Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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The Blowout Planning Commission regular meeting is in order starting at 7.04 p.m., September 9, 2026. We're going to go with a call to order and pledge of allegiance. Commissioner Medeiros, can you start off, please? Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which

Thank you, Commissioner Medeiros, for leading the Pledge of Allegiance. So we're going to move to the next agenda item, which is the oath of office of newly appointed commissioners. Vice Mayor Matulik.

Testing, testing, now it's working. Okay.

Try taking a step back.

There we go, we're good now. All right, if you could please raise your right hand. Let's just try to use this one microphone. I think we can get it that way. So you can either read here or read off of there, whatever is easier. So if you could please raise your right hand. I state your name. Just repeat after me. Okay. I state your name. Do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations, our newest commissioners. Go ahead and have a seat at your assigned seat.

All right, welcome aboard. We appreciate you joining us in this process and assisting, help moving the city agendas forward. So welcome, working with you guys for the next few years to come. Well, thank you. All right, so we're gonna move to the next agenda item, roll call.

Commissioner Ali. Present. Commissioner Beasley-Stansberry.

Present.

Commissioner Medeiros.

Present.

Commissioner Blind.

Present.

Chair Taylor. Present. Commissioner White. Present. And Commissioner Ennis. Present. We have a quorum.

All right, great. So we're going to move to the next agenda item, which is consent calendar and approval of the agenda.

I move to accept the consent calendar and agenda for this evening's meeting, September 9th, 2026.

Second.

Through the chair to confirm, it's both the approval of the agenda and the minutes? Yes.

Yes, I'll just add that friendly addition.

So moved.

We have seven ayes, and the motion carries.

All right, great. So we're going to move to the next agenda item, which is report of the city council liaison, Vice Mayor Motula.

Good evening, Chair Taylor. Who's the vice chair now? None yet? Oh, I got you. Oh, Commissioners Ennis, White, Commissioner Blind, Commissioner Medeiros, Commissioner Beasley-Stansburg, and Commissioner Ali. I wanted to make sure I said everyone's name because it's been a while since we've had a full planning commission. So I want to congratulate you guys for having finally a full planning commission team. So thank you for that one. My brief update would be for those that watched our city council meeting last night, um and thank you to the um commissioner beasley stansberry for staying for the full meeting till 1 30 in the morning and so one of the key one of the key items we went through was the was the update of what what we're working on of bringing on a consultant to talk about our waterfront and talk about our downtown um uh downtown area and so this is something that once again as i've been pushing here at this commission was working uh because once again um economic development is probably our primary focus this upcoming year. And so this is where, once again, I've been pushing this with this commission, but trying to team up with not only the Planning Commission, but the Economic Development Commission to kind of look at what the consultants bring forth in front of you. And I posed it under the guise of they want community input so what better than a community input than our planning commission of our community along with our economic development team with that have their specificity and their knowledge of those two commissions to where your voice what i consider will matter more so than some of the other community, just because you guys have that expertise, you have an understanding of what needs to get done from planning and zoning and from an economic development to where both those conversation in my mind can be happening on a parallel level to where you guys can have that. And we've started that conversation where you guys have exchanged Recommendations among amongst both your commissions, and so I think we're still in that process But once again, this is the big next piece I think you guys are gonna be working on along with the other specific plans like the mayor Island plan the downtown specific plan And things of that nature. So once again, we're gonna get down closer to the weeds in this upcoming year So we want to make sure that you guys are getting the proper training getting getting um basically um sharpening your pencils to kind of help us look forward to a lot of things from your um your from your lens of a planning zoning and land use perspective and making sure that we're meeting the goals of what the city council is and once again economic development is at the forefront of that um moving forward so and to our newest commissioners uh once again welcome aboard and I hope I haven't scared you off already, but I will, and as the other commissioner will tell you, I like to challenge each and every individual up here because you're not up there by accident. You were specifically selected because of your background, your ability to, your professional, your personal expertise. And so we want you to chime in it may take a couple of meetings to kind of feel your voice and get up there but we encourage a collaboration we encourage your expertise and we look forward to your input and moving us forward um let's see what else is there to push oh um and i want to thank um cesar um we both attended a um what I considered a fun meeting today. So we were actually at the Costco pre-construction meeting that were, once again, they're on schedule to open the first week of November. Right now they're running into a few challenges that they're working through right now, and we don't have to get into the weeds of that one, But this is, and what was brought up at the meeting, this is one of the better collaborative teams that are put together. Costco obviously has their machine moving forward and through RMC as their construction managers, they have got this down pat to where they're doing the great things and and obviously me being in the field for over 30 years i've been on some great teams and i've been on some not so great teams so this is this has been one of the better teams that that i've been a part of and seen work and action and stuff so i'm looking forward to that um happening um first week of november and i think um That might be a pretty cool field trip for this commission to kind of take a look at something like that, maybe before the pre-opening. But I think that those are conversations that we can potentially have behind scenes and stuff like that. But that would be the end of my report. Any questions?

Not much of any questions, but thank you for the presentation and giving us an update. That's some exciting news that November 1st will be the opening, hopefully, for Costco. Things are on track. I do have a question regarding our analysis that we provided. Since you mentioned our collaboration with the Economic Development Committee, I was wondering if there's any updates on the feedback and how that information collaboratively coming together is progressing. Sure.

So what I can share with you, and Director Pollan can kind of share this, is you guys gave them a pretty extensive list of a lot of your comments. And so they were, and the fact that they were asked to make some comments kind of right away, almost to a certain extent to where they wanted more time to look at that for them to provide their expertise feedback. So they're in that process right now. And they were very impressed with the comments they were reading from your report and stuff like that. So I think that's part of the process that we're going through right now is all their information to where they're trying to look at it from a perspective, your perspective, with their expertise from an economic development standpoint and vice versa, where once they provide their comments and stuff, they're going to they're gonna ask you to try to look at from their shoes of from economic development with your expertise from a planning zoning and land use standpoint and identifying maybe parts of things that can be improved and to focus more on economic development. One of the things I think that I've had conversations in the past month or so are the idea of our housing element and the fact that we're needing to meet RHNA numbers. and I've spoken to quite a few real estate agents out there and the fact that they push infill and they're pushing residential, one of the things that I don't think has gotten enough conversation are looking at properties that are zoned commercially but then rezone them as residential, similar to how in Oakland where they take warehouses and convert those to studios or things of that nature to where that can be put out there. And I think that's, from a cost perspective, that's something more palatable than a brand new development type of thing. And especially where, speaking for my district too, for those that remember, we had that 175 unit uh... housing development where the old costco was are not costco the old wal-mart was and that was what three years ago and that's been sitting there because they couldn't get the financing for it so we can approve all the projects we want but if they can't finance it from the developer side things are going to move forward so this is the type of things that from an economic development standpoint that we need to kind of look forward towards and kind of plan around hopefully to identify what are the type of projects that are potentially more affordable that are from a developer side standpoint or from a builder standpoint that can be more feasibly done. And I think this is one of those potential conversations from an infill and from a marina housing opportunity of looking at commercial zone properties and areas to look at them to potentially converting them to residential. Once again, that is in your purview that you can do as a planning commission. And those are those type of conversations. So it's kind of almost thinking outside of the box from that perspective. So this is where we want you guys to use that as a... use that as kind of an example of things that we would like to see from the Planning Commission tied to the economic development thing. Oh, and one more thing to add in, and once again, touting for my district, District 2, for those that haven't driven by Sonoma Boulevard on their way to Napa or American Canyon, There's quite a bit of construction going on for the Chick-fil-A that's getting built at the corner there. So they're ramping that up pretty quickly here. But I think most people see the Costco project that's happening on Admiral Callahan, and that's the big thing that people are talking about. And Cesar and I were able to see it firsthand of the great progress that they've been making on it. Any other questions that I can help with? Thank you.

I just had a comment about because I the highlight of the meeting for me was the recommendation for the planning commission to be part of the community engagement series, to be very frank with you. And I think that's why it's really important to have a liaison, but also one who gets it and who knows the commission. because you sat on this commission prior to city council, and it's really critical. And I thought to myself, and I said, oh, I wonder if we would have, you know, an opportunity to participate. And then when you said that, it just really, you know, kind of the light bulb went off. So I really appreciate that because it really puts us at the forefront of the work that we're supposed to do anyway. And that community engagement piece is, is how we connect to the folks that we serve up here. So thank you for that.

You're welcome. That kind of speaks to what we as a council are trying to embolden a lot of the commissions and boards because a lot of the comments we've received are they don't have a voice. So we want to make sure that your voice matters and your voice is important because as our recommending body to the city council, we value your voice. I know I do. And I'm pretty sure the rest of my council members do also along with the So this is where we want to make sure you guys feel emboldened enough to speak up, speak loud, because we've got a lot of goals that we want to meet and achieve, and in this case from a building, from a construction and from an economic development standpoint.

And just to dovetail off of your comment, it is already in our work plan. Yes.

It was updated. Yes. Look forward to hearing that report later.

Right. I don't have any other questions but thank you again for the update and the example for the the 500-unit development project on Sonoma Boulevard that put something in perspective from an economic development perspective that helps us see it, other aspects in terms of just land use and zoning. So that collaboration piece there is definitely appreciated and definitely looking forward to seeing economic development feedback to our comments so we can continue to collaborate with them. So thank you for bringing that to us and facilitating that.

And the fact you guys may have Nats back there, I would recommend turning on those fans that you guys have by there, and that might help. We were having issues with them last night, too.

Great, thank you. All right, so we're going to move to the next agenda item, which is the community forum. And the community forum is for anyone wishing to address the commission on any matter for which another opportunity to speak is not provided on the agenda, and which is within the jurisdiction of the commission to resolve. is request to submit a completed speaker card to the secretary or you can sign up online if you are watching via Zoom. We'll give each speaker two minutes each to, within the community forum.

Thank you.

Through the chair, there are currently no members of the public that have signed up to speak in person. Did you want to give it a few more minutes for the Zoom?

Yes, can we give you two minutes? Thank you.

And through the chair, there's no one that has raised their hand on Zoom to speak.

Okay, great, thank you for the update. We can close the community forum, please. And we're gonna move to the next agenda item of public hearing, and we're going to go to the first line, item A, is we're gonna hold a public hearing to consider a resolution to recommend to city council to amend the general plan 2040 by adopting the 2026 transportation analysis guideline. And I believe that we have Hector here to present for us.

First I'm going to, yeah, sounds like you're going to hear me loud and clear. Good evening, Chair and members of the commissioners. I also want to welcome our new commissioners on board. My name is Hector Rojas, Long Range Planning Manager with the Planning and Development Services Department. So tonight, staff is asking the commission to consider recommending that the City Council adopt updated transportation analysis guidelines. These guidelines would update the city's existing procedures for evaluating transportation-related impacts that are associated with future development projects. I do want to mention that joining us tonight virtually on Zoom is Bill Burton of Ferrum Piers, the multimodal planning and design firm that has helped the city prepare the updated guidelines. So my presentation is gonna be intended to be high level, given our agenda, but Bill is available to jump on board and get into the weeds if the commission wants greater detail or has technical questions. So why does transportation analysis matter? As part of the city's application review process, the city reviews proposed projects to determine whether they are consistent with city policies and whether they could create impacts that need to be addressed. Depending on the project, that review may include environmental and technical studies covering a range of topics including traffic, air quality, noise, infrastructure, and biological or cultural resources. Transportation analysis helps us understand how a project may affect the surrounding transportation system and the environment. The findings can help inform project design, changes, conditions of approval, transportation improvements, or mitigation measures that are required before the city decides to approve or deny a proposed project. Historically, transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, were evaluated primarily through level of service, commonly referred to as LOS. LOS measures how well an intersection or roadway operates based largely on vehicle delay. It's typically expressed as a later grade that ranges from LOS-A, which represents little delay, to LOS-F, representing substantial delay. Senate Bill 743 was signed into law in 2013, and the resulting changes to CEQA's Transportation Impact Analysis became applicable statewide in 2020. Under the new framework, automobile delay and congestion are generally no longer treated as significant environmental impacts under CEQA. Instead, the state has identified Vehicle Miles Traveled, or VMT for short, as the primary metric for evaluating transportation impacts under CEQA. So a little bit about VMT. It looks at the amount and distance of automobile travel generated by a project. The objective with that measurement is to reduce the overall need to drive and the length of vehicle trips, which does better align transportation analysis with the state's goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, supporting infill development, and encouraging other types of transportation, including transit, walking, and bicycling. SB 743 did not eliminate LOS analysis. The city can and still does use LOS and other operational measures outside of CEQA to evaluate congestion, access, circulation, and safety. To meet the state's implementation deadline, Vallejo adopted interim CEQA transportation guidelines in July 2020 and revised them later that year. Those guidelines established an initial framework for VMT screening, analysis, significance thresholds, and mitigation. They were intended as an interim step while the city gained experience applying VMT and while technical guidance, travel models and mitigation practices continue to evolve statewide. The proposed updated guidelines would replace the interim VMT framework and combine it with the city's existing LOS procedures into one document. Previously, because the two sets of guidelines were separate, LOS requirements were sometimes identified later in the application review, which did result in additional work and delays from time to time on a project by project case. We think having the combined document will give applicants clear direction about both reviews that are required at the outset of a project. So this slide summarizes the two review paths that would be established by the updated guidelines. On the left, we have the non-sequitur traffic impact analysis, which includes LOS. For this review, the city would determine whether a project warrants a traffic study based on factors such as its size and trip generation, truck traffic, nearby roadway conditions, and the type of land use approval that's requested. If a study is required, it may evaluate intersections, congestion, driveway queues, side access, circulation, safety, and conditions for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, and emergency access. If operational concerns are identified under that review, the city might require appropriate improvements or conditions of approval. These would be things such as signals or turn lanes, access changes, traffic calming, pedestrian or bicycle improvements, or fair share contributions from the applicant. On the right, we have the CEQA transportation assessment using BMT. For that review, the first step would be screening. A project may be assumed to have a less than significant VMT impact based on its type, its location in an existing low VMT area, or its proximity to qualifying transit. If a project screens out, detailed VMT modeling would not be required. If a project doesn't screen out, it would undergo a project-specific VMT analysis, and if a significant impact is identified, some potential responses could include changing the project design or a mix of uses, improving access to transit, walking or bicycling, or implementing parking and transportation demand management strategies. So important thing to note here, these two reviews will be required, but they answer two different questions. The non-SQL review asks how the project could affect the operation, access, circulation, and safety of the local transportation system. And the SQL review answers whether the vehicle travel that's generated by the project would result in an environmentally significant impact. So that pretty much wraps up our high-level overview. Again, Bill Burton is available for more in-depth and detailed questions. And our recommendation at this point, pending the public hearing and discussion tonight, is that the Planning Commission recommend adoption of the proposed resolution, recommending the City Council amend our General Plan 2040. by adopting the July 2026 transportation analysis guidelines and replacing the city's 2020 interim CEQA transportation impact analysis guidelines. With that, Bill and I are available to provide additional detail or answer any technical questions that you have. Thanks.

