City Council - Regular Meeting

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Okay, it is 7:10 and I'm calling to order the meeting of the San Leandro City Council. Today we have a special meeting of our council or special session. At this point in time, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. At this point in time, madame clerk, would you read your announcement? Yes, mayor. If you would like to make a public comment during

I'm going to pause you if you don't mind because we haven't taken role to establish quorum. Please proceed. Council member Aguilar, present. Council member Bowen, present. Council member Bolt, present. Council member Simon, present. Council member, apologies. Vice Mayor River Walton, present. Thank you. And Mayor Gonzalez, I am present as well. At this point in time, Council Member Aguilad, I'd like to give you the floor with respect to your announcement.

Uh, thank you, Mayor Gonzalez. Under California Government Code section 54953.8- uh, sorry,.3 um, section A1, I am notifying the city council of my need to participate in this meeting remotely for just cause. The need is I have a physical condition caused by medications related to a recent significant dental procedure. There is no one over the age of 18 in the room with me currently. That ends my announcement.

Thank you. The city of Sano conducts orderly meetings to fulfill its mandate. discriminatory statements or conduct that would potentially violate the federal civil rights act of 1964 and or the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, California Penal Code sections 403 or 415 are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. Please see the city council handbook and city council meeting rules of decorum for more information. Madame clerk, your announcement. If you would like to make a public comment during the meeting, you can do so in person or via Zoom. If you are present at the meeting, please complete a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk before the item is presented. If you wish to make a public comment via Zoom, you can use the raise your hand tool when the item is called. During the public comment session, speakers will be invited to speak and will have a set time to share their comments. A countdown timer will appear for their convenience. And when the time is up, the microphone will be muted. All raised hands outside of public comment will be lowered to avoid confusion. Once public comment is opened, hands may be raised to speak.

Okay. At this point in time, thank you very much for your announcement. Do we have any reportable action coming out of close session? Thank you, mayor. No, we did not take any reportable actions in close session, but direction was provided to staff. Thank you. So, moving to item number four, consent calendar. Are there any items on the consent calendar that uh council members would like to pull from the consent calendar? Okay, just confirming. So, would you like to pull an item, Council Member Aguil? Uh, no. Mayor Gonzalez, I'd like to move the consent calendar.

Okay. So, I will take that motion and but first I'm going to take public comment on this item. Then I'll come back and I'll give you the uh motion on the request to approve the move to move the consent calendar. At this point in time, we'll take public comment on our consent calendar. Mayor, we have not received any comment cards, but we have two hands raised online. Please proceed online. Our first online speaker is Douglas Spalding.

Thank you. Good evening everyone. The sun has come down gone down and I've come inside to participate in your meeting. Um I would like to speak to item 4 C. Uh, I have a a quick question which is um I'm wondering if this um consolidation of the city clerk position within the city manager's office is something that's just being done now or was this done previously and so we're just kind of going uh the way that we we have been going for a while. But but whatever the situation, I would like to uh lend my endorsement to appointing Sarah Bunting in the most permanent way possible. And I you know like I really was impressed uh at the last meeting and recent meetings with the um you know some rather complex and and emotional and difficult uh agenda items just how uh Miss Bunting really navigated it so well. and I I've always appreciated her friendliness as well as her professionalism. So, let's make it unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Alvaro Ramos. Can you hear me? Yes.

All right. So, uh item 4A should be scaled back completely. We need to prioritize the main boulevards that everyone uses. Stop preserving suburbs. The culde-sacs are a dead end. They are too expensive and a loss for American cities. We need to urbanize San Leandro. Measure BB funds should go to public transit. We would have less damage on the roads from car dependency and better opportunities for economic development. Community development block grant funds come from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, not the Department of Cars and Suburban Development. block grant money runs out because it's a limited resource and this is a waste of CDBG funds. Do not use CDBG for streets. Do not use CDBG for sewers. Use CDBG for a project that you can pause halfway if there is a disruption in federal funding. What if Russell Vote, the head of office of management and budget, cuts CDBG and leaves us with holes in the ground? Item 4B. On January 19th, 2026, a sewer line collapsed, spilling 240 million to 300 million gallons of untreated waste water into the Ptoac River. This is the perfect example of how sewers can become a public health disaster. They can pollute the environment and they can destroy public infrastructure. The city must prioritize at risk sewers by identifying the sewers that are most the the oldest, the most decayed, the most deteriorated. In this instance, the federal government refused to do anything about the PTOAC sewer line because they do not care. They claimed that it's the problem of state and local governments. Beware because they're not going to be cooperative on these issues

with us. That's it. Thank you. The next speaker is Lucas. Lucas, are you there?

Lucas, we cannot hear you. Oh, sorry. Can you hear me now?

Yes. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for your patience. I really appreciate it. Uh, I wanted to call in and say I wholly agree with the comments made by the previous speaker and I also want to commend the council and uh the city employees for an excellent job on item 4B. Uh, not not necessarily about the things that the previous speaker mentioned, but about the bid summary document. I think this is the best bid summary document that I have seen in a long time. The engineers estimate. And I think I I'm seeing here nine or so different biders. This really does give the public a clear idea of what we the city thinks something should cost, what the um public market and the biders think something should cost. I'm very glad the city decided to go with a reasonably priced vendor in this case. Uh all of the items, you know, there's uh 40 items I think in that in that uh spreadsheet that that get all cost estimates. This is very helpful. Not just I think for us as the public but for other cities to use as benchmarks for similarsized projects at the same time. Item 4A only has the engineers estimate and two biders. And I wonder uh you know did we do the same level of work in uh seeking bids for uh a much much much larger sized project. Right now the project in 4B is only 1.1 million. the the project in 4A I think the total cost estimate in 4A is something like 7 and a half 7.8 8 million. Why? Why did we only seek two companies? Maybe only two companies applied, but if only two companies submitted bids, can we think about how do we get more bids on projects in the future? Um, thank you for taking my comment.

Thank you, mayor. There are no more raised hands online. So, we'll close public comment on this item. We do have a motion that's been that I've recognized from council member Aid. Would someone like to second that? Council member Bolt, I'd like to sec second that with an additional uh uh comment following up with Douglas Balding said congratulations and we're in good hands with Sarah Bunting.

Thank you. So, we've got a motion by council with a second by council member Bolt at this point in time. Seeing no further discussion, please vote. Council member Aguilar, may we have your vote, please? I Thank you. All votes are in. The motion carries unanimously with all members voting yes.

We move to item five 5A. Uh tonight we have a public hearing to afford Kelkos companies an opportunity to be heard under section 5.6. Council member Bolt, do you Oh, yes. This is an item on which you have a statement.

Yes. I must recuse myself because of real properties on this item. Yes. If you could step out and we will contact you when this or step off the DAS to be precise. So, thank you for your public disclosure and recusal on this item. So, here we do have a public hearing to afford Cal Coast Companies an opportunity to be heard under section 5.6 six of the disposition development agreement dated July 22nd, 2020 and a formal action potentially by amended order of the city council to terminate the DDA only with respect to portions of the property to which the default applies. And we've got city attorney to introduce this item. Thank you, mayor. Tonight, council, uh, by way of summary, in accordance with the disposition and development agreement, the DDA, as we'll call it in short, between the city and Cal Coast companies, that's originally dated July 22nd, 2020. Uh, the city council is required by that agreement to afford the developer the opportunity to be heard at a public meeting before taking action to terminate the DDA. The action tonight will be by minute order. So by letters dated January 10th, 2025 and March 14, 2025, the city provided Cal Coast Company's notices of default of the disposition and development agreement. And those notices essentially go to uh violations of the schedule of performance and be the developer became in default of the schedule of performance on December 19th, 2022. The DDA of course can be accessed on the city's website under the department tabs for the community development department under projects.

The specific defaults involve several items. All of them to be summarized under uh the completion of the postcommencement ground lease requirements for the general contractor construction contract and bonds and security. Let me break that down just a little bit so that it's in much plainer English. What those obligations, so those requirements are would have been to obtain the necessary permits to complete the post commencement ground lease requirements in a timely manner. And under the DDA, the disposition and development agreement, the developer is required to obtain all necessary city and other public agency permits for site preparation for developer western elements and commence construction construction within 24 months following effective date of ground leases for the developer hotel, the developer restaurant, the market and the multifamily element. elements. The DDA further defines what site preparation permits for site preparation means. Site preparation is very clear. It's the preparation required for development of each of the developer project elements as I stated just now the hotel, the restaurant, the market and multif family elements as well as the park prominods and boat launch. This includes specifically including tree removal, demolition of ex of existing buildings and hardscape improvements including but not limited to asphalt pavement, concrete sidewalk, curbon gutter and other improvements, flood plane and sea level rise mitigation, sircharging, geotechnical mitigation and rough grading in accordance with the scope of

development, the schedule of performance and the shoreline responsibility map. all of it which is contained at the DDA within 24 months mint December 22 2024 which is 24 months from the effective date of the ground leases in 2022. Finally, in addition, on March 14th, 2025, the city also sent a follow-up default notice on the revised schedule of performance related to the developer and city entering into a public improvement agreement for the western elements and other public improvements. And this is the failure of the developer did not, like I said, Calos did not prepare or present to the city any public improvement agreement for the developer western elements and other public improvements. Therefore, the city sent notices of default which triggered a 90-day notice to cure 90 days to cure the default that did not occur. That did not occur and therefore we are here now to terminate the agreements um available to answer any questions. So, I'm just checking council member Aguilar, do you have any questions at this point in time? because if not we will move to Cal Coast.

No question.

Okay. So at this point in time we will move to afford uh a representative from Cost the opportunity to address the council. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Ed Miller. I'm president of Cal Coast. This is my 17th public hearing here in the city of San Leandro after 16 years. Um, I guess a couple things. It's And I think there's probably uh there's always a little bit of disconnect in projects that are this large. uh you I've been I think this is 35 city council members, five mayors, four uh city managers. So there's a loss of continuity sometimes, especially when you're down to the obviously I don't you're not the last city council, but you're the last one at least uh in this regard. So to give you a little bit of perspective of where we are and then I can address some of these other issues that I think are much more complicated uh and there are legal issues that have to be addressed that I think we can address. I can't do it here tonight but the to give you a little bit of background. So we rece we were chosen in 2008 October as a developer after a this city went through an RFP process. In 2011 we formed the citizen to action committee. That group of 34 individuals that represented various districts of the city worked with us starting in 2011

and some of them still continue to work with us but through uh basically I guess 2022. In 2011 when we started with with the community action group we develop we started developing the plans for the marina. In 2014, we went out with uh the the beginnings of uh our SQA requirements and and our uh EIR. That was in 2014. Uh going through that process around 2017 or so, we received uh our final EIR uh evaluation and approval. Uh and subsequently within 30 days uh the marina the marina in filed a sequel lawsuit that took another two and a half to three years. While we were going through all that we were still processing the plans and processing uh our having our community meetings. Uh we had sea level rise. Sea level rise we spent two years quarter of a million dollars on a study. We had an agreement with uh BCDC as to what elevations as far as sea level rise levels were that we were going to we were going to build to. Subsequently, a new uh chair of of the uh of the board decided that all sea level rise would come to the maximum. At that point in time, this was about 2019 or so. At that point in time that was made the entire project unbuildable and it had to be totally redesigned and frankly at that point we were looking at it was not going to be possible to even

build done in the marina. Uh but after quite some time of re-evaluation re looking at the uh at at the sea level rise study we wind up scrapping seven years of plans through that we've worked with the the community the citizens action committee uh for seven years were scrapped and we had to redo those plans bring all those properties back off of the marina or off of the bay redesign them replat uh change the elevations. It's a substantial amount of work. And you know, one of the things I have to say that and in our I've been doing this 40 years. I started this project. I was 50 some years old. I'm 72. I don't quit. We don't quit. All of our projects are difficult in the city. But when you're in the state of California, you have laws and you abide by those laws. And those laws take an an inordinate amount of time to get approvals and get your entitlements through on a on an easy project. It's it's seven years. Uh once we once we wind up with with doing an EI, it it extends sometimes to 10 years. In this instance, you had many different elements of development. you just you had housing, you had apartments, you have hotels, you have restaurants, you have markets. It's now all of a sudden you have five different elements where typically it takes you seven years to do one one project for us in Los Angeles or San Francisco is 10 years to get through when once we do SQA. Uh and that's the same thing that occurs there. That's just the reality of doing business in this state. And I'm not complaining about it. I I live with it. Once we got through sea level rise and we redesigned the entire site, we we redesigned the buildings. If you go back through, if you take some time, go go

into the city website, go back through and take a look at the variations of this development over the years. It's substantial amount of time, effort, and money was spent in designing and redesigning the project down there. But once we did that and we came back then we went back through the city process having people evaluate where these new the new the plottings were where the new buildings were placed uh and then we had to go back through SQA. Now we had to go back and amend our EIR to adjust for that. what I'm talking about. When you look at doing these kinds of projects and and making these amendments, it's years and it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. So, this is not a simple process and it's and I will tell you that Ed Miller doesn't want to be here the 117th time. It's not of my benefit. It's certainly not profitable for us, not for my time, not for my staff's time and our company's time to just elongate a process like this. To give you another example, we just received in December of 25 a provisional permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. So, we were dealing with seven different outside governmental agencies on the marina. We're dealing with Army Corps of Engineers, BCDC, Water Quality Control Board, Fishing Game, Natural Resources. We have an example just the application to Army Corps of Engineers. That's 585 pages. It's over $350,000 of consultants. That took five years. So, it's just because we're not in here, we we're we're dealing with staff and and and and I have no complaints about staff.

