Okay, hello everyone calling to order the Berkeley City Council meeting today is Tuesday April 28th
2026 it is 605 p.m.
Clerk can you please start us off?
Councilmember Kessner-Wani here
Councilmember Taplin is currently absent
Councilmember Bartlett
present
Tragob
present okay here Lackey be here una para here Humber present and mayor ishi
yeah okay counselor Bartlett is participating in the meeting remotely
pursuant to the Just Cause exception in the Brown Act form of the council's
participating in person at the noticed physical meeting location and counselor
Bartlett if you could provide a brief general description of the circumstances
relating to your need to appear remotely without disclosing any medical diagnosis
or other confidential medical information.
Yeah. So there's a, there's a medical situation that I cannot disclose.
Okay. Uh, and then please disclose if there is anybody in the room with you who
is 18 years of age or older, and if so, what their relationship is to you.
I'm alone at this time.
Okay. Uh, and council member Bart will participate through both audio and
visual technology for the duration of the meeting and we can proceed and Mr.
City clerk, it looks like council member Tappin is on there is council member
Tappin. So we can mark council member Tappin as president. Um, and council
member Tappin's teleconference. Um, is, uh, location is noted on the agenda.
So we do not need to do the just cause exception script for him.
Okay. Very good. Thank you.
We are now moving on to our ceremonial items and today we have a proclamation
for American Muslim appreciate, appreciation, excuse me,
an awareness month and council member Loonapara has requested this
proclamation and we'll be reading it. So if our representatives from care,
if you want to come up to the podium, you can receive the proclamation.
OK.
Recognizing April 2026 as American Muslim Appreciation
and Awareness Month.
Whereas the city of Berkeley takes great pride
in supporting individual religious freedoms
and is strengthened by the diverse religious, political,
and cultural traditions and contributions
of its diverse populations, including
those that practice Islam.
And whereas the history of Islam on this continent
dates back to before the founding of the United States,
originating with enslaved Africans who
brought their Muslim beliefs to the Americas.
And whereas over 90,000 Muslims live in Alameda County
and significantly contribute to the cultural, political
and economic fabric of our communities.
And whereas the city of Berkeley is home
to a variety of Muslim institutions,
such as the Berkeley Masjid,
a vital spiritual and community center
for prayer and connection, Zaytuna College,
the first Muslim liberal arts college in the United States,
and other Muslim organizations,
including the Berkeley Muslim Student Association,
each providing support for Muslims.
And whereas it is critical to acknowledge
and promote awareness of the invaluable contributions
of Muslims in Berkeley and across the country.
And whereas the Berkeley City Council acknowledges
the importance of local government in advocating
for justice and reaffirms that Muslims everywhere
deserve to live in peace, dignity, and safety.
Now therefore be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii,
Mayor of the City of Berkeley, do hereby declare April
2026 as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month.
Oh, perfect.
We have members of CAIR and the Berkeley Masjid
to present. Okay. Hello Mayor Ishii and Council members. My name is Musa with
CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, and we want to thank you all
for recognizing American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month in
Berkeley. This proclamation is especially meaningful as our Muslim communities
have faced an unprecedented and unrelenting wave of Islamophobia and
discrimination over the last several years. 2024 was previously the worst year
of anti-Muslim hate and anti-Palestinian racism recorded in CAIR's 30-year
history with a sharp rise in hate crimes and discrimination, and this trend has unfortunately
only increased and continued through 2025 and into 2026.
We have a federal administration that is openly and violently targeting our most vulnerable
immigrant communities for speaking up about global justice, for opposing the genocide
in Gaza, and for existing.
2025 saw powerful public officials try to tell our communities that American freedoms
come with conditions that they must look, speak, and worship in their approved ways
or that they do not belong.
And this all has very real consequences for Muslim community members in Berkeley.
And that is why today's proclamation is an important step in celebrating and cherishing
your Muslim communities whose contributions continue to strengthen Berkeley's civic, cultural,
and economic life.
We thank you for affirming that Muslims are woven into the fabric of Berkeley, especially
in this critical moment.
And we hope this proclamation serves as a meaningful next step, a catalyst for meaningful next steps,
including adopting an ethical investment policy following the lead of Alameda County in the city of Dublin.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all so much.
Okay, moving on in our agenda, I have city manager comments.
Do you have any comments this evening, city manager?
I don't, Madam Mayor, thank you.
Okay, thank you very much.
perfectly on cue I was just about to say and our Madam City Auditor I'll let you
take it away thank you so much mayor good evening mayor and council members
of the public I just want to thank you all for having me here today we're
presenting on our financial condition audit which is in the agenda packet my
name is Jenny Wong the city auditor and I'm joined by my team Kaitlyn Palmer
performance audit manager and we have our performance auditor, Manami Suinaga,
online and Katie Waisong is here to help us with some technical support. So with
that I'm going to turn it over to Kaitlin. Thank you all for having us here
tonight. On April 8th our office released audit of Berkeley's financial condition
and we did this audit to provide an update to our first financial condition
that we issued in 2022, highlighting the City's financial strengths and risks in both the
near and the long term. And our aim was to provide a comprehensive financial context
to support the current budget deliberations. We also wanted to make complex financial information
easier to understand. And on that note, in the interest of time, I'll just be providing
some highlights of these financial concepts. And for those of you out there who would like
more explanation or definitions, please see the full report on our website.
We assess Berkeley's financial condition by looking at a variety of indicators, such as
revenues and expenses, net pension and retiree health care liabilities, and others.
Our scope covered 10 years from fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 25, and we adjusted for
inflation and report everything in 2025 dollars.
And please note that this is a high-level overview where we explore the causes of some
of the financial trends, but we didn't do an in-depth analysis of every trend.
Overall, we found that Berkeley is facing ongoing challenges with its long-term financial
condition, which is similar to our 2022 audit.
And as you're all aware, in the near term, the city faces a structural budget deficit
which poses additional risk to the city's financial sustainability over time.
And we report on many financial indicators, but tonight I'll highlight just a few key
points.
First, despite the budgetary challenges,
the city's actual revenues from governmental activities
generally covered actual expenses over the past 10 years
except for in fiscal year 2020.
Revenue increased overall primarily from growth in revenues
from property taxes, state and local taxes
and investment earnings.
And of all revenue sources, investment earnings
had the largest percentage growth.
The finance department updates council
on the city's investment
performance through quarterly
investment reports and used to
provide an annual investment
report to Council that covered
the city's investment rate of
return for at least the past
five fiscal years, but this type
of information is no longer
provided.
And when we look at more recent
trends, since our audit in
2022, revenues for governmental
activities slightly decreased
while expenses increased.
And decreased revenues in these
were primarily due to less revenue from grants and contributions such as state and federal
funds.
Given the city's structural deficit, we looked at its past budgetary practices to better
understand what led to the current situation, and we found that for years the cities used
one-time balancing measures to address its structural deficit rather than making structural
changes.
