I would like to welcome the
members of the public we are
just waiting for a quorum to
start the meeting. Good
afternoon and welcome to the
community and economic
development committee meeting.
Of Tuesday December ten two
thousand twenty six the time is
for we'll be able to find the
staff or a clerk representative
no later than 10 minutes after
the start of this meeting or
before the item was read into
record online speaker request
were due 24 hours prior to the
start of this.
Meeting this meeting came to
order at one forty eight PM and
speaker cards will no longer be
accepted ten minutes after
making that time one fifty eight
PM we'll now proceed with taking
roll council members five.
Is there anyone else in favor of
the motion?
Councilmember Ramachandran.
And chair Brown.
Present.
We can check in.
So given the presence of Councilmember Houston,
I'll entertain a motion to adjourn into a special meeting.
So moved.
I'll second that.
Thank you, due to the presence of Councilmember, oh, sorry.
We have a motion made by Councilmember Fyfe,
seconded by Councilmember Unger, to adjourn
councilmember. I would like to
This is our first gathering of 2026 and so delighted
to be back and look forward to a productive year.
Also want to extend a warm welcome
to Assistant Administrator Baker,
who will be joining us in CED Committee.
And then in addition, I know we have some special guests.
Councilmember Unger, did you wanna take a few moments
to welcome the students we have?
All right, we've got a bunch of students here
who are studying government from Oakland Tech,
the heart of D1, and I've been in contact with some of them
working on a project over the last couple weeks,
and I can tell you from personal experience
that they're asking good questions,
that they have a good understanding of what's going on
in city government, and I am so pleased
to welcome them here today to deepen their understanding
and involvement, and I hope that we will see some of you
sitting up here in the not too distant future.
Excellent, thank you so much, and welcome.
It's a pleasure to have you here in CED.
And I believe that my last announcement
we will be just kind of given the sake of time
and wanting to get back on track for our committee meetings.
We will limit public comment to just one minute.
Thank you.
Sorry, reading in item one, approval of the draft minutes
from the committee meeting held on December 9th, 2025.
There are no speakers that signed up.
Excellent.
I'll entertain a motion.
Move approval.
Thank you.
That was a motion made by council member five,
seconded by Chair Brown,
to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting
held on December 9th, 2025 on rural council members.
Five?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you.
Item passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes
from December 9th, 2025.
Reading an item to determination of schedule
of outstanding committee items,
also known as your pending list
and there are no speakers on this item.
Excellent, thank you so much.
So to the administration, any changes to the pending list?
this is a motion to approve
action.
Thank you and I will entertain a
motion.
So moved.
Second.
Thank you we have a motion made
by councilmember five seconded
by councilmember under.
To accept the determination of
scheduled outstanding committee
items as is on roll council
members five I'm a child and I
hunger I and chair brown.
I thank you I didn't pass is
with four eyes to accept the
pending list as is.
Reading in item three.
to submit a foreign trade zone alternative site framework application and to execute
an agreement with the foreign trade zone board of the US, sorry, board of the US Department
of Commerce and we have no speakers that signed up.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
And so I believe for this item we will hear from our EWD team.
Okay.
Good afternoon members of the committee.
My name is Eric Simonsa with the Department of Economic and Workforce Development in the
Business Development Division.
So the item before you is a resolution that will allow staff to submit an application
to the U.S. Foreign Trade Zone Board, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, to convert
Foreign Trade Zone 56, which is currently administered by the City of Oakland, to the
Alternative Site Framework, which is a model adopted by the FTZ Board in 2008 and now used
by most FTZs nationwide.
FTE, yeah, here we go, FTZ56 has been in operation since 1980, provides direct competitive
advantages to the port and its customers through deferral of duties and tariffs on imported
goods.
The value of FTZ benefits have only been underscored by recent changes in federal trade policy
and tariff rates.
This action will complete a process initiated by city staff over 10 years ago.
The FTZ Board requires a resolution within six months of application submission.
While council previously authorized the submittal of an ASF application in 2014 and 2016, delays
from the FTZ Board revisions as well as staff turnover were prevented completion.
Currently the only subzone of the FTZ is a general purpose zone public warehouse at 9401
St. Leandro Street operated by Mattson Logistics, which serves as a public warehouse for multiple
unrelated users.
The ASF will allow for a streamlined process to designate new FTZ sites, which is now a
time-consuming and expensive process that few firms have pursued, which limits access
to the benefits of the FTZ.
Converting to the ASF will expand our FTZ's capacity to attract manufacturing, goods movement,
warehousing and distribution activities, driving job growth in Oakland, and increasing business
and FTZ license revenue to the city.
The ASF will also strengthen the city's ability
to market the FTZ as part of a broader
business attraction strategy
while supporting the Port of Oakland
and expanding international trade in the region.
And that's my presentation.
Any questions?
Excellent, thank you so much.
Colleagues, any questions on this item?
And there were no public speakers?
Okay, excellent.
So I didn't personally have any questions.
I thought that the report was very clear.
but I did notice that the staff report mentioned
that without making this change,
there could be some business constraints.
And so I was just curious if you had an example,
some examples.
Well, the examples would be that right now,
the process to add a new sub-zone to the FTZ
is very onerous, it's expensive,
and it takes a lot of time.