We are working diligently constantly. We have 13 to 14 consultants, environmental consultants, architects, engineers, landscape people working on this project constantly. So in the last five years, we just literally got approval from Army Corps, from BCDC and water quality control board. Those are the three major governmental agencies. And those approvals, they're extensive. They're they they go to drainage. They they go to flood plane. There's multiple issu butterfly environmental. We have a we have a drainage ditch on the u on the golf course that we had to relocate. So we relocated it over to the the new golf course that we're building next to the monarch big butterfly. That took years to go through the community process to go through fish and game to go through water quality control board to go through army corps of engineers. These these are not simple things to do. I will tell you most developers would have been long gone but that's not us and we we have fought these battles. We've paid every single dime. We paid it. You didn't pay for the E. That E just alone was $465,000. The consultants behind it were another $650,000. 1.1 million just for the ER. Sea level rise is is almost a half a million dollars. Now we have spent in this city $24 million. 10 million of which 10 million we have given to this city. When we go and we file for a plan check, the city takes our money and it at the same time they evaluate how much staff time are we going to have on this project. They come back to us.

It's $35,000. We pay it. I don't pay that in any city. I pay my my plan check fee. The the other issue here that's critical and you talk about why we're not doing certain things but we're not doing them. I'll give you an example. Let's take Elito where the hotels to go. So the city on all these parcels that we're talking about has a license agreement. I don't have any access to these parcels. I have I have to abide by the license agreement. You you own it. You you run these you run these parcels. I do not. You collect rents. You collect taxes. You collect insurance money from El Trio.

So, Mr. Miller, we've given you 10 minutes. What I'd like to do as a courtesy is give you some additional five minutes to address the particular topic, namely um the potential action by this council today. Thank you. Five. Five minutes.

Yeah. uh f 16 years for five minutes. It's expensive. I get it. So, what I would say is that what I would propose, let's get it this way because I don't want to get into I think it's obviously you don't want to hear it, but what I would propose is that we have a principal to principal meeting that you have you have a group of council members and staff and and myself and our people. We don't need attorneys. We need to be act like adults. act like real business people and sit down have a discussion because we have responded to every one of these allegations and no one's responded back to us and there's much much much more and deeper issues here that need to be discussed and this probably isn't the forum to do that and I'm happy to do that and and try to work through this. I guarantee you one thing. I will build this project. You can fight me all you want, but I am not going anywhere. I've had other people here in this city already try to strongarm me to go to not do this deal. I'm here and we're not and we we intend to get this project done. But I tell you, for the sake of the community, what I would ask you to do is set some time aside and let's sit down and have a discussion and see if we can work through this. I believe we can and I believe after 16 years and this community working as hard as it has to de to to put this project together. I mean we were just we were the canvas. The community were they were the painters. That whole project down there comes from the CAC and we're proud of it. I love this city. I'm a kid from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I worked I worked in the steel mills. My my my wife worked for Unite Here. We're union people. the I just signed the PLA, just finalized the PLA. That took several years. So, if you want to just go and

throw all this away, I ain't gonna let you. But if you want to try and do it, that that's that's your issue. I'm just proposing to have some time where we can sit down, have another have a discussion, and see if we can work through this. And I think you need to understand what's happening here. I don't think you do. I know you don't. But I think it's imperative that as representing the public and your constituents that you should have at least one meeting after all these years and all this money that we've given and you've spent and time and effort that you've spent and your staff has spent on this project. I I I it would be a real injustice not to at least sit down and have a conversation and see if we can work through these issues. That's all I ask. Thank you.

Thank you. At this point in time, there's a do we have any questions for Mr. Miller? Because if not, I will go to open our public hearing. Okay, seeing no questions at this time, what I'd like to do is open our public hearing so that we can hear from the public. The time is 7:40 and the public hearing is open. Mayor, we have received one comment card and we have one hand raised online.

Please proceed in person. Our inperson speaker is Deborah A. Costa. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight's public hearing regarding the Cal Coast Development Agreement reflects decades of effort to redevelop one of San Leandra's most important public assets, our beautiful waterfront. The current agreement represents roughly 15 years of just one attempt within that much longer story. Projects like this are enormous undertakings, even when financing is strong. Building an entire waterfront district with housing, hotels, parks, and infrastructure obviously, as we've just heard, can take decades and requires extraordinary capital and coordination across the Bay Area. Waterfront projects such as Alama Point or Redwood City's waterfront development redevelopment have taken decades and billions of dollars to deliver. Tonight's herring also comes in the context of a bankruptcy involving Cow Coast. When projects struggle for decades, it is usually not just a contractual problem. It points to deeper structural challenges. One of those challenges here is connectivity. The marina is both economically and physically disadvantaged and disconnected from the city's core. Downtown BART and the rest of San Leandro are separated from the shoreline by major barriers, including the BART corridor and Interstate 880. Until that larger connectivity issue is addressed, redevelopment proposals will continue to struggle. And at the same time, the conditions shaping waterfront developments, as we've just heard, have changed dramatically. Climate science now points to more extreme weather, rising seas, and increasing

infrastructure costs. Projects conceived years ago need to be reconsidered through today's resilience lens. So perhaps this moment invites a broader question. Imagine what if we stepped back and reinvisioned a marina for the conditions we actually face today. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. That concludes our in-person comment cards. So, we will close inerson comment. We will open online comment, please. Our first online speaker is Douglas Spalding.

Well, thank you. Uh, Mr. Miller, if I may say through the chair, uh, you and I don't know each other, but I I have a a personal a family stake in the marina. Um, my relative arrived here in 1872 in the person of Moses Wixs, who did a lot to develop the marina because he brought oysters around the horn from Petog in Long Island. And I frankly am a kind of bummed that I haven't been able to make my walk out to the mosaic for quite some time to pay homage to my to my relative. Um, give it up, man. Like uh I I hope there's not a 118th meeting about this. Uh the time the time has gone by and your marks are revealing saying things like uh you know uh climate change, sea level rise have have you know we're done with that. No, we're we're at the we're at the beginning of that. The marina is a fantastic place to have a park. It is a terrible place to develop much more than what's there. It sits on 60 ft of mud. It's not like the Brooklyn Basin in in Oakland where we can put up high-rise after high-rise after high-rise. You got to drive those piles pretty deep to get away from liquefaction and it's it floods. Now, meet meet me at the corner of Marina and Neptune Drive during the next um King Tide event and we can both be entertained by the by the little fountain that the uh manhole cover turns into because the the water squirts up a foot or more in the air. You know, water is that wonderful state of matter that assumes the the shape of its container and so it just will go wherever it wants to go. So uh I think Cow Coast uh proposal is done with and

seems like you missed a lot of deadlines and opportunities already. I don't think there's a reason for the meeting. Thank you sir. Your time has elapsed. The next speaker is Lucas. Uh thank you. Can you hear me? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you for taking my comment again this evening. I I want to start by asking what's plan B? what whatever the council decides today, what what is plan B? You know, we've been working on plan A since it sounds like 2008. I've only been following this project since 2018, but 16 18 years of working towards resolution. And I haven't seen in that whole time a viable plan B. We knew this project was in trouble a long time ago, many years ago with all these liquefaction problems, the earthquake problems, the environmental impact studies. These are things that don't inspire the public confidence. Now, this year, we're reading in the news about bankruptcies. These things don't inspire public confidence. But the council had many years to come up with a plan B. And I don't see it if the decision before the council today is let's try to give this developer the opportunity to work through whatever bankruptcy process they need to work through and have this project as something they can point to as a reason uh to you know have that be resolved favorably so the project can move forward. Let's try to give them that that opportunity because if we take this away and we scrap this this project, I worry that it's going to be another 18 years before plan B gets realized gets reviewed by the community. The permit the developer mentioned I don't think they're re reassignable. I don't know if the Army Corps of Engineer if you can just swap in one developer for another. you're if whatever you're debating decide whether what you're debating is is another 20-year commitment to redevelop the property, that's not going to happen in any of our lifetimes. I hope this person gets to see at least one building built on this property. Otherwise, this is not looking very good. Thank you for taking my comments.

Thank you. The next speaker is Alvo Ramos. Um, so I just wanted to say this is the first time that I'm honestly hearing about this project and this issue. Um, which may indicate that maybe there are there's a significant population that lives in this city that probably doesn't know what we're talking about tonight. And um, that signifies a need for transparency. Not enough information about it. I could only scrape together what little information, bits and pieces I could from secondary news articles online, but um you know, I want to echo the um the the comments uh from environmentalism that sea level rise has the capacity to destroy any property development on the coast. This should be a lesson that we need to build inland and we have to stop building on the coast because there's no way to keep the water out. It's It's just not possible. That's it. And comment.

Thank you, mayor. That concludes our raised hands online.

Okay. It is 7:48 and I'm closing the public hearing. At this point in time, I'll come back to council members uh to see if there are any questions or comments. Okay, seeing no hands raised, I think I'm going to move to a motion at this time. And so I would move that city council adopt the staff recommended minute order is presented in the recommended se in the recommendation section of the staff report specifically as it relates to the developer hotel element, the multif family element, the developer restaurant element, and the market element. Vice Mayor

second the motion. Okay. Looking for any discussion on this item. So, seeing none, let's move to a vote. Oh, sorry. Please proceed.

Thank you. Um I just wanted to make just one quick comment and really it's around acknowledging um the amount of community um expectation around movement in that part of town. Um and um in particular um just wanted we at least myself I I really wanted to see this work. Um I hoped um and I think that our our team has been working diligently. Um particularly one of um one of the um defaults was around failure to pay property taxes. And to me that speaks to um misrevenue for all of the public agencies that um depend on everyone paying our property taxes. And so in addition to all the other reasons that are stated in the report in terms of the developers uh default of the schedule of uh performance on a personal level um I do want to see the marina become a place where people want to come and spend time. Um and um I will just leave my comment at that. Um but um appreciate the time. Council member Bowen.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I understand that this project has been around for a long time. Um, a lot longer than I've even been in San Leandro. And this is obviously um something that many community members um know about, but also many may not. And so for the purposes of um clarity and transparency, mayor, I I'm not sure who this is going to go to, and I appreciate the city attorney's um presentation in the beginning, but can you share a little bit about um the how we got here and in terms of terminating the DDA, even what that means and what that applies to, just so that we as a community understand what exactly um is transpiring and what exactly um the motion is and um uh and how it relates to the project.

So, at this point, I'm going to city attorney with this question. Please let me know if you'd like some additional information.

Thank you, Council Member Bowen. The specific the action tonight is specific to the default notices that we provided to the developer related to the revised DDA schedule of performance. And the main issue is that the post commencement ground lease requirements which uh are provided in the DDA and I'll restate here is that site preparation the post commitment commencement ground lease requirements were not obtained the permits for those which are necessary permits to complete those requirements were not obtained in a timely manner by the developer and the DDA requires that the developer developer obtains all necessary city and other public agency permits for site preparation for the western elements the hotel the multif family the restaurant and the uh market and they had to obtain those and commence construction within 24 months from the effective date of the ground leases which was around the end of December 2022. Site preparation under the DDA required development. Site preparation required for the development of each of those four elements I just named included work on the park prominads and bolt launch and included tree removal, demolition of existing buildings, demolition of hardscape improvements including asphalt pavement, concrete sidewalk, uh flood plane and sea level rise mitigation, searchcharging, geotechnical mitigation and rough grading. uh those needed to be the permits for that work

needed to be obtained within 24 months which would have been December 22 2024 that did not happen so notices were provided in January 2025 in accordance with the DDA notices of default which triggered a 90-day cure period cure for the developer to commence doing the work that was required obtaining the site permits etc and obtaining the site permits, having the site permits. On March 14, 2025, the city also provided a notice of default as it pertains to the public improvement agreement requirement and Cal Coast did not by the time that was required prepare or present to the city any public improvement agreement for the developer western elements and other public improvements which was required by the schedule performance. So they failed in the provision that defaulted it as to the schedule of performance.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Um

um the DDA is for the western portions of those four elements that you described. Um does ju just so um I understand with a DDA um uh what um I guess um I'm trying to understand as as the agreement um what does it live with like what is it tied to Does um I'm trying to understand how to the

sure the DDA defines the schedule of performance okay for the development the specific development the specific development it specifically states what needs develop what needs to be developed and the schedule for doing so when to start when it's supposed to finish okay um and is there any relationship between the DDA and the ground leases for those four projects. So four elements

the four elements they are connected in that they pertain to the parcels because the city ground leased provided a lease of city land to the developer to develop on each parcel those four elements. So in addition to defining what the developments were and the schedule, we also provided them a lease of city land so that they could develop the DDA requirements on those particular parcels of land that were leased. They were a tenant to the city.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, seeing no further disc uh vice mayor, please.