And so one-time solutions like this that rely on other funds may be appropriate in the short
term. Repeating this over time can delay addressing the structural deficit and
put the financial sustainability of these other funds at risk. For example, to
help balance the fiscal year 25 budget, the city redirected 4.7 million dollars
that was intended for the workers compensation fund to the general fund. And
at the time, the workers compensation program was already about two million
dollars short of covering its liabilities. One-time measures aren't
sustainable when ongoing expenditures are growing. I'm sorry Caitlin can you
just speak up a bit it's a little hard to hear you. Yes is this better. One time
measures aren't sustainable when ongoing expenditures are growing. According to
the budget office salaries, pension costs, overtime pay and public liability
insurance have increased in recent years. We also found that the city used one
time measures such as transfers from other funds to help balance enterprise
funds with structural deficits. And these enterprise funds are supported by fees
for services and are intended to primarily cover their costs. City
management is now using some more sustainable strategies to develop the
fiscal year 27 and 28 budget as demonstrated in their proposed budget
balancing plan. For example, the City asked departments to evaluate current fees
for funds such as enterprise funds. And this is a great step, but we note that
there isn't a city-wide policy to regularly evaluate and adjust enterprise
fees to help keep up with expenses going forward. And this and other more
sustainable strategies have not yet been formally adopted as policies for the
future. Next, looking at pension and retiree health care, we found that the
city's net pension liability is still high risk at about 695 million dollars
as a fiscal year 25 and net pension liability is the difference between
estimated cost of benefits and the assets the city has set aside to pay for
those benefits and Berkeley's not alone in this unfunded pension liabilities
pose a challenge for many California cities and can impact credit ratings and
may result in CalPERS requiring higher contributions in the future and
according to the government finance officers Association Berkeley would have
the highest bond rating as a result and as a result cheaper borrowing if it
weren't for the size of its pension liabilities. The city also provides
retiree health care coverage as a benefit and some good news here is that
the city has made progress in decreasing its net retiree health care liability to
about 43 million dollars in 2025. So this is a decrease of more than a hundred
million dollars over 10 years. And as we reported in 2022 the city is saving for
future pension payments by contributing to an IRS section 115 trust. However the
city hasn't consistently been able to meet its annual contribution goal. And
also the city used three million dollars in the trust to cover required CalPERS
pension payments to help balance the fiscal year 2025 general fund budget. And
The City Council's fiscal policies don't explicitly require the City to replenish the trust as soon as feasible after the funds are withdrawn.
Another long-term risk area is the City's unfunded capital and deferred maintenance needs.
These grew to $1.8 billion in fiscal year 24, which is up from the $1.2 billion that we reported in 2022.
And without sufficient investment, capital needs will continue to grow and get more expensive to address down the line.
In fact, while the city has increased its spending on capital assets since fiscal year 16, this hasn't been enough to cover the unfunded capital needs.
And so the city will likely need to raise new funding to keep pace with the investments needed to maintain or update its aging infrastructure.
General obligation bonds are one way that cities finance capital infrastructure projects and as you're all aware, the city is considering placing a $300 million general obligation bond on measure on the 2026 ballot to help address some of these unfunded capital needs.
We noted that Berkeley's capital improvement program,
it's the city's five-year capital budget plan,
doesn't include advanced planning to determine
if and when the city should propose new funding mechanisms
such as bond measures to address
these long-term capital needs.
And advanced planning around new funding options
could help the city regularly anticipate
and communicate to the public about these proposals
and the capital funding needs that they plan to address.
Other jurisdictions like San Francisco
and Berkeley Unified School District
do do this more advanced planning
around new funding options,
and they have 10 year capital financing plans.
Our audit includes nine recommendations
to address the risks we identified,
and I'll highlight a few of them here.
We recommend that city management
propose a fiscal policy to council
that formalizes the use
more sustainable budget strategies to help prevent future structural deficits.
We also recommend that the city adopt a policy to regularly assess enterprise
fees and establish reserves as appropriate for each enterprise fund. We
recommended that finance provide investment reports to council that
include the city's investment return rate for at least the past five years to
provide clear information about investment performance trends. And we
we recommend that the city amend its fiscal policies to ensure that funds that are withdrawn from the section 115 trust are replenished.
So the city is more prepared to meet its future pension obligations.
And lastly, we recommended that the city develop a capital financing plan that includes proposals for future funding sources such as bonds
to help address the city's growing unfunded capital needs.
and city management agreed or partially agreed
to our findings and recommendations
and provide an action plan to address those recommendations.
And right at tonight, we asked that council request
that city management report back in a year
with an update on the implementation
of these recommendations.
And to conclude, I'd like to thank the city manager,
the budget office, the finance department, public works,
and the city attorney for their contributions to this audit.
Thank you.
thank you very much I really appreciate you sharing all this information with us and I would be interested in seeing a report back in a year on this audit and any of the changes as you suggested I think that would be a good idea for us I do want to give my colleagues time if you
Do you want to ask questions?
Yes, Council Member Blackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the auditor team
for all your hard work on this,
and sort of synthesizing the numbers
and kind of presenting some of the key findings.
I just had a couple questions on a few of the slides.
On slide five, where you're talking about the revenues
and expenses by year over the past 10 years,
you know, we've talked a lot and we know we are facing
the sort of structural deficit in the general fund
that we need to deal with and we are dealing with it
in this process.
So we're trying to, how we reconcile the way these numbers
are showing that like, we're actually, you know,
if you look at total government activities,
revenues, and expenses, we've done a pretty good job
of tracking our expenses underneath the revenue.
So what's the disconnect in terms of what we're facing
and what these numbers show?
Yeah, these numbers in this graph show actuals.
And the budget, the structural deficit is something
from the perspective of the budgeting process.
So anticipating that ongoing revenues
and expenses aren't balancing.
And so through one-time balancing measures
that the city has taken, and then the actual reality
that occurs in revenues and expenses,
this is showing what actually happened,
which is as a result of the budget process
working to balance, the city is legally required
to pass a balanced budget.
Got it.
Because in some ways, we're $40 million to the good
last year, $24 million to the good the year before.
So it's not like we're just eking it out.
It's like we have a pretty healthy.
So I'm just trying to figure out what we can learn from this.
Does that mean that our budget process isn't fully
accommodating anticipated revenues?
How would you attribute the difference?
Yeah, I, I think 1 way to think about this is that these are the actual revenues and actual expenses. And so there could be expenses that were not.
Um, or there could be potential expenditures that the city would have liked to spend money on, but then couldn't because.
um because of the deficit and because you know we have salary savings i mean there's a whole host
of other reasons why that line isn't the opposite way or just meeting so um i think you mentioned
you and we're we have sensitivity like you know our the availability of grant funding we can't
necessarily count on going forward maybe in the way that we saw in previous years that's
consideration. So we're also part of this which is some of this money is also
being seen in the enterprise funds and not the general fund. Is that also a bit
of this? Okay, okay. Thank you. On slide seven about the net pension liability, my
main question is like what should our goal be? Because I think you know it's
it's unrealistic and also not appropriate for our goal to be zero,
right? Because this is our total liabilities of people who are currently
employees may not be retiring for 30 years and so to have assets fully set
aside today for something that we're not gonna be on the hook for for 30 years
my problem so so we know that this the net pension liability is high but it's
also not the difference between six hundred ninety four million and zero
right there's some other number that's probably the target we have any rough
idea or is that worth more work work to think about what that target should be
yeah there's two ways to look at this one is that CalPERS is trying to get
at cities to what they consider to be appropriate levels
of funding for the liabilities by adjusting
the contributions that they're requesting from cities.
Another way to look at this, the city or the state auditor
had a dashboard that's no longer available,
but they looked at, I believe it was being 80% funded
or higher as low risk.