It's something that small businesses
certainly would not go through.
And we have gotten some, there's been a lot of interest
in the FTZ in the last year from companies
who wanted to get those benefits,
but when they see what the process would be
to actually designate, say, an individual warehouse
of an individual company for the FTZ,
it's just too much for them to take on.
And in some cases, there are companies
that when they have goods imported,
they're doing some sort of additive manufacturing or assembly and they can't
do that in a shared warehouse they need to do that in their own warehouse so
this is something that would allow us to to provide those benefits to companies
that otherwise would not be able to access those benefits. Excellent thank
you so it sounds like it's a good idea that we do move forward with this.
Council Member Ramachandran. Just a quick question why did Contra Costa
County asked to not be a part of this. They had a concern which was that they
wanted to be able to approve or reject any any site that's within Contra Costa
County. They are actually that we are working with them and we think we may
be able to come to an understanding or potentially agreement that would allow
them to to be part of this but you know I think it's that if they had a bad bad
actor within within their county they wanted to have the ability to be able
be able to have some mechanism to reject based on that. Thank you and then I'm
curious about the time between when council first supported this I think
almost a decade ago, what happened in that period of time?
Was there a lack of, was there like a recension
of support from other folks?
Or was it just logistics that took a while?
My understanding is that this was led
by a particular staff member
that left the city during that time.
And, you know, it took some effort
to then restart the submission of the application.
Thank you. All right. Um, if no further questions, I will entertain a motion to
move this item to the
is that the
February
17th City Council meeting
so moved
second
Thank you
We have a motion made by Councilmember Unger seconded by Councilmember Ramachandran to approve the recommendation of staff and to forward this item to
item number three passes with
three I's one excuse to fight.
To port this item to the city
kept the February seventeenth
city council agenda on roll
council member five. Excuse
council member Ramachandran I.
Unger I. And chair Brown. I
thank you item number three
passes with three eyes one
excuse to fight to port this
item to the city kept the
February seventeenth city
council agenda on consent
reading in item four. Adopted
resolution accepting the annual
have two speakers that signed
up excellent thank you so much
on and so I believe on this
item will we will be hearing
from multiple departments
planning and building a CD
department of transportation
in Oakland public works through
the chair good afternoon
committee members my name is
Albert marit I'm the assistant
director planning and building
I will be presenting with my
director of the department of the
uh, to meet the requirement of the mitigation fee acts.
Uh, the report can be found at, uh, the website that you see up there,
www Oakland ca.gov slash topics slash impact fees.
Oakland currently assesses, uh, four impact fees.
Uh, first one is job housing.
According to chapter 15.68 of the Oakland municipal code.
This was started back in 2005. We have affordable housing
Chapter fifteen point seven two of the OMC
That was launched in 2016 and the capital improvement and transportation
Impact fees that's chapter fifteen point seven for the OMC also launched in 2016
for fiscal year
twenty four twenty five
for affordable housing impact fees
We collected about 1.3 million dollars
for job housing impact fees
We did not collect any amount
for transportation impact fees we collected two hundred twenty seven thousand five hundred ninety three dollars and
for capital improvement we collected
165 thousand dollars
As you can see that was significantly less than what we have collected on average
over the last five years
As far as these impact fees what you see on the board on the right hand side is the total amount assessed
So for affordable housing we assessed two point two million dollars, but it's important to note that
only one point three actually one million thirty thousand
of those assessed amounts actually pulled a permit.
So for everyone's understanding,
we assess impact fees when projects come in and apply,
but we don't collect anything
until they actually pull a permit.
So we've made an adjustment to the report
that reflects what has been assessed
and how many of those projects
have actually moved to pull a permit.
And for job housing, the assessed amount
is six million dollars and none of them at this point have pulled a permit for
capital improvement the assessed amount was 2.9 only 171,000 worth have pulled
a permit and for transportation that amount is 2.7 assessed and $281,000 have
pulled a permit. I will now hand it over to the deputy director of HCD. Hello
So good afternoon, Chairperson Brown and council members.
My name is Faye Darmawi, and I am the deputy director of housing at HCD.
I'm going to go a little bit into some of the affordable housing impact fees, impact,
actually.
So the housing, the affordable housing impact fee was established in 2016.
And these are fees that we exact from fair market rate developments, and they can be
used to finance affordable housing, new construction, or acquisition rehab
projects. It's really important to note that most affordable housing projects
are funded through a layer cake approach of funding sources and these impact fees
are just one of many layers. So for the affordable housing impact fee you can
either pay a fee or in lieu of paying a fee incorporate the affordable housing
into your project or build standalone off-site and attachment B and
attachment C of the staff report has a list of those kind of those projects in
those two categories. This is an accounting of the balance of the
affordable housing impact fee for the period 2020-2024 to 2025. It's just
important to note that we've actually committed the full amount as of November
2025 and I'm just gonna go quickly through the list of projects that have
been funded in part by the affordable housing impact fee. Since we reported
last there's been a lot of progress so for 350 International that has started
construction and it's actually close to TCO so we'll be occupying that very
soon and for 2700 International and 34th in San Pablo closing of the loan is
imminent so construction will be starting on that soon as well here are
some more projects I don't know what that means and this is another sort of
spotlight on the 350 International Flickerbird homes so it's 75
affordable units including 31 units that are for homeless exits and it's in
Council District 5. It's noted that on the ground floor is the new health
center being developed by the Native American Health Center. The other type of
impact fee that goes through HCD is the jobs housing impact fee and we charge
this fee on new office or warehouse distribution developments. Again, what's
important to note on this chart is that we fully committed the balance as of
November 2025. And you can see some of the same projects here. So this fee also
helped build 27 International, 34th in San Pablo, and 3050 International. Some of
The same projects that you see here,
some acquisition rehab projects.