Thank you. I just wanted to underscore one comment that you made uh city attorney Pier Roa. Um it sounds uh please clarify. It sounds like the default happened several years before the notice of default. So there was an opportunity. What was the time lapse between technical default uh pursuant to the DDA versus the notice of termination of the leases and then now the

Yes. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You are correct. We technically did not exercise the termination until now, but default notices were sent all the way back to January of 2025 and March 2025. There could have been a cure at any moment in time in accordance with the DDA. So that's when the notices were sent out. Correct. Because according to schedule performance. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, looking down the dice for any further discussion on this item. Okay, so seeing none, we do have a motion on the floor with a second. So motion by myself, second by vice mayor. Does anybody need to have the motion reread? Okay, then let us proceed to a vote. And that is the motion to accept staff's recommendation and as written their amended order. Council member Aguular, may we have your vote? I.

Thank you. All votes are in. The motion carries unanimously with council member Simon, council member Bowen, Vice Mayor Veros Walton, and Mayor Gonzalez, and council member Aguilar voting yes and council member Bolt recused.

At this point in time, we will bring council member Bolt back to the dis and we'll proceed with item 6A. Here we have a presentation on the innovation and retail action plans under the city council's economic development work plan. And I do believe we have economic development manager Katie Bowman. Where are you Katie? There I see you. Please come on up. Cuz you're going to introduce our item tonight. As well as Alex Greenwood, Ed Delbocaro, and Christine Fenberg, if I've got that pronounced correctly. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Katie Bowman, economic development manager, and we're very excited to be here tonight to talk with you about several major projects we're working on under the economic development strategy and work plan, the innovation action plan, and the retail action plan. And um with that, I'll I will dive into the innovation action plan. We will have with us tonight several of our expert consultants who will be helping to provide some additional background uh as well as our staff is here too. And we will uh go through this and be available to go in more in depth and answer questions. And so with me tonight I do have Alex Greenwood uh an economic development consultant we have worked on a number of projects with. Um among other things he has done a lot of work related to innovative company attraction including in South San Francisco and other places and um also we have Dez Woodworth from our team who is our staff lead on um on innovation attraction matters and so just for context for the council work plan these uh this project falls under project 4.1 and also several of our implementation action items are

in there and with that I will hand it over to Alex. Thank you, uh, Katie, and good evening, mayor and council. Uh, Alex Greenwood. Um, I'm with the council's permission, I apologize, but I'm going to take the slides out of order because I think it'll make for a better story. Um so the uh the innovation action plan is designed to give the city a clear specific datadriven look at the specific types of industrial businesses uh that are the best fit for what San Leandro offers and also have the greatest opportunity to provide highquality jobs and sustainable revenue for the city. Uh the plan is also designed to lay out a work plan with specific action steps the city can take to pursue these uh industries. So why innovative uh companies? It turns out that innovative industrial businesses are particularly a good fit for what San Leandro offers in terms of our workforce, our infrastructure, the way the city is laid out. And they also have uh very strong growth potential and the ability to provide highquality jobs. uh and they often involve uh significant uh infrastructure and investment all of which contribute to sustainable economic vitality for the city. Uh so to develop this plan, we performed extensive detailed analysis of industrial and employment data combined with input from our local property owners, brokers, and industry leaders. Uh through this analysis, we identified four target industries. They're shown on

the slide here. Uh life sciences, clean techch, food tech, and advanced manufacturing. But then we wanted to dig deeper because we we know that each of these uh industries uh include a broad range of business types. Some of which are growing, some of which are contracting. So we wanted to understand and identify the specific business types uh that offer San Leandro the greatest opportunities. uh for example in the medtech industry there um we identified several industry subsectors that have particular opportunities for San Leandro. Uh these include high value uh medical device manufacturing, digital health, contract uh drug manufacturing, incubators and a couple of others uh as well. And we did this level of analysis for each of the four uh target industries shown in the slide. After we identified the specific business types we wanted to focus on, uh the next step is we wanted to learn more about each industry uh such as what their real estate facility and infrastructure needs are, what business trends they are going through uh and what issues the city would have to face in the process of pursuing these businesses. And so from out of that analysis, we came up with a specific list of action item uh action steps for staff. Uh these action steps include uh one-on-one business support, focused business attraction and marketing, outreach to trade associations, industry leaders, uh property owners, and other members of the development community. uh continuing the city's efforts to streamline and update the regulatory and approval process uh for uh these target

industries not just at the city level but also at the regional level. Uh exploring the feasibility to offer financial incentives and finally partnerships with PG&E. And here I want to uh note that our analysis identified electric infrastructure as the single largest infrastructure issue that the city face uh faces. Uh our analysis indicates that the city will need uh at least 200 megawws of power of new electric service uh to be installed over the next 5 or 10 years uh in order to allow the city to reach its full potential for attracting innovative businesses. So it's critical for the city to work with PG&E, the California Energy Commission, and others to effectively plan for our long-term power needs. With that, I will hand it back to Katie.

And so I'll give a brief overview. We've been working to implement this plan over about the past year. And I'll cover several areas and highlight um some of the projects and successes. And so really day in and day out, what we and Dez here are working on is working with the companies that we already have uh today in business retention and expansion and helping them to grow here. And so over a dozen companies he's in regular work with and helping them in all these different ways. One example of success was with a company called Core Shell. They are an innovative battery startup company started in um in San Leandro around 2019 2020. Uh have expanded over several spaces. They're now at 2020 Williams and we're now working to support them as they look for a bigger space to do manufacturing. and throughout that time uh been helping them connect with resources, provide letters of support uh with the help of the mayor and let them know about the startup world cup through which they won a million dollar uh grant for winning the international startup world cup. Also, we um have worked in business attraction and marketing. And here we just wanted to pause to show some concrete examples of uh the real estate market recognizing the value of our industrial area and the benefits from a fiscal perspective that that brings. And so listed here is some different um transactions and projects that are underway. We have about three projects uh um approved or planned. And so at any given time there are several industrial buildings in the works in San Leandro. And one example I want to share with you at 2021 Fereralon which is up at the top there. They uh in 2024 um a very very innovative um fusion energy company

called Pacific Fusion leased space in there. We worked to support that and they um they leased the space in 2025. The property sold for over $62 million, recognizing that it was a stabilized asset with a growing company. That was three times the value that the property had previously been assessed at. And that resulted in a one-time transfer tax of over a million dollars or excuse me, over half a million dollars to the city and um an an estimate of $40,000 in additional property tax a year at that new property valuation. So very exciting for me, I would say, from that perspective. Um also on an ongoing basis as you know we do a lot of marketing and communication about San Leandro through a variety of measures. Uh our primary uh way is through San Leandro next. We also do interviews. You can see here a flyer that we made that's on the dis as well. We also uh last summer did an insert in the San Francisco business times. We hold events with developers. We also work to build relationships and thanks to uh the mayor and other council members who have joined us on visits with businesses to learn about what they need and to uh show them that we're a businessfriendly community. And finally, as Alex mentioned, really uh working to start to um dig in on the challenges related to PG&E. It's a it's an infrastructure challenge for the businesses. It's not a city in infrastructure challenge but through through this we have for the first time started to have regular meetings with a representative from PG&E and work to track uh private projects and help to provide um assistance and explanation and from this we were actually able to take a project that was in the PG&E review process for over three years and the log jam has been broken and everybody understands what they need to do and they're going to be preparing for

construction. construction and installation in the fall. And with that, for next steps, uh over the coming year, we will continue much of this work. There's much more to be done, but things that you'll hear from us in the future related to website updates, zoning updates, and uh continuing to assess incentives. And with that, I will quickly turn over to our next item and bring up our next consultants. Uh so, we have uh the retail action plan. And with me here we have Christine Fenberg with Metrovation and she works uh focuses on real uh retail real estate as well as strategy. We have Ed Delbakaro with TRRI commercial with expertise in commercial and industrial and a lot of experience in the San Leandro market. And with that showing that this is item 4.4 for on our work plan. And the goals of this plan is as those of you who worked through with us on the on the economic development strategy is to help to bring more quality retail that the community wants, experiential retail, and make physical upgrades. And with that, I'll hand it over to Ed.

Thank you, Katie, and thank you, city council. So, I'm going to present some of the key findings of the study. By the way, these are very brief summary prop uh bullets from that u summary. It's all on the city blog that shows the extensive work. So, first of all, I'm going to talk about what the assets are. Um the city has many great assets. One is location. It's in the center of the uh south 880 corridor next to Silicon Valley. And as as Alex mentioned, there are some kind of benefits with that. St. Landrew is experiencing a rising household income. That's great for retail. It also, thanks to the staff, has a very pro business um culture in terms of attracting tenants. Um what are the issues facing the market? One is online shopping is a factor and is growing. Fact is, how many people here use Amazon or equivalent? That's part of the issue. 40 to 50% of retail is now purchased online and not in bricks and mortar. Um so that's how do we deal with that? The other issue specific to San Leandro is slow population growth. This whole area the south 80 corridor also aging in place. Older people don't buy as much merchandise as a new formation couple. So that's one of the factors to deal with. Um the other issue impacting San Leandro and some of the nearby cities is the low turnover of current um retail tenants in the older buildings. And one reason for that basically is that when you have an older building, what it costs to upgrade it with ADA, fire sprinklers, the rents are just not high enough today. But what are the opportunities despite this? And San Leandro is experiencing some of these positives. Oh, I did it. Um, what works and what doesn't work. So, the city's

demographics are changing and the retail mix is now reflecting that. The household income is increasing. So, Sprouts and Phil's Coffee is a prime example of that rising income. That's good news. We did a void study us and um with Christine's firm and we identified what retailers sectors were missing and what were the demographic filters that those companies were looking for. Sprouts is a direct result of that study. Um what other sectors were identified? Ethnic grocery stores reflecting the changing population demographic, restaurants, um sporting goods, home furnishing stores equivalent. Now, what are the opportunities or what challenges should the city take action on? Um, in general, right now, we have a slow market unrelated to San Leandro. High interest rates, tariffs, um, construction costs, etc. are all combining to hurt retail no matter where you are in in this area. Despite that, that's a key word, what can San Leandro do today? And the city staff start to implement that. So when the cycle turns, where is the city positioned to take advantage of that? Is to continue to improve the process and just be faster than adjoining cities in the in terms of the approval process. Two, continue the efforts to increase zoning for more residential downtown. Um creating walking traffic, etc. Density leads to more people, leads to foot traffic, leads to more retailers. continue the efforts to emphasize public safety. Yes, the crime statistics go down, but the perception is still out there that there's a crime issue. So, again, continue the efforts to make public safety. Now, I'm going to turn it over to Christine.

Thank you, Ed, and good evening. Um, I wanted to talk tonight about implementing the plan. A plan is no good if it sits up on a shelf and the council and staff never use it. So what we wanted to do with the plan that we came up with is make certain that there's a very very clear and implementable um action plan. So the action plan's overall approach was to we took the information from the deep dive that Ed had talked about. We created the action plan and made it doable with steps that we as brokers because this consulting team is almost all brokers that we as brokers have seen other economic economic development staff use and be effective with when interfacing with retailers. The action plans implementation program was organized into three sections of activity with five major categories of action shown. And I've got those five categories right there. In the first section, uh, under market readiness, that's where one of the suggested steps was to create a database to track retail space inquiries and match the retail space inquiry with maybe a space that's available in the city. That can be incredibly effective. um but with h bringing in new retailers quickly into the city. Um a second step in the implementation program was to have a zoning review. I believe you guys are in the middle of a zoning review right now. It's very important. You've heard about it from the innovation clause. Um you'll hear about it from us retailers and brokers. It's very important to do and you are doing that. Another step that was

suggested was the revamping of the business incentives that are available to attract and assist some of the different retailers that you choose to go after. We provided a list of retailers using the void analysis. We provided a list of retailers with phone numbers and names that the staff can actually call. And those are some of those retailers are some that you may want very much. and you've got um some incentives that might be available to them. Um another short-term step is on the market readiness is hosting local annual events for brokers and property owners. We actually had a roundt event last year that was attended by property owners and brokers and it was really really um interesting. I think everybody in that room learned something new about retail in San Leandro. But there's nine other steps just in section one. In section two, it's our marketing and communication outreach implementation. Um, some of the suggested steps under the marketing include the creation of a dedicated web page with up-to-date information for the brokers, developers, and retailers. A web page like this is critically important, not only to build, but to keep up. and you've got a dedicated staff that will be keeping this up. Again, that allows a retailer looking in San Leandro to find what they need right away versus go on to the next city. Uh this the creation of marketing materials. You can see on this screen the marketing materials that were created are pretty amazing and very sophisticated. Um they advertise San Leandro to retailers and brokers at ICSE events and

ICSE is the International Council of Shopping Centers. There's over 50,000 members and that includes retailers, developers, brokers, and service vendors. So again, advertising to that organization, you're getting um access to the retailers directly. And under the outreach um section of the um action plan, the plan recommends that staff maintain regular contact with the listing brokers of San Leander properties. The staff needs to know what deals are in process. If there's a listing broker, they're it's their job to go out and be talking to tenants. Who is it that has the best likelihood of coming in? And can the city help in any way? from the third section of the um action plan implementation steps. The third section is support for shopping centers which I think is one of the most important. It suggests that staff interface with shopping center owners on a regular basis to identify challenges and encourage owners to make small but visible upgrades. I know staff has been doing this and they have had some impactful conversations to support staff in these efforts. The consulting team actually did an assessment of three centers in San Leandro to identify challenges. Uh I think

are we good? Okay. I am going to sign off and turn it one more step and I'm turning it back over to Katie. If if uh if the mayor would like we can continue otherwise we can happy to answer. I have just a couple of minutes to just wrap up. It's always awkward when you and suddenly, but if you've got it covered, you've given us some good things to think about.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. So uh briefly here as I mentioned at the beginning we do know um you know a big thing as well for the community and for us is looking at how to support and upgrade the physical uh physical retail uh spaces which which have shown for instance at this um uh the top shows Marina Fair, the bottom shows um uh the the former Bank of America along uh Fair I believe Fairmont. Um and um and both of those as they remodeled their rents um increased quite quite a bit and they've brought in new tenants and so not only for the community but for the property owner that investment pays off. So we um working with the consultants they assessed three different centers and looked at some specific recommendations that we can make some specific strategies and they're outlined here and these are things that we can do we can recommend to all property owners. And finally just uh some fun at the end. So um we already are getting lots of great retail, lots of great restaurants. We have been working in the retail area for for years and years and excited now to be working in an even more strategic direction. But uh in the meantime, just to to tout some of our successes, we're very excited. Ace Hardware is going to be opening uh potentially with a soft opening mid-March uh in the greenhouse marketplace. Uh as well as of course everyone has been excited about Sprouts. Um, many of our restaurants has have been getting lots of critical acclaim. Many of them for, you know, this this picture here, the best sizzling rice bowl in the Bay Area or, you know, you know, and so that that's a a Korean restaurant. We've got um other Chinese restaurants, all sorts of really authentic, great places being recognized. Um, and with that, I will also share, of course, Phil's Coffee is

coming and they as well are working towards a mid-March opening. So with that, we're happy to take questions. Thank you. I think what we're going to do on this presentation is take public comment first and then we'll come back for questions and dialogue. At this point in time, do we have any public comment? Commenters. Mayor, we have received one comment card and there are two hands raised online. Let's proceed in person, please.