I don't remember all of the categories
and I can follow up with you about that.
But that's a benchmark out there as well
that might be useful for the city to consider.
There's also a mid-level risk
and Berkeley is considered high risk.
Yep, got it.
And if you look at page 31,
we do look at the funded ratio of the pension plans
of Berkeley compared to some of the other cities.
Got it.
And note that Berkeley is,
we're at 66% and Santa Clara is at 63%.
So they're even lower, Oakland is close at 68%,
Pasadena 74, Long Beach 78, Santa Monica 78.
So it's a range.
Berkeley's not alone on this issue,
but we do note that this is an area of risk for Berkeley.
Perfect, okay, so that helps.
Last question is on the capital,
the unfunded capital deferred maintenance,
the 1.8 billion.
similar question, which is sort of,
you know, and you showed how it's sort of got,
our unfunded capital deferred maintenance
has gone from 600 million eight years ago
to about 1.8 billion dollars now.
And we've been investing anywhere
from 47 million to 90 million a year
to try and make a dent.
Again, I know this is another hard question,
but I'll put it out there
and happy to have a conversation down the road.
You know, what do we need to be investing
on an annual basis to kind of bend the curve?
clearly to your point we've not been investing enough on an annual basis it's
like the the number our total backlog is still growing but it'll be really
helpful to have a sense when as we go to out to the voters potentially with this
ballot measure and we're seeking more bond support like how much do we need to
be investing on annual basis in capital to just not make the problem worse and
it might your report may not have that but that's a number I would love to at
at some point for us all to figure out and get to.
Yeah, that would be worth looking at.
We didn't look into that in detail.
That could be a whole audit on its own.
Yeah, I know.
It's hard to know.
Right, and one way to look at this
is nearer-term investments or ongoing investments,
proactive maintenance is cheaper in the long run
than rehabilitation replacement.
So yeah, we didn't look at that in detail,
but that would be.
Okay, so I'll leave it out there with staff with it.
this is, you know, much more fertile ground to cover in the coming months, but
thank you so much for just illuminating a lot of these and giving us a lot to
think about and I really appreciate the effort here, so thank you. Thank you, great
questions, council member. Council member O'Keefe. Thank you so much for this
presentation and all the work that went into this audit. It's really very
important work and not the sexiest thing, so I really appreciate it. My question, I
have one question that's sort of maybe bouncing off of councilmember Blackaby's
question about reducing our unfunded pension liability. I was wondering, it
caught my ear when you talked about the possibility of getting a higher bond
rating if our pension liability was less and I'm wondering like if you have a
sense of how much it would take reducing it like how much would we have to reduce
it like is that really within reach or would we have to have zero which you
know is is ridiculous. Or if we just decreased it a little bit could we get a
higher rating? I don't know if the credit readers I can't remember the source for
that. I don't remember if the credit readers assessed that. I don't think they
went into that level of detail. Berkeley is at the second highest bond rating
which is pretty good. So I don't know what the number would be. I think it's a
qualitative assessment that they do. So yeah I don't have that number. Okay I
I just, I guess I'll just name my curiosity.
It would be interested if we were close
that would make it a lot more worth it.
Cause then of course we could save money
on the other end of that as well.
So thanks for highlighting that.
Thank you.
Council member or vice mayor Trigga.
Thank you so much.
Again, really appreciated this important report.
I have a few questions.
My first question is actually
on the first, no, on the slide with revenues and expenses,
something that caught my attention is there appeared
to be an inverse relationship year over year
between revenues and expenses,
and I was wondering if you could speak to that.
Two points that might lead to this are fiscal year 2020,
where this is the one year where revenues exceed expenses.
There are a lot of funding shortfalls
related to the COVID pandemic that led to this data point.
And in fiscal year 2022,
this was related to,
I don't wanna,
we didn't look at the relation,
I don't think I can speak to the inverse relationship.
I think this is related to, I'm going to ask Manami if she.
Yeah, I'm on the line.
It's related to federal funding received for the American Rescue Plan Act.
So that's why there's the increase in governmental revenues.
Between fiscal year 21 to 22.
Thank you. And I guess my question is broader than just that time period. It is more pronounced for sure. And 2122 with the funding.
but it looks like sort of year over year
for any number of years as expenses go up,
revenues go down, and vice versa.
Yeah, there's different factors that lead to the changes
in both of these trend lines.
Yeah, I'm not sure how to quickly reconcile that.
Okay, yeah, just curious.
I also, this is a little esoteric,
but in the report on page 11,
there was an other category that showed a decline.
This is in under figure eight personnel expenditures
by category, I was curious what was in that other category.
It includes life insurance, commuter benefits, terminal payout, contributions to the workers'
compensation fund, and other fringe benefits.
Okay, because I – in the no to – oh, I see now, okay, thank you, and that I just
noticed obviously it it's not a significant decline but you know
everything adds up 16 million that's 60 million that could be reparposed
elsewhere so okay I had a question on back on the slide with the net pension
and retiree health care liabilities and I did want to uplift the decrease in the
net retiree health care liability pretty significantly. I was wondering what
factors may have led to that and more probably what is the methodology by
by which the city pays off these liabilities.
Is it a waterfall model where, you know,
you pay off one and then you go to the next and the next.
So I'm wondering if just,
if this could be a good model to continue to make a dent
in paying off at least some of the liabilities.
For the latter question, I think that would be a good question for the finance department. Um, we can get back to you. Um, we didn't look at that in detail.
And your 1st question was about what the factors in the, the OPEB reduct um, liability risk reduction.
Do you want to answer this 1?
Yeah, for net retiree healthcare liability that decreased primarily due to net investment income for these retiree healthcare.
Um, liabilities, um, the net investment income had increased within the period. So that helped explain the liability decrease.
Okay. Okay, that is helpful. Broadly, these are all very important recommendations and
I recognize the city will, for some time now, have to try to do this with increasingly
more limited resources. So I'm wondering of these excellent recommendations, which ones
would you prioritize, maybe if you could pick the top three, where if we don't do them,
there would be very significant impacts down the line?
We haven't prioritized them, but my first thought
would be that focusing on ones that would affect revenue
generation would be beneficial, such as evaluating enterprise
fees and establishing reserves for those funds.
That doesn't really, reserves aren't part of generating
revenue, but making sure that the funds are
sustainable and healthy as strengthened as possible and recommendations related
to planning such as the capital financing plan and formalizing the use
of more sustainable budget strategies to develop future budgets to avoid
structural deficits in the future. Thank you so much and I would just add my
interest. I think the mayor spoke about this too. Well yeah, getting an annual
report from the city manager about progress towards these goals. I
I highlighted on my list providing investment reports
to the council that includes the city's return rate
for at least the past five fiscal years
in line with some of the other jurisdictions
you looked at formalizing a requirement
that the city must replenish the section 115 trust
after funds are withdrawn
and developing a capital financing plan
that proposes future funding sources
beyond what exists now.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Do you have a comment, Council Member Lunapara?
Yeah, I just really wanted to thank the auditor
and her team for this work.
Especially at this time, I think it's very,
it's very, very useful for us to look,
take a look back and understand
the structure of these issues.
So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Councilmember Humbert, did you want to add something?
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to thank Madam City Auditor and your team for all this really hard work.
