lands we have protected, there are several metrics that we're very proud to have achieved, and these are several of them here. 7,400 acres of redwood forests, 77 miles of perennial creeks, 1,400 acres of riparian vegetation, and lots more. Some quick facts about Mid-Penn. In 2022, we celebrated the district's 50th anniversary. In these last 50 years, we've created 27 preserves with more than 260 miles of trails. Our open space preserves are open every single day of the year and they are free to the public. They're open from sunrise to sunset. We represent over 760,000 constituents in three counties, which include 17 cities and towns. We are headquartered in Los Altos, have 250 employees, and I'm gonna say this, because I love to say this, I'm gonna say it twice, we have 1,000 volunteers. That's pretty amazing, and they're very dedicated, 1,000. we estimate that our preserves received about 2.7 million visitors in 2022. all right well no presentation from midpen is complete without some glamour shots of the preserves this one is parisima creek which is kind of in your big backyard over on the coast Olga's Ridge a favorite also in your backyard is a 366 acre site with six miles of trails and includes the only off leash dog area in our preserves. And finally, my favorite, La Honda Creek, which runs along the length of Highway 84, 6,100 acres of historic ranch lands. This is one of several preserves where you will occasionally find yourself walking with cattle. We've practiced conservation grazing in this preserve. OK, turning now to program updates. Whoops. All right, first I wanna mention that in 2024, we worked with the city of San Carlos, with your Parks and Rec Department to establish a new trailhead into the Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve at the end of Los Vientos. Despite some initial concerns from the neighbors, there have been no management issues to date and the entry point now sees regular visitation. Our rangers regularly patrol and visit the area and we are eternally grateful to the neighbors and to your staff for working with us to find a solution to this. It was a problem and it seems like it's been well addressed now and well used.

Whoops, again.

All right, something that's clearly near and dear to all of us now is our wildland fire preparedness and resiliency, the wildland fire resiliency program that Midpen has developed is our primary framework guiding our vegetation management, fire prevention, and emergency response. Our wildland fire resiliency program has four components to it which are shown on the right hand side of the slide. On the left you see the latest fire hazard severity zone map for San Mateo County. Clearly it's something we need to pay close attention to. Lots more to be said about this but I invite you to look at our website if you'd like a more detailed, a deeper dive into our wildland fire resiliency program. One thing I do wanna mention is our prescribed burn programming. California's native plant community is adapted to and dependent on periodic fires sweeping through the landscape. We are working to bring fire back, good fire back to the land, working in concert with Cal Fire and various other fire response agencies. We have several prescribed burns in various planning stages, both in San Mateo and Santa Clara County right now. And I wanna give a real shout out to the district's rangers. They are trained in wildland firefighting and participate in this training annually. Though fires rarely start in our preserves, our rangers are often the first on site for fires that are happening around the preserves and typically hold the line until the first responders or the firefighters can come. All of our rangers carry firefighting gear and tools in their patrol trucks to quickly respond to fires. We also have water trucks that can deliver water to fire incidents when needed. And the picture on the right depicts one of our rangers working in 2020 to help fight the CZU lightning complex fire. So we're taking fire very seriously these days, working hard to keep up with the vegetation and various aspects of tending to the land. Okay, I want to turn now to our ADA work. Mid-Penn is actively expanding outdoor inclusivity by widening trail networks into low-grade, easy access paths, upgrading parking areas, restrooms, and interpretive signage across our preserves. This is a happy surprise for us this year. For the first time ever we held a conservation career fair. We were expecting maybe 100, 200 people to come and we're quite astonished to find that more than 800 people came to this fair. We had 20 land management and conservation related agencies there representing their work. So it was really a testament to the fact that green is the way of the future. And there are many, many people who are looking to find work in the environmental realm. Interpretation and education programs at Mid-Penn include many long-term volunteer docents who provide programming and connect the public throughout our preserves. Our docent naturalist program has more than 100 folks who lead guided activities on our preserves. These include hikes, mountain bike rides, dog hikes, and other mindfulness activities, lots of stuff, lots of stuff for kids. We're really proud of our docents and the work that they do in bringing people in touch with the land. And I just took a quick look at the website this morning, just to give you a quick taste of what's going on. This morning, there was a botanical scavenger hike in Windy Hill. On Wednesday, there was a scenic aerobic hike in El Corte de Madera. Thursday, there was volunteer star thistle eradication work going on at Windy Hill, or Skyline Ridge, excuse me. And then also on Thursday, an Oaks of Portola Valley docent hike in Windy Hill. So lots going on. I also want to mention six miles of new trails that has just been built in La Honda Creek that connect the lower to the upper portion of this large preserve. Highly recommend taking a hike out there if you have a moment. It's a fairly rigorous one, but it's definitely worth it. It's beautiful. This map that Midpen created shows critical wildlife linkages which are essential for supporting wildlife in our areas. The red lines that you see there are the top priority wildlife linkages that we're looking to address. There's lots more to be said about this. I'm just gonna cover it really quickly. with our Highway 17 undercrossing. Natural waterways like Lexington Reservoir and Trout Creek funnel wildlife to the specific spot on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which creates a wildlife mortality hotspot. I don't have a pointer, but in the middle slide, I think you can see, this is the location on Highway 17 where numerous mountain lions have been killed over the years. We are proposing to build a wildlife undercrossing tunnel that will be coupled with directional fencing, escape ramps, electrified mats to prevent wildlife vehicle collisions, and safely link more than 30,000 acres of protected habitat. We're really happy to say that we got our fingers crossed that we will be breaking ground on this important project in 2027. And I shall also add that in addition to the undercrossing for the critters, we have an overcrossing for people. And one last word, I really wanted to mention this because I find it really important. The use of rodenticide rat poison poses a significant threat to wildlife in our preserves. is especially dangerous to predators and scavengers such as owls coyotes mountain lions and bobcats these are animals that tend to feed on the rats and animals that have been poisoned with these they're called second generation anticoagulant rodenticides these toxins then accumulate in the predator's bodies and weaken them you see these pictures here of a bobcat and coyotes who have mange often leading to fatalities with these animals. So we are taking proactive steps to reduce rodenticide use within our preserves through community education campaigns and legislative efforts. And if you look closely at this map, in the center you see a green polygon which represents Rancho San Antonio. Outside of that you see a yellow circle which represents the the territory of bobcats. And beyond that, the larger circle is that which represents coyotes' habitat. I forget what you call it. Territory, if you will. So you can see that these toxins, when they're used in cities and not controlled, can really impact the wildlife that resides in the open space. That was not a very articulate way of saying it, but we were working on that project quite a bit. Okay, did I skip over one? Yep, I'm gonna skip over Perissima to see other, all you need to know about this is we are working to connect the Bay Area Ridge Trail all the way down to the California Coastal Trail through Perissima Creek. So stay tuned for more on that. And just to invite you to check out our website under Get Involved for our event calendar. Lots to do, especially through the fall, there's a lot of wonderful things. And just in case you want to tune right into our website, here are some QR codes for that. And I will take any questions.

Are there any questions or comments from the council?

Vice Mayor? Just say Vice Mayor.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Zoe, thanks for the presentation. And I just want to thank you for all the great work that you guys do and MnPEN does and your work. I'm really glad to hear there's no issues at Pulgus Ridge. And it was a really great project to work with you on that to get that gate open. I spent a Valentine's Day with Parks and Rec to push this through, and we appreciate

all the work you did with that uh it's been a great asset for the community and as a as an avid birder i love all the places you guys have preserved because it gives me good weekend places to go so thank you oh i'm so happy and i'm so glad to hear that the los vientos gate has worked out so well it was one of those really happy projects for us and it really does it makes such a difference when we can work with the community and and hear from them and have them be part of the solution so thank you for that anybody else

Council member back down Thank You mr. Mayor and Thank You Zoe for your presentation it was really informative you captured a lot of things that I was wondering about I too wanted to say thank you for the pedestrian access to Fulgus Ridge my family and I hike there all the time and our family's nickname for it is the mayor rack trail because he pushed that through and worked really hard on that when he was mayor and I I see a lot of our community members using it. And it's clean, and it's safe, and I think everybody's been very respectful of the neighbors. So a huge improvement, and it's really opened up access to that area for our community. So thank you for doing that. I also wanted to say thank you for the accessibility slide and all of that information. I think it's really important that we make sure that our parks and our open spaces are open to people of all abilities. And I really enjoyed learning about that. So thank you for bringing that to us. And I was curious with the wildlife linkages slide, you know, we hear more and more about wildlife in our community. And I don't know if your land falls near here, but are you aware of any conversations about doing some kind of wildlife tunnel across 280? Because I feel like that's a real hot spot for wildlife and a real danger for drivers as well.