Great, thank you so much for your presentation. I'm gonna open it up to my peers for any questions or any comments.

Thank you very much for that explanation. Let me just summarize it from my point of view. There's a lot of requirements for maintaining level of service and improving it from F to something better than F. My understanding is that improving this resolution, there will be a lot of busy work that you won't have to do. A lot of stuff about running things down, making sure that this one little project doesn't impact the transportation of the entire city when it's just a driveway. Is that a reasonable summary of where you're at?

So one thing to note is that we have guidelines in place currently, so we already do this work. This constitutes just an update to the way that we proceed with the analysis. I think Brad Leonard is here from Public Works to explain a little bit about the LOS side if necessary, but The reason that we're updating these procedures is because our interim procedures that were adopted in 2020, there's been new modeling, new best practices since then that we're now bringing to our current guidelines. So in a sense, you're correct, but we do already do this on a day-to-day basis with our projects.

But this is going to conform with the Napa and Solano County procedure, right? Correct. So that'll be consistent in the neighborhood? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much.

Through the chair. The previous slide, can we go back to that please? The second to last I believe. That one. Who makes these determinations?

So as far as the development review goes, typically when a project comes into our department for review, there is a routing process for that project. One of the departments that we route that project to is Public Works. So Public Works would utilize these guidelines to tell the applicant, hey, as far as LOS analysis and our intersections, you need to meet level of service E or better. So in order to show that, you need to put together a traffic impact study. And so these guidelines would tell the applicant, this is what you need in order to have a complete traffic impact study. And so that traffic impact study would then be reviewed by our public works team, including planning, On the flip side, with VMT, we would tell the applicant, hey, under CEQA, in order to determine the environmental impact for transportation, you're going to need to either screen out a VMT analysis, and if you don't, then this guidebook will tell you how to put together that analysis and what you could do to mitigate those impacts. So this generally will give staff and the applicant sort of a blueprint for how to do our traffic analysis under CEQA and non-CEQA.

IF I COULD JUST JUMP IN. ULTIMATELY, I JUST WANTED TO ADD THAT THE AUTHORITY UNDER THE LOS IS GOING TO BE THE PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR OR THE CITY ENGINEER. THEY'LL BE THE FINAL DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY ON THAT. AND THEN TYPICALLY THE VMT WOULD BE PROBABLY PLANNING DIRECTOR.

Okay, I'm a little concerned because public works, are the legal team involved in that determination with public works?

Not unless they ask. I mean, we get involved at some point, but not usually at this stage.

Okay, I'm just a little concerned about the knowledge of CEQA compliance at the Public Works level.

And that's why there's a split. So the LOS is non-CEQA, so that's in the wheelhouse of Public Works, and then the VMT is CEQA, so that's in our planning department.

Okay, so who determines if it's LOS or whatever the other one is, VMT?

We look at both.

We as in planning?

The collective group of reviewers, yes.

Is planning involved in that?

Yes. OK. Planning leads that process. OK. Thank you.

Brad, did you have anything to add?

We have a transportation superintendent. He's a licensed transportation engineer. He's a specialist in doing these kinds of analysis, and we use his judgment and the data to determine where we have traffic. In areas of the city where we don't have traffic, we don't require that LOS service or analysis. In areas where traffic is a concern, then it becomes a requirement for development.

I had a quick question. So for the level of service analysis, the remedies are pretty straightforward. Turn lanes, signals, stop signs. VMT, could you help us a little bit more with the, what kind of alternatives? Give us some examples. You said change the project or location. It's kind of vague. relative to adding a lane or adding a turn signal. So help us think through what are the remedies for a high VMT?

Yeah well I think what we're finding is statewide the direction is that projects should be located in lower VMT areas and these lower VMT areas are going to coincide with stations ferry stations BART stations high you know transportation or you know rich areas that you know have buses for example with high headways. So if you don't happen to be in one of those areas there's going to be a VMT impact. You're going to have to do that VMT analysis and the mitigation measures that are available to you. They're pretty slim. One of them includes relocating your project to a lower VMT area. That's not always going to be viable. And some of the other things that you could do are traffic demand management. So for example, if you have an office, having childcare onsite, those all add up to reductions. And so it's gonna take multiple different types of approaches like that so that you could achieve the reduction that you would need to essentially be punted out of that VMT impact. But a lot of those measures that you have to implement it's very difficult for one project to reduce its VMT impact just because, for example, if you're located in a suburban area, the context, the environment is people are going to drive in that area. So there's only a limited amount of things, measures that you could put in place to make that reduction. So I think what we're going to be finding more and more when we implement this analysis is that when we start talking to developers, we're going to start redirecting them to higher transit areas so that they could screen out. Otherwise it's gonna be difficult. Bill is online and could speak more to this, but there's also this new development of VMT banking, mitigation banking. So one thing that's potentially gonna come online soon is that a developer, much like the inclusionary housing that we'll be discussing later, will be able to pay into a bank so that those fees could be leveraged with other projects, and then those projects could happen sort of at a regional scale and lower the VMT overall for cities. So I think to answer your question, it's gonna be hard for them to screen out, but there are situations where you can achieve a reduction that's high enough to be able to do that. And I don't know, Bill, if you have anything to add on that in terms of other VMT mitigation measures.

Yeah, I think you covered it pretty well, Hector. I mean, I think the things to keep in mind is, you know, the typical VMT mitigation measure would be like free or discounted transit passes, increased bicycle or pedestrian amenities. So there are some portions of the city where that's just not going to be a feasible mitigation measure. So some projects in particular areas, they're just not going to be able to mitigate their VMT impacts. As Hector said, the state is also working on a VMT mitigation bank, which developers could pay into to mitigate their impacts. But the exact details and the costs of what someone would have to pay to mitigate their impacts is currently unknown, and it might be quite substantial.

Thank you very much. It sounds like we're waiting on state level guidance for the banking option. Is there any option for us to lead on that or do we really have to wait?

That is a good question and it's something that maybe we could discuss at our planning directors meeting that we have every month. I know STA, our Solano Transportation Authority, that oversees regional transportation and IN THE AREA. THEY TEND TO TAKE THE LEAD IN TERMS OF COORDINATING REGIONALLY. BUT I THINK AGAIN, YOU KNOW, VMT IS SOMETHING THAT, YOU KNOW, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, WHEN YOU LEAVE HOME YOU'RE PROBABLY TRAVELING OUTSIDE OF VALLEJO TO GO TO WORK. AND SO YOUR IMPACT IS, YOU KNOW, CROSSING CITY LIMITS. SO NATURALLY THE PROJECTS THAT ARE GOING TO MITIGATE VMT ARE GOING TO CROSS JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES. SO IT BEHOOVES US TO ACTUALLY WORK WITH OUR know adjacent cities and sta in particular to set up mechanisms that everybody could pay to because if only vallejo pays into a bank well you know one we may not necessarily have enough projects to you know accumulate the revenues needed to create a large project like that because that could be like rail or increased bus service, and we don't operate the bus service here in town, so naturally we have to coordinate with our partners, right? So I think looking at it at a regional partner scale is probably the way to go, but we could definitely take a look further into that.

Thank you very much. I'd encourage that. Thanks.

I'm sorry. Thank you, Hector. Are we working on projects that or can we use this analysis on existing structures and street and roadways?

Uh, when you say existing structures, I'm assuming that you mean built structures and not existing applications that are in. Yeah.

Just when I'm looking at like the high, uh, vehicle mileage, uh, use on like say Broadway or something like that, or Tennessee, but specifically I'm talking about Broadway.

Yeah, if there's an existing building and a brand new use that's coming into that, it requires a conditional use permit, for example, or discretionary review, the guidelines are going to kick in and we're going to use that analysis with that change of use. So it doesn't necessarily need to be a new development or new. Okay. Okay.

But if that were a change of use. you would have to build upon whatever the existing change of use would allow in terms of of employees anticipated uh... you know depending upon the whether it's retail or office or you know services or whatever you you couldn't just start fresh and say that you know i mean thinking from the applicant's perspective, whether their impacts are gonna be greater than what would be there ordinarily. So I mean, it does seem as though it's a bit of a, not quite shell game, but you're gonna have to take a closer look at what they're actually proposing.

Yes, you are correct that if there's an existing or recently, previously existing use there, that could be discounted against the new trips that are being generated by the new use.

And again, if it is looking at an increased or substantially increased VMT, and it seems as though, I know that was with level of service in terms of intersections, but it seems as though that what you would be talking about trying to implement is either bike lanes, I don't know about childcare on site, but bike lanes or maybe, you know, potentially an increased, you know, an additional bus interval or something like that. I mean, I just.

That could be the case. I also want to mention, we didn't go into much detail about this, but you can screen out of the VMT analysis, and the ways that you could screen out if you're a small project, and I forget the square footage threshold, but if you're under a certain square footage, you're already presumed to screen out of VMT, so that would not be a problem. If you're interested, we could bring the different methodologies under which the projects could be screened up, and we could put that up.

I did see some of that in the transit analysis document. Great, okay. Thank you.

All right, great, so I have a question. If we can go back to the second to the last slide, please. Okay, so I have a question here, and this is under VMT. It says, determine whether a project qualifies for VMT screening based on its type, location to a low VMT area, or proximity to a qualifying transit. How is VMT measured? I believe this question might be for Bill, I believe.

Yeah, Bill, if you could jump on and maybe it might be useful to sort of briefly take us through the different types of ways that a project could screen out, if you don't mind.

Yeah, so the guidelines have quite a few screening criteria that projects can screen out from. There's a small project screening criteria, which is projects that are basically of an immaterial size. like a local serving retail project is another screening criteria so if it's a mom and pop grocery shop those are generally not accretive to vmt transit bicycle pedestrian facilities are screened out public services so a police station a fire station a park a utility is are screened out they don't need to worry about vmt projects in low VMT areas. So we've prepared maps of portions of the city which exhibit low VMT. And any project in those areas, generally near the downtown, near the ferry terminals, near the bus stops, can be presumed to have a less than significant impact. And then Any project in proximity to transit can be screened out. So any project within a half mile of a qualifying transit stop, so in Vallejo, those are the two ferry terminals. So any project within a half mile of the ferry terminals can be presumed to have a less significant VMT impact. So I think the precise question was, how is VMT measured? So analysts can use any number of techniques to evaluate VMT. They're given a fair amount of flexibility to evaluate unique VMT conditions using available evidence. That needs to be to the satisfaction of the city's engineering and planning staff. But in general, almost all projects are going to use the Solano-Napa County travel demand model to evaluate what a project's VMT impact will be. So that is the regional travel demand model, which has been calibrated to evaluate VMT within the city and throughout the county. So they're allowed to use their own off-model techniques, but I believe you'll see 99% of projects will just use the regional travel demand model. The Analyst will plug the project into the model and basically evaluate what the project specific VMT will be.

Great, thank you. And I have another question as well. How would VMT have an impact on future projects on a developer end?

So developers are going to be very encouraged to develop projects in certain parts of the city. So if they're in an area that's screened out, then they're going to have a very easy path to approval, at least on the transportation side of life. They won't have to do much in the way of transportation analysis or worry about mitigations on the transportation side. For those developers who are developing projects that don't screen out, that are in non-VMT efficient areas, they're either going to need to develop pretty robust mitigation plans for the VMT impacts, or they're going to need to come to bodies like yours and seek overriding considerations. Just because a project has a VMT impact doesn't mean you can't approve it. It just means that they have a VMT impact that they might not be able to mitigate.

Okay, great, thank you. I think that's all the questions I have.

Thank you. I just had one follow-up question on VMT. So, CEQA, in addition to the screened out things that you just mentioned, anything with a CEQA categorical exclusion would then not have VMT analysis, is that correct? Yes, correct. Now, we're kind of entering a world where there's more and more exclusions, many of them are statutory exclusions. Is there any trigger at which you could have a project that has a CEQA statutory exclusion, but the city retains discretion to still apply VMT if they felt it was warranted?

That's a good question. I'd probably defer that one to our attorney.

No. Not if there's a statutory exemption. Is that what you mean?