And this is such a timely report. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Absolutely. I will add my thanks as well and say thank you all so much for presenting and also for doing this entire report.
report, I find it very helpful for us as we're thinking about the budget. So, thank
you very much. Okay, anyone else? Alright, I think that's it then. Thank you so much
for your for your presentation. Thank you. Okay, so we now have public comment on
non-agenda matters. Okay, I'll draw names from the for the in-person attendees and
also if you are attending remotely this is the time to raise your hand on zoom
for non-agenda comments only for again for items that do not appear on the
agenda. So for in-person comments we have three cards here we have Stephen
Alpert, Rolf Bell, and Celeste Marx. So come forward in any order.
Good evening. I'm Dr. Steven Alpert. I afforded links and executive summaries of
three recent publications on housing affordability to all city officials. The
title of these publications is shown here on this poster. All three
publications examine and dismiss a court tenant that excessive regulation is
is responsible for the housing affordability crisis
in the United States.
The Buckholt study in particular,
published by the London School of Economics,
analyzed real world data from San Jose and San Francisco.
As shown in the upper portion of this table,
even under very overly optimistic conditions,
in our areas it takes about 20 years
for newly built market rate housing
to eventually filter down to become affordable.
Whereas of historical data, it takes over 100 years.
The details regarding these assumptions
and equations underlying this data
are on pages 12 and 14 of the study,
which I forwarded to you.
Note that the number of years
before market rate housing becomes affordable
is longer in the San Francisco Bay Area
compared to metropolitan New York,
Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., or Boston.
These findings quote, illustrate that interventions
focused on market rate supply alone
unlikely to generate widespread affordability
any meaningful timeframe.
A publication by the Georgetown Law's
Center on Poverty and Inequality concludes, quote,
addressing housing instability for lower income houses
requires comprehensive strategies
beyond a reliance on market rate supply.
Despite these findings,
during a recent Zoom quarter's listening session,
Council Member O'Keefe stated, quote,
I believe that housing affordability can be met through market rate, how I'm grounded
in.
Trustingly, the mayor and some members of this Council willfully ignore that well-documented
real-world data from internationally recognized housing experts and instead substitute your
own unfounded, discredited human convictions.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for your comment.
How to address the affordability crisis.
Your time is up.
Hey.
Thank you.
Next is Rolf Bell.
Good evening, I'm Rolf Bell, a 26-year resident, a 26-year resident of Berkeley and a business
owner.
Thank you for the extra two seconds.
In the last two months of 2024 at the corner of Bancroft Way and Sixth Street, all four
corners were torn up and a total of 16 signal lights were installed and the entire intersection
reconfigured.
There are 30 small businesses and 16 residents directly impacted.
of them received a notice. A traffic light makes the pedestrian crossing safer but
three of the four left turn lanes make cycling more dangerous and rob 30
businesses and 16 residences of essential parking. We find it bizarre
that our council member and our mayor haven't seen to find the time to meet
with us and find a resolution that is better for cyclists, better for
residents, and better for business. Now we ask you to make the time for us along
with the traffic engineer and help us correct this over design and yes dangerous intersection.
We have sent all of you more information via email and we implore you to review it. Thank
you. Thank you. Ralph, I'm so sorry. We're going to get back to you. We'll follow up.
Okay. Moving to the commenters online. First speaker is a phone number ending in 211. You
you should be able to unmute.
Right, good evening.
I spoke with you before many occasions,
lived in Berkeley for over 62 years,
created one of the largest consumer electronic
in the whole Bay Area.
Had about 10 competitors.
Only our business, the ideas,
electronic is only one left.
For many reasons I wanted to tell your business
who's the city, not with the megaland roads
are nothing but a bunch of crooks. So very quickly we're actually in the process of retaining another
attorney. We're going to raise our demand financial losses to five million dollars.
But the way just here again acted, I told you it was us, the whole general side of Gaza and
everything else. It was all damage. These are how people said you're breaking a lot of damage.
need to fix that. Have a good night, and Mary Ishii, I think I played a big role in
bringing in office. Give me a call. Let's have a friendly meeting. We can consider all
potential avenues. You are well educated woman. I am well educated man. I thought that perfectly.
Let's get together. Have a good night. Thanks for your comment. Okay, next is Rob.
Good evening. I'm Rob. I work out of the workstation west to co-working space
on Bancrofton 6 that Mr. Bell is the very friendly owner of and I also experienced
the disruption with the traffic lights first the construction and then the traffic lights.
It makes having guests over very difficult. You know we are lucky to be in not too far
distance from Amtrak or the public transit but even so some people just because of the situations
have to park and so similarly I'd like to echo working with the city to help give more space for
parking for residents who need it so they can have that option as well.
Thank you. Next is
Fett. Hi can you hear me? Yes. Great, thank you so much.
Good evening Mayor Ishi, council members and neighbors.
I'm Fett Shane Wynn and a homeowner in district five.
I'm also board chair of Berkeley Art Center
and I know you're facing some tough budgeting decisions right now, and I want to start by
thanking you for the hard work you do for our city every day. For nearly 60 years, the Berkeley Art
Center has been a quiet but robust gallery here in Live Oak Park. We're tucked away in that majestic
spot, but we're anything but quiet when it comes to our community. We've spent six decades bringing
thoughtful contemporary art to the Bay Area. We are deeply grateful for the City's support.
But I also want to share where we are today. Like many organizations, we've gone through
a leadership transition. Our new Executive Director, Gisela Insuaste, has been incredible.
She's built bridges with diverse communities and is helping us build a model that earns
its own income. Her goal to eventually rely less on city funding. I'm sorry your your time is
actually up but if you would like to put more information you can. Thank you. Okay next is
Mackay Freeman, you should be able to unmute.
The name is Mackay Freeman District Change Advocate at the Center for Independent Living.
The system change club has just launched an All Our Streets campaign,
getting narratives and input from residents on the hardships,
obstacles, and tenements.
The parking, after significant sidewalks,
and the whole roof light for blind and deaf residents that are a definitely
for our safety and to our lives.
I will be requesting a meeting with you,
may it be and council members,
as your incentivize protected bike lanes,
reduction in accessible parking by vans.
This is a big major discrimination and
tend to our lives and our ability to equally navigate in the community.
We want to make sure access for all personal residents.
Thank you, Makai.
Thank you for all personal residents.
Feel free to reach out to us. Thank you.
Okay, and last speaker is Della Luna.
Yes, hi, I was wanting to speak about the lack of bathrooms at the farmer's market downtown Saturdays. There was a bathroom there and it was taken away and it.
Because that's like an official city event, it doesn't make sense to be like luring people over there when there's no bathroom.
And I'm, as the constituent, not clear what happened to the bathrooms inside the building.
They seem to be working pretty well, and so it would be nice to have the bathrooms open during the farmer's market rather than no bathroom. And I know it was a pilot program, but.
It still doesn't solve the issue of, like, what do we do for bathrooms right now?
And, like, every Saturday, there needs to be bathrooms at the farmer's market and even handicap accessible bathrooms at the farmer's market. Thank you.
Thank you, Della.
OK, thank you all so much for your comments.
We are moving on to our consent calendar.
But before we start the consent calendar,
I think that our audit from our auditor
really highlighted something that's important.
I just want to remind all of you,
which I feel like you need no reminding,
but that we have a lot of work to do around the budget
over the next two months.