Here's a notable acquisition rehab project at 2036 Avenue.
The loan that we provided to this project
will help the rehabilitation
of a two-story wood construction, 55 units,
with new plumbing, windows, and earthquake retrofit.
And now I will turn it over to Jamie Parks
from Oak DOT thank you so good afternoon members of the committee Jamie Parks
assistant director with the DOT so I'm going to present quickly on the
transportation impact fee the transportation impact fee is authorized
under the Oakland municipal code and collects fees based on new square
footage added for non-residential units and new housing units added and and the
fee is used to compensate for the increased demand on our transportation
infrastructure caused by new development
projects funded under the transportation impact fee
Must enter must follow a few or must fit a few different criteria first
They need to be consistent with city goals plans and policies and they also need to improve or expand the city's transportation network
They cannot be used for rehabilitation or maintenance
they need to be creating new capital assets that accommodate additional transportation demand and
importantly we use our transportation impact fee to cover projects that are already prioritized in our in our city's capital improvement program or our
CIP so we don't have a separate set of projects funded by the TIF and a CIP
We use the TIF as one of many funding sources by which we can accomplish
projects that are prioritized in our CIP
in terms of the summary of where we are with collecting and
expending the fee revenues
At the beginning of the year we collected around 10 and a half million dollars of translation impact fees in in in fiscal year 25
We expended around one and a half million dollars
our
Policy is to leave approximately 20 percent of our fees in contingency
and that's contingency for potential refunds that we have to provide or cost overruns and the projects that are funded and
The remaining balance of nearly eight million dollars has been entirely programmed to existing projects
Most of which are in active construction
The table on this slide goes through the five
Five projects that are active that have programmed funds for tip for a transmission impact fees assigned to them
I won't go through all of these in detail
But they are five major projects each of which are improving safety and on
Key streets throughout the city of Oakland and helping to respond to the increased demand on a transportation infrastructure from new development
and you can see four out of the five are already in active construction. And then
finally, because pictures are more fun than tables, here are a few examples of
some of the great projects we've been able to fund with our impact fees.
Fruitvale Alive, which is a substantially complete project on Fruitvale
Avenue, and then also the Lakeshore Avenue bike lanes around Lake Merritt,
which are under construction right now and broke ground last year. And with
With that, I will turn it over to my colleague,
Jimmy Mock in Oakland Public Works, thank you.
Good afternoon, Chair Brown, committee members,
members of the public, including students here.
My name's Jimmy Mock from the city of Oakland.
I'm an acting assistant director
for the Bureau of Design and Construction for Public Works.
I'm here to present the capital improvement impact fee,
and the projects that come out of this fee
that utilizes this fee works with planning
and building department, city attorney's office,
also part of the two year CIP adoption.
There are four funding criteria that can be utilized
with the impact fee for these projects.
Firstly, it needs to be a capital improvement program.
It needs to support fire, police, library,
parks, recreational services,
And also, it needs to improve or expand
cities' public facilities.
And it cannot be used for maintenance.
Also, it can support storm drainage services
to improve, expand, and rehabilitate our storm system,
which we do have our project in.
And the project may include preparation
and revisions of plans and studies.
This slide shows the starting balance, the fees collected.
as you can see with our commitment of $4 million
approximately, we do plan to fully utilize the rest
of the funds for our projects.
We have a total of 18 projects
that utilizes this impact fee.
Firstly, there we go, firstly
with the Storm Drainage Master Plan,
we are currently 70% complete.
we're working on understanding what our needs are
with us since we don't have a drainage fee
and really wanna work on providing education on our system.
Fire stations 10 and 12 renovation project
is in the close up phase, completed.
Brookfield Library is in the construction phase.
Moving on to the next slide,
I wanna highlight a few projects
that are pretty much almost near to completion.
We did a lot this year,
as compared to the last annual reporting.
So the Digital Arts Culinary Academy,
it's near completion.
Moss Wood Recreational Center,
we're actually planning a ribbon cutting for that,
so that'd be exciting.
Next slide.
There's a few smaller copper projects,
Junior Science Center, West Oakland Youth Center
from our facilities division that has completed,
and also there's a master planning of the community center
and a Revo Bail Park.
Holly Mini Park is the one that was done.
We had a ribbon cutting and so it goes on and on.
So as you can see, we've done a lot.
Court of Court trail, we're currently in design.
Tyrone Park renovation is currently gonna,
it's in construction right now.
And here's a picture of the Holly Mini Park
that was completed with the ribbon cutting
that was already done.
So for future projects, there's really not much more left
of the impact fees for us to utilize,
but these are the two items that we plan to fully utilize.