Our public speaker in person is Deborah A. Costa. Good evening once again. I want to begin by acknowledging the work economic development manager Katie Bowman and her staff have done on the innovation. Oh, you're over there. on the innovation and retail action plans, supporting small businesses, filling storefronts, helping entrepreneurs, and uh assisting high growth businesses. um succeed are all an important part of a healthy local economy and I absolutely appreciate the effort uh that has gone into these plans. Programs like these matter because they help our business community navigate real challenges, especially as retail districts continue adapting to major economic changes. At the same time, it's helpful to remember that plans like these work best when we think about how the pieces of our economy connect. San Leandro has strong assets. Our industrial base, our transportation access, our business districts, our emerging innovation economy, and yes, our education ecosystem. The opportunity for the council is to keep asking how these pieces support each other as the city grows. In fact, there was a time nurtured by former mayor Steven Cassidy and the council when San Leandro gained national attention because the city connected infrastructure, industry, and partnerships in ways that helped us compete with some envy in the Bay Area economy. The Marina discussion earlier tonight is a good reminder of why that target larger view matters. When major projects are considered in isolation from the surrounding challenges, they can struggle for a long time. Plans like

the ones before you tonight are important tools. The opportunity now is to keep connecting those efforts so they reinforce each other and strengthen San Leandro's long-term economic Thank you. Your time is up. Mayor, that concludes our inperson com our in-person comment cards and we have three hands raised online. So, would you please proceed online? Our first online speaker is Douglas Spalding.

Hi there. Well, that was uh that was great. I I really appreciate that uh that presentation. Very informative, very well thought out. Uh I made a lot of notes. I'm afraid I'm going to run out of time, so maybe I'll start at the end first. Um, as an educator, I would hope that we we take advantage of the economic development uh to come. Um, uh, so for example, uh, you know, like let's get our secondary students into substantial internships. I know there's already a great internship program. Uh, and also look to develop um, you know, high schoolmies that align specifically with the sectors that that were identified tonight. Uh, I know San Lorenzo uh already is set up that way. I'm not I'm actually not as familiar with San Leandro. Um, the 200 megawatts uh uh kind of caught my ear. Uh, I think we should over plan for something more than that. 250 300 megawws. But let's not go down the AI hole. Uh, that's going to require even more power and and and more water. Uh, let's not construct another Russell City natural gas power plant. uh let's do leverage a variety of renewables um into into modular plants uh with solar and wind and heat pumps and and industrial uh uh scaled fuel cells. So let me go back to the um the other question that first came up which to me was uh what attracts uh economic development and you know we've been having a discussion about housing. Uh I I think that matters to both to um uh industry and employers and employees. Um and we need a mix that includes affordable housing. We can't expect all these jobs to be white collar jobs. Uh we need uh the housing protections that we're talking about and we also need to acknowledge the history of redlinining and other housing discrimination. Let's just face up to it. A redlinining uh uh ordinance is not going to cost you any

money. Let's just do it. Okay, I'm out of time. Bye.

Thank you. The next online speaker is Alvaro Ramos. Um, so I'm calling as an uh urbanist stuck in the suburbs. Um, I am disgusted by certain projects in this presentation. Here's the deal. I don't see economic development through unsustainable suburban infrastructure that loses the city money and is too expensive to maintain. What is the cost of deserted parking lots for industrial warehouses and big box retail shopping centers? It never lasts. Suburban hell perpetuates elder abuse in our city. Senior citizens are trapped in their houses because they cannot drive anymore. Our sidewalks are abandoned because there is no accessibility out of our neighborhoods. Um and hence Americans do not get their daily exercise. They got to have a car to get around. We require mixeduse development and public transportation. That is the way that we improve accessibility out of our neighborhoods to participate in the economy for both workers and consumers. I think it's ironic that this presentation that the city did advertises BART in the marketing, but you're not providing advancements in public transit. The most expensive item for household budgets after housing is transportation. Car prices are too expensive. Insurance costs are high. Maintenance costs too much. and fuel prices are rising. The car addiction that we have makes the United States's infrastructure a failure. It holds us back. A developed country is not where the poor drive cars. It is where the rich ride public transit. And let's also talk about a real issue, energy. Residents are paying hundreds of dollars for winter utility utilities with

Pacific Gas and Electric. I can only imagine the expense uh for for bit the expense to production costs for businesses. So the cost of living the cost of production are burdening the California economy that's everywhere. Thank you. The next speaker online is Lucas.

Hi. Can you hear me? Yes.

Hi. Thank you for taking my comment again this evening. Uh, mayor and council, I wanted to speak to uh, item 4.1 in the presentation or slide 4.1 on presentations on page five. Um, and just generally ask uh, what's taking so long? Why is everything here in this action plan taking so long? Was the 2024 start in 2024, but I see items like complete city brand assessment and develop a marketing strategy to improve visibility and identity. that was started in Q2 of 2025. It just wrapped up in Q2 of 2026. It listed as five quarters. Does it really take us a year and a half to do a city brand assessment? Um I I don't know. It feels like it should have I I don't even I want to ask about how much money that took, but it feels like it should have taken a lot less time to realize that a lot of the cities in the East Bay, even people in San Francisco don't know that we exist. it it's it's challenging to move the brand of of one of these cities and I don't know that it would have taken a year and a half to sort of figure that out. Uh the first row uh in that page implement innovation action plan and provide city council with an update two years from Q3 of 2024 to Q4 of 26 uh of 2025 to 2026 two years to come up with an action plan. I mean this should be done in like a quarter, two quarters at most. I I can't imagine you know at my job my manager coming to me and saying you know you have to do this or that and you get two years to come up with an action plan and give me an update on page I think it's on page 18 of the pres sorry yes it's on page 18 of the presentation project 4.4 4 create gathering vibrant vibrant gathering places from Q1 of 24 to Q4 of 25 install beautifification art and wayfinding. I I

very much appreciate that the things that improve the city. Thank you sir. Your time is elast comments. Thank you. Thank you. At this point, we're going to close public comment, come back to our council members for questions and discussion, beginning with Council Member Bowen.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I get really excited about community um, economic development, so I wrote lots of notes, but they're all over the place, so bear with me. Um, the one thing I wanted to add on that very first slider in the beginning was around assets. Um, I wanted to offer another asset that I think should be included when we're talking about San Leandro. Um, and I think that it is like safe and family friendly. And um, I obviously am uh, I have a present bias with that because I have a family with young three young kids. So, I'm constantly around young families and they genuinely are incredibly excited to be in San Leandro and to want to do things in San Leandro and always asking for more things in San Leandro. So, I just wanted to uplift that as a real asset that we're having. And, you know, I mentioned it in another um presentation we had before, but another asset is around our schools um and how they support our families. And that's a very direct connection to community and community being in the in the city and wanting to really create and have these third spaces. Um I have been to almost all of these retail new restaurants. I'm really excited to go to Viv VBIM. I'm giving these businesses a lot of my um council pay um and I'm excited to do so. It's really exciting and then um people are really excited about it. um the idea of community and third spaces. There is right now a shift in retail. Um there is a lot of research that goes into looking for new items, products online, but people do miss and want to be part of um being in person and going and being in places together. Um and and I so I think like thinking about what that hybrid looks like for the city of San Leandro, especially if we're trying to make it more walkable and be able to have um a lot of different activities together. I think our downtown right now is becoming

incredibly and has been really vibrant and as the weather gets better and time change, it is going to be a lot more there are going to be a lot more people walking around. And so the more opportunities we have for people to engage and stay wherever they are shopping, I think that's really going to impact San Leandro. Um uh the the biggest I think um barrier that people have whether it's a um prospective retailer or a person that wants to do something in San Leandro whether it's to shop or to build something is around like the friction or the sludge of being able to get the information or go through the process. So, I really appreciate the information you shared around implementation, but um if possible really to minimize how much work a potential retailer has to do in order to see themselves and find the information that they need to be able to do something in San Leandro. It doesn't take much to get distracted and to want to go and do something else in a different city, especially if something seems pops more. Um, but it really is, you know, then the I'm I'm not kidding. Like at least once a month, if not in most conversations I have with a group of people, um, somebody throws out an idea about what they would love to see in San Leandro or what they would love to do themselves. So there is this entrepreneurial spirit that is here, but how do we really cultivate and support that in a way that goes from idea to um, being able to help you go through the process? So, I appreciate the call out to like being able to figure out what spaces exist, right? Um, in a way that's not just me forwarding an email to economic development, right? Because we want a concert venue or we want um personally and I want this for myself, but I want a plant shop, wine shop. So, if anybody's interested in doing that, let's talk because I will happily support that. Um, but restaurants,

shared kitchens, all of those things, especially women and people of color. are part of several different um women's entrepreneurial groups and we meet at restaurants and businesses here in San Leandro and they really want to do things here but they're working in their home offices because they don't have an a shared space necessarily. So the that's why we're trying to get out more to see what's out there and what's possible but creating different um tracks for people whether they're small businesses or larger businesses. Um and and you know something about you know the cost of housing but actually more expensive than the cost of housing in all 50 states uh higher than um rent is the cost of child care. And so if we're going to be build if we're going to be having these large businesses in San Leandro after the work day thing you're going to rush to go do is to pick up your child. So if you could have your children be in the places where you're working in the same cities, you are more likely to go pick up that child, stop by the library, go to the cafe, go to the restaurant, go to the activities. And so creating those loops that enable people to be able to take the um the barriers that they have and then and make sure that they're served in San Leandro. Um and then I will I'll stop there for now.

I can't tell. Council, Council Member Ail, did I say it was hand up? Okay, perfect. I'm going to come to Council Member Bolt.

Yes, thank you for the presentation. It's uh it's it's nice to see this type of work and hear the the different ideas that are coming in front of us. I do want to thank Dez though for the opportunity to go into these different um facilities in San Leandro that you took me to to to recognize some of the community partners we have and and companies that are doing great work. That's really beneficial for me to see how it's um coming together and and all the work that's being done by staff to make sure we're trying to keep them in our city and having those conversations about finding uh larger spots for them to grow into. That's that's amazing. So, thank you. Um I do want to ask a couple questions about the presentation. Uh Ed, when when you there was a slide up there and it was talking about some of the u missing sectors. Um I I don't I could have missed it but I don't believe you mentioned some of the sectors that were missing. So I just wanted to see

I had four minutes to cover an hour. I I know I get it. I just wanted to see if there were some things in there.

So what we basically do is we first create a demograph demographic profile. We um what are the factors that go into what a acquisitions persons for a retailer wants? Population within a half mile quarter mile radius 10 mile radius. The 10 mile would be the regional type activities where people would drive from Oakland or Fremont to get here and what are the half mile quarter mile where you walk to or drive to. And so then we match that against household income, education, age, and all the other factors that go into purchasing. Then we come up with what we call a void analysis. Who's here and who's missing? So these categories here were the ones that were missing. So for instance, one of the things that we discovered in a previous study that we did with city of San Leandro is most people have a 10-year image of a city 10 years old and not current. So the San Leandro we discovered and you know one of the questions is how come I don't have a Trader Joe's or a high-end supermarket or equivalent and what we found out is that the demographic profile of San Andro has done this higher household income more diverse. So there's a large percentage of Asian Chinese percentage now in the city versus 15 years ago. So when you match that against the retailers acquisition profiles and location profiles, you come up with what's missing. So Sprouse actually looked at that demographic information when they made their decision. Phils is what we call a telltale um the equivalent of Pete's you know versus nothing wrong with but 7-Eleven coffee is is a profile versus somebody who goes to Phil's connoisseur taste etc. So San Leandro is entering that phase where it it's now with better um household income, better education. Um what industry, what retailers can you now attract that meet those profiles? And so these are some of the sectors that we that are not here that could be more more common.