I have not heard of anything happening with 280. Yeah, unfortunately it seems like more and more we need these kinds of things. I see it on Highway 1 as well. I do believe that Caltrans is paying more attention. So perhaps in the future we'll see more of that coming. We're really hoping that this Highway 17 project sets a really fine standard for this kind of activity to protect and preserve. Because the genetic diversity, that's what I didn't have time to mention. What we're finding is that these roads create pockets of homogeneity in mountain lion populations, which weakens them. So the more we can allow them to mix to the Diablo range and the Gavilan range, et cetera, it's really important.

yeah well thank you i hope that that um highway 17 project can really be a model and that you can share that with our the county of san mateo and really push that out to other interested parties as something that can be replicated elsewhere um and then my other question is for our staff with the rodenticide i think that maybe if you have some valuable information that you can share i think that's something that we can consider pushing out to our community as well so right yes we'd love to we will be sure to make that happen okay thanks for your time yeah thank you

Thank you, Zoe. And I also wanted to thank Vice Mayor Rack. I also enjoy Los Miantos. So that's a nice addition to our community. So thank you. And thank you for the presentation.

Well, thank you all. It's always a delight to be here. I appreciate it. The community partnership. So thank you.

Through the chair, I'm just going to confirm that there are no public comments received for this item. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to item seven, council communications and announcements are brief items from members of the city council regarding upcoming events in the community and correspondence that they have received. They are informational in nature and no action will be taken on these items at this meeting. Council member Dukin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate that. And good timing on our recognition of National Emergency Management Awareness Month. We had a fairly impactful, I represent San Carlos on the Emergency Service Council, a countywide organization that works with county staff to think through more of the preparation issues and I have a few report outs there but first I do want to give a shout out to our engine 16 crew here in San Carlos we have two engines in San Carlos and right now one of our engines is up in the state of Washington on a mutual aid supporting the old trails fire so very significant fires up there and Redwood City Fire Department will be providing additional help as needed if we do need it here in town But we can all keep our Engine 16 crew in our thoughts and prayers and that they keep things safe up there. It's a big fire. I'm glad they're getting that experience up there. I hope they never need that experience here in San Carlos, but it's good to know they're seeing how all that works on our behalf. And then with, they gave us at that service council meeting a big presentation on all the county and Cal fires doing in our region on wildlife, wildland fire. And it's significant and a lot of this was driven from that 2020 CZU lightning complex fire. and in reaction to that the county helped fund cal fire to open up a new glenwood fire center this was news to me it's up in la honda and there's about a hundred staff there at any one time and they keep at all times two full fire crews on standby nine months out of the year that's 32 two crews of 16 each that can leave within the hour to go combat a fire. So that's dramatically different than what we've done in the past as a county. So I just want to call that out. I wasn't aware of that and that really will help us jump on fires quickly. And CAL FIRE was also proud to report they now have two brand new Firehawk helicopters working out of the Santa Cruz Air Station, which can be on site up here within an hour. And those are dramatically stronger helicopters. They have 1,000 gallon water capacity versus the old sling load systems that were only 350 gallons. Anyway, I just thought these were worth calling out. And that fire center has an open house this fall on October 7th. Everyone's welcome to go up to La Honda and see all the good work going on up there. And then finally, the county needs a new hazmat vehicle. So there's only one in the county. It's currently stationed in Belmont and we need a new one. It's about 30 plus years old. And I just call it out because the funding through the Emergency Service Council is not quite adequate. And the council at the last meeting approved funding it nonetheless. So I've already shared this with staff, but there will be an additional assessment to San Carlos for the next five years of an additional 2.7% on our assessment. That works out great. i think around 4 000 a year so not earth shattering but that's an investment a new hazmat vehicle for the county so those are my report outs from the emergency services council thank you mr mayor vice mayor rack

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to mention I stopped by on Friday to the annual sort of family camp out in Burton Park. It was a great event they had, I think, over 500 people registered, so families there. It was a great event, a chance to get to chat with new people. I met someone who had just moved to St. Carlos two weeks ago, and they were already at the Camp Out, and we're excited to be there and becoming part of the community. So I just wanted to thank the Parks and Rec Department for their great work on that. That Scout Troop 301 was there to help set up tents and build fires. for campfire, for s'mores, and then also the Lions Club for all the great work with providing the dinners on Friday night. So, thank you.

Next on the agenda is public comment. This section of the agenda is reserved for persons wishing to address the City Council on matters not on the posted agenda. Each speaker is limited to two minutes. We will start with public comments in the room and then move to receive comments from our remote attendees on Zoom. Once we begin taking public comments on Zoom, we will not allow additional speakers to join the remote queue. So please raise your hand now if you'd like an opportunity to speak.

Crystal, do we have any speaker slips? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do not have any slips for in-person, but I'm looking out to see if there's any hands. I don't see any. And looking to Zoom, there are no hands raised for items not on the agenda. Thank you.

Item nine is content calendar. Are there any items council would like to pull? Seeing none, Crystal, are there any comments from members of the public? Again, no speaker slips and no hands on Zoom.

Thanks.

Can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar items?

Mr. Mayor, I move to approve City Council consent calendar items A through I. Second.

Crystal, please call the roll. Okay. Councilmember Dugan?

yes councilmember layton yes councilmember mcdowell yes vice mayor rack yes and mayor van katesh yes thank you aiden thank you for joining us tonight we hope you had a great experience and enjoyed your time with us your duties the mayor of the day are done and you may join the audience or go home but great job thank you You want to all go down? I don't know.

What's the boss say?

Do you want all of us? Yeah. OK. We'll come down.

We'll come down this way.

Okay, we'll now move on to Section 10, a study session. Tonight we'll have a study session on the Mental Health Association of San Mateo County on the proposed development of F Street and El Camino Real with Community Director Al Cervé. Welcome, Al.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm pleased to introduce the Mental Health Association of San Mateo County, who will be presenting an overview of their proposal for a new 20-unit supportive housing project along F Street and El Camino Real in San Carlos. Joining us today from the applicant team is Melissa Platt, Executive Director of Mental Health Association of San Mateo County, Joanne Wong, architect for Kadama DiSegno Architects, Gabriel Spire, principal from Keele Development Consultants, and other members of the team include Raymond J. Hodges and Rose Cade, director and deputy director of the San Mateo County Department of Housing, as well as Shane Young, program and operations manager of MHA of San Mateo County, and Steven Kodama, principal for Kodama DiSegno Architects. The project site is currently undeveloped and located along the city's northern border with Belmont next to the 11 El Camino Real project, which we all now see is starting construction. And the site is subject to the mixed use North Boulevard 120 zoning district and has a general plan land use designation of mixed use 90 to 120 dwelling units to the acre. The Mental Health Association is proposing to construct a four-story mid-rise structure with 19 studio units and one manager's unit. And the MHA group will be providing you with more detail shortly. A formal application hasn't been submitted yet, and the applicant has indicated that they intend to formally submit at the end of August and utilize SB 35, State Bill 35. State Bill 35 offers additional streamlining and accelerated approval timelines for 100% affordable housing projects. And once submitted, the project will undergo internal review by staff and will be presented to our Planning Commission for formal approval. And with that, I'd like to introduce Gabriel Speyer, Principal from Keele Development Consultants.

Good evening. Thank you, Al. Thank you, Mayor Venkatesh, members of the City Council and staff. As Al said, I'm Gabriel Speyer, founder and principal of Keel Development Consultants, and I'll be helping with today's presentation. Next slide, please. So for our topics today, first we'll start with a bit about MHA, including its current housing portfolio. Then we'll move to FG departments. We'll share some quick facts, talk about onsite supportive services, tenant profile and referral system. Then we'll move to the project design and entitlement pathway, and then wrapping it up with the financing plan and project timeline. Next slide, please. But to start us off with an overview of the project, we turn to Melissa Platt, Executive Director of the Mental Health Association of San Mateo County. Melissa?