And I just wanted to give you all just a little overview
of what's happening, because on May 14th,
the city manager will present his full budget proposal
to the Budget and Finance Committee,
which will be followed by presentation
to the full council on May 19th.
And as has been brought up before,
we are facing a structural deficit of $30 million
for FY27 and FY28.
So understanding this, we do have four budget referrals
that have come forward over the past few months.
I'd like to ask that council members
get any of their budget referrals
for the next two-year budget cycle
to the May 19th meeting
so that they can be taken into consideration.
I think we did this last year too
where folks just shared what are their sort of priorities.
So if you could all in your offices,
just so you know,
if you can bring that to the May 19th meeting,
that would be really helpful
in how we're thinking about the budget moving forward.
Keeping in mind that we have no money set aside
for any of these extra referrals,
but I'm still curious to know what's on everyone's minds
and what are their priorities.
Okay, so do council members have any comments
on the consent calendar?
Oh, council member Taplin, I see your hand raised.
Thank you very much and good evening,
Madam Mayor and everyone.
On item number 10, this is a D13 resolution
supporting the Dance's Mayday Gathering and Bazaar event.
I wanna just uplift the work of this organization.
They are a Vanguard arts work in district 2 in West Berkeley. This is going to be an amazing event. And I encourage all to attend and I thank my colleagues for their support. Thank you.
Thank you very much council member Bartlett.
Thank you. I'd like to donate 2 dollars more to the account to the learning dance.
Creativity festivals should be great event. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. Council member Luna Parra.
public health. Thank you. I'd
like to donate $200 to item 10
the Luna dance and thank you
councilmember Tablon for
authoring. Thank you. Council
member Black. Yes. Thanks,
Madam Mayor. A couple of
things. I just wanted to on
item three note we're making
our our offices making our
appointment to the police
accountability board Pat to
Temple. I just want to thank
his service, Pat previously served as the staff member on the PRC in the past, so he
is well versed in these issues and a long time resident of the community and I'm looking
forward to his service on the PAB. I also thank council member O'Keeffe for her recommendation
because Pat lives in her district and he'll be a great addition. So I appreciate his willingness
to serve. Great minds think alike. You notice items seven and eight, the disaster and fire
Safety Commission have put forward a couple of bill recommendations in the
wildfire and insurance space. Our office also came forward with item 11 which is
a resolution supporting a package of 13 bills that are moving through the
legislature this spring and summer and actually item 7 is one of the
bills in that package. So we submitted a supplemental to item number 11 which
basically rolls in the letters and some of the content from the Disaster and Fire
Safety Commission on item 7 and makes it with with the support of the Chair of
that Commission. So it kind of enhances what we're doing in item 11. Let me
just highlight again a little bit more about what this legislative package does
because it is really important to what we're doing here in Berkeley in terms of
our ember proposal and all the hard work that community members in District 6 are
doing. This package includes more support for loan financing for people who are
doing home hardening, so more financial support which we know is really
needed and this would be a state program to make more loan financing
available to homeowners. More support for home hardening, it would expand some
existing fire mitigation programs that are already at work across the state and
would reduce the barriers to doing more beneficial fire kind of pre-burns in
areas that need some some some fire beneficial fire to reduce the fuel load.
So it's a whole kind of package of bills that collectively are going to make the
state more fire safe and will also help us in Berkeley. So I just wanted to thank
Senators Allen Becker and Stern as well as assembly members Bennett Conley and
Rogers for their authorship. Um, and again, um, urge my colleagues to join
me in supporting this package, which is, um, uh, really timely and so
important. Um, the other item from the Zester and Fire Safety Commission,
which is item eight, um, is a bill by Senator Perez that will, um, uh,
basically creates more of a linkage between homeowners that do home
hardening and guarantees them ongoing insurance coverage. This also is really
a missing link in a lot of the resiliency work that's happening.
Homeowners need more assurance that if they're going to make the investments
that they need to comply with state rules and also what we're doing at
Ember to do the home hardening and do the defensible space that they should
get insurance and this bill helps to close that gap. I'll note I think there's
there will be I hope some additional enhancement to this bill because I
think like what we're seeing with Ember it's one thing if you're an individual
homeowner and you do the work and no one else on your block does and insurance
companies I think have a difficult time guaranteeing a homeowner who's one
person out of a hundred that does the work so I think I think enhancements to
this bill will be necessary I'm hoping that it happens in the legislative
process that if it's a homeowner in concert with a whole neighborhood and
and that there's widespread adoption,
like what we're trying to do in Ember,
that should make the whole neighborhood more insurable.
So, but anyway, this bill is a step in the right direction,
I think, with some adjustments
to recognize the community's role in doing this.
It'll be even better, but again, proud to support this,
and I appreciate the disaster
and fire safety commission bringing it.
Lastly, I'd also like to give $250 from our office budget
to the Luna Dance item from Council Member Tapplin.
Thank you for bringing it.
And so let me just formally say then what I would ask,
since we're moving part of item seven into item 11,
I'd ask that we formally take no action on item seven
because item 11 basically takes the action from seven
and just broadens it to all the bills.
So the ask is no action on seven.
Item 11 now incorporates that.
The Disaster and Fire Safety Commission
had also made that same recommendation.
And that's it, thank you.
Is there any opposition to that?
I think that's fine, because it, okay, thank you.
Yep, that makes sense.
Okay, Vice Mayor Trigga.
Thank you so much.
I wish to abstain on item one.
I would like to thank the
Disaster and Fire Safety Commission for their work,
As well as council member black of the and I would be I'm excited to support items eight and eleven and also mentioned that last week also with the close sponsorship of council member black of the and other colleagues and that was a unanimous vote.
We took a support position on SB 1301 by Senator Allen,
reforming the insurance non-renewal process and
letters have been sent to applicable committee chairs
on that bill.
Lastly, I wish to contribute $150 from my G-13 account
towards item 10, and thank Council Member Taplin
for his work on this.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
And I would like to donate $200 from the district
eight discretionary account to item number
10, the Luna Dance Creativity item.
Thank you, council member Taplin for bringing this forward.
And on 11, I want to really extend my thanks
to Councilmember Blackaby, the author of 11,
for adding me as a co-sponsor.
This is really critical stuff,
and this is a really important letter.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Kesserwani.
Thank you very much.
I would like to be recorded as donating $100
to the Luna Dance Item Number 10,
and I want to thank Councilmember Blackaby
for the Item 11 supporting the Megafire Prevention Package.
thank you very much thank you councilmember keef thank you um i would like to be recorded as
donating 250 from my office account to item 10 um i regarding item 11 um i really want to thank
councilmember bakaby for his leadership um in general on wildfire issues um both locally and
also working with the state because this is part of and thank you for letting me co-sponsor
And then lastly, yeah, Pat to Temple.
I just, I'm really excited.
Congratulations, Pat, if you're listening.
I've known Pat for almost 20 years
and I actually, I introduced them and I'm just so happy.
I think he's extremely well qualified to serve on the PAB
and he really is, he's one of the most civic-blinded people
I think I've ever met.
So I'm really, I think he'll be a great addition.
Those are my comments.
Thank you very much.
I'm also very excited that we have another appointee.
So congratulations, Pat.
And thank you Council Member Blackby.
I know that many of us are waiting for either interviews
or background checks, but that we are moving those forward.