Got it. Okay. Does that answer the question? It it does. And and additionally, I need to step up my coffee taste because I actually like 7-Eleven coffee. But um there's nothing wrong with that. Yes. Okay. Uh and then and then that and that also is speaking to like the over supply too like like when we're talking about some of the the pieces that that it's saturated in our market and and is that aligned with uh uh household incomes? Is that also the way you guys are doing that?

Yes. I mean there's two first of all department stores are dinosaurs. So that's why you have empty Macy's, J C Penney, and Sears. That used to be the catch walls for all these various sectors. So now that we don't have department stores, and I don't care if you're Walnut Creek, PaloAlto or San Leandro, that's an issue. Second is two household incomes actually need online purchasing. People who need two jobs to pay the rent and the mortgage don't have time necessarily with childare and everything else. So online is definitely there. Um but in answer to your question there u we did look at what's oversaturated.

Therefore these are what are underrepresented. We think there's more room for another grocery store for instance downtown. Um we think there's more room for some of the more there's definitely more restaurants that could come downtown to cater to the growing um diversity here.

Okay. Uh thank you. Yes. And I will echo that. Um, you know, the different sectors that I see in my daily job and how we're developing around the Bay Area, a lot of it, you know, a data center. Well, we don't have the infrastructure to handle the data center. It might bring a lot of money, but there's it taxes a lot of resources. But the idea that we're going to put an emphasis on getting uh higher quantity of electrical supply to the area is key for us because that's how we're actually going to get some of these higher paying. So I I appreciate the analysis and the deep dive. Thank you for all the work.

Vice Mayor, please.

Thank you. Um, thank you to Katie, Dez, Lars, everyone who's here, and the rest of the team who helped support this work. Thank you so much for your work. Um, uh, I have two main comments. Uh, one, um, anyway, I I have two main comments, I think. Um, I've and I think the presentation highlights this, but I've experienced fantastic culinary experiences here in San Leandro. Um, but not just of the new places. I'm talking about some of the legacy businesses that we have in San Leandro like Manor Grill and Elios and Roners and all of these established businesses that also need the support of innovative marketing and positioning because I think that that is something that we see as a tension between and I and I'll share right as a as a newish transplant to San Leandro I married into third generation San Andrew family, right? So I I constantly am like exploring these places that people have gone with their grandparents and I don't um I I just want to elevate that tension and and I and I know that I've seen them uh I've seen those types of businesses um highlighted in our economic development collateral. But I just would like to elevate that uh because I think that for those of us who uh understand and value where we came from but also want to look ahead, I think there's just this balancing act of supporting these established businesses. Um some and then also um you know we we have some of these other restaurants that um at least in my experience they are ethnicentric, right? So we have one

of them that was highlighted was Dao Artis and Noodle. We have Metro Takero that opened two locations, one in Marina and one over on um East 14th and San Leandro Boulevard. Um and then we have some like unexpected like celebrities like this fish sandwich and uh that I have I've shopped at that place for so long and I never thought it would take off like that, but okay, here we are. Um but you know I I think that this is something that um one as leaders on this council but also as leaders and representatives of the city um we are constantly kind of balancing these two a kind of legacy but also like a a deep um a deep uh I think now kind of a tradition of like ethnic fantastic food that I think we talk about it, but I'm constantly like telling people like if you want green salsa, go to this place. If you want good pole, go to this place and if you want good hand cut noodles, go to this place. Um, so I think like I'm constantly kind of an ambassador for that. So my question is um how are we how is the team balancing um and market kind of these legacy kinds of businesses? And I'm just talking about restaurants. There's a myriad of other businesses that are legacy, right? Like Mr. Plastics and a bunch of other um so how are we kind of balancing these legacy businesses with the kind of um retail and business and innovation industries that we want to attract?

Yeah, that's a great question. And also I was remissed to introduce Lars Hall who is our lead on retail related matters. Many of you know him. He's has a lot of great relationships with the businesses, with the property owners. So, sorry about that, Lars. But, uh, one thing he will be doing is working on updating a restaurant guide. Um, you know, different ways to to support legacy businesses. Um, you know, it's it's getting out and telling the story. There's a variety of ways, right? Through a guide, through social media shares. We've been collaborating with the communications team as they work on videos as well and looking into uh you know different um parallel paths between new and legacy. Also we collaborate with the uh with the chamber on restaurant week which is a really good way to try to get people out and explore the the old favorites and new new finds. Um and as well we'll be um helping to share about the taste of Asia which uh is a which is a activity going on in May uh as well um uh sharing about Asian restaurants in town.

Thank you. And then I just have one last uh question. It's more of a comment but um we were talking about some of these priority industries that we're looking to attract. Um, and I think one of the inevitable tensions is um, balancing the need for us to control our emissions and the city's plans on our climate action plan um, and balancing that tension, right? We want to attract these priority businesses, but the reality is that they use water and electricity and that increases our emissions and our water use, which is a finite resource. Um, so it's not necessarily as a question, but it's something that I'm looking to kind of connect the dots across the various plans to think about um how we can responsibly grow um uh both in our population and our types of uh e like economic ecosystem and our workforce development, but also balancing uh the need to uh control that type of growth in a way that is responsible for future generations. Thank you,

Council Member Simon, please.

Excellent presentation by you, your staff and consultants. Very nice job. A lot of information here and I'm very excited the direction that we're heading in San Leandro. Uh, one question and one comment. Uh, the question is the $62.75 million sale. Why? Why did that sell for three times the previous amount? I'm happy that it did. Just curious about that. And then my comment or question slash comment would be retail arrivals. So happy that Ace Hardware is coming. Thank you for getting that to the greenhouse. We really needed that push look getting the the cash registers running, bringing in those tax dollars. Costco, as we know, is so busy bursting at the seams. Oakland has nothing. So everyone from Oakland comes to San Leandro. It just whenever you go it's just a mad house which is good. You go down 880, Hayward, Union City, Newark, Fremont, three Costos in a very small span and they're just cranking in the dollars and we're not. I'm curious why are we not cranking in those dollars because Costco can barely handle they're bursting. Um, so this is goes into my comment or question. There's other retailers outside of the immediate water side of the bay that we aren't tapping into. For example, um, I worked in conquered for 25 years. There's tons of stores out there that we don't have here. Big ones, such as um, gosh, it's slipping my mind. Okay, Sam's Club. I know people are going to say Walmart, but Sam's Club is huge. It's just like Walmart, gas station, the whole nine. And we've got tons of space. Why are we not bringing in a Sam's Club to crank in those retail dollars to take some load off of Costco? Because I don't think they're going to build another Costco in San Leandro and other small stores that can bring in money that

people love. I know people that drive to Dutch Bros and Conquer just for the coffee. Literally, they do it. It's a small little coffee that we could pop anywhere. Why don't we have that? So, just thinking about bringing in shops that are not around our immediate area that I know people will spend money in to get the the tax dollars in. Thank you. Did you want me to answer the Costco question? Sure.

Okay. Um, your Costco does more than all the other ones. So, they had to take I represented Costco and I know this because I did the Hayward Costco because they couldn't handle what the amount of sales that you're doing in San Leandro is huge. And based on that, they had to put another Costco. They had to open another Costco. They've just started a new program where they're opening um Costco's closer to each other. So now they've got two in Fremont and or Newark and then Fremont. And that has never happened before that they would open them that close. The one at the new New Park Mall and then Pacific Commons, they just hadn't done that before. So that one in New Park is kind of an experiment that they're doing. And it whether or not it really pans out, we don't know. But your Costco is still bigger than those. You're bigger than Hayward. You're bigger than uh Pat Commons and you're bigger, of course, than the new one at New Park. Your Costco is probably even bigger than Conquered. And Conquered's one of the biggest in Northern California.

So, I think you should be really proud, right? But we we we need there are more shoppers in Costco can handle in San Leandro. That's my point. and they have to go down to Hayward now. We want them to stay in San Leandro. Um, we'd have Okay. Yeah. Go ahead.

And so, right. So, you're just asking about I think what we can do is continue to work with them as as they talked about gathering, you know, really honing in on that available real estate on the property owners and working with with our consultants and other retail contacts to find out rights. So in addition to Costco, you know, who is the contact for Sam's Club, who else is expanding? Who might be a competitor since we have plenty of demand or does, you know, do they want to do more? So, um, always open to opportunities and and thank you for that suggestion. And was there another part three times the price for the property?

Yeah. So, precisely not not exactly sure. It's overall it's an indicator of the market strength. Um it's not the first time we've seen large increases in property value. Um depending on how long the property was owned um and uh you know so the market is really strong. Another example had been the Westgate Center. It saw similar kind of drastic increase in value. Um and so um yeah so that's one reason.

Thank you. Council member Aguilad please. Thank you, Mayor Gonzo. Thank you, Katie, and your team for a great presentation. I think, you know, we talked about our our plan. This is a great um economic strategy, but I think there's Can you tell me why? Um, you know, we talked about hospitality. Why was hotel space missing in that? and with toot tax um you know something that we can really benefit from. Um is there is is that something that is being talked about or will be implemented in this economic development strategy? Where are we at on that?

Yes. um not specifically as a part of this retail action strategy, although I might might get some help. But uh we do have in our overall economic development work plan um in the coming years to be to be doing further assessment of hotel opportunities and I think as we've discussed before it um it's certainly in a lull right now, but to be ready to be poised to try to attract opportunities when the market improves. Um, did you have something to add?

Unfortunately, this is not a good time to be in the hospitality business. Seven hotels within 10 miles of here have been foreclosed on. They're tearing down the Hilton by the airport. Downtown Oakland is losing three hotels. Um, there's the average hotel occupancy in the East Bay is 60 62%. You need 70 occ% occupancy to make it work. We're not a tourist destination. So it's the business concept hotels from Monday to Thursday night. People in LA now have a Zoom meeting. They don't fly up here like they used to precoid. So right now San Francisco has hotels on Union Square being foreclosed on. So yes, hotels are a good thing for toot, but right now um some of the hotels that are still operating are going to be torn down because they're just not making it.

Thank you for that explanation. and and I think you know one of the one of the great things about um marketing San Leandro is uh Biz now and I've been to a couple of events where you know we work with the developers and um you know you you the mayor were all great at presenting and saying hey this is what we're doing um having panel discussions as to you know how we're working to bring new businesses San Leandro do we have do we anticipate conducting? I know we talked about a little bit, but do we have anything on the calendar um in the future or um what is the what is the next steps on that look like?

Yes. So, as as a part of the plan, we are working towards doing a retail specific event in the coming year I think in the fall and so we'll be doing that. uh we we will explore you had been we had been to a broader kind of development and real estate related one and in any given year we are working towards those and as you mentioned it's a really great way to uh reach out and start to build those relationships and to uh introduce new developers brokers but also um older ones to encourage them to continue to invest. Thank you. Those are my questions.

Okay. So to wrap this up, I've got a a couple of thoughts of my own and I will not repeat everything that others have offered already. So do you think that Sandlander does have a number of older buildings and you know there might be an opportunity in at least some circumstances where we could uh if we were creative support the financing of certain transitions and I've heard complaints about the cost of covering fire conversions. Um, so just be be thinking creative ways when we think about economic incentives. It doesn't have to be necessarily tax breaks, but it could be some sort of financing based on increased tax revenue, increased property value. Just I just encourage you to keep that in mind. Um, I do think that we should continue our efforts to celebrate and show gratitude particularly when we have property owners that are updating their properties. I feel very strongly that the work that's been done at Marina Fair is just amazing. It it just has so transformed that location. The types of businesses that have gone in as a result of that. And every time that there's uh like a Girls on the Run at the marina or some sort of event at the marina, I'm always encouraging people before you get out of town, it's literally half a mile away, just stop there and grab a bite to eat. So, I think that that it's just so much more inviting. And so, things that we can be doing to support those uh efforts and to just appreciate to show gratitude to the property owners. A lot of times those people like to fly under the radar and I get it. But by the same token, I think that we need to make sure that they understand how much we appreciate what we're doing. I'm very grateful for the work that you're doing with PG&E. I think that is absolutely strategic um to us wanting to be advanced

manufacturing location. The biggest complaint that I hear about is power, power, power, power power. And if I haven't mentioned, it's power. So understanding how to work that system most effectively is critical to what we're doing. So I do think that that's a strategic investment that you are undertaking. Um I do believe that um I've seen a recent effort to uh promote our own businesses here in the city of San Leandro. The communications I think that you were speaking about. I also believe that's strategic. I think that bragging about what we have and then, you know, jumping onto the social media craze and reposting things that others are saying this is fantastic, right? If if it's getting a lot of likes and and traffic and we see bumps, that's good and and we should join that joy in in promoting our businesses and our community. So, thank you for what you're doing and let's just keep let's keep pushing along that realm. Um, I think the last thing that I'll just highlight is I'm I'm particularly grateful for for the strategy. And by strategy, I really mean that strategy is all about making choices. Strategy is about deciding what you're not going to do. Strategy is I'm going to do this, I'm not going to do that. And I feel that by identifying targets that helps us focus, focus, focus, focus. discipline, discipline, discipline. Um, and what I also like is the tactics in the work plans because it's strategy is just an idea and it's really the tactics in the work plan. You know that uh business apherism culture and in action eat strategy for lunch any day, right? Strategy is is just is worthless if you don't have the actions. And so, thank you. And it's I I see much more uh activity and I just

want to make sure that we keep focusing on that. And I'll just kind of close with this thought because obviously I came from the business world. Um but I think that the concept really applies. Namely in the business world we'd always say stop talking about business development. Go out and do business development. You can you can have meetings internally all day long and that doesn't make that doesn't go and attract businesses. that doesn't build relationships, that doesn't tell our story. So, you just not that you're spending too much time in internal meetings, but always keep in mind that economic development, business development, growing the economy is about what's happening out there in the business world, meeting people where they are, and being able to tell our story very effectively. So, thank you for all that you're doing. I think you've gotten some good feedback from the council as a whole, and we encourage you guys to keep doing your good work. Thank you. Thank you very much.