Thank you, Gabe. Again, Madam Mayor, City Council members, City staff, thank you for the opportunity to present this project to you. I'm Melissa Platt, Executive Director. Okay, I'm on my own. So just for a little bit of history about Mental Health Association, we have been in existence since 1958, so more than 60 years of service to the San Mateo County community. We have eight existing permanent supportive housing projects in San Mateo County. While this would be our first housing development in the city of San Carlos, I want to remind you, for those who don't know, our second direct service project to the citizens of San Mateo County was established in San Carlos, a friendship center, in 1972. And we are always very proud of that fact and the citizens of San Carlos for allowing us that. who we are. We are dedicated to improving the quality of life for individuals with mental illness by providing stable housing and support services. We believe that's the foundation for good mental and physical well-being. We currently serve approximately 850 individuals, unduplicated individuals, across our programs annually. We partner with Department of Housing, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, the Human Service Agency, the Housing Authority, and the community. This is a list of the housing that we have and where it's located, our Hurlingame House. We opened in 1992. It's a single family home serving six individuals and people are allowed to live there from the time they move in until they're ready to leave or they need a higher level of care or they pass away. And we have people, we have one individual who has lived there since we opened in 1992 and she's 92 years old at this point. Villa Terra's house was opened approximately the same time. It's a single family home in the city of San Mateo. The Clinton Apartments is the only on this list transitional housing and it's for young adults. It's a fourplex for young adults. Burlingame Apartments has five units but the capacity to serve 11 individuals because it's a five story apartment, a five unit apartment building. Our Santa Barbara Duplex serves eight individuals, four on each side. Third Avenue is four two-bedroom apartments in the city of Daly City. Cedar Street Apartments is in Redwood City. It's a HUD 811 project with 15 total units, 14 subsidized by HUD and a property manager. Our Belmont Apartments is 25 units. It's permanent supportive housing, 24 studio apartments, one manager's unit. And Waverly Place Apartments, which is the most recent development, it was opened in 2018, 16 units, it's in Redwood City as well. And just so that you can get a sense of what we're talking about, it's hard to look at something on flat paper and see, this is what our Waverly Place Apartments looks like, so you can get an idea of what we are, the kind of thing we want to replicate with this project. This is the entry, this is the courtyard. Our goal is always to make the projects warm, homey, and beautiful for the neighborhood. We wanna be good neighbors. We also think it's important that you see what's in one of the units. We try to raise the funds so that we can ensure that people have furniture. We're taking people who are homeless that are at risk of homelessness, they don't have things. We want them to have a nice place to start their new lives. We are, as you can see, fully furnished bathrooms, kitchens. It's a studio unit, but it's got all the amenities. So the F Street project that we're talking about now, we're proposing 19 studio units and one manager's unit, so somebody would be living there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will be four stories, three at the front, four at the back, because it steps down, there's a slope, and it's on .16 acres. The property currently is owned by the county, and we are working on an exclusive negotiating agreement to acquire this for the development. The permanent supportive housing program that we're proposing is what we're going to use in terms of serving our clients. They can move in there, they can stay for as long as they need to. It is permanent housing for them. The arena categories extremely low income so there's credits for that it's lead certified and the property itself as we've mentioned straddles belmont and San Carlos there's a portion of it that is actually in belmont and we working with the city of belmont on that at the end the housing itself is in San Carlos. We also propose to have the same sort of services that we have at our other sites, which is case management, occupational therapy. We have registered nurses. We have peer support staff. We have volunteers. The idea being that we want this to be a community. We want people to feel like they're part of a larger community, and we wanna be able to provide the services that they need, the individual types of services that they need, because even though we're talking about individuals with serious mental illness, they are different. This is not a homogeneous group, and so there are different needs for different people. The tenant profile is single adults experiencing homelessness, living with significant mental health challenges. The referral source will be San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. The priority will be given to individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. And we will be working with the county to do the screening we do general screening much like you would do in any other apartment building but we're also looking to make sure that what we have is what people need. And so we're not bringing somebody in who needs much higher level of care number one but we're also not bringing somebody in who doesn't need any care, because that would be a waste of the services that we're offering. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Joanne Wong, who will tell you about the design.

Good evening. I'm Joanne Wong from Kadama Deseno Architects, and I'll give you a brief overview of the project. So here, you could see the existing vacant site, and it is along excuse me El Camino real and F street and previously, there is a CVS on the adjacent side, and I think. Summerhill apartments has broken ground and is right next door and then on the other side is also mh as other project belmont apartments. Here you could see our proposed massing. And so as Melissa mentioned, it is generally a four-story building. And then you could see the comparison adjacent to the six-story Summerhill Apartments and then the three-story Belmont Apartments on the other side. And so it's a very narrow lot. But what it does, it maximizes the space that includes the 20-foot setback from the front. And then we do comply with all the other setback requirements here. And here you could see the front elevation we're going for a very modern aesthetic with wood siding and then some metal siding on the other side on F street. And what it does is it activates the street frontage, and so it would welcome people along the public sidewalk, we have the lobby the offices there and then also the public F street that also connects through the corridor to old county road that is below the train tracks. Here you could see as it goes down sloped site that at the very rear is parking. And so right now we are proposing three regular spaces, one van accessible space. And then what it does, it complements the very narrow site. And then across the street from F Street is the Belmont Apartments where there are currently, I think 20 parking spaces available, but on any given day, maybe 10 or 12 are vacant. And so the proposed idea is to utilize and share those parking spaces, and so you can also see on the front, we have some open landscaping maybe proposed dog park and what that does is encourages open space usage by the public. Here you can see the building footprint and the city border. And so it is right along the edge of Belmont and San Carlos. And so on the Belmont side, you have the F Street and then some of that open space sidewalk that we would like to propose utilities there, the dog park if we can. And then on the San Carlos side is the entire housing portion. And you can kind of see all the different setbacks in the yellow and then the purple is the building footprint. This is a typical floor plan on the second floor, you could see that we have seven studio units there in the yellow is kind of the open corridor. Because on the south side is where the summer hill apartments are, and so what that creates is a buffer you have a little bit more space in between the living units. This is a typical unit, it is around 440 square feet, you could see that there is a kitchen the dining living area the bedroom space in the full bathroom. This is another unit type, it is slightly larger 498 square feet, but again, it also provides your bathroom your kitchen your bedroom living dining room space. Here you could see that at the ground floor level that we provide the onsite services and the property management offices. So there'd be two for the supportive services to for property management and because they are located right at the ground level at the street, it is easy to access by the public and by the tenants. At the top floor on the fourth is the managers one bedroom unit and it also provides easy access to the common areas, the community room, the craft room and the rooftop patio area. And some of the other onsite amenities, I think there's Oh, here we go. We have craft and tablet room. We have a community room along with the kitchen and the storage, the garden and patio. And then not pictured as the laundry room, but on the typical floor, there is a laundry room provided. And then the dog run, as we mentioned before, it's on the ground floor on the Belmont side. And so you could see that on the other the terracotta roof, that is the Belmont apartment side and then right up against El Camino real is I think Neptune society, which is the crematorium, and so this is just kind of the adjacent. buildings, just to understand the full context. And then you could see that it's 25 units, including one managers unit built in 2005 and a similar tenancy. And the idea is that there would be shared resources because they are in close proximity by the same developer. Intentional project design. And so as I mentioned, it is easy access to share the resources, parking primarily, and open space, visually appealing open space. We are trying to maximize on the landscaping. And because this is new construction, you would have to improve the stormwater and infrastructure as well. And so because this lot has been vacant, that there would be major improvements that would be required. calibrated project scale. So what that means is that even though this is zoned to be built taller, that we took into consideration the adjacent properties. So Belmont apartments is three stories, and we knew that Summerhill apartments would be six stories. And so what it does, it balances between the two adjacent buildings. activated street frontage. Again, we do provide the 20 foot required setback to El Camino real. And it does invite people to come into the offices, the lobby space. And I think it just it incorporates both public and private space. Project entitlement pathway. So as I think Gay mentioned earlier, so we would follow SB 423, which is an extension of SB 35. And we would meet all these requirements, including the 100% affordable residential housing. We don't need any rezone or general plan amendment. There's surrounding urban uses and no demolition required because it is a vacant lot. complies with objective standards, prevailing wage requirements will be met, and it is within half a mile of public transit, which is a Caltrain station. It's not in a fire hazard zone or a wetland, and it is in a pretty good location. And I'll turn it back to Gabe.