Yeah. There's a statutory exemption. There's no CEQA analysis. Can you still do VMT by your own discretion because you think it's warranted for your own planning purposes?

No. And why is that? Why would that be? Because you can't discriminate on, you can't just apply the law unfairly to one developer and not, I mean there's no, what would be the basis of doing that? I don't understand.

I could maybe try to add in, I think the statutory exemptions are different than the categorical because those are usually tailored for very specific types of project that the state legislature has decided. We're not concerned about secret impacts for this. We want these projects to move forward irregardless. So in those instances, I don't think we can.

require extra analysis well the statutory is that right are mandatory irrespective of whether there's an environmental impact or not and categorical are if it fits within a category of projects but it's still a statute so I want to like it it's still so I just want to make sure like there's a categorical exemption and a statutory exemption but the categorical exemptions still fall under a statute. So I was thinking just in general. I still wouldn't, if there's a categorical exemption to apply, I wouldn't not apply it just because.

I'm speaking more towards the statutory ones where they have categories of projects that they're funding and they're saying geothermal does not have a CEQA nexus. So they're statutorily exempt from Prop 4 funding or whatever the case may be. Your guidelines can be the thing that is, that gives you the nondiscriminatory method by which to apply VMT in the absence of CEQA. And that would be the way you would do it. Not that you would willy-nilly do it, but you'd say if there is a project, our guidelines apply to any project, regardless of SQL, even though SQL is normally the trigger.

Well, the mitigations aren't even that clear. Like, the mitigations for VMT are not that clear anyway, whereas for LOS, they are. Like, there's a traffic jam. How do you alleviate the traffic jam? That's very, like, you put in a turn lane, you put a traffic signal so people won't crash into each other. You know, that you... Whereas VMT, it's less quantitative. I don't know how to explain it.

If I can maybe jump into, I think, just to clarify, we would still have the ability to do LOS analysis, and that's going to look at level of service for specific roadway improvements that may be needed.

It may be something worth considering as we get to more statutory exemptions. You may be finding yourselves in situations where the removal of CEQA for your analysis removes more than you'd like. And so our guidelines are then the place in which you can still have a non-discriminatory way to apply certain bits of analysis in the absence of CEQA when you would normally rely on CEQA.

Well, the state is taking away a lot of local authority to impose... i mean parking is you'll be seeing in the next few months we won't have ability to impose parking requirements for certain developments downtown and near the waterfront we'll just be We have too much parking, so we'll just be. Anyway, what I was going to say is the LOS standards are in our general plan because we're also amending the general plan to add these guidelines. These will be general plan requirements, so every project has to comply with the general plan. So they will every project is going to be reviewed for consistency and then but the public works director has discretion as to whether or not to apply certain LOS you know requirements to the project in the end. It's up to him.

Great, I have one last question, and it might have been stated, but just for clarification. So the goal of LOS and BMT is to achieve what particular?

Recommending that You adopt a resolution that recommends the city council adoption of this inclusionary housing ordinance and exempt it from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15061B3. And with that, I'll turn it back to the commission for questions and discussion.

Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. And thank you, Hector, for putting the work in for this project and to the planning division as well. So I definitely appreciate that and applaud your help. And at this moment, I'm going to open it up to my fellow commissioners if they have any questions or any comments.

I'm going to hold mine until I hear anything from the public.

I've got one for Hector. I've been along on this ride from the beginning. So I'm curious, I remember some of the direction that was given. One of it was about, you know, triggers around market conditions. So that we had this study from EPS about the infeasibility of construction starts in Vallejo period without adding additional fees or construction costs on top of it. And so there was some discussion about is there a way that we could provide a trigger at which once projects are getting their 15% affordability for the ownership side or five and a half for the rental side, that then we could then kick in when there is profitable projects and then we could skim some of the profits into affordable housing units, either onsite or in lieu fees, without necessarily creating the drag on the market that would prevent financing to happen for construction starts, like the one that Vice Mayor Matulik talked about at the Walmart site, where the financing just couldn't be had, so there is no project. regardless of what we did on this stage, to say yes. So help me understand where your guys' analysis is on these triggers for market conditions.

I think the way that that direction came across to us, you know, we forwarded the feasibility study, and one thing to note is when EPS was presenting the feasibility findings at the last two study sessions that we held, we did not have a document that actually documented the data and the findings. You have that now, so that's part of your packet. As part of those two meetings, staff and the consultant made it very clear that any type of regulation under inclusionary housing would have an impact on potential development moving forward. Notwithstanding that, I think what we heard clearly from the joint body was that we'd like to proceed nonetheless. So the way that we baked in the trigger aspect of it is that we started with a very modest, reasonable requirement, and I think what we're proposing moving forward is that we do keep a pulse on the economy and the market conditions in Vallejo and the Bay Area as a whole, and that we, MOVE THE NEEDLE AGAIN EITHER BACK OR FORWARD DEPENDING ON WHAT WE'RE SEEING WITH THE PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION IT COULD BE THAT IN THE NEXT YEAR WE GET YOU KNOW FIVE OR SIX YOU KNOW LARGE HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS WE'LL HAVE THE FEEDBACK FROM DEVELOPERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY DEALING WITH HAVING TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS WE MAY NOTE THAT THEY'RE USING THE IN-LUE FEES MORE OFTEN THAN PROVIDING THE ON-SITE UNITS WE COULD BRING THAT THOSE FINDINGS BACK TO THE COMMISSION AND THE CITY COUNCIL AND SAY HEY MOST PEOPLE ARE IN-LUEING YOU KNOW OUT maybe we should make it a little bit stronger and require the units on site. Or we could also bring back the feedback that no amount of in lieu fees are going to make this profitable for us. So we're basically gonna go to next town over and develop there. So I think the important thing now is there is a, need I think from both the community side and Planning Commission City Council to move a policy forward And we could essentially modify the program it could be a living ordinance moving forward that we can check in on we're at suggesting a three-year evaluation period and but it could be brought back faster than that and we could decide whether we want to go where we want to go from there but the important thing is placing this program in place now because what we fear if we don't put a program in place now you know the city has you know lack of staff there's not too much funding to say you know to look into hiring an EPS you know maybe a year or two down the road If we don't have something in place and the staff that's keeping an eye on having this come back, there's a lower likelihood that we're actually gonna move forward. So there's momentum now and I think this is one of several tools that we need to look at and hopefully the market is turning the corner soon and we'll have this in place and be able to take advantage of that.

If I can just add, I just want to echo a little bit of what Hector said. We didn't really dive into the market triggers option too much, but if that's something that the commission was interested in exploring, there are different things we could look at just related to different real estate benchmarks that maybe we could identify as being the appropriate triggers for when this would take effect. And I think how that might work is that we could still move forward with the ordinance, but just add some recommendations related to those triggers. So it's something that we could explore further, but we don't have a lot of detail on those options at this point.

Your market triggers our interest rates. That's the number one. It's money. It's one plus one is two. Two plus two is four. And when it's at 3.5% and when it jumps up to 7.5, that's a trigger. Bing. So I think that's where... correct me if I'm wrong, but we also don't have a real estate owned department right now. So those triggers, it's not going to be, It's going to be case by case for at least the first three years, you said, right? So I'm imagining that it would take at least the first couple of developments to figure out what those triggers are. Right now, interest rates are astronomical. So if you own a home or condo, or an ADU, you know that right now it's not affordable. It's not attainable right now unless you're at a six-figure income here. So it's difficult, and that's how you, to me, that's how you can really gauge what's going to happen. It's just following the market trend, in my opinion. I'm not a genius, but it's just my opinion.

Should I just jump in or? Hi. Hello. Okay.

I'm not, this is my first day here, so I don't know how to get this on the screen. But today, in today's Wall Street Journal, they published this graph, six charts that explain how Americans really feel about the economy. And this graph shows the dramatic increase in the income required due to the higher interest rates. And you can see from 2010 to 2022, they correlated pretty closely on this line. And since then, the disparity has gone up to 35% over a three-year period. So I'd say our three years are up. This is a non-starter. The feasibility study was based on the data from this parallel curve, looking backwards and saying, historically, these are the averages. They've got all those charts and graphs. They did a great job on that. But since then, the world has changed. I've got an electronic copy of this. If anybody can tell me how to send it to you, I'd be glad to do that. But for me, that's the bottom line. It's not going to work when I've read all those comments from various developers and people, the overriding concern was it's not going to work. So why do all this busy work? I'm hearing we've got a staffing problem. We've got too much to do and not enough people to do it. This is just more stuff, and it's not going to work. That's my opinion. That's all I got.

Thank you. Any other questions for Thomas?

I think a lot of what everyone is doing, and I'm not talking about the staff necessarily, but general commenters, even developers, that there is no crystal ball at which they can look at what impacts are going to be in the future. what changes might be on the horizon. And what it appears the attempt is, is to be able to get something in place that when the market eases up, when financing becomes more available, when projects start to do more than just take a look around, we have something that we can react to as opposed to trying to force in a requirement or get the council to jump to do something which would really be after the fact of an application being submitted which might qualify or which might be able to absorb the either in lieu fees or other inclusionary housing techniques. to be able to get the kind of mixed income and also the kind of response to the lack of affordability, to the affordability crisis that's going on, that the biggest issue is always and has always been the cost of land. That's one of Belayo's strengths. We know that. But we also know that Most people will come in with, this is what I want, and this is what pencils out for me. These are the adjustments I'm willing to make. I don't think I want to make these adjustments, because they're also speculating on what their finances are going to want beyond those they've come in with initially, and what their either renters or or the buyers are going to want. The other part about it is, is that because money has been so difficult to obtain, and it hasn't really changed, it's always been that way, at least for the last 20 years to my knowledge, 25 years maybe. that one of the things that the difficulty in financing projects has forced people to do is start looking at less conventional ways of financing market projects, such as looking at tax credits, looking at other funding availability. Include you market rate projects can go through contact can obtain obtain tax credit financing as it is It's just that their hurdles are bigger are greater They have a steeper hill to climb if they incorporate Some affordability into their project that also makes that freeze more of that money and and there are other pots But it just really depends upon what level of affordability they're willing to go to in terms of percent of the project and also percent of income. So I think that we need to put something out there that a project can then come in and say, okay, I'm willing to do this. but i can't do that it gives us the ability to make some adjustments to make some decisions decide do we want to bring that do we want this project in badly enough that we are willing to modify our requirements somewhat but the biggest thing is is that we've got we've got you know eight eighty percent median basically low-income at a hundred and ten thousand a year for family of four and that that category and above has the greatest ability to move around. They can also, just like a developer can decide, they can decide on a different city. Maybe another city a little bit further out, you know, get closer to the delta, and there they can find units. There they can find something that they can afford. They have to look for a new job, look for new schools. But we also don't want to lose those individuals because while everyone contributes to the tax base, little cigarettes at the little corner store. But those are also the individuals who do the most, who contribute the most to the tax base. And I don't think that we want to make decisions that, or I don't think we want to fail to do the extra work to keep them here, to keep affordability, which also opens the door for us to be able to do more or to go out and find additional funding or when there are some changes, in other places that might free up more money from other places for affordable housing. And then we're ready to respond to that and we have a foundation in place to do that.

And through the chair, I would add, you know, these policies are prevalent in California and the nation. I think as of 2019, 22.1% of jurisdictions in California had this kind of a program, so it's not new. And I guarantee you every community that an inclusionary housing ordinance has been proposed, you'll have a developer saying, if you do that, probably won't come to town. I've seen it in Richmond firsthand. We had that same conversation. And years after we passed an ordinance, every project that came through had a set aside. In most cases, they paid the in lieu fee, but we had a lot of successes with actual on-site development. And I also would like to just remind you too that you don't have to look very far back in the past for a developer that was here at the podium where you guys were asking for them to put affordable housing and they literally told you, well, we can't do it because you don't have any requirements in place. So if memory serves you right, maybe now that we have an ordinance in place, maybe that conversation will go a little bit differently. I just wanted to add that.

Thank you for adding.

Yes. I was just going to say before we get too far into deliberations, we probably, um, we need to open a public hearing too. So just a reminder.

Absolutely. I do want to ask one question before opening a public hearing, uh, from your professional opinion, Hector, uh, and even from the planning division as well from your professional experience, uh, what are the benefits of having a mixed income community development or community?

I think it's very clear if you have a development in a high resource area that has access to good schools, that has access to shopping, all the different kinds of amenities, the new projects that are being built, the only people that have access to those amenities are gonna be the high income earners. So the idea here is that when you have a project in a high resource part of town like that, that you have the ability for people to move from a lower income area to a high resource area. And I think that that's very important for all of us to have equal access to the amenities that make a community great. So that would be one benefit.

Okay. And in the past from maybe from previous studies and, you know, historic data, what has been some of the effects of segregated communities, economically segregated communities?

probably requires a meeting in and of itself. Obviously, we don't want segregated communities. We want them to be sustainable. We want to be able to have people interacting and, again, access to, you know, high-resource areas. Just, you know, using schools as an example, the folks that have... THAT DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO HIGH RESOURCE AREAS LIKE SCHOOLS, GOOD SCHOOLS, THEY'RE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO HAVE A DISADVANTAGE IN LIFE, RIGHT? SO THE TRICKLE EFFECTS ARE GOING TO BE THAT MAYBE THEY'RE NOT HIGH INCOME EARNERS AND IT REPEATS THE CYCLE OF LOW INCOME INTO LOW INCOME AREAS. SO WE WANT TO BREAK THAT CYCLE AND THAT BEGINS BY HAVING EQUAL ACCESS FOR EVERYONE. THAT'S THE WHOLE IDEA OF EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT.