So just so folks know, we are working very hard
to get our PAB appointees on as soon as possible.
And I'd also like to add $250 for item number 10
for the Luna Dance Creativity.
So thank you very much.
All right, is there any public comment on it?
Consent items or information items only?
Anybody on mine?
okay very good is there a motion I move we adopt the consent calendar as
amended second okay can we take the role please clerk okay to adopt a consent
calendar councilmember kiss or wanting yes Tapplin I Bartlett
Yes.
I thank you for your attention.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
Motion carries.
All right.
Consent calendars approved.
Thank you all so much.
We will move on to our action calendar for public hearings.
We've got item number 12 submission of the program year 2026 annual action plan containing allocations of federal funds.
So I will send it over to city manager.
So if you'd like to introduce, yeah.
Thank you.
Our Housing and Community Services manager, Margot Ernst,
is going to, I think Margot is gonna lead this presentation.
You can introduce.
Thank you.
There we go.
Good evening, Mayor Ishian, members of the council.
Tonight, Health, Housing and Community Services staff
are here to present the draft annual action plan,
which is submitted to the US Department
of Housing and Urban Development
for the city's annual allocation
of community development block grant,
emergency solutions grant,
and the home investment partnership program funds.
Kat LaRue from the Housing and Community Services Division
will provide a brief presentation
to accompany the staff report and the annual action plan.
And we are both available to answer any questions
you may have after.
and I'll pass it over to Kat.
She's, if you weren't expecting us to be done so quickly,
feel free to move your mic closer too.
I can already tell it will be tough to hear you.
Okay, can you hear me okay?
Thank you, Margo, for that introduction.
Good evening, Mayor Ishi and members of the City Council.
In my role, I oversee and monitor federal
and state grant compliance for the Housing
and Community Services Division.
We are here tonight to present the program year 2026
or fiscal year 2027 draft annual action plan
for the US Department of Housing
and Urban Development, or HUD.
This presentation will include background
of HUD requirements, the annual action plan process,
including public participation,
and provide a brief overview of the planned projects
and activities for the next year.
The full draft annual action plan is available
in this council meeting agenda packet
and on the city's website.
The city of Berkeley is an entitlement jurisdiction,
meaning that the city receives a formula allocation
of community development block grants, CDBG,
emergency solutions grant, ESG,
and home investment partnerships program
or home funds from HUD each year.
As a requirement of receiving these funds,
the city must submit several reports
and include public participation throughout every process.
Every five years we develop and submit a consolidated plan
laying out the projects, activities,
and outcome goals for those funds.
Each of the five years we submit an annual action plan
on how we intend to meet the goals for that one year
within the five year period.
The annual action plan is, this annual action plan
is the second year of the current consolidated plan
and covers the period of July 1, 2026
through June 30th, 2027.
The annual action plan follows the goals, projects,
and activities that were identified
in the consolidated plan.
This plan was presented to the Housing Advisory Commission
or the HAC for comments and feedback
at the March 5th meeting where they voted to recommend
that Council approve the plan.
The official public comment period opened on March 27th
and will close this Friday, May 1st at 11.59 p.m.
And the final report is due to HUD around mid-May.
For the upcoming fiscal year, the city of Berkeley
will receive approximately $3.4 million
across the three funding streams with CDBG
making up the largest amount at about 2.6 million.
HUD did release the final allocation amounts in early April.
These funds received from HUD are allocated
in three main ways.
The first is to community agencies
through a request for proposal process
that is conducted every four years.
This RFP process also includes state, local,
and general fund dollars and authorizes the city
to proceed with key federal projects
utilizing these HUD funds,
such as the Public Facility Improvement Program.
The public and several commissions
are involved through reviewing proposals
and recommending awards to council.
I wanna pause here and highlight
that the majority of the funds
being proposed in this annual action plan tonight
have been allocated through this RFP process,
which was adopted in June of 2024
for the cycle of FY25 through 28.
Secondly, funds are expended to program delivery costs,
such as staff, community agencies,
developers or consultants, processing loans,
conducting environmental reviews, inspections,
or other program-related activities.
And finally, for administration,
which is largely made up of personnel time,
but also includes some operating and other overhead costs.
and now we will review the planned projects and activities.
So the five year consolidated plan sets goals
that all of our annual projects fit under.
These include increasing affordable housing supply
and quality, improving public facilities,
and providing public services
and providing homeless prevention,
shelter and rapid rehousing.
Specifically looking at CDBG,
these projects include rehabilitation
of multifamily residences, single-family homes,
and public facilities that support
the preservation of affordable housing,
improve the health and safety, ADA access,
and or energy efficiency of homes and public buildings.
On this slide, I'd like to highlight
that the Public Facility Improvement Program
is projected to have a significant increase in funding
due to expected program income,
with the projected total to be about 1.3 million,
and this will help fill a critical need
for rehabilitation of public facilities.
Other projects under CDBG include public services
which are addressing housing navigation
and fair housing services.
ESG will be used to provide financial assistance,
housing relocation and stabilization services
to rapidly rehouse and support through emergency shelter.
The home funds will be used for housing trust fund
and affordable housing development
city staff rehabilitate, excuse me, where the city staff support rehabilitation of
multifamily housing and work through all the requirements of developing
affordable housing in the city. In closing, we ask that council consider the
following recommended action, which is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city
manager to execute any resultant agreements and amendments for agencies
receiving funding under the CDBG, ESG, or home program in accordance with the
approved proposal, adjust reporting dates due dates for community agency
agreements, allocate the proposed funding plan described in the annual action plan
and finalize and submit the program year 2026 annual action plan to HUD. Thank you
very much and we'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. I really
appreciate you presenting all this and and going over all the the timeline I
think is really helpful especially. Are there any questions from anyone on
Council here no questions okay very good thank you so much is there any
public comment on this item we are on item number 12 which is the submission
of the program year 2026 annual action plan containing allocations of federal
funds I think Carol is moving towards the mic okay go ahead Carol actually I
don't know that this is the appropriate time to mention this but I just want to
say that had we known that the emergency shelter would be in jeopardy this year would be planned
to be eliminated, I think we would have given that high priority when we made our recommendations
on the Homeless Services Panel of Experts. Certainly shelters are the highest priority
to keep people safe, to keep people inside when the conditions are bad. It wasn't Emeryville
in the past year, but still, it was always full.
Carol, are you connecting it to this item?
Okay, go ahead.
It was always full, and there were 27 places there,
and they were always full, and so I hope that somehow
we can identify a source of funding for it.
As I said, had we known during our community agency
allocation recommendations that it would be in jeopardy,
we would have addressed it.
Thank you.
Thank you any other public comment online.
It's 1 hand raised online.
That's a makai Freeman.
There we go should be able to unmute.
Yes, this is, yeah.
Yeah, you will.
This, yeah.
Where it's for housing and.
Something's for housing preservation.
Does thank you.
Thank you. Thanks. That was the only raised hand.
Okay, thank you very much any comments. I see that vice mayor trigger has his light on.
I just wanted to appreciate that the HHCS team
for your hard work on this.
I remember reviewing these when I was on
the Housing Advisory Commission a million years ago.
I know that since then, you know,
especially with this current federal administration,
it has gotten more challenging to find financing
and yet, nevertheless, we persist, you persist.