Well, thank you, Joanne. Next slide, please. So the project has some good indicators of financial feasibility, including its location in the highest resource area. It has the maximum amenity score for proximity to things like grocery stores, transit, pharmacies. And we intend to take advantage of the new streamlined funding award process that I'll talk more about in a later slide. Next slide, please. Our identified sources are tax exempt bonds from CDLAC, state and federal tax credits from TCAC, the multifamily housing program or MHP from state HDFC. We'll talk more about that in a moment. The County of San Mateo Department of Housing and the County of San Mateo Department of Health. Next slide, please. so it's expected that the state is going to adopt a new streamlined application process which will greatly benefit f3 departments among others and so what they're calling it is the hdfc set aside so hdfc the housing development finance committee is going to be the new umbrella agency over the state of california housing and community development department and some other agencies but what this means for the project is that winning a state hcd award results in a ministerial award from TCAC for the state and federal tax credits and from SIDLAC for the tax exempt bonds. Next slide, please. And the good news is that the project looks to be competitive for the state's MHP program, again under the HDFC banner, because MHP historically prioritizes deep affordability. Next slide, please. So to our timeline first we'll respond to the county NOFA that will apply for and win MHP that will provide for the ministerial SIDLAC and TCAC award get into closing and we're aiming to break ground in summer of 2028. Next slide please. And thank you happy to take any questions.

Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to note that I did meet with you earlier this year to discuss this project. And with that, I'll take any council questions. Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Appreciate that. Thank you for the overview and presentation. Strong project. Thank you. Extremely low-income housing that we're required to provide as a city. It's hard to come by, so we appreciate your partnership and efforts on that. And I personally appreciate your mission and the folks you help in our community, so thank you. I also appreciate the ground floor activation that's important to us as a city and a council and It's a handsome building Well placed and I didn't realize I appreciate that overview of your portfolio I didn't realize this will definitely be an anchor in your portfolio with the Belmont site 45 total units. So I I appreciate that. My questions are, I noticed your $8.5 million budget, and the overview of how you will finance it. But I did notice, I mean, that comes out to 425,000 a unit. Do you feel like that's a pretty firm estimate? Because I know these are small units, but that's less than half of what we're paying on our most recent affordable project.

Our $8.5 million budget is for the agency, not for the project. I think our estimate for the project is upwards of $18 million.

Okay. That makes a lot more sense. Okay. Thank you.

I wish we could do it for $8 million.

My next question was going to be, how are you doing that?

If you can answer that, share it with me.

Yes, very good. And you feel good about achieving all that financing?

I think every single project we've gone into, there's been a lot of hope and prayer. And we have made it every single time because we are targeting extremely low income. We are targeting people who have the highest level of need. And I think that's pretty universally understood. So fortunately we've made every project. We expect to make this one.

good glad to hear that um and uh and appreciate got the answer about the parking sounds like there is excess parking on the other project uh last question the dog run you know we have a good tradition we've done a lot of significant projects in town of late and most of them include a bit of a public amenity and and i realize your population is um you know, serving particular needs, you know, is there a possibility that Dog Run may be open to the public?

We're open to working with the community to figure out what is needed and what's possible. And I think if there's something possible, we want to be a good neighbor and we want to make this project integral to the community. So, yeah.

okay well i appreciate that i you know i don't think given the location it would be heavily used um but it's just nice to know that it would be a public amenity uh for the community so thank you for that all right uh that's all i have madam mayor thank you thank you casamara dugan vice mayor rack

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you, Melissa and Gabriel and Joanne for the presentation. And it was nice to meet you on Zoom to get a little, so I don't really have many questions. I sort of had a chance to go through that, but I will say I drove by the property. I'm amazed you're able to fit that in there after driving by and looking at the size of that. So I am impressed with your architectural skills on this because I was baffled looking at it. And then I guess one question is in terms of the Summerhill, so there's a buffer between the Summerhill building and your building, and how has the relationship been sort of working with them? Has there been any need to kind of adjust anything? Has it been pretty straightforward, because, you know?

So I don't think the architects have worked with them, but I spoke to Elaine Breeze when they started, when they proposed that, because we'd been looking at this project, to be quite honest, since 2005. We had been hoping that the water department would sell it to us and then we found out they couldn't. Elaine was fine with this. We've had conversations since then and I think we'll have future conversations because we really want to make these aligned and we don't want there to be discordance between the two.

No, and I think it's a great project. I appreciate all the work that you guys do in the community. I thank you for the Friendship Center history lesson as well. My mother-in-law has volunteered there, I think, ever since I met her. Before she was my mother-in-law, and that's 30 years.

She's been the best Mrs. Claus we've ever had.

So thank you for that. And thank you for all the great work on this project, and I appreciate all you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member McDowell. Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you for coming tonight. I too enjoyed my meeting with you on Zoom to learn more about the project one-on-one. I personally have been waiting for this project to come forward for a long time and I am so excited. I welcome this project in San Carlos. I think that it's much needed housing for a very vulnerable group of people. I love that your goals are to create a warm and homey place and to be beautiful in the neighborhood, which this project does very well done with the architecture. And I also just will say that I'm very pleased at the full amenities in the units, including a full stove and a full bathroom. I think that housing like this should be equal to market rate housing for these vulnerable individuals. And I really appreciate the equity that you have put and the thought into this project design. I wanted to ask about slide 20. Just a quick design question, actually. The stairwells that look like they're in between the buildings, could you describe those? Are those fire escape? What are those for?

It is perforated metal screens and is a purely decorative feature. And so what it does, it kind of breaks the verticality where everything else is. And because it is an open stairwell, it is just another design feature.

And having the open stairwells in between the buildings, I assume you have elevators as well. So why did you decide that the stairwells were needed?

um i think you need multiple forms of egress so in case the elevators break down you're not allowed to go back into the elevator and thankfully this is only a four-story building and so accessing the stairs when the elevators go down is a must okay understood um thank you for that and then i just i just wanted to comment on slide 13 and this is not a comment on on you guys or your amazing um

I think you're doing a phenomenal job housing people who are in need. And I just feel like, and we discussed this, that individuals who are currently or at risk of being homeless, I think that it's just a shame that these individuals have to get that close to complete destitution to be cared for. And I don't know if you want to comment on that, because we talked about it.

Only to agree. I think that this is one of the biggest tragedies in the fact that we don't have affordable housing for people who need it. And so we have to set priorities. And this is a really hard and harsh way to do it. And here we are. Yeah. And some of that is- But nobody's asked me.

Right. And that also has to do with some things that have come down from the state and legislation, state and federal. So my only comment is that I just, you know, I wish that people did not have to fall that far into.

The only place that that doesn't have to happen is with our Cedar Street apartment because it's a HUD 811. And thank goodness we have much greater leeway and we have more control. And I can assure you we know the difference.

yeah yeah okay well wonderful well thank you for stepping up and serving this great need and i i can't wait to see this and hopefully be around for the ribbon cutting so thank you thank you councilman mcdowell um councilman layton thanks madam mayor i just had to follow up on that question just can you explain for us and just um anyone who may look into this project about how do you get um how do you what's if the county-wise to get someone off the list or on the list to get one of these department what's the process

It's an evolving process because of Prop 1 where things have changed from the way we're doing things in 26 to the way we're doing things in 27. My understanding, and we have to really dig deeper into this, is that it's going to be individuals who are qualified because they're connected to San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. So it's not necessarily what we had told you initially, which was the coordinated entry system. It seems as though there's going to be a broader approach and that there may be more collaboration that we can do around that.

And sorry, just educate me a little bit in terms of Prop 1 from 26 to 27. What was the change?

Sorry. Prop 1 was what used to be called the millionaire's tax. And it was the funds, it was the 1% of additional tax on millionaires that was then used to provide additional support services, community services, treatment services for individuals with serious mental illness. It changed, it used to be controlled predominantly by the county. After Prop 1, a lot of the funding was sent to the state to control, and so it's much less arm's length, yardstick length and beyond but we're working on but a lot of that money is going to be devoted to housing to housing and housing supports so this project is going to be making use of those funds and I think that is going to give us a little bit more leeway a little bit more wiggle room to you know really find the individuals who need the project and be able to move them in

Thank you, Council Member Layton. I just wanted to commend you and your staff for your work you did on this. It's a beautiful building. It's close to transit, close to the grocery stores. It's well thought out and we're missing this in our community. So thank you for collaborating with us and hope you go through with your plans.