Thank you, Jim.
Through the chair, this slide shows where we are
as far as the impact fee studies.
There was a five-year review that was conducted in 2021
according to state requirements.
We did do a phase two analysis that was completed in 2024
and it was enacted last summer through the council.
we will be doing another five-year review in 2026 again according to state requirements.
The study that needs to happen has an eight-year life so currently we're about five years into it so
that analysis will not be happening along with the five-year review as it did the last time around.
And with that, we ask that the CED committee receive the annual report on the affordable housing capital improvement, transportation, job housing, impact fees, fiscal year 2425.
Excellent. Thank you so much.
Colleagues, any immediate questions or comments?
Councilmember Fife?
Yes, thank you. Through the chair.
Hello.
We recently made changes.
Well, the council recently made changes to the impact fees and
where they're collected for the housing impact fees.
So when this study comes back in 2026,
will it include any development projects
that may have been spurred by the changes
to the new impact fee ordinance?
The report that will be coming out this year
is just going to be giving pretty much a five year shot
of what we collected and how the monies were used.
in the next study
uh... is as i mentioned currently we're about five years into it and it's an
eight-year study so it won't be happening this year
but when it does it will take into
uh... account the fact that starting this fiscal year we have switched how we
collect and when we collect impact fees
so when should we see a report
if if there have been any
development projects that have been just sprint went when this is the next the
of the year.
And then the next report that
will be published in December
December of this year.
Understood and there were some
specific references to projects.
In district three specifically I
think the second to the last
slide.
Referenced an additional seventy
five thousand dollars for
malanga arts formerly Alice arts.
And uptown and I I just wanted
to get clarity if that's in
addition to the five hundred
thousand that was set aside
And I'm not sure.
I mean I don't know what it is to happen to save.
That jewel.
Of of the city so I was just curious where is that seventy
five thousand.
Coming from is it the impact fees.
Dirty charity mimic her yes that's correct.
Okay and has that been allocate identified allocated and where
will it be used because like I said there's a lot of deferred
maintenance.
And I'm just interested.
Because that's a that's a very important location.
I'm not sure it's going to be
part of the mid-cycle.
Understood.
Thank you.
And thank you for your work.
I saw all of these different
projects that are breaking
ground or on the cusp of
breaking ground and with all of
the limitations that we
currently have in the city of
Oakland, it's a tremendous job.
I'm super excited about Moss
Wood Park and I look forward to
the ribbon cutting for that
center.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you to staff and planning and building,
HCD, transportation, public works,
for just putting together,
I know this is an annual report,
but just putting together such a comprehensive report
outlining just all of the ways that these dollars
have been utilized in community.
Last year, one of the first events that I was able to attend
was the Holly mini park.
And that was actually a park back when I worked
with the city of Oakland back in 2019,
that community members were asking about,
hey, when will this park be reopened?
And so that was definitely a full circle moment.
And it just, having reports like this
helps us to really have transparency
as to how these dollars are being used and utilized.
I did have one question I think is also on the last slides,
so Oakland Public Works around as we're
looking at the projected dollars that
are needed for some of the projects,
is it similar to what happens with some of the HCD projects?
Are there multiple funding sources
in order to complete those projects?
Jimmy Mark here again through the chair.
Yes, that's correct.
It does use a variety of funding,
primarily from the bond measures.
I see, and so the one that caught my attention,
and I know that it has been a very long-standing one,
which was the Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center,
and I know that that one was originally slated
for a remodel, and I believe in the slide it had that,
but it only had the amount being 25,000,
and so I just was curious if you had
more of an updated status on that.
I know I can get back to you on that,
but I think this is just to do the study,
just to find out what's needed.
Okay, excellent, yeah.
I think I was under the impression
that there was a study done on that one prior in 2020,
and then it was moving forward
with the community engagement portion
of what the community wanted,
and I think that those community members
have been on standby.
I'm really waiting for that park to,
that recreation center to be remodeled.
And so would love to hear back a little bit more on that one.
Great, acknowledged.
Excellent, thank you so much.
Council Member Ramachandran.
I think the projects that these fees are funding are great.
My concern is with the declining fees,
we know for lots of reasons,
There's less developments in projects,
new projects in Oakland,
but I'm looking at the table on page nine,
comparing, you know, in every category
there's a downward trend of how much we've collected.
It's the lowest amount in all the categories
the past year on this data.
What's the impact of this on this long list of projects
that we're funding and are we gonna be able to continue
these projects?
I can applaud some of my colleagues
from the departments that actually do these projects.
For us, planning and building, we assess and we collect
and we did see a significant drop as one of the slides show.
You know, we did a percentage comparison.
On average, what we've collected versus what we collected
this past year and there was a significant drop.
I can tell you that what we have done
is change the way the impact fees are implemented
moving forward in order to motivate additional development.
Moving forward, starting from the year
that we're currently in, impact fees are collected
at the back end, which should support our developers
because that's not money that they have to spend up front.
But I'll pass that on to Gita.
Hello, Faye Darmawi, Deputy Director of Housing at HCD.
Yes, thanks for asking that question.
So affordable housing, as I mentioned before,
is an endeavor that takes a multi-layered cake
funding approach, and impact fees are just one layer.