Okay, great. Thank you. Because, yes, I read something, I believe, in, I'm not sure exactly what news outlet, but there was a quote statement that says that inclusion costs money. I thought that was an unfortunate statement. To think that you have to buy your way in to be amongst a diverse group of people. That's exclusion. And I have stated before that I'm not a proponent or support of any exclusion, especially when you live in a city which is the number one diverse city in the United States. And to transition from that, I think that will be a disservice for the community residents as well as for the city of Lael itself. But that's my comment. And to Christina's comment, we do want to open up to the public forum. So if we can open up the public forum and give each guest speaker two minutes, please. I mean, three minutes. I'm sorry.

Mr. Chair, we do have two speakers from the public that have signed up. Paul Tice, please approach the podium. You have the floor.

Good evening. I live in Vallejo, and I represent the Sierra Club, which stands for affordable housing within existing city limits. Almost two years ago, you placed inclusionary zoning and renter protections on an accelerated timetable for our state-mandated housing element. And last year, you increased the consultant's estimate of possible units to be built. And now there's another sign of hope with this draft. While we, eight community organizations, however, believe it has some flaws, which we ask that you correct as you advance the cause of affordable housing in Vallejo. First, we appreciate the unusual inclusion of a set-aside for units affordable to very low-income residents. However, as written, the policy is likely to result in vanishingly few such units. We urge you to expand that set-aside from 1 to 5 percent to help those who face the greatest risk of displacement. Secondly, our letter asks for strengthening the implementation and enforcement procedures of the draft. City leaders have noted that Vallejo has plenty of useful policy documents gathering dust on a shelf. We want inclusionary zoning to avoid that fate. This draft fails to answer some significant questions. Which department will implement and enforce this policy? How will progress be tracked? We ask for a publicly accessible dashboard, including units approved and built, affordability levels, in lieu fees collected and spent, funded projects, and the pipeline of deeply affordable housing. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Vallejo is the most rent-stressed city in the whole Bay Area. Every week, our neighbors are losing their homes due to high rents. Even more struggle to find a path to home ownership. We are thankful that staff has prepared a draft ordinance for you all to consider. Please make it better, and let's work together to give place for all our neighbors to live in this wonderful city of ours. Thank you for considering my views.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Crystal G. Please approach the podium.

Good evening staff commissioners. Welcome to the new commissioners. Really excited to meet you all. I'm going to start with the Vallejo housing justice coalition and here to, um, support what my colleague just lifted. Um, hopefully reiterate and not repeat too much speaking behalf of community partners, um, including the person you just heard from who submitted a letter back in may and actually had a draft to submit to you all back in September, but just, full transparency, personal capacity issues didn't get out in time, but reiterates a lot of what we had mentioned in the May letter, identifying key elements missing from the draft ordinance and their elements needed to ensure that it's producing meaningful, affordable housing. And we, well, we're in full support of the inclusionary housing ordinance, and we really appreciate the city bringing it forward tonight. We feel that tonight's iteration, the way it's presented, still remains a bit too modest to meet Vallejo's very real and very urgent needs. So I want to cite specific slides and some concerns. The city noted that we need 1,446 lower income units through 2025. However, the 5% requirement in Vallejo will produce dozens, not hundreds of affordable units that we really need. The draft doesn't sufficiently address the arena shortfall, especially the very low income where we know the need is the most severe. The slide on the applicability limited to projects with 20 plus units is concerning because most of Alejo's development pipeline is about 10 to 19 units. So keeping this threshold at 20 means most of the new development will produce zero affordable units. So we're really concerned about that. And the city's slide showing the public comments urging the 10-unit threshold reflects this as well. And the latest draft is still keeping it at 20, and this will exempt a majority of the projects, we believe. The rental requirement that includes only 1% of VLI, very low income, means that only one very low income per 100 units will be created. We're really concerned about that 1 percent. Vallejo's greatest need, the greatest overcrowding, greatest overpayment really exists in this very low income category. We feel like this requirement doesn't serve the households most at risk for displacement. Concerned also about the in-loof fees set at $8 to $27 per square foot. These are far below the actual affordability gap, and what we've seen in other cities is developers choosing the fee every time, and what happens is our city won't collect enough money, enough revenue to build the units. So we do recommend a fee tied to the true cost differential index to inflation and a dedicated transparent affordable housing fund. Lastly, our current market conditions support a modest starting point, but we know and we've discussed how our market conditions fluctuate and a temporary downturn shouldn't lock us into a permanently weak ordinance. So we want something where the ordinance can grow as the conditions improve versus freezing into baseline permanent low standard. So we also want to just lastly add that we urge the commission to strengthen the ordinance before recommending the adoption, specifically by lowering the threshold for the set-aside units, raising the low-income requirement for 1%, adopting a fee structure that produces units. And we know that we need this inclusionary program that meets the scale of our housing needs. So thank you so much to the city for working on this. Appreciate you.

All right. Thank you.

We do not have any more speakers that have signed up for public comment. And currently no one in Zoom has raised their hands to speak.

Okay, great. I guess we can close the public forum now. Thank you. Hector, I'll give you the opportunity if you want to respond to any of the comments from your research and the work that you have done and your findings to some of the comments that have been presented.

I don't have much to add. I do want to acknowledge that the need is great. This may be perceived as a drop in the bucket, but nevertheless, it's a drop compared to not having a drop in the bucket, which is what we currently have now. So I think we're open to direction to raise the percentage. I think we just have to be cognizant of what a potential unknown impact it could have. And again, we're sort of grounding everything based on our feasibility study and our subject matter experts that we hired. It's based off of those recommendations. I don't know if Kristen or Cesare you have anything to add.

I just wanted to say that the in lieu fee is going to be adopted later and we haven't set the fee. So we're going to do a study and set the fee separately. And also there are requirements under state law that we publish the in lieu fee online and then we keep track of it and where it's spent. And so that will all be part of that program.

And through the chair, I would also add there's a There's maybe some thought that just because we're not collecting enough in lieu fees that we're not gonna build the units that would normally be on site if they were provided on site. Even if the in lieu fees are on the lower side, IT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT WE HAVE TO HOLD THAT SPECIFICALLY FOR NEW UNITS THAT WOULD BE COMPARABLE TO THE UNITS THAT WOULD BE BUILT IN THAT DEVELOPMENT. FOR EXAMPLE, I THINK SOMEONE ON THE COUNCIL WAS INTERESTED IN pilot program for standard ADU plans, situation where somebody could go to the planning department, pull off pre-approved plans for ADUs that would not cost anything to you as the applicant, basically just say, hey, here's my site plan. I want to use standard plan A or B, pop it on your site plan, and there you go. YOU DON'T REALLY NEED TO HIRE AN ARCHITECT. AND SO IF WE DO HAVE THAT HOUSING TRUST FUND SET UP AND DEVELOPERS ARE PAYING FOR THOSE FEES AND THAT ACCUMULATES TO EVEN, YOU KNOW, $20,000 OR $30,000, WE CAN IMPLEMENT PROGRAMS LIKE THAT THAT ALTHOUGH THEY'RE NOT FULLY LARGE affordable units they could support other types of housing or programs that also are affordable right so i think those are administrative guidelines that we're going to have to maybe workshop with the commission and city council but you know again here the story is starting with a program we know that it's not going to meet the need you know to the letter or to the t but the important thing is is starting the program and you know taking a step in the right direction

Through the chair, I actually did have one item that I wanted to clarify really quickly. There was a comment made about the 1% requirement for the very low income category only equaling one unit per 100 produced. I just wanted to clarify, we included some examples in the staff report to show how that would actually be calculated. And the way that works is that any fractional requirement equates to one unit. So there actually would be a requirement for one very low income unit for every project at minimum that would be subject to this ordinance. So it would be more than that.

Great, thank you. Through the chair, just a clarification on that. Would that be for the 20 and lower number or 19?

The ordinance would only apply to projects of 20 units or greater. So per the examples provided, if we had a 20 unit project, the requirement for very low would be 0.2, which would be rounded up to one unit that needs to be required in that category. But if we had a larger project, like 120 units, that's going to be 1.2, so two units.

So once you get to the fraction, you round up. Okay. So if it were at 19 and under, then that's one unit, and then 20 plus,

actually 19 and under would be exempt from this requirement per the, Oh, it's exempt. Okay. Okay.

They do not need to comply unless it is completely a hundred percent affordable.

Yeah. If it's a hundred percent affordable project, then it doesn't even matter. Okay.

Gotcha. So on the screen, I really just quickly wanted to, uh, you know, point out that Director Pollitt had mentioned we had some example calculations of what the requirements would turn out to be given certain assumptions here. So this is a potential rental project here, shows you what the requirements would turn out to be for a 20-unit project, a 50-unit project, so on and so forth. So on the very right-hand side, based on the, you know, very low income and low income requirements in the ordinance currently, a 20-unit project would PROVIDE 18 MARKET RATE UNITS, ONE VERY LOW INCOME UNIT, ONE LOW INCOME, AND THEN ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE SPECTRUM, 300 UNIT PROJECT WOULD TRANSLATE TO 285 MARKET RATE UNITS, THREE VERY LOW INCOME UNITS, AND 12 LOW INCOME UNITS. I ALSO HAVE THIS TABLE FOR THE OWNERSHIP PROJECTS IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, BUT JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WE HAVE THOSE VISUALS AVAILABLE TO YOU IF YOU WANT TO TAKE A LOOK.

Through the chair. Okay, I'm gonna make a proposal here and all of my colleagues can shoot me down if they so choose. But this is my recommendation to the commission here. So instead, oh, can you put that back up, please? Sorry. So I would like to propose 3% I would like to propose as the lower end 10 unit project and I would also like to propose based on the study that is coming and a challenge to staff to increase the in lieu fees. whatever that looks like after the study. That's my proposal.

Just to clarify, that 3%, you want that applied to very low income category?

Yes. So you basically need a designation for each income level? Yeah. OK.

The way I'm interpreting that is that the new very low income requirement for rental would be 3% set aside and then the low income is that, are you saying that that would stay the same or move one direction or the other?

No, it would move to 3% as well or would that be 5% then? for the for the low income.

Do you have table one available to show by chance? This is the current break breakdown that we have in the ordinance. I think option A are the the way it's divided up. So if you want to adjust these numbers, maybe this is a better starting point.

I would challenge our commission to do that indeed. to change the VLI as well as the LI.

But if you see the table, for example, the council could choose to adopt option B or C. Or you could recommend option B or C, which have higher That is the simpler option, B.

Through the chair, before we get into adjusting percentages, if it's okay, like I said, I've been on this ride for a while and been thinking about inclusionary zoning and was one of the drivers behind accelerating this timeline to make sure we had something soon. The more I think about it, the more I'm struggling to understand how this helps, to be honest. If our core issue is that housing is expensive, it seems like the solution we're trying to come up with is how do we make housing more expensive to make it less expensive? And so we're gonna have above market rate housing to subsidize below market rate housing. And I know 22% of cities have this, right? Nearly a quarter. I don't know whether it's helping. It's not like as more have adopted, the affordability has gotten better, it doesn't seem to me, from many analyses that I've looked at. And so we keep on having advocates who I empathize with push and say, well, we have this affordability issue, this percentage of people are overpaying, this percentage of people are in precarious housing, and so we need inclusionary zoning. And then when they look at it, they say, well, the scale of the problem and this solution are incompatible. We need to go to 15%, 20%. We need 50%. We need 60%. And so there's this tension that I'm trying to like play out in my own head. of how do we, and I think you've tried to thread this number, right? Is it four, is it five, is it three, is it six? But at the end of the day, it's a very limited amount of because it seems like it's gonna be single family housing, because that's the only thing that pencils out in Vallejo today, and it's the only thing that's gonna pencil out with even more drag from a financial perspective on the development feasibility. then we have a very small number of single family homes that are gonna be a huge boon to somebody, but too few somebodies. to really make a difference. And I don't worry about the administration of that, who's verifying income, who's tracking the sale of that for the next 55 years. That property type, I can't see developers sticking around for 55 years tracking income. And do people then graduate out of this program? Well, they bought a house, they bought it. So that would be, there's a lot of clerical aspects of this that I find unexplained.

Sorry.

The market realities are the fact that it feels like this has benefits if the market's right. If it's over 15.5% or 5.5%, depending on the development type, it could really work. and we could then take out of the additional profits above and beyond feasibility for developments and their built-in profit margins, we could take out of those profits affordable housing. either in lieu or on-site. And at that point, once you have financial feasibility, you could scale this up to the point at which it really makes a difference. But you need that threshold to be met, because if it's not met, all we're doing is having less housing, and we know less housing means greater unaffordability. The one thing that we know will lower costs for renters and buyers is more houses. Period. And so it's hard for me to try to figure out, and that's why I keep on thinking, we need something that's got a trigger that says, at this point, this is a benefit. This program will work. At this point, this program is actually a cause of the problem it's trying to solve because we're not getting any more units. And if we're not getting any more units, then everyone's costs are going up across the board. And so I don't see this correlation that's as neat as these percentages are showing us to be able to say inclusionary housing has this effect. It has different effects in different market conditions. And if we do not understand how to apply it within market conditions, I think we're going to wind up finding ourselves with more negatives than positives. And we're going to walk away feeling like we did something positive. And I worry that the people that are pressing us and the communities that need to be served are going to think something's happening. When I'm worried it's not happening. It felt good to say we have it. It's a yard sign. It's not an effect. And I think I'd rather see people continue that pressure on vouchers and things that we know can work now. More Section 8 housing of existing stock and not relying on a market. But if we do rely on the market, we have to figure out some way to work within the market framework to say, once there's this much profitability, we take affordable housing out of your profit margin. If you don't have it, then it doesn't pencil out and it's not gonna happen anyway. So I would rather see the pressure on programs that I think would be more immediately responsive to the problem and I worry that this is gonna feel good in the moment and yield very little to no results.