We look forward to working with you and your staff and thank you for the support. Thank you.

Did you get everything you needed? Yes. Okay, I need to recuse myself. Oh, public comment, sorry.

I do not have any public comments in person for this item. So I'm looking to see if there's any hands. Okay, and nothing in person. And we do have one hand on Zoom. So go ahead and allow Ben Mangiafigo to unmute.

Good evening, members of the City Council. I really liked the presentation and I also think it's great that we're getting this in San Carlos. I completely agree with Member McDowell's statement that I wish we could have more opportunity to house people in need. And I think a key way of doing that is just building more affordable housing. So I was actually wondering if there was a reason why the building was only four stories tall instead of being even taller beyond. It's just that it wants to blend in architecturally because adding more stories to this development could be a way to provide more housing for those most in need. Thank you.

So if I can respond to that, I completely understand and we would build something 20 stories but what we're really looking for is to create something that creates community and the density is, we're really sensitive to the density level given the array of needs that we're gonna try to address. We don't want to overbuild and underserve.

Thank you.

Crystal, anybody else?

There are no other hands, thank you.

Item 11, I will need to recuse myself, so Vice Mayor Wack, you're on.

Let me find my papers. we are moving on to item 11 a new business consideration of adopting a resolution approving modifications to the notice of funding availability for the child care grant program and we have andrew to present for that thank you

Good evening vice mayor members of the city council my name is Andrew Douglas senior management analyst in the community development department and I'm here to present a set of recommended modifications to the NOFA or the notice of funding availability for the child care grant program. So since 2022 the city has assessed a child care development impact fee on new non-residential development. This fee is intended to offset the increased demand for childcare that results from employment growth. Developers have the option to pay the fee or to build childcare on site. Collected fees must be used to expand childcare capacity here in San Carlos. And in 2024, the city council approved the childcare grant program as the means of distributing those fees and increasing capacity. The program offers grants of up to $100,000 to childcare providers. Funds may be used to expand an existing center, remodel a facility to accommodate a different age group, or to acquire a new facility. The funds may not be used for operational or maintenance expenses. And all of the program requirements and procedures are outlined in this Notice of Funding Availability or NOFA document, which was adopted by the City Council. So the city, oh, there it is. Sorry, the city conducted the first round of the grant program in 2024, distributing approximately $500,000 between five local providers. As with many new programs, both city staff and applicants identified areas where the NOFA document could be improved or clarified to support future funding cycles. Last August, City Council approved several modifications to the NOFA, which included removing the matching requirement, changing the program frequency from one grant cycle per quarter to one grant cycle per year, and adding a frequently asked questions section. Those changes went into effect with the last funding cycle, which kicked off in September of 2025. Several policy questions emerged during the review of the second set of grant applications. While discussing and considering those applications, the City Council requested an opportunity to re-review the NOFA before our next funding cycle. And to that effect, staff met with the Child Care Subcommittee in June to discuss the potential changes. And those are what's up for consideration this evening. There are two main policy changes under consideration. The first relates to the eligibility of providers operating on public school district property. Since the program first launched in 2024, the NOFA has indicated that the public school district is not eligible for grant funding. And this requirement is in place because the school district and its facilities are already supported through public funding. However, during that second funding cycle, the city received an application from a childcare provider that was leasing its facilities from the school district. That application was ultimately deemed incomplete, yet it raised a question of whether or not that requirement for the school district also applied to providers that were operating on school district property. So to avoid situations where the City of San Carlos child care grant funds could potentially be used to enhance facilities owned by another public entity and using other public funds, staff and the child care subcommittee recommend clarifying that providers operating on public property, public school district property, excuse me, are not eligible for child care grant funding. The second main modification relates to the number of applications that may be submitted by a single childcare provider. Last year, the city received two applications from the same provider, one for an existing center in San Carlos and another for a new facility that they are in the process of opening. After deliberation, city council funded both applications. Consistent with that decision, staff and the childcare subcommittee are proposing to add clarifying language to the NOFA allowing providers to submit one application per eligible childcare facility. Additionally, as recommended by the childcare subcommittee, the NOFA would provide city council the discretion to limit awards to one grant per childcare provider or to only consider applications for second, third and so on facilities from a single provider if funding was available and all the other eligible applications were assisted. In addition to these two key modifications, staff are also proposing a few minor enhancements to the NOFA. To better help applicants plan for the next steps in the grant award process, staff recommend adding a funding timeline to the document. Staff also drafted a new table that would clarify which activities need to take place before the city can release grant funding. For example, the table would note that an applicant building a new childcare center would need to submit evidence that the building has received a certificate of occupancy and a state of California childcare license before the city could reimburse the applicant's construction expenses. The NOFA would now also indicate that construction work must comply with state of California prevailing wage requirements. Should City Council agree to the recommended modifications, staff plan to open the third round of grant funding on Tuesday, September 8th. We will advertise the NOFA through social media, the city website, the childcare e-news, outreach to the four Cs of San Mateo County, and direct communication to known childcare providers. Applications will be accepted for one month and then staff will review those submitted applications and prepare funding recommendations for the City Council's consideration. We anticipate that funding decisions for the third grant cycle would be made in January of 2027. And based on all the above, staff recommend that the City Council adopt a resolution modifying the notice of funding availability for the Child Care Grant Program. This concludes staff's presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Andrew, for the presentation. Are there any questions from Council or comments? Council Member Layton.

Thanks, Andrew, for the presentation. I just got a couple of follow-ups from what I'm trying to remember from last time to now. How many childcare facilities do we have in San Carlos?

From what I remember, about 13. It's probably going up to about 14 that I know of at this point.

Okay, when you say going up to 14, what do you, is that?

That would include the new facility that we funded last year that's in process.

Okay, how many of those 13 to 14 have received money?

So, so far we've assisted eight providers.

And of the eight providers, how many of them, were there any repeat applications?

There have not been any repeats.

Of the 13 to 14, how many of them serve after school age?

I think a few of them, except up to age five. And then Learn and Play Montessori has an after school program.

Sorry, help me. What do you mean up to age five for after school?

Oh, I'm sorry. So the age groups that are served are up to age five. So I think that would be kindergarten after school care. But for older children, I think it's only Learn and Play Montessori that has a program for slightly older children.

And just trying to understand, in terms of the city's after school program at the youth center, is it age or is it grade based?

I believe it's a mix of both. From what I recall, it's fourth grade and up. And I think the minimum age is nine to participate in that program. And that's at the youth center, as you mentioned.

Okay, and then I'm just trying to figure from a staff's perspective on the school district recommendation, what was the, has that been something that just came from our meetings or is that something that was a staff driven issue?

I think that came up last funding cycle where we received an application from one of the providers on the school district property. And it was a question of the school district now has the TK programs and then the school district also receives its own funding. The question of whether or not city funding should be used to support one of those programs and then just the question of the facilities as well for example the facility could be used by one of the providers today but maybe there's no guarantee that that provider would stay in that room so it could be used maybe before kindergarten or third grade class rather than child care so there's a gray area with that there's no is there a time limit on what we give out grants to other

non-school related programs, right? Like is there a guarantee that they're gonna be serving childcare in the next five to 10 years?

We ask for five years of reports to get back from the different providers, and we've been checking in with the first round, and so far we've seen an increase in enrollment, which is great, but we don't have anything specifically that says that it's needed.

Okay, those are my questions for now, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Layton. Any other, Council Member McDowell.

Thank you. Just building on what Council Member Layton was asking, the number of 13 to 14 new facilities, does that include family child cares?

That's only the number that we know of. And we've tried to do research on our own to identify additional child care providers. We have reached out also to four Cs of San Mateo County. Just one of the components is that there's a lot of privacy related to those family child care homes. And so they don't publish a list, and they're not able to share that with us. So it's just the information that we've been able to find. And then in the past when we have issued the NOFAs, we send that information to the 4Cs and ask them to distribute it through their channels that they can access that we don't have access to. So it's known child care providers.

Okay. So there could potentially be other family child cares out there that are not part of our count. Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Andrew, and staff. Appreciate all the work on this. It's a big, unique program, and I appreciate our subcommittee's hard work on this as well, so thank you. I know it's been a priority. I guess my question, you know, I didn't realize, so eight of our 13 providers have already been funded under this. You know, do we have a sense? you know, are they likely gonna keep coming back for more funding, or, you know, do we have a sense that, you know, once you get your big project done, you're probably done with this program?