At this point in time, it is 9:02 and we are going to take a 10-minute break. So, we will be back at 93. Thank you. We are in recess.

Okay, I'm calling us back to order. The time right now for our record is 9:13. So, at this point in time, we are going to proceed with a presentation on proposed um draft code amendments related to retail cannabis dispensaries. Here to introduce the item is Deputy City Manager Eric Ingelbart,

council, and members of the community who are here with us either online or in person. Pleased to be here tonight uh to continue our discussions uh related to cannabis policy. Uh before we dive in, of course, this presentation aligns with the city council's adopted economic development work plan. Uh just a brief overview of the items staff is going to cover tonight as part of the presentation. We'll start off with a little bit of background information and how we got here tonight. Uh then we'll have a recap of the rules committee meeting discussions that took place uh over uh late 2025 and their related recommendations. And then uh we'll provide an overview of some proposed code changes and some proposed modifications to the set uh sensitive use setback and distancing comparisons. Uh we'll then have a few uh location visualizations of potential zoning changes and then a summary of the recommendations. Uh so how we got here tonight, as you may recall, this past May, back on the May 19th of last year, the council uh adopted an ordinance to award a fourth operating permit uh to Nug Wellness. And then at that meeting, as part of that action, city council also directed staff to uh take a matter on cannabis policy to the rules committee and specifically with um a potential discussion or an expans discussion of a potential expansion of the number of licenses related process for awarding them as well as direction to treat other dispenser operators comparably to how NUG was treated. Uh then between June and December of 2025 uh there were three rules committee meetings at which cannabis policy was discussed um in which there was a robust deliberation by the rules committee members. Um and then this past December at the December 10th meeting uh the rules committee um did direct staff to advance the project forward for s full city council

consideration. That's how we got here tonight. Just a little synopsis here of the rules committee's uh recommendations and those items that were covered and captured at those meetings. Uh we're going to start off here with the first several bullet items are those areas where there was a clear consensus among the rules committee members and then we're going to discuss those areas where there was a lack of consensus. Uh so starting out the gate here you can see there was a clear consensus on incorporating a definition of youth center. Uh although our current uh code requirements do uh state that there needs to be a distancing requirement between the establishment dispensary and a youth center, the definition of a youth center is a bit unclear and so we are recommending adopting a definition which we'll get to in just a few moments. Uh there was also a clear consensus to allow setback modifications to account for physical barriers such as freeways or waterways. And so we'll show you some draft code language on that. Uh there was clear consensus on allowing the issuance of two additional cannabis operating permits. That's for a grand total of six. Um and so you'll see some code provisions on that. Uh and now switching to the areas where there was a lack of consensus among the rules committee members uh relates to the specific changes to the distancing requirements and we'll get into that in more detail in a few moments on slide 11. and there was a lack of consensus on uh the modified zoning districts in which retail cannabis would be allowed. Uh and then lastly, it's it's worth noting that there was uh some discussion by the rules committee and some direction to staff related to tobacco uh retail uses and specifically concerns were expressed about the aesthetics of tobacco retailers. Um, as was covered at that meeting, it was noted that tobacco

policy and tobacco regulatory controls are kind of a separate and distinct item uh that is very distinct from cannabis. With that said, um it's also worth noting that back in just this past November, following an extensive public outreach process, the council did just recently adopt um a number of new tobacco regulatory changes already. And so to the extent that the council does separately direct staff to modify existing tobacco policy and regulations after we get through the cannabis policy process, um that would likely impact the city council's adopted work plans. Uh some also in addition to that discussion I just covered from rules committee, there was also some questions that originated from rules. Um, one of them you can see at the top, there was a question about whether or not the greenhouse the owners of greenhouse marketplace or the Bayfair Center would allow cannabis retail. Um, our our staff from our community development department did reach out to the ownership of both of those uh shopping centers who responded that they would not be interested in allowing such use types at their sites in the absence of changes in the federal regulatory environment. Um the committee also inquired about proximity to child care centers. Um so we've included more information on that issue on slide seven. And you'll note as we just to jump ahead a little bit, we are recommending a 600t distancing requirement for the establishment of a new cannabis dispensary from child care centers which would align with state law. It's also worth noting uh state law is already rather permissive when it comes to the establishment of uh child care centers and there's they're really they're basically allowed by right uh in any location where residential uses are already permitted. Uh the committee also inquired if the Sandlander Chamber of Commerce or if the SLEA had taken a formal position on cannabis. you know, at the time of

writing and publication of this presentation before you, only the SLEA board had provided a formal response to that. Um, and they stated that they while they were supportive of an expansion of what's known as the green zone and the areas where cannabis could be allowed, they were not supportive of a retail cannabis dispensary within the SLEA district boundaries. Um, we also want to thank the Chamber of Commerce for hosting, city staff. We gave a a lengthy presentation at a special meeting of the chamber board to discuss polic cannabis policy. We provided a an overview of what's being under consideration and that was back in November and as the time of publication the chamber has not provided a formal position on the matter though I understand an email may have been submitted to the city council on this issue earlier this afternoon. Um, additionally, there was some general questions about just the the nature of conditional use permit process. And so, we'll get into that in slide 10. So, just diving right into some of the things I just covered a few moments ago. Uh, you can see on the screen there, we've, uh, incorporated a draft youth center definition. I won't read every line of this, but you can see this is a rather robust definition and this in many ways mirrors the city of Alama who went through a very lengthy public outreach process when they were when they were establishing their own code requirements related to cannabis and we believe this provides a a strong definition that provides clarity uh which our current code does not provide. Uh you can also see here draft distancing provision that we're proposing. Uh as we'll get into in a few moments in more detail, the current code requires a thousand foot setback for most sensitive receptors and we're recommending that be modified to 600 ft to align with state law. And then we also per direction from the rules committee, we're recommending that there be some language that takes into account significant physical or geographic barriers. You know, the classic example of this would be, you know, if we

require a 600 foot distancing requirement and the dispensary wants to set up and there may be a school or another sensitive site that's technically 599 ft away, but it's on the other side of a freeway or on the other side of a railroad tracks or a channel that you can't even physically get around that the planning commission when they review the permit has the ability to take that into account. And then um as I mentioned earlier, there was clear consensus. The rules committee was interested in allowing for the issuance of two additional cannabis permits. And that's a relatively straightforward amendment. You just striking out the cap on the current restriction on not more than four permits and allowing six. Um regarding the cup process, um we wanted to cover this in light of some of the dialogue at the recent rules committee meeting. Um because we want to make it just clear to the committee to the city council as well as the community that even if the council tonight were to adopt everything that we're recommending that you all direct us to proceed forward with it does not in itself create a a byite entitlement for a cannabis dispensary to set up. So say for example you adopt the changes to allow 600t distancing requirement and the various zoning restrictions. It's not like if a cannabis essentially then comes in and meets all those rules. They're automatically going to get their C. They still have to go through a public hearing process. They're still going to have to all the neighbors are going to have to be notified about it. There's going to be a public hearing before the planning commission. There's going to be an opportunity for, you know, people who have concerns with that permit to state, you know, to to elevate those concern and a public forum. Um, and then also there's an appeal process. So ultimately whatever decision the the planning commission makes on that cap could ultimately be appealed back to the city council u if someone were dissatisfied with the outcome of that hearing process. And in addition to all of that, as well as all of the existing findings of approval, discretionary findings that

are already applicable to cups, as another measure of of precaution, we are recommending incorporating what what are known as these special findings that the city council already adopted and which are applicable to cannabis manufacturing permits already. And you can see those items one through four. But the intent of that language is to provide again that additional discretionary language to give that assurance to the public that the planning commission has that authority to essentially you know deny an application for a dispensary permit if it just doesn't make sense. If we're just looking at it from through the lens of you know just is this a good location for it and for any other reasons there it would give more opportunities for the planning commission to have that regulatory teeth. Uh, switching gears here. This, um, I know there's a lot of numbers on the slide. This is intended to show a matrix of what the current distancing requirements are here in Alama County. And, um, one areas that I really want to highlight for your attention is this first row in particular. And you can see um, we are currently in a lot of ways and in particular in this column, San Leander is currently an outlier. As you recall, we set up our regulatory framework well over a decade ago. That was prior to the adoption of any state level regulation on cannabis. Um, and there were very few agencies or municipalities in the region who were allowing this type of use. Fast forward to today, cannabis, for lack of a term, better term, is more or less normalized in in Alama County and you can see most of these communities here with all these rows have allowed them. And you can see with with the exception of Union City, no other city even has a residential setback requirement from cannabis use retail uses. And I think part of the reason for that, as you know, many of these neighborhood commercial centers, you know, where you have a supermarket or a 7-Eleven, etc. are inherently just they're designed to serve the adjacent residential areas. And so that's why they typically are set there. And the challenge is with our structure, when you impose that

residential setback all over the city, you essentially blow out most of the viable sites in the city. And the bottom line is our current code and our current map is extremely restrictive. And as we'll get to in a few moments, it really it really highly highly limits and constrains the viability of finding a viable site. And so you can see there, this row here, this last row in white is what our current requirements are. And again, you see we were we're much more conservative when this was set up at 1,000 ft. And we're proposing staff is recommending modifying that to 600 ft which aligns with the statewide standard as well. And so we can see here um this map was also previously presented at the rules committee. You can see on the left um these are and I want to add these are these are e these are the best these are our best estimates based on available information. But generally speaking, the map on the left, those orange parcels generally is where you can see current when you employ it, when you apply all of those setback requirements we discussed earlier, you can see what's left as viable sites. And you can see most of them are kind of tucked here in the industrial areas out in areas um in district six, six, and some in three. Um, and then you can see what the staff proposal is, which is to allow cannabis retail uses in any industrial or commercial zoning districts, which is what it would be shown at right. Um, I do want to also though reference again, as I mentioned earlier, just because something if this map were to move forward and you were to direct us to move forward with it, it doesn't mean that if any cannabis dispensary operator came in for an application that they would automatically be permitted to be there. they would have to go through that public process, the public hearing process, the neighborhood notification and all that subject to an appeal to the city council if someone disagreed with the outcome of it. So, it's it's not a buy right thing we're talking about. It's really just expanding the map of potential sites. Um, so in terms of our next steps here, um, staff is recommending that the city council give direction to staff to

proceed with the following items that you can see on the screen, which we already discussed a few moments ago, including allowing those deviations from the setbacks to account for physical barriers, adding that definition of the use center, allowing for the two additional retail permits, uh, and modifying the required setbacks as shown on that matrix that we just presented a few moments ago, and then modifying the zoning code to allow dispensaries in the full range of commercial industrial zoning districts as shown on slide 12 and applying those additional special findings as well. And then uh in terms of next step, if you were to direct us to proceed accordingly, our next stop would be taking this package to the planning commission for their review for any elements that involve the zoning code changes and then bringing back the whole package for a final review and approval before the city council via via first reading at a future meeting. And so with that, that concludes the staff overview, but we'd be happy to answer any questions or take your feedback. Yeah, I think let's take public comment on this item. Then we're going to have a robust question and answer.

Mayor, we've received two comment cards on this item and there are not any hands raised online currently.