Thank you for your comment.

And I think you highlighted some really good arguments from, oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, no. I just wanted to make a couple of comments. And one of them is just kind of a perspective after listening to you, Commissioner Bly, that arguably most of what advanced planning does is speculate on if we make it like this, then we can achieve a certain change occupancy. We can drive the developers to this area. We can make the waterfront better. We can bring greater business to the downtown. We can improve storefronts along the Sonoma Boulevard. I mean, so much of what advanced debt planning does is speculative. But in this particular case, we have examples in other parts of the state I worked in Berkeley for years, forgive me that I'm accustomed to inclusionary housing. But it does serve at a minimum, and it's not a great minimum, but at a minimum it does serve to enable cities to help affordable projects then get built for a local contribution. That's number one. The other part was, may have missed this and going over the, over the, the, um, document, but, um, 55 year affordability should never be applied. Was, was it applied to ownership housing that the generally, which no generally. not the expert or an expert, but generally what I have seen is that it has something like 15 to 20 year affordability and that, and it could be, I haven't seen it longer, I don't recall longer than 20 years, but that there is a contribution of the proceeds from the sale above obviously above the debt services in some port. But there is a decrease in contribution back to the housing trust fund or whomever with the increase in the length of tenure of the buyer. And as to whether they can pass it down to their children or something, I don't know about that.

If I could jump in on that. Sure. The standard practice is 45 to 55, and we actually, I don't know if it's helpful for the conversation, but we have a comparison table where we looked at the requirements of, what is this, six different cities in the nearby, just to look at what their best practices are, and that's kind of what we use as a benchmark for putting together a lot of these requirements. So I can pass it out.

Okay, I stand corrected. Yeah, it's been a few, 20 years since I've done any housing, I think. But anyway, okay, that was that point. Oh, and I also think that you need to kind of, and again, maybe best practices, but take a look at the mixture of rental housing with home ownership projects in as much as you've now created an entity that has to be, someone has to be the manager of You know, someone has to, you know, you've created a separate, um, a separate process where they, they expect to sell the units and move on. And so, um, oh, thank you.

Well, great. Thank you for your comment. Yes.

Yeah. I think one of the, the concerns I'm hearing from commissioner blind is. I lived in a BMR and so I, I know it works cause I'm a homeowner now, but I also lived in a higher, a city where the income threshold was way higher than Vallejo. So while Silicon Valley can absorb a larger amount of fees, we cannot. And so I think one of the, and another thing is we had a BMR program that managed what Commissioner Ali was talking about, managed the rental properties, managed the whole BMR process. So whether you were renting a single family or whether you were renting an apartment, you still had to apply through the city, the city's designated below market rate program. And I think that might be your administration piece that's very unclear and now when he brought it up it did come back to me that someone does have to manage that piece as you well know because you came from Richmond so I think that's and I'm assuming would that be maybe our housing authority I DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE WITH HOUSING VOUCHERS. I KNOW IT IS A COMPLETE MESS RIGHT NOW. I DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE WITH IT. THAT MAY BE A DEEP DIVE I DO ON MY OWN. actually like what you mentioned about the immediate need with the inventory we have and I don't know what the rent market is like in certain areas, but I know here It's just that the rent is is expensive, you know for whomever it's not even a Income thing anymore. It's just that you It's expensive and based on inflation. So I guess my question would be, have we thought about who's going to administratively manage the process? And while I'm not for creating more departments, maybe this is something our housing authority manages when they are fully staffed, trained and has that knowledge because right now they're not there. So let's not kid ourselves. But somebody does have to manage that. And I would hate for it to be a contractor because they don't have the same empathy, compassion that folks who work for the city have. And that's just being as real as I can possibly be. And I hate to take up more time, so that's it. Thank you.

I can tell you from personal experience in Richmond, one, that these programs do work. Everything that you said about Vallejo was true about Richmond at one point. Nobody wanted to come build in Richmond. because of the crime and the stereotype. We still had an IHO program, and when it was adopted, we started getting those units. And I think if we were to talk to the development director, maybe I could interview her and provide you those findings, but as a staff planner, REVIEWING A PROJECT WITH AN INCLUSIONARY HOUSING ORDINANCE, I COULD TELL YOU THAT DEVELOPERS DID HAVE TO DO SOMETHING UNDER THAT ORDINANCE. IT STARTED BEING THEY PAID THE IN LUFI, BUT AT SOME POINT IT DOES TURN THE CORNER WHERE THEY DO, IT DOES MAKE SENSE TO BUILD THE UNITS ON SITE. And again, I'll just reiterate, just because we have a nominal program in place doesn't mean that once we see things improving, we can't increase it and match it to the market. So anyway, I just wanted to say that in terms of the implementation, you know, planners were the front line, right? We were aware of this ordinance being in place. We see what the percentages are. When an application comes in, we check to make sure that that affordable housing plan is submitted and whether they're setting aside the number of units or they're electing to pay the in lieu fee. So we are sort of the first line of defense in terms of implementation. What I can't speak too much to is once that affordable housing agreement is recorded on the property, Say 25 years later, that person wants to sell their house. Can they sell it to somebody that is not below market? The answer is obviously no, but who's there to actually enforce that? And I do believe you do need the staff. And I don't think we have a housing division. I think the housing authority would tell you that's probably not their role. But I think those are... Questions that could be answered along the way when we do get to the City Council they could help us identify who they believe this Responsibility lies with and it's a little bit awkward for us as a department to tell the Housing Authority or some other department It's not going to be us, but it's going to be you so I think that the leadership needs to sort of give us that Guidance in terms of who's going to enforce this from year to year

Through the chair, in all my years I've been involved, I've been involved in having to enforce these several times in escrow when they were, just so you know, the city attorney ends up with some of these transfers and some problems here and there with ownership of below market. Yeah.

I'll also add that management of the in lieu fees that are collected would need to, we would need to have the city council adopt some sort of policy related to how that works and how the administrative piece of it is done. But the way the ordinance is drafted, it does allow for the use of those fees to go towards that administrative management effort. So I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

all right through the chair um first thank you to the city attorney for letting us know that the in lieu fees are not set i hope based on some of our guest speakers uh comments today that they'll look at the market rate analysis of areas near us and hopefully increase that based on what be uh applicable right um We have, this is a very important subject, right? And we have a lot of, we've had a lot of input. I respect to all my fellow commissioners and their comments as well. Um, commissioner blind, I understand you have some concerns, um, regarding the, the rate, the percentages that are listed, right? Um, I am somewhat in agreement with commissioner Medeiros. If we were to look at, uh, option C and perhaps raise the VLI percentage and the ally percentage. But my question more so to Hector, uh, I know you mentioned we had builders in front of us before, right? That couldn't move forward because we did not have a policy in place. Um, based on your professional experience, right. and it's going to be hard for you to say, but how freely are we able to adjust those percentages? So say we're looking at, as commissioner Madero suggested, right. Going from the 1% up to three, right. Um, in your experience, have you seen that effect builds or have any kind of, uh, negative effect as far as, as build outs in, in developers being willing to come into a community, right. Um, along with that, um, I'm not sure, like, based on the comments we've heard, right, and I understand it takes some time to develop policy and kind of see where we're at, but would three years be the correct term based on the seriousness and, as our new commissioner mentioned, right, we're already past where we should be, right? So do we want to look at that three-year steady period or maybe shorten that?

Yeah, I think that based on what we've seen, any amount of increase is going to make it less and less likely for a developer to come into town. With that said, though, option A, B, and C were evaluated under the feasibility study. So if you were to go with one of those options, we're covered as far as like the analysis rate. If the numbers change to something that was not evaluated into the feasibility study, we need to get back into rehiring EPS and evaluating what impact that would have on the in lieu fees where they need to go up or down. So I would encourage that if you do move one way or the other, we do go with an option that was just previously shown on the screen. I might have missed one of your questions too, I'm sorry.

No, that's fine. I just, this is like a personal comment and maybe it's just my experience with contractors and consultants, right? I see that they're, generally pretty high priced, and sometimes you don't get the bang for the buck, right, that you're looking for with them. So just asking, assuming I know you're short staffed, right, there's no one within the staff that's able to do these sort of studies. Okay, I figured, but I just throw it out there.

Okay. Yeah, as smart as Cesar and I am, I'll speak for myself. It's out of my wheelhouse for sure.

Okay.

Did we get an answer on how often we can change it?

Oh, yeah, it's completely open. That evaluation period is not written into the ordinance. That potentially could be something that is introduced. But we were thinking three years just because, and maybe Cesar could speak to this, how many residential development applications we get on a General year-to-year basis, but I would suspect that you know, we only get a handful every year So I was thinking three years just because that would be a sufficient data point To basically base something off of but if we see that next year, you know We turn the corner if we get 20 developments and we get substantial feedback and experience Yeah, we would have enough of a data point to make a decision upon that.

I

So yeah, it could be a year. It could be two years. It's completely up to the city and the council. It's currently not baked into the ordinance though. It's just a suggestion.

Oh, that's good. More flexibility to better.

I do want to add a comment to the chair. I just want to put a perspective like on the housing developments that the city has received. So I know recently the planning commission adopted, you know, the 131 units at Rollingwood, the 51 at Vista Cove. So that was the most recent projects. Before that was in 2022 when we got the influx for the 5180 Sonoma Boulevard, the former Walmart, the, was it 1357 Broadway, the 111 units. And then before that was like the Fairview at Northgate. So it's kind of like been, we get one year, good amount of housing projects. We wait two years and an influx and then two years and then an influx. So I think the three-year that Hector keeps on mentioning is probably a good rationale to get that feedback from developers and potentially come back and adjust those numbers.

Yes, and I second that as well. And the reason why, and it piggybacks on some other comments I wanted to make, is that you have to factor in lag time. So we're not going to see the immediate effect as of today. We will see the effects later and everything is typically delayed and blind and understand to your point to does it add to affordability? Are we even making a significant impact? And I will say that it is a significant impact. I am very pro in terms of what can we do best for our community and I would love to see every single person in their appropriate income bracket of their home, if that was feasible. I would love for that, I would push that. I would even say to Hector, hey, let's push those numbers up even more. But we need to understand the data BEHIND THE ANALYSIS WHEN WE'RE PRESENTING THIS. BECAUSE IF WE'RE PRESENTING INFORMATION BASED ON, WELL, I BELIEVE THIS OR I FEEL THIS OR WE HAVE PARTIAL INFORMATION BECAUSE SOME OF THE INFORMATION UP HERE THAT SOME OF US BELIEVE HAVE BEEN INACCURATE. LIKE THE 55-YEAR TAX CREDIT BELIEVE THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. WELL, THE 55-YEAR CONTRACT FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING. that has been in place for many years to keep the affordable housing available for the future. And it follows the property at home. And correct me if I'm wrong in saying that. In terms of the company, I mean, the developer, or even if they were to sell the property, the property manager is responsible for maintaining these properties for that matter, and I'm sure that the city will enforce. As Laura had stated, they have been able to receive a good portion of those homes back. Now, to say that because it does not have a significant impact into what we believe it is, that means that if we had this and we had one developer come in and decide to I mean, to allot affordable housing based on the number, that means that we have housed at least one, two, three, or four people with a home and a path for them to build some type of generational wealth. If we do not do that, we cannot, one person, four people missed out on that. So my question is, do we not do it because we can't hit a greater number of people? Or do we, because it's like, well, there's only four, so forget it. Those four, five, or ten families will benefit from what we're doing moving forward. And considering that we're going to be able to analyze this over three years and it can adjust it accordingly, we will have greater knowledge and understand where the threshold is at to optimize this moving forward. Without any data points, we can't optimize anything. And so I understand all the different points in this and how it could be a concern, but however, to your point, Blinds, even if we just went with market rate housing, if we look at the data going backwards, and if we look at the charts going backwards, property value still increased anyway. And what we do have is more affordable, I mean, more expensive homes, and we have one less person into affordable housing. The goal hasn't even been achieved in all the cities in the Bay Area. So saying that if we implement inclusionary zoning, it's going to increase property values. Property values have been increasing consistently over the past 40 years, with or without it. But one thing is different is that someone with very low income and modest income was able to find housing for their family. That's one thing that is different, and I want to keep that into consideration. And I'm wondering, who are we advocating for? I understand that we want to build affordable housing, or we want to make sure that the city of Vallejo is moving in the right direction, which I think we all share those sentiments. But however, do we say, well, we don't want an inconvenience to the developer? And I wonder who they're advocating for. I'm not saying that is the case, and that's not the case. But I want to think about who's at need here, and can we move something forward to help assist, even if it's just 10 families at this point, and that may be the case, or hopefully works in a way that we can increase this to scale and we can maximize it I'm just thinking about maybe the four or five families that can actually have an opportunity that some of us have been allotted I just speaking on my myself knowing being in school family planning things of that sort money's tight and if I I didn't have an opportunity. If someone didn't reach out a hand to me and say, hey, I help you to a path to where you want to go, I might have missed out on an opportunity. And so some of these people may not have someone to lend them a hand. This, I think, is an opportunity for that as an institution to be able to provide a way to lend a hand to someone in need. I understand the numbers that this research has been done, and we don't know. We know there's going to be a cost. We're never going to get around that. It's a fixed cost. It is a matter of who we're going to transfer the cost to. Either the city will face the cost because we have people who need affordable housing and struggling, the developer fixed the cost, or it's shared amongst everyone else, or it's the residents who buy into the new home. The cost still remains the same because it's the market. It's just a matter of where it's going to be allocated and who's going to be responsible for it. And what I have been seeing is that a lot of low-income homes households have paid the cost. Because without having, and that's the primary investment tool of building wealth, they're missing out over years of appreciation as well as equity. And that is a huge cost. So it has been transferred. It doesn't matter who is it going to. And I think that it should be shared in some capacity. And that's my thoughts around it. I believe there is more questions around the program in terms of, you know, how the funds will be allocated. I think these are big points going forward, but I strongly believe that I think we need to put something in place for the members here and the residents here in the city of Vallejo.