So I haven't heard specifically from any providers interested in this next funding cycle. We'll see when we issue the funding cycle. One of the requirements for the grant program is that they need to wait a year after receiving their grant funding before they could apply for more. So it is possible that someone that already made an expansion or already did a remodel that saw that the program was successful that they could come back to us and apply for something else. So that's something that this year, the 2024 funding cycle, those applicants could come back. and then next year the 2025 applicants could come back. So again, we're gonna see what we get, but I think it is just an open question. It's a really great trailblazing program, and if we don't receive many applications, maybe there's an opportunity for us in future years to look at what we're doing and see if there's any things that we could do to help get that funding out there.

Got it, and we could do things like you know, Develop City managed child care or something like that, right?

That's correct, we've had conversations about that.

Yeah, okay, because we're dedicating, what, it was 250,000 this year?

Correct, we have 250,000 budgeted for this coming fiscal year. We awarded 235 in 2025, and then 500,000 before that.

Okay.

735 has been distributed or awarded and then I believe at last count it was about 650,000 that we have in the fund.

That's there now. Okay, but like when Alexandria fires up that's going to be a big chunk, right? So yeah, we should, you know, this is a program we're going to have to continuously monitor. that's pretty clear okay and then yeah the recommended changes they make sense to me I don't think I have any questions there a couple just programmatic questions I know you know so a one month response time it seems like some of this stuff would be complicated to put together construction you know, estimates and such. Is that adequate? I mean, I guess our providers know this is coming, so they're already working on this stuff. Is that all right? Because it just, like, did we have, is it important that we hold it to a one-month window? That just seems kind of tight to me.

Sure. We had it at one month for the past two cycles, and we received five applications the first time. Last year, we also received five applications, although a couple fell off along the way. But they did present full proposals for all of those. And I know the first round, there were several that were already in the process of a project. So they were further along, had teams hired. I can't say this round you know we're still working with the applicants from last year on their projects those are yeah so I think the first time people were a little bit more ready and then we're just um active right now okay well we're certainly announcing dates even here tonight so they you know we're not going to surprise anyone but um

And then I noticed the five-year reporting window. I mean, what happens if one of these providers goes out of business in two or three years? Do we have a policy on that? Has that been determined? Are we just okay if that happens? I mean, things like that do happen. Sure.

So I don't believe that there's any specific teeth within the agreement that we have with the grant providers that would require something subsequent to that. I can say one of the providers that received a fund in 2024 or a grant in 2024, they sold their business. And so in now going through this reporting process, we reached out to the new owners, made them aware of the requirement, and they submitted their report to us to confirm that they're still providing services.

Got it.

So we would work with people, but we would cross that bridge when it comes to it. Hopefully we wouldn't have to come back.

Okay. But we had no actual mechanism to require that new owner to continue the reporting?

Other than the wording within the grant agreement that says that they'll provide five years of reports.

Okay. So we... All right, and then I think I've asked this question before, but as we looked at all this yet again, did we consider any amount of matching funds? Because most grant programs that I'm aware of work on a matching fund basis. Was that considered again? I don't think it's gonna be part of it, but I'm always curious about that aspect.

We had matching funds for the first round of the grant program in 2024. The feedback we received was that it was confusing and it added extra steps for the providers and then there was also just a concern of you know maybe prioritizing funds for child care that was child care providers that were better able to access funding whereas if there's no additional funds required we're hopefully able to help providers that really need the funds so that matching requirement was removed in 2025 when we made that first okay yeah um okay yeah i guess that's uh i would say a somewhat novel aspect of this program to not have matching funds because we also want to make sure

this money is really being put to use in an economic way. Can you just describe again how we make sure that these projects are actually expanding additional childcare seats in town?

Sure, so at face value we're looking at what the project is, if it's adding on to an existing room, or if they're expanding into a different space where previously it was in last year, for example, there was a storage room that one of the providers has expanded into that room and added it onto the classroom. They're now able to utilize that space, increase the capacity, or any of the providers that are adding onto a building, they can now take on additional students. But if it's something we would look at it, if someone is remodeling a building and there's really no clear indication of how a change to the kitchen would change the enrollment, that's a question for us. And we would then present that to city council for consideration of whether or not that would be eligible for a grant.

Okay, thank you for that. Increasing childcare remains a high goal in town, so I appreciate the program. Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you, Councilmember Dugan. Greg, were you going to make a comment on the clawback or any kind of the contract?

Thank you for the question. When we looked at that, we felt because the money is a capital expenditure that there was a feasibility issue on doing a callback provision because the money is being spent on something on the property itself. And, you know, if there's one thing, if the funds are misappropriated, that's something different because that's a violation of the terms of the grant. But if somebody actually spends the money that we gave them for the right purpose, we felt like it would be difficult to have a workable callback provision. And it might, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew, but we thought it might affect

or desirability of the program for grant recipients. Thank you, Greg. And I think Council Member McDowell has a follow-up for you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. What about disclosures? Is there language that we should add to the agreement that we have them sign that if you sell the property, you need to disclose to the next person in this five-year reporting requirement?

I'll look at it. I think there's a successors and assigns clause that we have in there, but they should disclose that the seller of a business like that should disclose the requirement. So we could look at that, and I'm not sure that we need to change the NOFA for that, but we could certainly add that to the grant contract.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. I had a couple of just quick questions. One, I appreciate the language and the change, particularly on the public sector side. I think it sort of solidifies pieces. Can you just clarify, just walk me through again with the multiple facilities, multiple providers? Because if we're saying that if we had money for if we had four grant applications we would we would have to fund this and they all qualified we would fund let's say and one was for two the same provider for two facilities and we would find fund the other three first and if there was funding left over then it would be our discretion aside like yes we can continue we would fund that fourth one even though it's a sort of the same provider is that right so we wouldn't say you get two and somebody who only has a single facility is shut out.

That's correct. The wording provides the discretion to City Council to either say you know oh maybe we had 10 applications this year and there's just so much demand that we're really only going to award one application per provider or if there was a year where maybe the program was under subscribed and there was additional funding available that it could be up to the city council to say yes, all of the individual standalone applications are funded and then you have a second location, that's the last application that we fund.

And there's funding available? Correct, exactly. Okay, thank you. I don't have any other questions. Is any other, before I go to public comment, any other questions from council? No questions. Okay. Crystal, is there any public comment on this item?

I don't have any slips for in person. I'm just looking out to see if there's anybody. Doesn't look like it and let me check on Zoom. there are no hands on Zoom.

Okay. Thank you. I'll come back here. Any comments from Councilmember Layton?

I just have one comment and my general comment is why I can't support it is because I just don't necessarily believe in a blanket no government school district policy on it. I think I understand the no increases or not wanting to fund facility aspects of it but as Andrew said there aren't other people doing after school care maybe after school care when i was my kids were that age was probably the most important i understand the youth center can help some kids but it's not going to help kids from the taralinda mariposa side of the district and i understand if there's a difference of opinion of wanting to have a stricter of how that would be applied and making sure that funds don't cross over but you know all I can think about is a lot of these projects are I mean we gave money the Belmont to work on the creek so it's not unprecedented that we work with other agencies or other government agencies as well as grants just generally come from multiple agencies that we receive with it so just on a blanket um no it's hard for me to support it uh in those regards i think there's probably you know ways and more strict things you can have that may achieve the same goals but i think it's hard for a blanket note for me on those thank you council member layton council member mcdowell

Thank you. Thanks, Andrew, again, and staff for your work on this. I think that it's important to remember that the NOFA is a living document. We've changed it every single year because this is really a unique program in the state and in the country of having a grant that goes out to child care providers. really proud of our city's work on that but i just wanted to comment on council member layton's thoughtful comments there is a really big need for after-school care in our community i agree with that and i think that one day we can think about how we tackle that especially with the school district but for me right now um You know, our community just approved Measure H, which is a $176 million bond. And part of the school district's facilities master plan, which I was reviewing today, includes building out more after-school care. And I would like to personally see that process play out. I'm not really interested in spending grant money on interim buildings that could be torn down, you know, when this construction gets underway. And I think that that timeline and that funding, that's all in the school district's control and out of our purview, so we kind of, we lose, you know, vision into kind of how how that's gonna play out and so for me like even right now I don't think it's in the best interest of using these funds and we still have a significant amount of demand coming forward every time we issue the NOFA we have people come out we've had people come out opening new businesses so there's people out there that we don't even know right now that could apply so just looking at our current landscape of childcare providers I think is a little too boxed in I think that there's you know lots of interest in coming to San Carlos and opening these. So for me, I think it's wise to pause the thinking of giving money to the school district when they have their own plans to build out. Let's see how that goes. But also, as a member of the 2 plus 2 committee, happy to keep those conversations alive and think about ways that we can work together as we always do. And at some point, maybe we can consider that. But for now, I don't think that it would be wise for us to get into the school district's plans for modernizing their campuses. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member McDowell. I don't see any other hands. So with that, if there's no other comments, I'll call for a motion.