Let's begin in person, please. Our in-person speakers are Nara Dalbaka and Emily Ggo. Good evening, mayor and council members. I know I've talked to lots of you over the last eight or nine months um about this and I've toured several of you at um Harborside. Uh, I also sent an email tonight uh with some potential draft language for a uh second location for Harborside to get the same um uh fair and equal treatment uh that NUG received last year uh getting a second um satellite location. Um and but one thing that uh we I did add in um in the language that I sent over is um is a request that uh that any second location for dispensaries uh be granted to those who have been vetted um and may have uh and have an operating history and good standing in the city. Um, I think that both uh both Nug and Harborside have spent a great deal of money um and uh gone through all kinds of of hoops and and difficulties in order to be compliant operators in the city. And I think that that's um important if you are um going to reward a second location that um that you know who you're who you're partnering with. Um and uh I uh support uh heav definitely support the um the potential sensitive use waiver. I think that right now, as you could see, it's um nearly impossible uh for for folks to find that second location. Um we do understand that the uh the chamber and the downtown association do have

some issues with downtown being included and that's uh completely understandable. Um we would ask that uh however you move that that this happen quickly. Um and we would hope that you'll take up the uh the second location for Harborside at a future meeting uh in the near future so they can start to identify those locations because they are so difficult to find and so they can begin the cup process and uh getting you guys some taxes into your

time has elapsed. The next speaker is Emily Grego. Is this going to come down far enough? Eric, I'm going to tip down. Hopefully you guys can hear me. Hello everybody. This is really funny. Oh my god. Does it go down more? Oh, it goes down even further. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I even do have a little hill on but I All right, guys. Here I am. I'm not hiding. Emily Grego, president, CEO of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce. Uh we have talked about this topic several times at several different uh board of director meetings. And the reason is because we have to consider the perspective of our diverse membership and the broader goals of the city. But where we've landed is we do support modernizing the ordinance by aligning setback requirements with the state of California guidelines, allow additional cannabis permits, and expand zoning beyond the current green zone with the exception to prohibit cannabis businesses in the downtown area. So, we believe this strikes a balance. Aligning setbacks with the state standards creates a framework that's clearer and more consistent and easier for businesses and regulators to implement and understand. And additional permits and expanding zoning in appropriate areas also recognizes that cannabis is legal and regulated and a regulated industry in California. Thoughtfully expanding opportunities in designated areas can support economic activity and investment. At the same time, we know that there is a distinct and intentional vision for downtown San Leandro to create a welcoming f familyfriendly and pedestrian oriented destination. And

many businesses and stakeholders invested in the continued growth and character of that area. So for that reason, the chamber believes it's important that cannabis zoning not be expanded in the downtown district. So, we we we are happy to expand zoning, expand permits, uh modernize the ordinance so that we're not back, you know, 15 years ago or whenever this started. Uh but, you know, downtown we've got a vision for it and we'd like to see that vision kept through. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. That concludes our comment cards from in the room and we have one hand raised online.

Okay. Okay. So, we close public comment in person. We open public comment online. Lucas, you may unmute yourself. Uh, thank you. Can you hear Can you hear me? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, I remember I've called about this cannabis situation so many times in the past. I am still opposed to expanding the number of permits in the city. I don't think that we should even have the stores that we do. Remember, this is a smoking product. This is an addictive substance. People debate that, but and it's still illegal at the federal level. Reme I I called about this last time and I I urged the council to remember your oath, the pledge of allegiance to the republic. And we have laws and the supreme law of the land is the constitution and the laws made in pursuit of it. And federal law says that this product is not legal. uh and this the state disagrees but you have a no and the you know the the federal as I understand it super well and other than that issue other than the whole I think you're doing illegal things you could wait a few months and wait maybe for the current administration to recategorize cannabis or all sorts of other issues like public safety and crime you know these things tend to you know homeless shelters attract homeless people and drug stores attract drug addicts it it doesn't take a genius has to figure that out. There's a risk to youth, not just by placing these stores in neighborhood. They're around people's They're around where people go. That's why there are stores. People go there. They're stored. Parents bring their kids. Oh, let go. You sit in the back trunk. Maybe I'll go into the store. I pick up whatever I want. It normalizes this behavior with the kids. No matter how far away you put it from youth centers or schools, the city sends a signal that this type of behavior and this type of use is okay. For 50 years, we've been fighting against smoking. And now we combine smoking plus THC. What a great idea. I wonder how this will turn out in 40 years. The odor and the nuisance element of marijuana is far worse than it is with tobacco. It lingers longer. It sits in your clothes. Let's not have this in

our city. There's a reason why the chamber doesn't want it downtown. It will destroy downtown. Thank you. Your time is up. Mayor, that concludes our So, we will we'll close public comment and then we'll come back to council members for questions, discussion as you see fit. We will begin with council member Bolt.

Okay. Thank you for the presentation. Um looking at Thank you, council member. There's we're reducing the next to the libraries to zero as I as I see it on this chart. Can you go back to that? Certainly.

Yeah. From a th00and ft to nothing and then the residential and the houses of worship. Personally, I have a problem with that. I don't libraries is like the the one thing that I have the biggest problem with. I I don't agree that if we're talking about youth centers for the right reasons, we're saying let's not allow it next to a youth center. A library is akin to a youth center. There are tons of kids that go in and out of that uh facility uh all day weekends um and hopefully uh during after school hours. So, I personally have a problem with that. I I don't think that is acceptable to just eliminate that setback around the libraries, houses of worship, and then the residential zones. Especially when you when you go into the map where it actually gives us those new locations in the purple, it's Everybody's got their own feelings about this stuff, but when we talk about it'll vitalize economic activity when we go into some of these purple areas. Well, guess what? There's not a lot in District 6 because it's an industrial area. So, bringing people down there for that reason, that's a no-go for me. That doesn't even equate. But then when we push them in like we're saying not in the downtown area uh you know because of commerce what have you but then you go into Manor where Ports and all that is and it's purple. It it seems like we're saying it's okay in that end of town but it's

not okay next to us. I'm not okay with that. I think that's a flawed uh angle to take and I just hope we go back and revisit that because if libraries are going to be in NA and we can put them as close as we want literally almost directly across the street from our newest library the way this purple lines up on fairway. Um I'm just not acceptable with that. So I'll stop there. I'll listen to the rest of the the council's comments for now. Vice Mayor, please.

Thank you. Um I did actually notice that corner on Farnsworth and um and uh Manor Boulevard. Uh and it was and I know why. There's commercial space around there. It, you know, there's available space there. Um, so I could see um anyway I saw that disparity, but I also do want to support um SLEA and the chamber and um um excluding the down and particularly the the the SLEA kind of uh borders. I don't know what would be the mechanism to do that just in terms of a what would be the vehicle to exclude the downtown because there's a there's like a border, right, that SLEA has. It's very defined. What would be a vehicle for that? U

Well, thank you, Vice Mayor, for that that question. We absolutely your council has the authority to prohibit that if if the if the council desires as such. Um, and it's fairly clean and straightforward. Although I would clarify that the jurisdictional boundaries of SLEA versus how the city defines downtown via the DA zoning are not exactly the same thing. So, we would need clarity on that as well for for context as far as the city's definition. Maybe this is a good segue. I can pull up a little quick map here, but I can show you it. Um, I don't know if the Yes, there we go. that's already showing up. So, this area in Aqua

Mhm. uh is the all the various DA that's downtown areas the acronym, but that is the how the city defines the downtown area zoning. And there's sub subzones. There's like DA1, DA2, DA3. Uh we have our planning manager here if we want to take a deeper dive beyond that in terms of those definitions. Um, but this this aqua I don't know that that necessarily precisely I don't believe that that precisely mirrors the SLA boundaries.

So just just big picture I'm assuming that our the what the city defines as downtown is a much larger footprint than this leas footprint. Um, right. Because I see the East 14th corridor kind of shooting out um into district five. Um, okay.

And then to just drill further too again, you could the council would, if it had the prerogative, we could break that up that downtown area further in the D1, D2, DA1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Yeah, I would like to explore that. But I also keeping in mind some of the uh I think there there could be a perception of like some parts of the city having kind of more like kind of not in my backyard sort of uh vibe to this. So um I'm I'm also um concerned about the library. I didn't notice that in the presentation. Um also I just have a question in terms of the youth um uh the youth definition um the youth center. Am I reading this correctly? That um martial arts and combat sports or cultural or similar education those are not in those would not fit under the youth center definition. I welcome our planning manager to to to speak to that

and right the the definition that's shown that that we presented is the definition that um that the city of Alamdia adopted to provide some more definition to youth center. In that definition u uh martial arts studios would not be considered a youth center. I think their their aim from reviewing their their um uh reading the staff report and other documents that they they produce the the aim their aim was similar to ours. If they were is to uh take a existing ambiguous definition and provide um provide some clarity to make sure that um staff is administering it evenly and fairly and um uh it can be uh easily identified. what's a youth center and what's not. The counsel can can provide direction in terms of what to include in the definition, what what not to. Uh but staff is largely concerned be able to correct correctly interpret what that definition means and be able to um apply evenly.

I'm also going to have city manager offer some additional commentary. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, vice mayor, for the question. And I think the other point for martial arts is that there are martial art businesses that uh their clientele is specific also to adults. If you think of MMA um and other jiu-jitsu, they actually have businesses that are martial arts that don't provide services to youth, but there are plenty that do as well provide services to youth.

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm thinking specifically of Palance that does provide after school programming for more than 5 hours a day and they have youth programming in the afternoon. So it's continuous from about 11 depending on school whenever school's let out. Um they have an afterchool program um and that would be under the SLEA borders and under the downtown. So I'm I'm particularly concerned about um the martial arts, but I guess it would not count because it offers more than five hours um of youth programming. Um, but I I just that's something that I'm just thinking about. And there's also uh uh uh Juniper Corner. I don't know how many hours it'll be open throughout the day, but that's also a family type center um with a lot of young young children and families um going there. So um so that's kind of where I'm at. I'm looking at library um similar to council member Bolt looking at the um library um uh radius and then um don't know how I feel yet about the residential but want to explore that. So I guess I don't have I will not be adding my voice to the consensus on that. Um and then um let's see and that is it for now.

So I do want to follow up just to get clarification from legal and or uh deputy city manager. So I do want to specifically consider a facility like Palens. that's not unique to palins that is involved in martial arts as a service offering. I think no one would dispute that reality. But they also offer these other services commonly thought of in that context. So under this definition would something that uh council the vice mayor has described would it be a youth center or not a youth center and if if you want to just give some thought to it that's fine too because I don't want you to get it wrong

it's just kind of confusing to me and I wasn't quite clear that the answer aligned with how I was thinking about it.

I mean, I welcome our planning manager who's taken a deeper dive on this, but my reading of this is that in those examples, if they are if those facilities such as Palance or others are offering greater than 5 hours a day that's serving youth, then they are a youth center and therefore the setback applies. The conversely, if you have like a 24-hour fitness that primarily serves adults, but maybe offers one hour a day of karate classes, but they're the other 23 hours a day they're not doing that, then they would not qualify as a youth center. And I think that's the intent of that. I would also share B I obviously I'm not a city of Alama employee but having just kind of perforely monitored that those discussions I know this was a huge contentious process and they went through a very robust process about this and there's a lot of gray areas there and I think this was the outcome of that process that public engagement process to try to thread that needle to protect the distance ensure sufficient setbacks are imposed for those examples like the palance or others where five or more hours a Hey, they're serving youth, so they should get the setback. versus those more like other facilities that are kind of doing martial arts as a side thing that's not their as more of an ancillary function as opposed to their primary function. they are not given the setback because I think the challenge is when you if you take away or you you strike out too many of these caveats then we get you're heading back towards the direction of our current map where things are so restrictive that it's becomes not viable for business disensory operators to identify viable sites because there's so many potential gray areas that may partially serve youth and so this was just one of those challenging inherently challenging issue areas that all cities are grappling with and this is Alama's outcome of that process. But of course, as always, the council has the prerogative to modify that and it may what worked in Alama may not work here and that's your prerogative to

Okay. So, I'm going to come to council member Bowen and I'm going to talk to legal counsel on the side.

Thank you. I know that um if we can go to the map with the purple um one of the longer um conversations we had during rules was about um what this map actually covers if you were able to overlay all of the setbacks that were on the map. So for example, we have like a I think a section that would be like the I think it's like the MacArthur shopping area, right? like yet to the right I think um like Estado and MacArthur I think there's right like it's like a little pocket and so technically that would be um eligible but not really because there's a preschool right behind it and so this map doesn't necessarily mean that it could go anywhere where it's purple. So there there already going to be automatically different setbacks that prohibit many of the things that we're concerned about. And so I don't know the specifics of like the corner where the library is, but I mean I I certainly um you know if if we want to keep it at 10,00 ft I am like very supportive of that. Um but it is it does not mean that um uh there I I think if we were able to actually overlay what would be available, what places would actually um lease to a dispensary like the the number is going to go down much much more and the idea is to expand the map so we can potentially bring in more um businesses. And so that was the intent and the conversation that we're having in rules. I also am not supportive of carving out a specific downtown that is um based on a one I obviously I support SEA and really appreciate like the board and the work they're putting in. Um but I am I personally think that um if there is a business in the if there is a property in the downtown that would be eligible

given all of the setbacks because there are lots of you centers, different facilities, schools down there as well. um lots of lots of activ like um activities that would be excluded from it um that we would at least allow for the opportunity. I just went and again like we always go back to Alamita in this particular case because we really looked at their um use case, but I literally just went to a 5-year-old's birthday party that was uh I don't know like a block and a half from the the Nug Dispensary downtown and it was incredibly vibrant and safe and kids were out and families were out and um I did not feel the concerns that are often um expressed. I was actually just more impressed by how vibrant the the area was. And I will say that um there are plenty of constituents that I have conversations with that have said, "Oh my gosh, that would be really interesting and I would love that it was downtown. I would love to go to Fieldworks and then go to Sola and go to these new restaurants and then have this downtown." So, I just want to offer that perspective.

Thank you. We're going to come to Council Member Simon next.