Through the chair, if I can make one more point in terms of why it's important that we have a program in place. um the elephant that's not in the room is mayor island and you know we are preparing a specific plan that is looking at 14 000 brand new units whether they're built now or 20 years one point that i want to make is we don't have a program in place now so if we want affordable housing the council whoever the decision makers are in terms of the development agreement are going to have to negotiate for that affordable housing IF WE HAVE THIS IN PLACE, IT WILL SET A BASELINE FOR THAT DISCUSSION TO HAPPEN. I GUARANTEE YOU THE CITY WILL PROBABLY BE LOOKING TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF SET ASIDE FOR THAT, BUT HAVING A BASELINE OF WHATEVER PERCENTAGE A, B, OR C WILL PROVIDE THAT BASELINE OF, WELL, THE CITY'S ORDINANCE SAYS THIS IS THE MINIMUM. WE MAY BE ASKING YOU FOR SOMETHING HIGHER THAN THAT. IF WE DON'T HAVE A MINIMUM, You know, we may end up where we're planning to, you know, be anyway with the existing ordinance. So that's one thing that, you know, should also be taken into consideration and it'll put us at a better negotiation position with, you know, the developer on Mare Island.

Just quickly, I'll make this super quick. Through the chair, I appreciate my fellow commissioners, both of your points, right? But I do agree that we do need to move something forward, right? I haven't really changed my stance. I'm kind of where Commissioner Medeiros is. I feel like we can make a slight adjustment to those percentages to help – I guess, move towards what our guest speakers mentioned without inflating the percentage too much that may drive developers away, right? And that's my...

So to the elephant in the room, it's kind of in the back of my mind or the front of my mind the entire time. I'm more accustomed to these development agreements when you have pro forma financials. And Mayor Eiland will have to share with you pro forma financials of what their return on investment is expected to be. And in those negotiations, I think you want an ordinance that's tied to their profit margin. Because otherwise, you're just trying to coerce someone to do something above 4%, above 5%, when we could be missing out on 20%. Because you're letting them walk away from the table with such a low bar that we could have gotten more for more people, okay? And it's not about inconveniencing developers, it's about actually understanding the market enough to maximize the effectiveness of this program. And if we're leaving affordable housing units on the table, because we've got a number that's static, and all we've got above that number is our ability to say, golly gee, wouldn't it be great? Right? Because that's what we did to that developer that you just told us about, right? You reminded us of. You said, wouldn't it be great if you did some affordable housing? And he said, get an ordinance. So I want an ordinance, if we're going to do it, that's tied enough that when we get pro forma financials through a development agreement that we can say it's a percentage of your profits that we want to do affordable housing to the maximum extent that you're still at the table, you're still building, and we're getting the most out of this that we can. And so that's why I have a problem with these three or four or five or six, because it's one size fits all, and we're going to be leaving affordable housing units on the table because we don't have the right negotiation because we don't have the right metrics.

Yeah, that's an excellent point. I'm not going to be at the negotiating table, but I know that we have council members here in the room that potentially will be. And I don't think it's gonna be a situation that Maryland company's gonna say, well, your ordinance says 3%, we're gonna give you 4%, is that okay? So I think that it's just setting the baseline, but absolutely it's gonna be tied to their pro forma. So the objective is to be having something that's higher, much, much higher, and I think that that's great input for the folks that are gonna be negotiating that development agreement. All I'm saying is right now, Maryland companies like looking at our ordinances and we have nothing in place. So there's no baseline, but that doesn't need to be a situation where if the baseline is X, then they're just increasing it by a nominal two or 3%. So I just wanted to add that. Point well taken and I think that we'll pass that on to the folks that are gonna be at the negotiating table.

Just to add on, I think there could be an aspect of the housing ordinance itself that says there's a baseline if there's no disclosure of financials. If there's disclosure of financials through a development agreement or by the developer's own provision of them, then we have a different formula for that. And I would much rather see that because I think again, be a more effective use of leveraging what we have in order to get more of what they can offer. So then, so then I'm sorry, commissioner blind.

So I'm going to agree with commissioner blind. Um, So I think this is the trigger you're looking for. So can we, because I do know that developers are looking now, the large scale ones, and it, The framework we have now is for more of the little guy, right? And so when it comes to these large-scale developers who are doing, you know, developing thousands of, or thousand units, 800 units, I'm even going to say once you get to 400, that's a nice amount of profit there. So can we put something baseline and tie it to percentage? Because here's what I know. When you start talking about money, business owners look for how do I maximize my ROI, and they are circled around like vultures looking at this policy, hoping and praying that we're going to keep it as low as we can. So like he was saying, if we do tie it to percentage immediately, that already gives them the indication that you have to pay to play. And that's, I didn't mean to say it like that, so scratch that from the record, please. But that's why you got to use Western English. So what I meant to say is that we do have to teach you know my mom used to say you have to train people and teach them how to treat you you see what I'm saying and so that means we have to treat developers we have to treat businesses how to treat us. And we set the tone. And I agree that we set that tone and we'll add in the policy that once you get to a certain threshold of four or five hundred, I'll yield to you because you know, that's your lane. But when we get to about 400 or 500 units, whether it be housing, apartments, because you know they can be slick, ADUs, mobile home, whatever it may be, you start, we start earning a percentage of. And that way, when council comes to the table, there's something already there. Because when you're negotiating, it's the art. So if there's nothing there, they'll get nothing. Because everybody on council don't know how to negotiate, right? And not a diss or anything, but you have to be skilled to do that. And so I would say that some probably can, some can't. everybody's not in a business world and so real estate is extremely nuanced and I think that even myself there's a lot that I just don't know and then there's a lot I do know but I do know this if the policy isn't there we will walk away with nothing so I'm just trying to figure out if we could come up with that number with how many units before we leave today.

Through this chair?

Are we allowed to do that?

Well, I just want to point something out really quickly. The way the ordinance is structured right now is that there are percentage requirements for owner projects between 20 and 100 units. And then there's a higher percentage required when you go over 100 units. So I don't know if that's getting to what you're requesting, but once you get to projects over 100, the baseline we've established is 5% low and then 3% mod. 3% tied to profit.

No, we're talking about profit.

So that's another point. If we're going to tie the requirement to profit, you probably are going to need to require a development agreement for each of those projects. Oh, okay. Because I think that's kind of getting into the gray area.

Are you able to display the options again for A, B, and C?

So then we need to add that language that once we get to a certain amount of units that we actually have, I'm assuming our city attorney create a development agreement. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes, but we can't, I don't think we can require a development agreement. There are different reasons why you would want one. Oftentimes developers are interested in them because they can give them a longer term for their entitlement or there's other benefits that they could get out of it and it's kind of a negotiation process, but I do not believe we can require it.

I will share the example that when we were in Pittsburgh actually their inclusionary housing ordinance did have a provision in it that stated you know you could YOU COULD COMPLY WITH THE ORDINANCE AS WRITTEN OR YOU COULD ASK FOR, I WON'T CALL IT AN EXCEPTION, BUT YOU COULD BASICALLY REQUEST SOMETHING DIFFERENT AS PART OF A DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT. AND WE WOULD SEE IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES PEOPLE WOULD, INSTEAD OF PROVIDING UNITS, AFFORDABLE BELOW MARKET RATE UNITS THAT ARE THE SAME SIZE AND SHAPE AND ALL THAT AS THE MARKET RATE UNITS, they would provide ADUs instead. So that was a creative way of providing units, but that were still allowed the project to pencil that also provide affordability. But again, to Kristen's point, that was sort of them asking us as the city of Pittsburgh for that alternative form of compliance. I don't think we could actually require it though.

And that was something that allowed the city to be responsive to market conditions, too, because if it's tough to build, there's more reason for the city to negotiate on those items. So we did do a lot of development agreements in Pittsburgh.

All right. Do any of my fellow commissioners have any questions or any comments? I'd like to make a couple comments.

Which one?

Thanks. I have a lot of experience in negotiating contracts with people like Boeing. You know, big, big contracts. And it's really hard to negotiate with somebody if there's no competition. You're dead. You walk in dead, you leave dead. You might be deader than before or not as dead as before, but you're still going to be dead. Um, if you get two or three people competing, you don't have to tell them what the numbers are. They're going to tell you how good they can do. Right. And so my concern, I'm getting a great appreciation for how complicated this is in one day. All right. But, but you, you can't, I have trouble with saying, well, here's the rules. Well, it depends on the situation what the rules are going to be, and the rules are going to be so different from somebody building 10 units than somebody developing Mare Island. Mare Island's got its own plan, general plan, right? So whatever we do there ought to be special, and it ought to consider competition. Give us a proposal. And if we're only asking one person for a proposal, why? Is there a way we can get two or three people betting on this thing? Because when they start competing with each other, then we see what the true profit is. It's not a pro forma, it's the real deal. All right? Pro formas can do anything. Look at some of the stuff going on in Wall Street.

I don't want to get in that.

The second thing that I got a great appreciation from people here was about, The idea that you have some kind of metric that says, geez, I like this. Let's do that again. Or, geez, we messed this up. We have to change this. And there's a lot of moving parts here. And I'm new to this game. But what's missing for me is, where's that feedback loop? If you've got a three-year feedback loop, then you better have a pretty straight road. And if you don't, you're going to go off the road. Right? If you've got... visual sight, so you're getting 16 shots per second of that road and the curves in the road and the bumps in the road, you're going to be able to react quickly. And the way we're doing this now, we're doing it one or two or three residential projects at a time. And they take how long? Six months, 18 months, three years. They have a long time span. So that's going to push you towards the three-year number, okay? But we need to beat something faster. We need to maybe keep track of everybody else in the Bay Area. Maybe we could put together a Bay Area housing metric. Somebody's got to keep score so we can all see faster what's going on, right? And so we can react much more responsibly. So my advice is, or my feeling is, We had a couple of consultants do the study. We took a shot at it. We thought we hit it right. And we ended up with eight out of nine boxes blank. We got one box that's good. So maybe that's a miss. Now, we can take an immediate feedback loop and redo the boxes. And I don't know how to do that. Because like I said, I'm new to this. But what's missing from a business standpoint is where's the competition and where's the feedback loop? And that's what I don't see. So I think we ought to ask that we postpone this decision and ask you all to think about that and come back to our next meeting after that, like a month or two, or not a year or two, right? What I got out of the public comments, uh, that came along with the proposal was it's all bad. It's all bad. We don't want it. They don't want it. Well, that's God look at Trump. Every way he negotiates everything is first. I got to poke your nose and then I'm going to poke you somewhere else. Right. And, uh, we just got to start thinking like business people. Where's the competition. Where's the feedback loop. That's my comment. Thank you.

Thank you for your feedback. I think our competition to answer the question, I think it's other cities. I think it's income restrictions. I think it's interest rates. I believe it's preference. I think all these factors play into how communities shift and where they may actually go based on all these variables, including significantly more. I know that we had our two studies. I do trust the planning department in their research and working with EPS. And as I stated, I would love to go more aggressively. But considering we don't know what the impacts are, so taking a conservative step, to understand the market and be able to collect data to be able to measure, to your point, I'm assuming that you're going to get permits, request applications with certain approvals. So that will be real-time data for the most part before the development is actually built. So that will be some information I'm sure that they will be able to go through this analysis, this timeframe update as accordingly to see how it's faring. If permits go down or if they go up, based on those requirements, it would be an initial good first step at that point. Or if there's going to be an amendment to the projects prior to them being developed, I think that will be indicators of how the program is actually doing. And at least that way, we'll have an idea how to adjust it moving forward. And that's my assumption. I'm not exactly sure of your process, but this is just a high-level review of just doing data analysis to make corrections and to make inference as you go. Is that about a fair assessment? So to your point, and you're right, we do need data. To everyone's point, we want to know what the impact's going to be, how we're going to move things moving forward without causing a major disruption. I think that is a fair assessment. To the public comments, yes, we do have this need. I think we all can see it. I think a lot of us can feel it in various ways. but we have to balance out all these different factors where we don't go too far one way and too far the other and not get any desirable outcomes or any meaningful information to understand how we can actually move forward. And so I believe that, I strongly believe what the planning department proposed and what Hector's presenting is the best approach considering how unique our city is. Pittsburgh has a BART station. They don't have bridge tolls. They don't have that particular cause. So everyone else here is commuting. They're going to face other constraints that other cities are not going to face. And we have to kind of keep that in mind. In the study, and I'm sure that the planning department had factored all these things in, especially coming from different markets. And so I strongly believe they made the right approach, even though, to Madera's point, I want higher numbers. I'm not sure what the impacts will be. We don't have enough data. And this is our first time moving forward with this. And so I trust Hector's recommendation and the planning department. I think they did an excellent job. I think they took their time in terms of really putting this together and find other examples to benchmark the games in terms of creating a policy.