I will move to adopt Resolution 2026-97, a resolution of the City Council of the City of San Carlos approving modifications to the Notice of Funding Availability for the Child Care Grant Program.

Second. Okay. Crystal, we have a motion and a second. Can you call the roll, please?

Councilmember Dugan?

Yes.

Councilmember Layton?

No.

Councilmember McDowell? Yes. Mayor Venkatesh is recused and Vice Mayor Rack.

Yes. Thank you. Motion passes three to one. I'd like to safely take a five minute recess so we can go let the mayor know that we're ready for her to come back and we'll get back to that last item.

11P. For our next item, we'll consider the revised improvements of the intersection of Crestview Drive and Los Vientos Way as part of the Crestview Drive Pilot Improvement Project. Welcome, Anya.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is Hania Houshmandi. I am a senior traffic engineer with our Public Works Department. Tonight, we're returning to you with a focused item related to our Crestview pilot improvements project. On your May 11th meeting, the council approved the project as a total, but directed us to come back with a revision, revised recommendation for the intersection of Crestview and Los Vientos. This evening we are returning with the results of that additional engineering evaluation with revised concept recommendations for the intersection of Crestview and Los Vientos and next steps on advancing the project forward. With me tonight is Ryan Dole, our engineering consultant with Kimley Horne. He will walk you through the presentation, and afterwards, our director of public works, assistant director of public works, and I, along with Ryan, will be available to answer any questions. With that, I'll pass it on to Ryan.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. I think Hanya did all the setup for me. A quick recap on the project. The Crestview Drive Pilot Improvements Project was initiated in response to longstanding community concerns about speeding, collision history, and safety, particularly for people walking and biking along Crestview Drive. The project advances recommendations from the city's bicycle and pedestrian master plan and uses quick build improvements and elements that can easily and cost effectively be implemented along with the city's yearly paving project. The primary goals of the project are to reduce vehicle speeds, improve safety for all roadway users, enhance pedestrian crossings, and to improve bicycle connectivity, as well as maintain emergency access throughout the corridor. Work completed to date includes data collection and traffic analysis, community outreach, and conceptual plan development for the entire 2.2 mile. As mentioned by Hanya, during the May City Council meeting, Council approved the overall corridor improvements, including buffered bike lanes, pedestrian crossing enhancements, roadway and parking lane narrowing, removal of a lane near La Mesa, and a quick build around about at Edmond Drive. At the meeting, council requested for staff to further evaluate three items, including replacing the proposed traffic circle at Los Vientos Way with alternative traffic calming treatments, providing an additional pedestrian crossing near the top of the world viewpoint, and then a third evaluating a temporary crossing guard at Malendi, the Malendi intersection. Staff has completed the analysis and will be presenting the concept for the first two points. For the third bullet point regarding the temporary crossing guard, that was an agenda item as the consent calendar, but just some additional details. The city installed a temporary crossing guard at Crestview and Melendi starting May 20th through the end of the school year. While pedestrian volumes were low, improved driver behavior was observed with the crossing guard present and visible. So that was the recommendation to continue it through the 2026 and 2027 year until this pilot project can be implemented with greater improvements at that intersection. So this is the previous conceptual design with the traffic circle at Los Vientos and Crestview. Council expressed concern with the traffic circle, particularly that it could create confusion for drivers as they navigate through the intersection, particularly whether who has right of way between through movements and left turning movements. It was requested that staff look at alternatives to still provide the traffic calming measures that were presented, but also to evaluate whether an additional pedestrian crossing would be better suited to provide connections between the top of the world viewpoint and nearby trail connections. So using that feedback, this presents the refined conceptual plan which utilizes painted bulb outs, medians, flexible delineator posts, quick build curb elements, and medians. By constraining traffic and reducing widths of the roadway or at least the travel lanes, this will provide the intended traffic calming elements as well as shorten crossings for pedestrians and create safe spaces for them. The revised design also incorporates a new crosswalk with a rectangular, rapid-flashing beacon, creating a direct connection to the top-of-the-view viewpoint, top-of-the-world viewpoint, and the Polkas Ridge Open Space Preserve, which is accessible at the end of Los Vientos Way. The design follows kind of a layout that is familiar to folks on the corridor as the layout is similar to the existing crossing down by Crestview Park to the south. Staff confirmed that the refinements accommodate emergency vehicle operations and access through the intersection and the revised concept was reviewed and approved by emergency services in late July. Staff recommends removing the proposed traffic circle and providing the same traffic calming improvements through the described elements like the paint bulb outs and delineators. The conceptual plan as shown on the previous slide. Staff also recommends the high visibility new crossing with the RFB to improve the pedestrian connectivity. This will increase pedestrian visibility, introduce traffic calming features, and with the hopes to slow vehicles through this section. The recommended action is that staff recommends approval of the refined concept so that the project can move forward into final design as part of the city's 2026 paving project. Staff will return to city council during the bid award process with the required funding request. This outlines the project schedule and the next steps. Construction is anticipated in summer of 2027. This will be followed by 18 months of a assessment period and evaluation period where traffic will be monitored and usage will be monitored. This will allow time for users of the corridor to get used to the improvements and then allow staff to identify if there's any need for refinements of expansion if needed. And with that, that concludes our presentation, and we're happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate your presentation. That was a fast turnaround, by the way, so thank you to staff. Any questions from council? Vice Mayor Rack.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ryan, can you just tell me, so how many, and I know there's not high parking usage up there, but how many parking spaces is that ultimately eliminating with this red striping?

So along the east side, we're estimating the equivalent of about 21 spaces. Spaces tend to be 20 to 22 feet long. So we're estimating along that stretch. And then there's also some parking removal or at least equivalent parking spaces on the bulb outs on the western side.

And then, so the question of, and this is just sort of, and the city attorney may know the answer to this one. So Greg, we own property right up in that corner on Crestview that like can be used for parking or something on the western side, is that right?

There's a triangle of land that is near, but not right at the corner of the western corner of Los Vientos and Crestview that you can make out on this diagram. It looks like there's parking in front of that location there.

but there is like so we could potentially at some point if this became a permanent project and we felt like we needed to add parking for people who wanted to walk down the los vientos or go top of the world or if there were additional trails or other things they could we could potentially add parking in that spot because we own the property is that right correct okay thank you um i appreciate the updates on this i don't have a lot of questions around this i think it's a good good improvement and i look forward to seeing how the pilot program plays out

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member McDowell.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. What diagram were you talking about, City Attorney? Could the slide be put up, please?

It's in attachment to Sheet 3 of 7. It's in the staff report.

I see. Could you put up slide five, please? Maybe we could talk about it. Are you talking about the corner on the left? It's on the west side. On the west side, yeah. So it looks like maybe there's a water tower or something on the right you're talking about on the left.

It's on the west side. Okay.

It's west and north and west.

North, yeah.

And it's like south of those little trees. There's a triangle that we are. Okay.

Okay, all right, that's helpful, thank you.

You can sort of make out the line where they plow the earth there where it says Crestview Drive. I think that's exactly where the triangle that we own is where it says Crestview Drive. It might extend further north from there though.

Okay, thank you. And then the 22 parking spots that are referenced, do we know how many residences on that side are impacted by potentially losing parking in front of their home? It looks like there's maybe three houses there? There are three properties, yes.

Okay.

I believe towards the southern driveway serves two properties, and then there's the driveway kind of on the north side of the intersection that has one.

Okay, and were they notified of this meeting tonight?

The notification for this meeting?

Yes, we sent postcards to all the residents with information about the project and informing them of the city council and they had my contact information on there as well as on the city's project website. We haven't heard back from anybody. So the two properties that share the driveway, can we put the next slide up? They have a shared driveway and they're on the right side of the screen. The one on the left side is the only property that has no parking on both sides of their driveway but there is a garage and there is a parking pad in front of that property and we haven't heard any feedback from the residents.