So when we have reductions in impact fees,
which inevitably happens in the downturn,
We have the ability to benefit from low income housing
tax credits, like say state HCD funding, county funding,
vouchers that create more cash flow,
so we are able to place a private sector permanent loan,
for example, so there's many ways
that these projects get done despite the fact
but the impact fees are sometimes less.
Good afternoon.
On the transportation side,
the transportation impact fees are an important
but relatively small part of our overall capital program,
representing a little bit less than 10%
of our overall capital funds,
most of which come from outside grants or bonds.
So the projects that are listed here in this report
are fully funded with a combination
of the impact fees, bonds and grants so they can continue.
but to the extent that the impact fees decrease,
it will be able to fund proportionately fewer new projects
going forward in the CIP.
Excellent.
Jimmy Muck from Public Works.
Through the chair, you have further capital improvement fees.
All the 18 projects that we listed are fully funded,
so it, and they're pretty much mostly done as well.
Excellent, thank you.
Council Member Ramachandran.
Thank you.
I'm very glad to know that these projects
that you're referencing are either fully funded
or that there's other funding sources
because I am concerned in some of these categories
the decline from collecting $10 million in 2021
to $1 million last year in the affordable housing
and jobs and housing trust fund
and then just the jobs and housing fee.
We went from 2.8 million in 2020 to zero last year.
So I mean, these are sizable jumps
And you mentioned the change of which I recall going through last year of having developers
paying that fee on, once the project is completed rather than, is there anything else that you're
working on a proposal or something that's already there to try to stimulate more things
going on so we get these numbers up?
We're constantly looking at what we can do.
You know, we're in the middle of an economic adjustment when it comes to development across
this area in California.
So we're constantly working with our colleagues in other cities to see reasonably what we
that we can do to make adjustments
that will stimulate development.
So I can't point to any singular thing,
but I can guarantee you that we're constantly looking
at this and working on it,
because we understand how important it is.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you, colleagues, for your questions.
We could go to the public speakers.
Calling in the names that signed up to speak
on item number four, Mr. Samuel Ramey and Jeff Levin.
you're here in chamber would like to speak you you can come up to the podium
or if you're on zoom please raise your hand to be easily identified. Mr.
Simu Raimi and Jeff Levin. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Simu Raimi. I'm with the California
Oakland Million Health. It's the Chicago National. We have an urgency. I had to go to Chicago a couple weeks ago.
because you got 58,000 million health people running around
City of Chicago plus in minus 2 to 10 degrees from home.
The man just died yesterday, 62 years old, four years ago.
We're going to have a problem with that problem.
We're going to start addressing these issues.
I told you all, I'm waiting on you.
You all give me a land file.
It's already paid for.
I'm federally funded.
How seniors and male disabled.
Thank you for your comments Mr. Ramey switching to zoom user Jeff.
You can unmute yourself and begin your comment.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Jeff Levin speaking on behalf of East Bay Housing Organizations.
We did send you a comment letter yesterday evening and I think in one minutes time I
I can't really summarize all of that,
but we'll just note a couple of things.
One, we would really like to see an estimate
of all of the unpaid impact fees pending for projects
that have old building permits in our under construction.
Those are the fees we can count on coming in in the future
and then should be able to start making fund reservations
based on that anticipated revenue.
Secondly, a number of changes were made last year
converting from a per unit fee to a per square foot fee,
suspending the fee altogether in zone three
and expanding that zone.
We would like to see an assessment
of whether those changes are having their intended impact
and we don't understand why we would have to wait
five to eight years to get that.
We know that the study that is eight years pending
was three years delayed last time.
Excellent, Mr. Levine, did you have more
that you wanted to see on this subject?
Thank you.
I just wanted to note the last five-year review
was supposed to include a program evaluation
at the same time.
And that portion was delayed for three and a half years.
And we do not want to have to now wait another five
or eight years to evaluate new changes
that have been made to the program.
We don't understand what staff is referring to
about an eight-year timeframe.
when the city can assess the effectiveness
of its program changes at any time.
Thank you for your comments, Chair.
That concludes all speakers on this item.
Excellent, thank you so much,
members of the public, for your comments.
I did have a quick question
for the building and planning team.
Just to confirm, we'll be getting some of the changes
that we made in 2025, we'll be getting,
I just wanna confirm, we'll be getting that report
towards the end of the year, is that correct?
Yes, it is required that the report be posted 180 days
after the end of the fiscal year,
and we will be doing that.
Excellent, sounds good.
So I have no further questions.
I'll entertain a motion on this item.
Some moved.
Second.
Thank you, we have a motion made by Councilmember Ramachandran,
seconded by Councilmember Fyfe,
to approve the recommendations of staff
and to forward this item to the February 17th
the city council agenda on roll council members five.
Aye.
Ramachandran.
Aye.
Unger.
Aye.
And chair Brown.
Aye.
Thank you item number four passes with four ayes
to forward this item to the February 17th city council agenda
on consent reading in item five receive an informational
report regarding the fiscal year 2024 25 quarter three and
quarter four update on the planning and building department's
code enforcement activities and we have no speakers that
signed up.
excellent thank you so much- and so we will hear from the department on this item.