Thank you, Eric, for the presentation. thought about this a lot a bit a lot thought about thought about it's getting late sorry I thought about this a lot since the last rules committee meeting and I appreciate the feedback from downtown and one thing I don't want to do is is you know force this onto neighborhoods or force this onto people I don't think that's fair to the people that live and work there I think there's lots of lots of areas in San Leandro where I think our opportunity unities where folks would be comfortable with it, but where people aren't comfortable with it. Um, like downtown, I don't I don't I wouldn't want to force that on them. That goes to other smaller downtowns like the Manor downtown at the intersection of Farnsworth and Manor. I wouldn't want to they don't they don't Manor does not want that either. So, I wouldn't want to force that on them. So, they have a library there. The Manor Library is very close. And just in general, the setbacks for residential. I think having a cannabis dispensary right next to a right literally your neighbor 5t away is not okay. And that's the way that is currently shown with NA. You could have a dispensary 5 foot from your house and I'm reading that correct. Right.

Well, is that okay with through the chair if I were address if you could address that

quickly? Yeah. So not necess short answer is not necessarily because although technically yes a if someone came in with a proposal for the manor um adjacent to a residential zone yes technically if this map were adopted they would meet that requirement but they would still have to go through a public hearing process and they would have to meet those special findings that we talked about and so the planning commission would have to assess does that proposal in the manner is it situated appropriately is it situated appropriately distance from schools shall centers parks or other sensitive land and use of appropriate measures set up is it's suitably designed to they secure aesthetically compatible with the surrounding area and it won't be a burden. So it's there's all these subjective findings notice in land use speak that those are called discretionary findings that the planning commission would still have to make. So even if the cannabis dispensary comes and says we meet the requirements of the of the chart, the planning commission could still say yes. But we as the planning commission based on the feedback or if the neighbors came out and said we strongly oppose this, there's a method by which the planning commission could still say no by virtue of this discretionary permit path. So that's the point I'm trying to make is that just because something technically falls on this map is not a by right like oh you get it. It's it still has to go through a robust discretionary review process with a public hearing. And if people are still dissatisfied with the outcome after the seven member planning commission makes a decision that can decision can be appealed right back to the city council and you all would have the final decision on that irrespective of whatever numbers we come up with today as far as the distancing. That's my point. It's just that it's not a by right thing that it's just one layer of a multi-layered process of review and requirements that they have to go through.

Okay. I still think there should be some type of setback just not in a maybe 500 is a bit much but I think something should be there and I think it's good that we're allowing additional dispensaries. I support that uh for six valid permits. I think that's great. But I think this map we really have to fine-tune and um not force it where downtown doesn't want it. Manor downtown doesn't want it. Um, I think there's a lot of a lot of other Bayair we heard doesn't want it. Um, Greenhouse doesn't want it. So, I think we have to be careful with this map.

Thank you. If I is it okay if I had one one additional comment on that theme, I'll make it very brief and we cover this at at length rules committee, but there the other factor floating around all this is because of the federal prohibition um that affects landlord's ability to lease to cannabis. Typically, if a landlord property owner has any kind of a federally backed mortgage, so for example, they basically have a loan from a bank, then they're typically going to prohibit cannabis uses. So, that factor in of itself also is a huge limiting factor in the ability for a cannabis dispensary operator to find a viable site. meaning they either have to buy the property outright without a loan or they have to find a business a property owner who owns it without a without a back federally backed loan or mortgage and who is willing to allow the use. So when you overlay all those factors it's just kind of speaking to that that there's kind of inherent complexity to finding a site irrespective of what number of distance numbers we wind up today. So thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to uh council member Aguilad next online. Thank you, Mayor Gonzalez, and thank you, Eric, for the presentation. I just want to let folks know dispensaries are welcomed in District 3. I think I have most of them in my district. Uh I I think with with regards to the the setbacks. Um you know, my council colleague does make a good point with regards to libraries. I think like you mentioned with regards to the planning commission um I had uh a dispensary um you know there's there there are many sites you know that are that are viable for for dispensaries in in San Leandro. So if there is is there an exception process where if a dispensary is within that setback, can they apply for an exception to go through planning to verify to verify whether or not you know like you you mentioned a boulevard or freeway or a channel separating a neighborhood. Um would that be a possibility for a ensory to apply for an exception.

The the current code does not provide detailed clarity on such an exemption. However, if if the council were to direct us to move forward with this recommended modification to our definitions in our municipal code, it would indeed provide a path forward for the planning commission to use to utilize as a mechanism to allow such a deviation. such as the council member Aguilar just described.

Thank you, Eric. And and I know there are some, you know, businesses that are just that are desolate that that, you know, a dispensary can perfectly fit in that location. Um so I just want to be amendable to that, but I I do support the the extra um licenses. Was was there any talk in ex expanding the licenses to eight or 10? Was that a conversation?

Mr. Mayor, okay. If I address that question of council, no, there was not. Um staff at the time of the initial proposal uh did not include numbers as of those beyond that. We actually staff the original staff proposal just referenced the existing number of four permits. Rules committee consensus was to allow two more for a grand total of six.

Gotcha. Okay. I I support the the six licenses. Um and we we had a public commenter who who mentioned um a license. So, let's say Harbor Harborside or NUG has a license and they're actually uh what is it called? Cultivating, I believe. Would that that would be considered an extra license. So, that would be considered two licenses. So, if if Harborside was looking to do the same thing as NUG, that would be four licenses total, would that be an additional license?

Present. Presently we have an adopted ordinance that the council had separately adopted via separate adoption that prohibits commercial scale cultivation of cannabis in San Leandro. Um so to the extent your reference to cultivation that we currently prohibit it basically the only exception is Prop 64 allows by right of any resident of California I think have six plants for personal use in their doicile but that's for personal consumption only not for commercial. So there's in San Leander there's no current permit path available to to conduct commercial scale cultivation. So basically any cannabis sold at our disp retail dispensaries has to be grown or cultivated in another jurisdiction and allows it.

Gotcha. And and is is that an option to allow cultivation in San Leandro? Uh, I mean certainly state law allows cities to make that decision. And so to the extent the city council desired to modify the previous ordinance that prohibited commercial cultivation, the council has that prerogative if it so so chose and that's something that I would support. Okay. Thank you for for that, Eric. Those are my questions. At this point in time, we have reached our time limit. Do I have a motion to extend? Vice Mayor Motion to extend to 10:15.

Do I have a second on that motion? Council member Bolt, it looks like I'll second that. Thank you. Just for the record, I know it wasn't recorded cuz I'll second that. Thank you so much. So, at this point in time, uh please vote. Motion to extend until 10:15. Council member Aguilar, may we have your vote, please? I Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Okay. I think everyone has had a chance to speak at least once. So, I'd like to just weigh in just a little bit and then I'll come back for a second round. Um because part of what I'm struggling with is I'm not getting a lot of consensus. I haven't heard any opposition to expanding the number of permits. So, let's just start with that. And so I think that from from a staff direction perspective that's that's we're going to be fine with that. Where I'm hearing just a lot of uh folks going back and forth um what do we do with downtown? What do we do with the downtown manner at the intersection of Farnsworth and Manor? What do we do about this location? What do we do about that location? So I don't I don't think that we we're we have consensus there yet. Um, I do think that at least I'm getting the sense that there is some sensitivity to libraries and there's sensitivity to neighborhoods. And what exactly that looks like, I'm not sure. But what I will point out just as a as an FYI, in some sense, when you look at neighborhoods, there are like seven slightly less than half of the cities that say nowhere near a neighborhood because we just don't let it happen in the city. So I think that there's some it's not like we're an outlier in that sense. We just have to think about the broader county. Now this is a more progressive area and so I think we take that into consideration. But what I think is being proposed is zero and I'm not sensing that there's broad support for that. uh big picture, I think what I'm going to end up recommending is that given the discussion that's happened here that we go back to rules and kind of try to hammer it out a little bit more to come back with something that's going to be more sufficiently palatable, but we'll let council members weigh in. I think at rules I had asked about liquor store

permits and trying to think make sure that we're at least somewhat analogous um as proposed. Would these be aligning to what we do for liquor stores? I'm going to defer to our planning manager on the the setback requirements for just just for clarification your questions regarding the minimum separation requirement between liquor stores. Yeah, as I as I look through, if I instead of saying cannabis dispensary and I just said liquor store for example or bar, right? I just I'm trying to draw a a connection to what we do and just big picture. Is it similar or is it materially different?

If you can give me one moment, I have in my notes, but Okay. Okay. Because I know we've talked about it. I just don't think uh that that answer ever came back. Um cannot

Well, I'm struggling to see it myself. Um but it is online on our website. Um I do think that one thing that's instructive about what we're experiencing here is I don't have anybody from the public, from the neighborhoods, from the wherever speaking. I wonder what that means, right? Doesn't seem to cause a lot of turmoil. Is it that we haven't done enough outreach? Is it that people really just don't care? Um, but I'm I'm struggling with that because we're we're up here protecting individuals to some degree. Uh, but I don't hear the individuals speaking out. So, I'm just I'm notating that. I don't really know what to do. It's just more of a of a comment uh of of what I'm observing. Um, so I'm going to come back to my council members, but my inclination right now is to kind of go back with rules so we're okay on the permits, but let's kind of do a little bit more vetting and maybe some public exploration. Coming first to Council Member Bolt and then to Council Member Bowen. Uh, yes. Thank you. And I I will say the context that Council Member Bowen gave helped me a little bit with with this idea because I'm looking at the map and I'm saying, did You know, I'm sure you did, but did we look at some of the other schools besides just USD, for instance, St. Leanders or St. Felicitus or something, how they align in that group? But with the context that council member Bowen said, you guys would look at any of the schools, uh, be it that we said that there was a child care right behind the, uh, um, shopping center on Estadillo. So, I appreciate that. That makes a little more sense and I think uh vice mayor would call this teasing out some

of the information that we have because I think it is really important and I do support uh growing the number um of uh licenses that we have from four to six. That's fine. But I I will reiterate that the libraries I I think that's a good idea. maybe go back and and kind of figure out what we could do around the libraries. And then one that I didn't see, and maybe you guys discussed it, but didn't uh come up was senior centers and what that means and what they think. Um, you know, from the bottom to the top, let's make sure we're doing it all. Um, I think it's important for us to make sure that when we're making these decisions, we're And I'm not saying nobody is not doing what they need to do, but I just wanted to raise that uh up. So, um, I I would support that we go back to rules and kind of clean it up a little, especially around libraries and and um some of these little blips on the map that showed uh this would be a good spot. and I'm looking at it going, "Oh, that'd be a horrible spot." So,

Council Member Bowen, please.

Thank you. Um, I would actually support changing the or not changing the setback for libraries, keeping it as is, and um supporting the other uh the the uh these amendments. Um uh in terms of um you know I was just thinking about senior centers. It's interesting because I did the research around trends with cannabis use and more people actually use cannabis consume cannabis. Not sure the language around it. Um but then alcohol actually. And so there is an act there's a real market for it that again is regulated. Um, if we want to ex increase the number of permits but not increase where they could be located, then we're just increasing permits for the same pool of locations that is already um less than optimal in terms of where they could be. And um I've heard numerous times like a phrase around like you don't want to force this on anybody. I'm not so sure how having um a a expanded eligibility forces it upon um any particular person or neighborhood because they still have to go through all of the eligible setbacks that we talked about plus the financing plus the um uh planning commission process plus you know just public comment in general. So, there's already going to be extensive um uh opportunity and and general challenges to being able to have one. So, if we're going to ask if we're going to increase permitting, then we do need to increase where they could be. Otherwise, then why are we increasing permitting? Because that's the problem that we have right now.

Council member Simon, please. As far as the public coming out and speaking, it's past 10 o'clock and most people are sleeping. So, it's really hard for the public to speak. And we as council members represent our districts and I think we're each doing a pretty good job at that. I know I've sp spoken to my constituents about this. Sounds like council member Aguular has too. And district 3 has quite a bit of industrial area, has some residential um industrial and he's representing his district and more than happy to open up district three. So we are increasing the area, not just the number of permits. So we are making big strides here. I think we should take an incremental approach. I think just opening up the floodgates is is too much. I think we should take a step-wise approach and um I think we can flush that out more in rules. I agree with that. Uh but I think looking at just the map here of district 3, there's a lot of purple in district 3 that's open to us to talk about. And school routes, we also have to talk about in the manner. There's one way to get to a royo. That's down Washington Avenue over the bridge. And hundreds of kids walk down that route. and you're going to put one right along a high school kid route. We have to think about that too. Uh so I look forward to this coming back to rules and we can make some good ground here. I think we just have to be take a stepwise approach. Thank you.

Okay. So at this point in time I I feel like there's a consensus to take the discussion that's happened today. I I know that uh deputy city manager has taken a lot of notes, city manager also taken a lot of notes. I've taken a lot of notes and I think rule rules committee members have taken notes. So to take all that feedback and and go back to rules and and take another bite at this apple but with kind of a little bit more narrow a scope on what's on the table. Um are any final thoughts from council members before we break for the evening? Council member Aguilar, please.

Uh just just just a quick uh comment, Mayor, a quick ask is that, you know, I think we had um the chamber speak and and um you know, advocate on behalf of of SLEA. Um, but you know, I think we should also really consider downtown because that's the heart of the city and uh if there's, you know, any way that we can allow um uh a dispensary in that in that um vicinity that would that would be uh a great a great asset in that sense. So that's just my my my ask on that.

Thank you. And so these thoughts will come back to rules committee. That's the will of this council. Right now the time is 10:13 and we are adjourned.