Okay, and so they received like a hard copy letter in the mail, and this diagram was sent to them?

It was not. There was a postcard that informed them that we're coming to council, new proposal is in. Please visit the website, and if you have any questions, reach out.

OK. All right. Thank you. I'm glad that that went out. I think in the future when we're doing parking removal, I think it would behoove us to send a diagram to the impacted residents. I don't know if that's allowed by law, but I think that something this significant in the future, we should share this diagram with those impacted.

I'd agree with that.

okay thank you um i think that's all of my my um oh sorry i had one other question and this was in the staff packet in the actual rendering there were um some curbs there was a yellow curb and a green curb and i wasn't sure how that pertained to this project if you i don't know if you have a slide on that to explain but what was that in the packet please

that is showing the types of treatments that could be used so it's a little hard to tell on on the screen here but within the painted bulb out areas on the side of street as well in the median you see a little black the bars essentially those represent curbs that would be doweled into the pavement or maybe glued onto the surface. We have a couple different options of what they could look like. Some of them are a little bit more vertical. Some are more rounded. And so these are just presenting the different, to help give a visual of what would go there.

And so that's kind of still to be determined.

Yeah, the exact treatment. So something in the center of the tough curb is what was, originally planned, particularly with part of the roundabout, so something along that is probably more likely for consistency up and down the corridor. But if, as we progress further into the design phase, something more vertical is desired, maybe something with steeper slopes on the side to bounce back tires, those are still on the table.

okay and just so the public knows this is on page 188 of our packet um i guess we don't have a picture of that but is that to keep cars that are turning right potentially onto los vientos out of the bike lane is that why we're putting those okay deter them from cheating into the pedestrian yeah okay thank you that's all my questions thank you councilman dowell councilman layton

Thanks Madam Mayor I just had a couple questions just want to make sure and thanks to Public Works for answering my questions about this prior to the meeting. Did we have an intersection or do we have a crosswalk here in the original plan or was it just the turnaround or just the turn amount?

We did not have a crosswalk here.

Okay so I guess my question is as you mentioned with adding the crosswalk to it is Originally, this area was something that where the turnabout or the traffic circle was proposed was because this is the area that I think you see the most increased speeds at Crestview, is that correct?

Yeah, there were two portions of comments during the planning commission. One was to do something else to traffic calm, but then there were discussions about improving crossings, and that's where some of the enhancements took place up at Clubb. But then there was also at the council meeting to investigate additional crossings in this section.

Okay. I guess my concern is what this being is a traffic, is a crosswalk a part of a traffic calming? A crosswalk is not part of a traffic calming.

Okay.

I guess my only concern is now that you mentioned it, and this is kind of the addition to it, is having a crossing at this location, which would, at this point in time, is the fastest speed location within that corridor. I don't know if that necessarily, I guess the best way to put it is if something happens there, we already have people complaining that at the top of Melendee where it's slower, that people have difficulty crossing. Now we're adding a crosswalk down here where people are presumably going faster. guess i don't know if something happens there how it becomes defensible from a council perspective if we're adding like a crosswalk at the highest speeds but i'm also not a traffic engineer so i'm open to be persuaded

That's where To try to address some of those concerns some of the elements that we have you can see on the approaches There's a deflection in the travel lane so people will have to move over by narrowing because currently you you have a wide travel lane plus the parking lane is 17 feet you have a wide open space by implementing and in utilizing elements that are hardening the space, so putting vertical elements in the bike buffer as well as putting elements in the median. The intent is to constrain drivers by using high reflective signage as well as the vertical posts. Drivers will be able to see that in advance and understand crossing and and so hopefully the holistic approach of providing the visual cues will inform drivers to slow down sometimes I explain to folks like most people slow down because it gets real tight it's kind of a same concept but at the same time there is the concern that people have been community or the some of the feedback has been people are crossing already And so we want to provide a place that one can utilize something like the RFB that will increase their visibility and hopefully inform the drivers of them being present.

And then last question is, I guess, what was the data or what was shared with us that our people are crossing at this location or just up and down the street, I guess, to put it at this specific location?

There was considerations of spacing, so between intersections. There was consideration of potentially putting it at a mid-block. Some of the thoughts on this one is it's at an intersection, so a little bit more expected at an intersection as opposed to mid-block crossing. So those were some of the factors that were considered. Okay, thank you.

that we just opened the lesbian toast trail. So this would feed directly into that.

Thank you. Again, it's a pilot, so I don't have any questions. Let's see.

Any comments from the public on this item? I have not received any slips for in-person and there are no hands on Zoom. Any council comments?

Council Member Layton.

Thanks Madam Mayor and thanks for your continued work on this and also you know the quick turnaround on it. You know I'm always happy to approve things that are kind of the traffic calming measures especially in those areas where we have the data that shows that we should slow people down. I mean I'm always this is a pilot project right so I'm always probably more interested in how we measure success and what the changes are more than anything else. So you know I hope this isn't a see how it goes. I hope it's something we continue to focus on, not just on all of these, not just on this project, but all the projects we have that are traffic coming members to, I think they're good guides for us to have examples within the city that work, right? So I hope we're keeping that data as we go forward, but I just wanna say, appreciate the quick turnaround on this and the thought of trying to add ways. So thank you.

Council Member McDowell. Thank you. I, too, want to echo Council Member Leighton's thanks to staff for making these improvements. I think that the crosswalk, people are naturally crossing there quite a bit, I think, to go to that trail. And I think that between the crosswalk and the rapid flashing beacon, I think it will be a huge improvement. So I'm looking forward to that getting implemented. And as Council Member Leighton said, it's a pilot. And I'll look forward to seeing how much it's used and what it's doing for. So thank you.

Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and yeah, thank you. I appreciate these updates to the program. I think that's a good change at Los Vientos Way. I'm glad we're adding similar at Top of the World, and thank you, staff, for so quickly getting a crossing guard out there at Melody. That was definitely a cause of concern for the community, and we responded quickly, and it looks like it was well-received and effective, so thank you for that.

Thank you, Council Member Dugan. Thank you again for the quick turnaround and listening to us. And we hope this pilot goes off to a smooth start. So thank you. I will now entertain a motion.

Madam Mayor, I move to adopt. Madam Mayor, I move to adopt Resolution 2026-98. 98, a resolution of the City Council of the City of San Carlos approving the revised improvements at the intersection of Crestview Drive and Los Vientos Way as part of the Crestview Drive Pilot Improvements Project.

I'll second. Crystal, can you take a roll? Okay. Councilmember McDowell? Yes. Vice Mayor Rack? Yes. Councilmember Dugan? Yes. Councilmember Layton? Yes. And Mayor Venkatesh? Yes. Thank you. Motion passes.

Thank you. We're on to item 12a. We have one item under agenda setting tonight to consider agendasizing a discussion on a citywide project labor agreement. Vice Mayor, this is yours.

This is mine. Thank you. So I decided I wanted to put this on the agenda to have a discussion. The county and a number of cities have moved in that direction, Foster City, Daly City, South San Francisco, places like SFO are either, all these are in place or have those going. And I thought it would behoove us to have a discussion, like a study session to understand kind of the benefits around a citywide project labor agreement, see what, have a chance to have a discussion, hear from, you know, sort of have staff do some research, labor and others. I don't think that this is a super urgent item that has to happen next week. I think sometime in the next coming months, if we can get something on the agenda, I think it would be good to understand these kind of projects, help govern the projects, provide some security around them. We get trained labor. apprenticeship programs and other things. And I'd like to see, I've heard some data that it sometimes can be cost savings as well. So I'd want to just kind of have a study session on that and hope that my colleagues would support that.

I will support it. I've also wanted to put this on the agenda and discussed it sometime. So I will support that. Anybody else?

I too, I like the idea of a study session. I'm curious for staff to dig in on what other cities are doing and have us study that. So I too will support it.

I'm open to learning more.

Thank you Adam for bringing this forward Thank you, I appreciate that Thank You vice mayor in closing tonight We honor former City Council member John Hoffman who passed away last month John served on the City Council from 1989 to 1993 He was an executive committee member of the San Carlos Sister City Association. We thank John Hoffman for his service to San Carlos community and now I adjourn this meeting in memory of him.