And I think this plan is a laudable statement
of our city's values around ensuring that this is,
or can be a place that we can all call home
and I'm proud to support this and will,
if or when appropriate would be happy to make a motion
for this, to approve the staff recommendation.
Thank you, Council Member Humber.
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.
And I would echo the comments of Council Member Trigub.
Thank you to the HHCS team
for all your work on the presentation
and also for putting together the spending plan.
It's really harrowing and unfortunate
that we may not be able to rely on these funds
in future years, but it's important we make the best of it while we can. So thank you
for all of your efforts on this. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you all so much for your work, I appreciate it. And
I believe we actually do need to vote on it.
I second the motion.
There was a motion that was made.
Close the public hearing.
Sorry, yes. Let's make a motion to close the public hearing.
So moved.
Second.
Can we take the roll on that?
to close the public hearing. Council member Kesterwani is currently absent.
Taplan. Yes. Council member Kesterwani to close the public hearing. Yes. Okay.
Taplan. Aye. Bartlett. Yes. Draygov. Aye. O'Keefe. Yes. Blackaby. Yes.
Yes, yes.
Asking for action.
Yes.
Thank you.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mayor Ishii.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
So now we need to actually.
We had a motion that was made, but there was a second I think.
I'll second Councilmember Trager's motion.
Okay.
Thank you.
And can we take the roll on that, please?
Okay.
To approve the staff recommendation for the annual action plan.
Councilmember Casarwani?
Yes.
Taplan Bartlett.
Yes.
Traga.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Unapara.
Yes.
Cumber.
Yes.
And Mary Ishii.
Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you very much, appreciate it.
Okay, moving on to item number 13,
California Municipal Finance Authority Bond Financing
for Ephesian Legacy Court Apartments Project.
We don't have a presentation for this one, Madam Mayor,
but if you have questions, HCS Manager Ernst is here.
Okay, very good.
Are there any questions from council?
Yeah, we're on item number 13.
No questions, okay.
Is there any public comment on this item?
Anybody online for public comment on item number 13?
This is item number 13,
California Municipal Finance Authority Bond Financing
for Ephesian Legacy Court Apartments projects.
Now is the time to raise your hand on Zoom.
There are no raised hands.
No speakers online.
Okay, thank you very much.
Any comments on this item?
Yes.
Council Member Humbert, I know your clicker's not working.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I simply want to thank the VHHCS team and the city manager for their work on the item.
I'm excited to see the project get underway and
appreciate everything city staff have done to help move it forward, that's it.
I do have more comments.
I also want to point out, this is the sort of project that is made possible,
because developers pay in lieu fees into our housing trust fund.
which if I understand correctly,
provided pre-development funds for this project.
So if some people get their way
and we see in lieu fees dry up,
this is the kind of permanently affordable housing project
that may no longer be feasible.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett, your district.
Yes, I'm gonna say this is a really special moment.
This was, I think the second in our line
of church housing opportunity sites
we've developed here in Berkeley.
And through the years, this went through many iterations,
and the original developer, who was a wonderful man,
he passed away before seeing his creation,
and this is his creation too,
for seeing it come to fruition.
And I'm just really happy that it's here,
and I wish he was here to see it.
And I hope my colleague, Mr. Humber,
brings a great point, and this is really important
as we talk about the debate around onsite,
in lieu fees, et cetera.
It is complicated because the in loop fees do enable these hard to hard to finance housing projects involving, you know, many, many people. So bear in mind as we go as we go forward debating in this topic and again, just thank you again to the staff for delivering this project.
It's been many years and it really feels wonderful.
Thank you so much council member. I just also want to add my thanks and my excitement for this project. This is also in my neighborhood and.
I'm just very excited for this to become something more for a long time. It's been a dilapidated building
And it's very exciting to see it to become something that is going to be really positive for our neighborhood
So thank you so much and really looking forward to the groundbreaking. So, thank you
Okay. All right. So now we have finished with that
Can we yes it might require adoption of the resolution
the public hearing. I think we
the motion to approve the the.
Humber, yes.
And Mary Ishii.
Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, I know we have to close the public hearing
and then vote on the actual item.
All right, so moving on to item number 14,
amendments to Berkeley Municipal Code title 23,
zoning for consistency with state law and technical edits.
I will, oh, hello.
I will pass it over to our director of planning.
Thank you.
Good evening, thank you, Mayor.
Good evening, Council Members.
I'm Jordan Klein, Director of Planning and Development.
We have another of our periodic updates
to the zoning ordinance that, as the Mayor mentioned,
includes technical edits, notice of standard policy changes,
consistency with state law.
Presenting for staff is Justin Horner,
and also at the staff table with us
is Ann Hirsch, Landy's Planning Manager.
Take it away, Justin.
Thank you, good evening, Mayor Ishi,
members of the City Council,
Justin Horner, Planning Department staff.
Tonight we ask that you review, conduct a public hearing,
and approve a package of amendments
to the Berkeley Municipal Code
to reflect state law changes
and to correct technical inaccuracies.
The ordinance amendments in your packet
include 26 total sections, 15 are simple copy edits,
and include correction to terms,
some clarifying language,
corrections of inaccurate references,
and an instance of a typo.
Of the 11 remaining changes,
four are updates to the development standards
to accurately reflect the City Council's action
on middle housing from July of last year.
One removes additional permit requirements
for middle housing projects in the MUR district
that were intended to be approved ministerially.
Two are changes to JADU regulations
pursuant to new state laws.
One is a clarification on state density bonus requirements,
and the last is the inclusion of a definition
to the glossary section that was not ported over
from the old Berkeley Municipal Code.
That concludes my presentation,
and I am available for any questions.
Thank you so much for that very efficient presentation.
Are there any questions?
Okay, any public comment on this item?
We are on item number 14.
That is the amendments to Berkeley Municipal Code,
Title 23 for consistency with state law and technical edits.
Anybody online?
There's one hand raised online, Kelly Hamburger.
Hello.
Can you hear me OK?
Yes.
OK.
So in this list under ordinance sections number 20,
case law city cannot require documentation for waivers.
And you have ES-R, which is Environmental Safety-Residential.
And that's Panoramic Hill, which is a very high fire hazard
safety area.
And I thought that this could not
be applied to the very high safety, the very high fire
zones.
And so that's my question to look at that.
And maybe you can ask since I don't get to ask directly
an explanation of why we're including environmental safety
residential and panoramic Hill.
After hearing people talk about panoramic Hill.
I think Kelly, thanks Kelly.
I see them, I see them looking it up.
Any other public comment online?
No, no more hands raised.
Okay.
And go ahead, Vice Mayor Trago, comment?
Do you have a comment?
Yeah, through the chair, if I may ask that question,
if you could just speak to if ESR was contemplated.
Do you mean, Mr. Director Klein?
Director Klein.
Okay.
I was like, what chair?
There are no changes to the-
Thank you, Vice Mayor.
There are no changes to that section
of the zoning ordinance.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other comments on this item?
I have one quick one on the city cannot require documentation for waiver requests. I know
it's kind of come up in recent appeals. Could you just talk to us. So that's responding
to some state law changes. Could you just give us a little bit of color on that, if
you wouldn't mind? Yeah. So following that discussion at the
council on a recent ZAB appeal we reviewed the local ordinance sections
regarding density bonus projects and we found some specific language that we
feel is inconsistent with the government code and case law and so that's the
proposed correction. Okay thank you. Thank you. Any other comments before we
close the public hearing. Okay. Is there a motion to close the public hearing?