Through the chair, uh, whatever we decide on today, we'll go up to city council and they could reject or challenge whatever we decide on. That's just a given. I know since I've been on the planning commission, we have been dealing with, um, the public's outcry regarding. this issue for years now. And we've had people come before us and speak. We've had professionals come and share other cities' ordinances with our staff. And unfortunately, Mare Island Company owns Mare Island, so there's no competition. They will dictate whatever they want. And they are the largest builder, they will be the largest builder of homes in this city. If they keep their word, of course. They could sell it to the Navy. They could sell it to another developer. Who knows? But I would like to move forward with something today. Whether it is A, B, or C options, it is a start. My question to staff though is, As this thing moves forward, if it moves forward, what is going to be the process to refine it? What will that process look like? Will that come only from the council based on complaints from the public? Or is there going to be a process that goes through this group again?

um through the chair it's up for discussion i think what we had uh discussed during the presentation is that it would be a staff-led revisitation at the three-year mark but there's nothing to say that you can't bake that into the ordinance now i could foresee a situation where we write something in the ordinance that requires the city to do another feasibility study at a certain period of time whatever that is at the year mark or two year mark but at least there's that trigger and mechanism in the ordinance itself that would result in another feasibility you know document it could be based on market you know whatever but we could bake that level of detail into the ordinance at this point I think we were just thinking that it could be a trial period of three years

No, and I think that's good because we don't get a whole lot of larger development projects that come before the planning commission.

Um, I'll just add a little bit more to that. Um, the, the process for, uh, reevaluating will be just this, we'll have to go through and it would actually be an ordinance amendment. Um, however, it will note that the fee, the in lieu fee is adopted by resolution. So that is a little bit easier to adjust. And that's something maybe we could look at on an annual basis.

Right. And, and there's other more complex issues here in the administration portion of, um, you know, all of the, the documentation portion of the real estate itself that needs to be defined as well too. And I know that probably is going to happen at the city council level. I would hope, I don't know if we would have any input in that here at this level.

is is there any clarification on that um just kind of going back to that topic the um uh administration of this i'm i actually don't think it will be that difficult um when we have for sale projects they will be required to record deed restrictions and that sits with the property so if there's a sale in the future that's going to come up in the record it's yeah it's going to be required for future owners So that one is a little bit easier in my mind to make sure that moves forward for the rental projects. That one is a little bit of a different animal because there is a management component involved in that. So I mean I don't know how many will get in that category but but that's probably where the administration burden will lie.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. That eases my mind a little more. Okay, so back to my fellow commissioners. Yes, I am going to recommend option B to start with. It's right in the middle. I would like to see more. of a percentage. I would like to see more units. I would like to have the amount of units lowered to 10, but I don't think, well, we could talk about that if anybody else is in agreement with that, but I would just like to get something in place tonight and then that's my motion is to accept option B as presented by staff.

CHAIR TAYLOR, MAY I ASK A CLARIFYING QUESTION TO OUR CITY ATTORNEY? IF THIS WERE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE RECOMMENDATION OF OPTION B AND WHEN IT GETS TO CITY COUNCIL THEY INSTEAD WANT TO DO OPTION C, WOULD THAT MEAN THAT THE WHOLE ORDINANCE WOULD BE REMANDED TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION? NO. OKAY, GREAT. THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO CONFIRM.

A couple other questions on what was just brought up. As we consider a motion, I would recommend we have a biannual every two years feasibility study written into this so that before the end of the three year period we have some metrics that we can work on to say what the next three year period would be and we can make the adjustments based on that not after it expires and limiting that uncertainty in the market that we want to make sure it doesn't. I think we should have annual reporting requirements of what you're learning. If this is a trial period and we're trying to figure out what the impacts are, I would like to see that there is some sort of reporting that could be made public as well, whether it's just through the agenda here or it's through some website. I think that would be important for our advocates who are tracking this closely. The other thing I'd like to understand a little bit more about are alternatives. options for variances or adjustments. How would someone come up with something and what would be the process? I see the other cities laid out here. I just need to help me familiarize with what's our process then.

Um, I'll defer the question to our city attorney. Um, I will just say that I have never seen a situation where that happens. My impression is that when cities put these programs in place, it's sort of a CYA situation, but I, in practice, I haven't seen somebody challenge it. But with that, if you know, hypothetically speaking, if somebody were to do that, I think I defer that question to our city attorney.

What was the question exactly, Ken?

Well, I was, I guess I was kind of, your Pittsburgh example was the one that triggered this, right? If a developer has an interesting proposal that says, you know what, you've got 3% I've got a proposal for you about how I think I could do a benefit for your city that's not exactly according to your formula. Not necessarily doing this whole, it's a constitutional taking, like I don't think that path is really gonna be taken. But this other one of like, if we're thinking about this as a trial period, I would like to hear from developers what they think may work and pencil out for them to understand what creativity may be out there.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL TAKING AND ALL OF THAT. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE THIRD COMPLIANCE OPTION THAT WE SHOWED ON THE SCREEN EARLIER SO A DEVELOPER CAN BRING THEIR OWN PROPOSAL. WHEN THAT DOES HAPPEN, THE DECISION-MAKING BODY, SO IF THAT PROJECT NORMALLY WOULD GO TO THE DESIGNER V BOARD OR PLANNING COMMISSION, THAT DECISION-MAKING BODY WOULD BE PRESENTED WITH THAT ALTERNATE PROPOSAL, AND THEY WOULD HAVE THE ABILITY TO APPROVE OR DENY THAT ALTERNATE PATHWAY. SO IF A PROJECT CAME BEFORE YOU, AND THEY DIDN'T WANT TO PROVIDE THE UNITS ON SITE, AND THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DO THE IN LUFI, IF THEY HAD SOME CREATIVE MECHANISM OR ALTERNATIVE APPROACH, THEY WOULD PROPOSE THAT TO YOU AS A PLANNING COMMISSION. you could approve or deny the project and then that would go to council on appeal potentially if the developer disagrees with your approval. Thank you.

I'll add one more piece of information on that too. We talked about development agreements earlier. It's not explicitly stated in this ordinance, but any time the city decides that they want to negotiate a development agreement with a developer, they have the ability to kind of bypass the standard regulations in the ordinance. So that would also allow for a special situation if it was negotiated.

Well, I accept and support your other two additions to the motion.

I support your addition to the motion as well, and I support going with your proposal, going with option B.

I don't think we have it do we have an actual motion on the table I thought I think we were just discussing no no I motion to accept staff's proposal for option B along with you want to add your addition units right not 20 I'm sorry so can I see the slide it's it's not in my packet

I think the question was just to clarify if you also wanted to include the reduction. Yes in applicability from yes down to 10.

Yes.

With that addition.

Please add your two to the motion.

Thank you. I'd like to add to the motion that there would be a biannual feasibility study baked in at the end of two years of this three-year period. There would be annual reporting requirements that would disclose to this commission and the public what are the findings from this period of application of the inclusionary housing.

um and that i think the alternatives are already baked in thank you and though i prefer option c i will second your motion

Do you need me to read it back?

We made a motion and there was a second.

Can I clarify, do you want us to hire this consultant on a permanent basis every two years, you want a feasibility study, or just for the first in two years you want another feasibility study?

Could I just add a clarification that's been getting at me? When you say feasibility study biannual, do you mean a review and analysis of what's occurred, or do you mean a feasibility study? Because the feasibility study is beforehand and the review and analysis is kind of after.

Good point.

Thank you. Good clarification. I was using kind of the shorthand of what we have been calling the feasibility study, the study by EPS in this case that was presented to us that kind of created market conditions that we were saying is what exists. So the feasibility that we would take into account to say what we think is the right percentage in the period going forward. I think right now we're just talking about this three year period. So I think there would be the three year periods, there would be one feasibility study. Because we're coming back again at the end of three years to discuss this all over again by the terms, is that correct?

What I understood your addition to the motion to be is that instead of coming back in three years to reevaluate the whole ordinance that we would commission a feasibility study, not necessarily what happened before, but the question would be, do we modify this by increasing it or potentially decreasing it? Right. I think that's the objective that you want to get to. So would that happen at the two year mark? So, I think the other clarifying question would be would we start it at two years or do you want it back at the commission by the end of two years if it's worth clarifying?

I think that's a good clarification. I guess my intention was we would start it at the conclusion of two years so that we would have the information by the time the three years is up.

Understood.

Have we successfully muddied the motion or do we need, we've clarified it, we've clarified it?

Okay, so just to read back, just to confirm, the motion is to move forward with option B as shown on the table above for the percentages, reduce the applicability down to 10 units, add a biannual, feasibility study to look at current conditions and what the feasibility looks like starting at the end of the second year. And then also to have annual reporting requirements to this body and to the public in general.

I would clarify that biannual feasibility study to be presented to the planning commission in the three years, right? From the date that the council adopts the ordinance, within, yeah, that we begin it somewhere in two years, but to be presented right before the three years.

We have seven ayes. Motion carries.

All right. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Hector, for the presentations. Welcome to the process. I want to thank the public for their comments and helping us share their perspective. Thank you, fellow commissioners, for the deliberation. I think everybody was very open and honest about their perspective. So those type of discussions are great to better understand what's going on. So I appreciate everybody's candid responses. So thank you. All right, and so with that, we're going to move to the next line item, C, where we hold a public hearing and consider a resolution approving a variance, PLN26-0151, for a 12-foot security steel wall around the police dispatch module buildings located at 111 Amador Street, APN0056-216-080. after finding the project exempt from environmental review, pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15303, class 3, new construction or conversion of small structures. And this is for the project as the police dispatch security steel wall.

All right. Thank you, Chair. I'm Cesar Orozco, planning manager for current development, and I'm here to present before you this evening the police dispatch security steel wall. So the purpose of tonight's meeting is to hold a public hearing, review the project, including public testimony, and act on the requested variance. So this project here is subject to the Levine Act. Since we do have new planning commissioners, I'm going to go ahead and read it all the way through. The item is subject to the Levine Act. City elected and appointed officials, including candidates for city elected office for city officers who have received a campaign contribution of more than $500 within 12 months prior from a party participant or their representatives involved in this proceeding may do either of the following. 1. Disclose the contribution on the record and recuse themselves from the proceeding or 2. Return the portion of the contribution that exceeds $500 within 30 days from the time the elected official knew or should have known about the contribution and participate in the proceeding. All parties, participants, and their representatives must disclose on the record of this proceeding any contribution of more than $500 made to the city officers, such as the mayor and or council members, within 12 months prior to the date of the proceeding. City officers are prohibited from accepting, soliciting, and directing a contribution of more than $500 from a party participant or their representatives during a proceeding for 12 months following the date a final decision is rendered. So on the record has anyone accepted any contributions from anyone.

No no.

OK. So the project setting. The project site consists of a developed 5.4 acre parcel located off Amador Street. The site includes a portion of the Vallejo Police Department, the modular dispatch buildings, and the city of Vallejo Public Works Corporation yard. The site is generally at grade level and is surrounded by existing residential and commercial development. The immediate vicinity of the project site is characterized by existing residential development with Georgia Street to the north and Lower Street to the east with residential development on the Opposite side, Main Street to the south with commercial and industrial uses beyond and the California Northern Railroad line to the west with residential development on the opposite side. Interstate 80 and Interstate 780 provide regional access while Amador Street provides direct access to the site. The subject site has a land use designation of public facilities and institutions and is implemented by the public and semi-public zoning district. So previous approval saw on October 24th, 2023, City Council directed staff to move forward, move the Vallejo Police Department Emergency Dispatch Center into a temporary modular units on the same site as the Vallejo Police Department headquarters. And then following that action on May 14, 2024, City Council unanimously approved a City Council resolution number 24-061NC approving the construction and temporary use of two modular buildings to be combined into a single 1,440 square foot emergency dispatch center. So once again, the existing conditions of the site, it's a developed 5.4-acre site that consists of the Vallejo Police Station, the modular dispatch buildings, and the Public Works Corporation yard. So the request before you this evening is for the installation of a 12-foot-tall steel security wall adjacent to the new police dispatch modular buildings to enhance site security and provide additional protection for the facility and its occupants. The modular building has an overall height of 14 feet and 8 inches and a setback approximately 6 feet from the front property line, which faces Amador Street. A variance is requested due to the maximum fence height or wall height permitted within the required front yard of the PS zoning district is 3 feet. The fence height may be increased to a maximum of 6 feet if the fence is set back a total of 15 linear feet from Amador Street. So under the below municipal code section 16.505.04 C.6 little a. states that walls within the required front yard are limited to three feet in height unless a traffic engineer approves a four-foot wall through zoning compliance review. A six-foot wall is permitted only beyond the required front yard, which begins 10 feet from the front property line. Because the new modular police dispatch building is located approximately six feet from the front property line, a wall in front of the building would be limited to three feet, leaving approximately 11 feet and eight inches of the building exposed. A four-foot wall could potentially be approved through a zoning compliance review, but would still leave approximately 10 feet and 8 inches exposed. An exception could provide up to 25% relief from the applicable dimensional standard, potentially allowing a five-foot wall, however, approximately 9 feet 8 inches of the building will still remain exposed. These alternatives demonstrate that strict application of the wall height standards would not provide adequate security for the police dispatch facility. The proposed 12-foot steel security wall would substantially reduce the exposed portion of the building, leaving approximately 2 feet and 8 inches visible, which is primarily clear attic space containing structural and mechanical components. GIVEN THE SITE'S UNIQUE PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS, INCLUDING THE BUILDING'S LOCATION NEAR THE FRONT PROPERTY LINE AND THE ESSENTIAL PUBLIC SAFETY FUNCTION OF THE FACILITY, THE REQUESTED VARIANCE PROVIDES THE MINIMUM RELIEF NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE APPROPRIATE LEVEL SECURITY. SO UNDER THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT, OR CEQA, THE STATE CEQA GUIDELINES IDENTIFY CLASSES OF PROJECTS THAT HAVE BEEN DETERMINED NOT TO HAVE SIGNIFICANT EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND THEREFORE EXEMPT FROM CEQA REVIEW. Section 15303E, Class 3, New Construction or Conversion of Small Structures of the Sequel Guidelines exempts the construction and location of limited number of new small facilities or structures, including accessory structures such as fences and walls. Moreover, none of the exemptions listed in the CEQA guidelines section 15300.2 apply in that the site is not located in an environmentally sensitive area. There are no cumulative impacts. There are no significant effects due to unusual circumstances. The project is not located near a scenic highway. The project site is not located on a hazardous waste site pursuant to government code section 65962.5 and the project would not adversely affect any historical resource. So on August 26, 2026, pursuant to the below municipal code section 16.602.08, notice of this hearing was published in the Times Herald, mailed to all active neighborhood groups, all property owners and occupants within 500 feet of the subject property, any other interested parties and local agencies expected to provide water, wastewater treatment, and or other essential facilities or services to the site, the Velo City Unified School District, and electronically mailed to the members of the Planning Commission, the applicant and the property owner. As of this evening, no comments have been received by staff. So staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt the resolution finding the project to be exempt from environmental review pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15303 class 3 new construction or conversion of small structures and approve a variance PLN 26-0151 based on the findings provided in the resolution and subject to the conditions of approval provided as Exhibit A to the recommended resolution. And that concludes my presentations for this evening. And I am available to answer any questions, as well as Brad Jobe, the public works director, to assist and answer any questions this commission may have.