Good afternoon council member Brown and committee members members of the public and future leaders
of our city. Today we are representing an informational update on the planning and building
departments code enforcement activities for fiscal year two thousand and twenty four and
two thousand twenty five. Specifically for quarters three and four covering January through
need to be part of our
development plan of June of
twenty twenty five.
My name is Cecilia Mila and I'm
the billing official currently
overseeing the enforcement unit
for planning and building.
The purpose of this report is
to provide transparency into
complaint trends inspection
activity enforcement outcomes
case resolution timelines and
key initiatives underway to
improve service delivery.
It is important to note that our
code enforcement efforts are
well aligned with an equity
consistent and across the board.
Really focusing on our housing
and making sure that we have fair safe housing
for all of our constituents in the city of Oakland.
Next slide please.
As you can see here, we're gonna kick off the presentation
with just a before and after of our team's great work.
This is what our code enforcement unit focuses on
every single day is ensuring that we are not only
safeguarding public health and safety,
but we are making sure that we're reducing blight
and creating safe communities for all in Oakland.
Next slide.
Today we're gonna go through our complaints received,
metrics, first inspections, the case management duration,
any enforcement actions and our fees that are assessed
through our code enforcement program,
as well as we're gonna go through some numbers
regarding our abatement and closure of cases.
We're gonna review our open case totals
at the end of the quarter,
and then go through some additional resources
that we provide through our program.
Excited so as you can see here in this slide code enforcement has three primary enforcement
categories blight or property maintenance housing maintenance and zoning as you can
see here through that column under blight we focus on trash debris overgrown vegetation
use of gas power relief force any recycle bins that are left out and then we move over
to our housing maintenance which focuses more on habitability making sure that our constituents
in the city are in safe, healthy housing,
while assessing plumbing and electrical hazards,
heating components, mold, unpermitted work.
And then we go into our zoning code enforcement tax,
which focuses on businesses and residential zones,
commercial zones, industrial zones,
and then also tackles even the minor things
that we would think are minor, such as fencing.
Next slide.
Here we have a clear depiction of our fiscal year 2024,
quarter four or twenty twenty two quarter four through fiscal year twenty twenty five quarter four.
As you can see here Oakland has received an average of one thousand eight hundred and thirteen
violations or complaints per year. Just in quarter three of fiscal year twenty five we had one thousand
eight hundred and seventy and ending in quarter four we had two thousand fifty two complaints
that came in cumulative in these three specific areas. Next slide. As we see here in our first
inspections we had an increase beginning fiscal year of 2023 into 2024 and this
correlates with our deployment of our inspection app which has allowed us to
be more efficient in our compliance measures so what this means is that the
complaint or the employee I'm sorry the code enforcement app allows our
inspectors to focus a bit more on how we are assessing complaints out in the
field, uploading our results, generating our notices, and makes us more efficient.
Next slide.
Under Q3 and Q4 for January through June 2025, we see here our inspections for first inspections
per category, our re-inspections and our total.
So just to give you a quick preview, blighted properties, we received 971 first inspections
or conducted 971 first inspections.
Out of those, we had a cumulative of 2,579 re-inspections.
What that means is the 971 are included in that 2,500 mark because it also includes other
inspections that were previously in queue for a total of 3,550 for this reporting period.
Next slide.
again we show the good work of the team's good work out in the field
enforcing for our community's blight nuisance cases. Next slide. So this here
depicts our enforcement tools. So cut enforcement counts on cleanup contracts,
notice a repeat violation, stop work orders, and compliance plan. So as you
can see here our cleanup contracts are agreements that the city agrees to work
with other contractors that help us clean up blighted property.
When it comes to clean up contracts, we saw two contracts come through through this reporting
period.
We had zero repeat violators in this reporting period.
And I want to note here that this is an effort by our unit to make sure that we are looking
through code enforcement through an equitable lens.
And what does that mean?
that we understand that some properties are gonna be hindered by blighted conditions and
so rather than focusing on issuing a repeat offender violation, we are working closely
with property owners and constituents to make sure that they bring their property into
voluntary compliance.
In the same reporting period, we issued 58 stop work order notices.
So this is a notice that we issue for properties that are doing work beyond scope or doing
work without the benefit of a permit.
We also see here that we entered into 31 compliance plans.
Now these are important because a compliance plan serves as a tool of enforcement to allow
us an opportunity to work with property owners on a milestone plan that allows them to not
only submit for a permit but also work with their architects, engineers, professionals
to assist them with plans, approvals, and inspections.
And as they're meeting their milestones, we're able to work with them.
Now, if there's ever an opportunity, a condition where they aren't able to meet their milestones
depending on the situation, we will continue to work with this property owner.
Or if they're flat out not wanting to work with, within the measures and agreement of
the compliance plan, then it allows us to be able to escalate that enforcement.
Next slide, please.
Here we have our metrics on abated and closed cases.
This also includes non-actionable complaints, so non-actionable, actionable meaning complaints
that we received but we weren't able to verify, there wasn't a contact, we weren't able to
see that in fact there was something going on site.
So as you see here from our first quarter until quarter four of 2025, we had a heightened
rice in the middle two quarters there, and these are indicative of changing of climatic
changes.