So moved. Second. Can we take the roll on that please? Clerk? Okay. Councilmember
Kistorwani? Yes. Kaplan? Aye. Bartlett? Yes. Tragem? Aye. O'Kee? Yes. Blackaby? Yes.
Munepara? Yes. Humber? Yes. And Maryishi? Yes. Okay. Public
the motion to adopt the
yes humber yes and maria she yes okay motion carries very good thank you all
so much I feel like we've spent most of tonight taking role all right we are
moving on to item number 15 do we need a break or can we push through I think we
can push through okay so item number 15 it's a 1646 and 1655th Street rezoning
and associated general plan amendments.
And here you are again.
Thank you, good evening again, Jordan Klein.
Now joined also at the staff table by Joshua Muller,
an associate planner with our projects and policy team.
Take it away, Josh.
All right, good evening Mayor Ishi, council members
and members of the public.
My name is Joshua Muller and I am an associate planner
with the Planning and Development Department.
On October 20th, 2025,
the Planning and Development Department
received general plan and zoning map amendment applications
from the property owner of 1655th Street
to rezone 1646 and 1655th Street
to entirely MUR, mixed-use residential,
and to change the general plan land-use designation
of those two properties to solely be mixed-use.
The subject properties both have single family residences
with accessory storage structures.
And the applicant has proposed a residential development
project in a separate application with the city.
As residential uses are not permitted in the MULI,
mixed-use light industrial zoning district, which
is the light blue portion on the existing zoning designation
slide there, the owner is unable to utilize
the entirety of the parcel for a residential development
project unless the map and the plan amendments are adopted.
And at the regular meeting on March 4th, 2026,
the Planning Commission unanimously
approved a recommendation to the City Council
to adopt an amendment to the zoning map
to rezone the portions of the subject parcels
from MULI to MUR and to make the conforming amendments
to the General Plan land use map
and the West Berkeley Plan land use map.
The slide shows what the proposed zoning designation
will look like.
You can see the full parcel is the dark blue now.
And staff's recommending that the council
conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion,
adopt a resolution to amend the General Plan land use map
and change the existing manufacturing
and mixed use designations to solely mixed use
and amend the West Berkeley plan
for the conforming amendments as well,
and to adopt an ordinance amending the zoning map
to rezone the portions of the subject parcels
from mixed use light industrial,
newly to mixed use residential, and you are.
That is my presentation and I'm happy to answer
any questions that councilor the mayor has.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Any questions?
Okay, is, oh, are you moving for a question?
No, okay, is there any public comment on this?
Hello, my name is Matthew Wadland, I'm the applicant.
Speaking to, just pull it up, yeah, you can move it.
So it's, there you go.
I am Matthew Wadland, I am the applicant,
the owner of 1650.
Two points, when I initially applied for this,
I contacted the owner, 1646,
And they happily allowed me to include them.
And then I also contacted the city of Berkeley.
They are the owner of the adjacent parcel.
On the other side, 1654, they were not
able to find this change.
It's just a real line.
The reason it's significant is kind of two-fold.
for a property adjacent, my property,
now has to do a property that has two different zones.
And this is applicable when you go to the project,
you're always asked what's on either side
and what side actually makes it what you do.
For example, if you have crucial on one side
in that zone, then the zone setback changes.
So, and also, there's a, it doesn't make sense that that house is in the newly, the city had a very easy opportunity to change that join the applicant.
And trying to do that, so I'd ask that.
We'll consider 1654 the city on property to join this and do it all at once. Otherwise the city at some probably have to do the process.
Took me about 6 months and 10,000.
Anybody line.
Let's see. There's no.
Line. Any any comments from council?
Yes, go ahead council member, yeah, I just have a short, man. So I want to thank director Klein and Joshua more their work on this, the minor change that none.
Well, it serves to simply wreck effectively, yes, a graphical surveying artifact apparent.
This support from the planning commission and I'm happy to move it, but I would make the motion to approve.
Resolution yeah, do you want a motion?
I will move to close the hearing for 2nd.
Can we take them all?
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes. Okay. Yes. Blackaby. Yes. Unipara.
Yes. Yes.
Member Blackby has a comment. One quick question.
Manager question about the 16 fifth street piece and my understanding is we currently have traditional housing, sorry, transitional housing.
units located on that it's in use for that purpose what we intend to maintain
these for that purpose and so it seems and the applicants feels like this we're
using it for that purpose at this point to transfer that felt like a little
premature to comment on that. Thank you, Council Member Blackby. Correct. We did have a house
on that, well, housing for homeless people. Sometime HHCS managed contract. So it would
but at some point through a similar process to, you know, but it has this in use to you
right now to move in that direction could be a policy question that gets
asked at a later time to be some cost associated with it in some time as as
you heard. Okay so something financial future consideration but we might point
you know we're not prepared to do that. That's correct. Thank you. Thanks
councilmember. Okay is okay would you like to make that motion? Yeah. Okay is
Is there a second?
Second.
Okay.
Can we take the roll on that, please?
Okay.
Move a, amend the general plan and amend the West Berkeley plan and adopt an ordinance
amend for 55th Street on the motion.
Council member Kester-Wandt.
Yes.
Aye.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Aye.
O'Keeffe.
Yes.
Blackavie.
Yes, and Mary. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. All right. So I meant to comment on the if you have an all check that study.
There's no valuation of Berkeley's encampment resolution slash R. V. buyback program.
Our RV buyback program was incredibly successful.
And so I do want folks to just make sure you take a look
at that if you hadn't already.
The researcher, Margot Kuchel, Dr. Margot Kuchel,
who worked on it is amazing.
I'm a huge fan of hers.
And she's the one that spoke at our Marist Conference,
Alameda County Marist Conference
that I had invited you all to.
I think some of you were there.
So anyway, make sure you check that out.
And I also wanna see if there's any public comment again
for items not listed on the agenda.
I actually was going to mention the report.
I have not read it yet,
but the RV buyback program was incredibly successful
with the motel conversion.
This is just for off agenda.
That is off the agenda.
It's on the, it's an information item so.
Oh, okay.
Okay, but we didn't get a chance to speak on that.
But I didn't get a chance to speak on it,
but it was, we have a time earlier
for consented information items only.
So this is, it's dawning.
Thank you.
So just in closing, it's unfortunate
that we couldn't receive measure, county measure W funds
so that the staff had so well planned
a second RV bypass program.
It's really unfortunate.
And whether it's a fusion or anything else's
other things that have been done
As much as you hear us complain, maybe myself included,
about the lack of affordable housing to accommodate people,
there is so much more than there was in the past.
So much has been done to provide for the homeless
and bring them out of homelessness in our community.
It's unfortunate, we're going back in time.
And I don't know what's gonna happen
when our Shelter Plus continuing to care subsidies
are lost and we clearly have to look towards
non-governmental options.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone online?
Okay, I will see if there is a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Second.
Can we take the roll, please?
Okay, to adjourn the meeting.
Council member Kesser-Wani?
Yes.
All right.
Taplin?
Yes.
Bartlett?
Yes.
Tregab?
Aye.
O'Keeffe?
Yes.
Yes.
Anepara.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mary Ishii.
Yes.
Okay.
Meeting is adjourned.
Meeting is adjourned.