All right. Thank you for the presentation. Brad, would you like to present on this matter? Or do we want to open up to the commissioners for any questions or comments?

I'm certainly open to questions. I'm relatively new to the city, so this project's been going on several years before me, and we definitely would like to get the wall constructed. The dispatchers do not feel safe in a building that's not hardened against gunfire and blasts. They are an essential service facility, you know, disaster service, so I understand their level of anxiety. And we would like to get this done. The building's been constructed now since before I got here, and they have not been willing to occupy it because they just don't feel safe there without the ballistics, you know, the steel wall.

Thank you. Thank you. Do my fellow commissioners have any questions or comments?

I do. Good evening. Unfortunately, I'm a professional engineer, so I looked up ballistics. There's a UL standard 752 for whether it's a pistol or a high-powered rifle and categories in between. Have you looked at that? Do you know how thick a wall or what sort of wall you got in mind?

So we decided to go with something that would be very, this is a temporary facility, one, and so we didn't want to put something in that would be really expensive. And so it's trench plates, so half-inch steel plate welded to fence posts. And so half-inch steel is certainly capable of stopping anything short of armor piercing around. It would definitely deflect the blast from, you know, if there was a small explosive device.

Okay, that's great. That's a lot heavier than what I thought of, so that's good to hear. Your second thought is, if that's what it is, it's going to look like East Berlin. It's going to look like the Berlin Wall. Understood, sir. And there are architectural styles that I've found, laser-cut decorative screen overlays, 3D vertical or horizontal louvers, or composites with hybrid planning. paneling. All of those could be done in half inch, you said half inch steel, right?

Yes, sir. But we're hoping to reuse the trench plates as trench plates after we move the police into a new facility. And so we thought they'd be recyclable.

Okay. Anyway, anything you could do to improve the just the way it looks. I mean, I can just see the police force just built a Berlin Wall around their center, you know, and so we're not going to let them out.

Understood. And we do plan on painting it.

Okay. And then, okay, that's all. That was my comment. That's all. Thank you.

Do any of my other fellow commissioners have any questions?

Just my two cents. You might want to think about making it into some sort of art project for our local artists, just to ease the ugly steel facade, because that is a major thoroughway, and there's a children's play land or something right up the street from that.

So I will offer that I had the same exact idea and in my past professions I've always had a hard time finding vandal graffiti resistant surface and it tends to be things that are painted by grade schoolers tend to be really good vandal resistant surfaces. The pushback I got from others in the city were that that would then turn it into a sacred work of art and then when we wanted to take it down it would be hard to take it down.

So for any of my fellow commissioners, do you have any questions or concerns?

I was just going to say we could put in the conditions that it should be artwork and that artwork should come down at the conclusion of the occupancy of the police. So I would recommend if we want to do that.

So I do have a question, and that was a good point you brought up. So if there was art put on there as an art display, would it be difficult to pull that down without any resistance?

You need to get a waiver. You need the artist to sign a waiver. Because there's a Visual Artist Rights Act that... So whenever an artist puts up a mural or something because art in the past has been destroyed, an Artist Rights Act was adopted and so they have the right to take it down or you have to keep it up or you have to give them the right to move it.

So I have a question regarding that.

feasible if would it be to turn into like a field trip option for the local elementary school for them to add art to it from as a school project would that be it's feasible just it adds time because then we have to find the artists and then we have to enter into an agreement with that group so I you know I don't know what your time horizon is for this project but it will just delay it somewhat

Well, I was thinking, you know, like maybe like a local school as a field trip option to come and just have that community involvement and add it if that's possible, but still move forward with, you know, with the safety and have that possible at a later date. Is that?

Then you need a hold harmless and indemnity agreement signed by all their parents for entering onto our property. No, I'm laughing. I'm laughing. We have such an agreement, but I'm just, yeah, it's more complicated than you think.

Oh, so it's complicated. Because I think it would have been a great opportunity for like a field trip as for a community engagement. You know, so, okay, all right, that was, thank you.

You guys can volunteer. Yeah, you guys, as a group, you can all volunteer. Yeah.

All right, so if anyone have any other questions or concerns, I think it's very straightforward.

Public safety is important, and especially making sure that our emergency responders are protected. Seeing the image there, I can share their sentiments on how they can be concerned. It looks pretty exposed. So I would motion to approve- Through the chair? Yes, I gotta open up the public comments. All right, my apologies. Can we open up the public comments, please? Excuse me. Thank you.

There are, through the chair, there are no members of the public that have signed up to speak, and currently there is no one on Zoom.

All right, we'll give them two minutes to start.

Two minutes.

Who?

If someone decides to log in, just in case. We want to give them the opportunity. We've been giving everyone the opportunity. We don't want to change it. I guess we can keep talking. Okay, so I guess while we're waiting for the two minute mark, how complicated would it be to be able, or what would be the process to get like a field trip option to have a public art display?

I think we could explore something. Maybe I'll defer to Brad, but I think maybe there's, I would caution you against conditioning that to be set up before it gets built. Yes. I just want to highlight that the facility's ready. We want to move them in. This wall is, we want to get it going as soon as possible. So perhaps we could explore a mural option after it's built. Yeah.

Oh, yes, no, I wasn't thinking about putting the condition. I was thinking as an option going forward, just, you know, volunteer, just a collaboration between, you know, the police department and the community to do that, but not use that as a way to hold it up. So the kids can come and paint on the wall and make it look nice and kind of make it look less like a fortress, that's all, but still have this functionality.

So I just had one idea would be to maybe bolt some plexiglass to the face of it and then just sandwich somebody else's art underneath it and then change out the art. Roll up one person's four-by-six-foot poster-type drawing, hand it back to them, and then the school kids next year get to make eight or ten new ones.

Oh, that's nice. I like that. Thank you.

What he said. I'll make that motion.

I think we can afford the plexiglass. You know, it's going to be finding the person to corral the children, as I think is the challenge in the engineering department. But like I said, I've always found that children's paintings, and I have 20 years of working for the federal land management agencies, and so I would always get my signs painted by the grade schoolers, and they would always last, and anything I put up there that's furnished by the government would get shot by a gun.

Through the chair, the two-minute timer has elapsed. There's nobody on Zoom that has raised their hand for public comment.

Okay, great. Thank you. So we can close the public forum. Great. So my fellow commissioner does not have any questions or any concerns or comments. Uh, I guess we can move to a motion to approve a resolution. I mean, approving a variance PLN two six zero one one zero one five one for a 12 foot security steel wall around the police dispatch module buildings. located at 111 Amador Street, APN 0056-216-080. After finding the project exempt from the environmental review, present to CEQA guidelines section 15303, class three, new construction or conversion of small structures.

So moved.

We have seven ayes and the motion carries.

All right, perfect. Thank you. All right, thank you, Brad. All right, so we will move to the next line item, agenda item, which is written communications.

Thank you, Chair. This evening we received a total of three written communications that were distributed to the members of the Planning Commission earlier today, as well as posted on the city's website and provided in the binder in the back of the Council chambers that were all regarding the inclusionary housing ordinance, which was, um, action item eight B. So those were the only three written communications we received this evening.

Great. Thank you. Uh, so we can move to the next agenda item, which is report other presiding officers and members of the planning commission. Uh, what 10 a secretary's report.

Thank you, Chair. First off, welcome to the new planning commissioner. So I think we're all very excited to finally have a full seven body commission. So welcome. Once any questions or concerns or anything you guys have, don't hesitate to reach out. If you're planning on being absent, please let me know beforehand and then we can go from there. I DO WANT TO SHARE SOME OF THE EXCITING NEWS THAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT AT THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING. AS VICE MAYOR MITCHELLIC MENTIONED, CITY COUNCIL DID UNANIMOUSLY PASS TO RENAME A PORTION OF I THINK SOYER STREET AND NAME IT MAG DRIVEWAY. name it mag driveway which is very exciting as well as directing staff to or directing the city to move forward with the contract with site lab to start moving the work with downtown and the waterfront specific plan so that's getting exciting so that contract is going to get routed around and hopefully we can kick that one off in the very near future So we can get moving forward with those two items. As well as last night, there was two items on consent, which was the electric vehicles ordinance that was adopted, recommended by Planning Commission, as well as the accessory dwelling unit ordinance. So glad about those. Those would go into effect 30 days from last night. So those are two new ordinances that we are planning on implementing in the city. Um, other than that, you know, we'll have a second meeting, uh, this month. So that's when we'll do our more in-depth, um, secretary's report with given all the information and numbers. So that concludes my update for this evening.

All right. Thank you for the update. Do my fellow commissioners have any questions or comments?

All right, great.

So we can move to the next, uh, agenda item, which is the city attorneys report.

I have nothing to report. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. All right. And so we're going to move to the next line item is report of the chairperson and members of the commission. I don't have anything to report. Any of my fellow commissioners have anything to report?

I'm not sure if this was in our purview, but there was also a motion passed for a commemorative plaque for Pearl Pinson, who's been missing since 2016. The young lady over, I can't remember the name of the street, the overpassing there.

The overpass, yeah. The overpass, it goes over 780 when you're heading. 780, yes. When you're heading west towards Benicia. Yeah. Or east, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that. And also, I did attend the Florence Douglas Senior Center's AT&T Computer Center launch, and they are now using fiber. AT&T Fiber. They have about 16 desktops and maybe four to six laptops. And I believe they are the first computer learning center to use AT&T Fiber, if I'm not mistaken. So it was a really... NICE RIBBON CUTTING CEREMONY. IT ALSO SHOWED THE PARTNERSHIP AND COLLABORATION WITH OUR MAYOR SUPERVISOR JAMES, OUR COUNCILWOMAN FROM DISTRICT SIX, HELEN MARIE GORDON. and also many AT&T staff. It really proved to be a beautiful, beautiful ceremony. And just to see, you know, the seniors and the looks on their faces. I mean, they were literally on Facebook. They were playing Sudoku or Sudoku, however you say it. I mean, they were having a ball. So it is just really a feel-good moment for Vallejo. So thank you.

Well, thank you for the update, and thank you for sharing that. All right, if anyone else have any comment or questions? All right, great. So we can move to the next agenda item, which is report of the ad hoc subcommittee. And come to the next page, which is work plan ad hoc for an update for the work plan ad hoc subcommittee. And Commissioner Medeiros?

Yes, I sent in today, and I don't know if everybody got the copy. Obviously, the two new members have not. Have they been set up with the...

Yeah so both of the new planning commissions have city issued emails and when I sent out the updated document they were included in that email as well.

Oh perfect. Okay so our last meeting which was the end of last month? or august i asked for people's input both my fellow commissioners and staff and i received nothing so i made some updates based on that meeting and specifically from commissioner blind AND ALSO THE UPDATES FROM CITY COUNCIL'S MEETING LAST NIGHT. SO THEY HAVE BEEN ADDED. I STILL NEED INPUT FROM STAFF FOR SCHEDULED OR SOME SORT OF SHOT IN THE DARK DATES ON SPECIFIC PROJECTS. AND I SEPARATED OUT THE SPECIFIC PLANS BECAUSE I KNOW THAT THEY'RE NOT ALL GOING TO HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME. So, please, everybody, I am asking for your input. This is the last time. And, you know, if not, this is going to be a final draft. And hopefully I will get some feedback.

Commissioner Medeiros I just want to thank you for sending that over and let you know that I actually did have some time today to review the document and I have comments that I would like to share it's a little late to do it right now I think maybe it'd be best to set up a call or meeting to go over it so I'll reach out to do that

All right, great.

Thank you for the update. If there is no questions or concerns or comments, we can move to the next line item, which is other. So if there is anything that we missed during our meeting that... Just one addition.

Was it sent to Laura as well, too? Can you please send it to Laura? I would like the legal...

Of course, I guess that was our other. Is there anything else we want to add or any other comments? All right, great. So we can move to the last one being adjourned at 1028 p.m.