So for example, winter season tends to create more mold cases, heat cases because of lack
of heat, moisture, water intrusion, or when it gets real hot, you know, there tends to
be other elements of maybe perhaps rodent infestations and such.
Next slide please.
Now this is a slide that is most representative
of the good work that the Code Enforcement Unit's doing.
As you can see here in fiscal year 2022,
we were abating cases as much as we could
and trying to do the best job that we can.
And as we get to fiscal year 2025,
that number has increased by more than 55%.
So we are successfully able to close 1,277 cases.
Again, this is attributed to our efficiency
in being able to leverage our electronic app,
our app that allows us to be able to generate,
resulting from the field, and our noticing
once we complete inspections on site.
Next slide, please.
So the average resolution time here,
as you see for Blightcases, is 26 business days.
Now I know that at first glance,
You might think, oh my gosh, 26 business days.
I wanna walk you through this a little bit.
So from case intake, meaning somebody calls in a complaint
to the first inspections,
there's a total of seven days here that take place,
give or take a holiday or a weekend.
And then from first inspection
to the notice of violation that's being sent,
there's a total time period of 15 days there
to allow for mailing.
This might be inclusive of staffing
that might delay that timeframe or fluctuate
that timeframe a little bit.
And then from intake all the way to abatement,
you see that there's a 56 day turnaround time.
Now I do wanna expand on this a little bit.
Most jurisdictions in the state of California
and actually nationwide provide
a 30 day compliance time period.
Within that 30 day,
that's your first initial compliance period.
That doesn't mean that in 30 days,
most of these cases are gonna be complied with.
That just means that we're gonna give you
for an initial 30.
Most cases will go beyond that,
to an additional 15 to 30 days.
So really you will see that the total abatement period
between intake and abatement ends up being
about 60 days total, if not a bit more,
depending on the type of complaint that it is.
So as we see here, we see 56 days from intake to abatement,
which is actually a really great number to see.
Next slide.
Now here we have our housing case management duration.
You'll see that the number's a little bit more.
This is indicative of perhaps permits being required, right?
So if somebody comes in on a housing habitability complaint,
maybe there's like a heat,
maybe somebody created a new space,
maybe there's a plumbing issue,
they're gonna have to come in through our permitting process.
They might need to hire a contractor.
Here's where we work with the property owner
to be able to retain the services
as the licensed professional
to be able to do the work effectively.
So the time period will increase here
because of those things.
those considerations.
Next slide, please.
Once we get through our zoning case management here,
we have about 17 business days.
Again, walking you through a case intake through abatement.
We have the first five days for first inspection
to take place, 23 days for us to be able to send
a notice of violation, and then 56 days to completion.
Now, the notice of violation here,
you see that there's an uptick in days there.
I'm happy to report that since this time period,
We were able to hire a zoning investigator who then has been able to absorb some of this
workload and has helped us manage this time period better and lower this number, or the
days, the number of days that it takes us to issue our notices.
Next slide, please.
Once more, this is what your code unit does here in enforcing their tools.
This is what makes us proud and makes us proud to serve our community as well as all of you
here today, next slide.
So our total open cases from fiscal year 2024 to 2025,
we see here that we opened about 2,132 blight cases
at the end of quarter two,
and fast forward to end of quarter four,
we have an uptick of those 2,339 cases.
Maintenance saw an increase as well of about 200
as well as the zoning complaints
that we were receiving in our office.
Next slide.
So through our escalated enforcement process,
we do often, if there is no compliance, assess fees.
Here you see the depiction of how many cases were invoiced
per fiscal year quarter,
as well as how many fees included bonds.
Now if I can just elaborate on that,
a bond is something or a number,
a fee that we take in to ensure that work
to be done or completed when we enter into a compliance plan
with a property owner.
So, for example, somebody comes in and they say,
hey, Cece, I want to go ahead and, you know,
make sure that I legalize my addition to my house.
But it's going to take me some time.
I can't do it right away.
This is where we say no problem.
We'll enter into a compliance plan.
We'll go ahead and take in a bond of about $5,000.
You get a list of milestones that you have to meet.
If you meet all these milestones getting your permit plans approved and inspections
Then we return that bond to you if work isn't completed if milestones are met if
Unfortunately, the property owner doesn't comply then that bond is collected by the city. It's basically a promise to do this work next slide
So moving on we have some some other fees that are assessed and collected
As you can see here from fiscal year 24 quarter 4 to your latest
quarter in fiscal year 25
We are collecting about 42 percent of all fees assessed in this reporting time period
next slide
So here are some key initiatives our digital enhancements. This is the code enforcement inspector app
Again, this helps us reduce inspector time out in the field. It helps us helps us generate those notices a violation
Directly from the app it reduces the time frame that we spend on these makes it more effective for us to respond
We also have our proactive rental inspection program that we're currently working on and coordinating with our housing purgers and their L have program
Focus on older housing stock. We are working collaboratively with other units of the city
To include the encampment management team as well as special activities team
We are using our code enforcement program to provide
more information on the DOT and PW fire so that we can make sure
that our enforcement is parallel across the board.
Next slide please.
This is some additional information and resources
that are available that speak a bit more
about our code enforcement program.
And again, I just wanted to highlight that, you know,
we have staffed up since this reporting period, so you will see
And that's a lot better than they are this reporting period
and so we're very excited to have more staff on board.
With this we ask that you please accept our report
to this committee for the fiscal year 2024 and 2025.
Thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much for the very detailed report
and also incorporating some of the questions
that I had asked as well prior.
Especially around the staffing piece
and look forward to seeing just the updated report after,
since we've included, brought on more staff.
Colleagues, any questions?
Council Member Ramachandran.
Thank you.
Good to know that more hiring and onboarding is happening.
I wanted to know how many full-time inspectors
there are currently.
Through the chair, Council Member Ramachandran,
we currently have 42 inspectors.
20 of them are dedicated specifically
to our code enforcement unit.
thank you and how many vacancies are there
we currently have uh... seven vacancies that we are
actually actively looking to fill
thank you the report mentions continuous recruitment
for inspector roles so does that mean that they're constantly
being prioritized or how does that work that's correct currently uh... we we had we have a continuous recruitment yes
so that we can fill those positions okay cuz it's one of the roles i don't see on the city website
uh... so i just wanted to know
what's being done to prioritize it
even though if it's continuous typically they stay on the or supposed to stay on the city's website
through the chair
councilmember ramachandra
uh... in addition to
uh... the forty two positions that we have as a combination code inspector
the also have
we have a very consistent code
enforcement positions that
we're trying to fill.
We're working with HR for them
to make an adjustment to that
classification so we can
actually fill it.
Currently we have some ELDs in
those positions.
We do have a list that has been
compiled from the continuous
recruitment.
So we will be going through that
interview process before that
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Excellent.
And while you're there, director, or I just wanted to ask this question that I was noticing
in the report, page six, it looks like in Q1, we saw, you know, basically double of
the blight cases.
I just wanted to I was curious if we had some insight as to that increase.
to see if we can get a simple
chair Brown I can go ahead and
answer that so yes we definitely
did have an increase in our our
play cases there- that had to do
with- vacancies that we had at
the time. This number has now
seen a more positive change I
see okay definitely- helps us
understand how when those
positions aren't filled- you
know clearly the work is on a
good done and then you can see
councilmember five
yes thank you for the presentation i had a couple questions
clarity if you could provide
you said that digital enhancements are part of the the process moving forward
can you speak
to what those digital enhancements are and if they're connected to
and you have our existing technology like our three one one system
yes through the chair a councilmember five
the digital enhancements focuses on the code enforcement inspector app
Now, this app launched in 2024, March 1st of 2024,
which allowed us to reduce our response time
for field work resulting
and issuing our notices of violation.
So before what would happen is we would go out,
well, we would receive our case, go out,
conduct our inspection, come back,
result in the office, and then prepare a notice,
which ate up a lot of our time
and it really impacted our response.
So now with the Inspector app,
we're able to do everything through this app,
upload a photo, result right on site, issue the notice,
kicks it back to the office, and off it goes into the mail.
So it's really improved our process.
That sounds very efficient.
Thank you.
That's awesome.
So the type of incidents that are being captured
through this app, can you give me like one or two scenarios?
Absolutely.
So some of the scenarios would be like like cases,
graffiti cases that come through.
Anything that comes in through that 311 system
gets generated through our Acela portal.
That Acela portal then allows us access through the app
so we can see everything that comes in
when it's assigned to a code enforcement officer.
At that moment, they're able to respond in real time
to that specific case by scheduling it,
resulting in all the other items that I mentioned.
So these are connected to 311 requests,
so there's a way for the two systems
to talk to each other.
That is correct.
it all lands in for us to be able to schedule and respond.
So if there were, hypothetically,
an ongoing case where, say, a youth center
was continuously tagged with graffiti,
could you look that up through a 311 ticket number
to see what the process was through your system?
We would look it up through the address itself,
and it'll show us anything new that has come in
for that particular address, yes.
Okay, thank you.
Excellent, um, do we have any public speakers?
Alright, well, I don't have any more questions. Thank you so much for this detailed report
Thanks for all of the hard work
And then we look forward to you know, the new staff that will be joining to help further the work that needs to be done
So, thank you. And so I would entertain a motion on this item
So most to receive info
second
We have a motion made by Councilmember Ramachandran and seconded by Councilmember Unger to receive
and file this informational report in committee on roll councilmembers five aye
Ramachandran aye Unger aye and chair Brown aye
Thank you item passes with four eyes to receive and file this informational report in committee
Moving on to open form and we have one person that signed up mr. Simeon Ramey
These old people need housing just like everybody else
The veterans in the faultless country need houses like everybody else do.
I want to continue to fight for their rights because I'm going to fight for my human rights.
Our human rights have been violated.
You guys are going to be next because they ain't going to stop, they're greedy.
They're not going to stop.
The Capitol is not going to stop.
We have to stop them.
We have to stop them right now, health, education, whatever.
That's all I say, but give us some money so I can do this for our people.
We're going to have to go with this.
I spent not one piece already.
We have 52 billion dollars on surplus right now.
I'm not gonna touch a dime. I guess things on paper say you don't be a Jewish right for American people. God bless y'all.
Thank you for your comments Mr. Ramey chair that concludes all speakers. Excellent. Thank you all so much. This meeting is adjourned.