City Council Regular Meeting - March 3, 2026

Transcript

Warning: This transcript is automatically generated by machine and may contain errors, including misheard words, misattributed speakers, and omitted passages. Always listen to the audio or video recording before assuming the transcript correctly reflects what was said. Do not rely on the transcript alone for quotation, reporting, or any other purpose where accuracy matters.

right now. What do you do on paper? I think I would say maybe because right now it's just

going to be it's just what it's just going to be council member Hoxie. Yeah, maybe put

me on since she's there. Yes, that'd be great. Thanks for asking.

Good evening and welcome. Sorry, we're starting a minute late. To tonight's March 3rd, regular

the meeting of the Urbana City Council.

I'll ask the city clerk to please call the roll.

And we have one remote.

Hello, Council Member Hoxie.

Sorry for the tardy start.

It's all right, hello.

So note for the record that all council members are present.

Actually we have.

Well, except the one that you just noted.

And the excused absence.

Oh, so I'm so sorry.

So we are missing Janet.

Right, yes.

She has an excuse absence.

Yes, she does. Okay. Thank you. And so note that. And with that, we will please stand

for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

that we're going to be able to

Council member. Yes. We have a

member. Oh, I'm sorry. It has

to be my role call tonight.

Councilmember Hoxie. Yeah. Hi.

Councilman Rama Connie. Aye.

Vice Mayor G. Aye. And Mayor

Iverson. Aye. Thank you. With

that we have an agenda. We'll

move on to items for the good

of the city. Our first item is

for this meeting. Uh, I would

like to thank you for that.

We have, uh, some people to

come and introduce them. It

will be need introducing cold

cold. Would you mind standing

up to the public podium? And

I'm delighted to introduce

you to Cole. Hey, slip, who

joined the city as this our

assistant to the city manager.

Man Cole, uh, is it? I'm sorry.

Cole most recently served as a

senior management analyst with

the city of wheat Ridge,

Colorado, where he led the

city's innovation team and

grant program committee and the legislative advocacy program.

He was also a key member of their budget team

and collaborated across departments

to support a variety of citywide initiatives.

Prior to working in Wheatridge, Cole

worked for the city of Veneta in Oregon

in the city manager's office, where

he led economic development, emergency management,

and social media communications.

His professional background includes the roles

in the city of Aspen and served as a management consultant

with Kansas University Public Management.

That's correct.

He earned his master's in public administration

from the University of Kansas,

his bachelor in political science from Humboldt.

And while Cole has recently relocated to join us,

he's very familiar with California territory.

He grew up in Humboldt

and he has family in nearby Moraga.

So if you could join me in joining,

why I can't talk tonight, I apologize Cole,

in welcoming Cole to the city of Orinda.

I know we've got a big pile of work for you to do, so I'm pretty excited to have you start.

Did you want to say a few words?

Yeah, I just want to say thank you so much for the opportunity to join the team here

at the City of Orinda.

Like you said, Linda has got a lot of projects ready for the City to take on, and I'm excited

to get started on some of them, join some of the ones that are already ongoing and continue

to support the community and the organization here.

look forward to working with the council and the community. Thank you. We're looking forward to

working with you as well. Thanks Cole. Thank you. And then next up will be Estella and Scott will

do her introduction. Good evening City Council, Scott Christie, Public Works Director. I'm also

pleased to introduce Estella Ramirez who joins us as our new management analyst in the Public Works

and engineering department. So we're excited about this position because it kind of combines

some of the engineering technician tasks with management analysts and those sort of related

tasks, including records management, responding to public records requests, a lot of things that

engineers have typically done in addition to helping us out with some of the administration

of the Clean Water NPDES program from the standpoint of helping co-late reports, provide

reports to the State Water Board, et cetera. Help us with grant administration, the capital

budget and things like that. So, Essela comes to us from the City of Pleasanton, where she

handled some administrative tasks in the business development area. Also, again, she handled

and some of the same tasks that I mentioned there

for their department.

Also, she's worked with the city of San Leandro

in the engineering department there.

So she's well versed with, I believe, what we do,

and we're looking forward to having her help us out.

And then she's also worked in the past

with the city of Oakland and also the county of Marin.

She has a bachelor's degree in business administration

with an emphasis in public administration.

So with that, I'll introduce Estella.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome.

I'm just really grateful to be part of the team

and I'm eager to contribute.

Scott, Doug and Linda already have me diving right in.

I've been busy my last two weeks

and I just look forward to bringing my skills

to improving our processes streamlining

so that we can better serve the community

with greater efficiency.

And yeah, I look forward to supporting council initiatives

and priorities in any way I can.

So thank you again.

Oh, and I do wanna know,

I was an executive assistant to the council in San Leandro.

So I wanna thank you very much for your service.

I know it's a lot more than just two meetings a month.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

It sounds like you have an incredible background

for this position.

this. Thank you so much. Thank

you. So thank you for joining

and we look forward to working

with you. Does anyone else

have anything will, um, yeah.

Welcome Welcome to both of our

new employees. Thank you so

much for serving a Brenda.

Thank you. And with that, we'll

move on to our next item. Uh,

for the good of the city, which

is a certificate of recognition

for American Red Cross month.

Um, we do have a representative

really cool just introductory notes that were shared with us and then we'll do the certificate

and see if you'd like to say a few words as well. The American Red Cross volunteers have stepped up

to deliver relief and care across our country and around the world, bringing out the best of humanity

in times of crisis as Clara Barton, founder of American Red Cross, did over 140 years ago.

The volunteers, blood and plate with donors and supporters, shine a beacon of hope in people's

darkest hours, delivering shelter, food, and comfort during disasters, providing critical

blood donations for hospital patients, supporting service members, veterans, and their families,

and saving lives with first aid, CPR, AED, and other skills. With 1,148 volunteers in Contra Costa

County, the American Red Cross assisted or responded to 101 disasters assisting 190 families

Through their sounding along program, the American Red Cross installed 778 smoke alarms,

making 241 homes safer and trained 425 students through the youth preparedness programs.

In addition, Contra Costa County residents donated 18,299 units of life-saving blood,

hosted 530 blood drives and trained 12,164 citizens in first aid, CPR, AED, and aquatics,

and provided 463 case services to military members and their families. This work to uplift

our community is made possible by those who selflessly answer the call to help whenever

and wherever is needed. We hereby recognize this month of March in honor of their remarkable

service and we ask everyone to join in their commitment to care for one another and with that

I will bring the certificate and or do you want to do you want to say a few words first and then we'll

do a photo absolutely thank you mayor vice mayor council members good evening my name

is Eva Marquez i'm the volunteer engagement manager for the american red cross i handle

Contra Costa Alameda and the entire North Bay and I've been with the organization for about 35 years

and so I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to be here tonight and we're so

delighted that we're partnering with the City of Orinda. It's been truly an American Red Cross joy

to be able to partner with the City of Orinda and to continue our commitment because of your

support that were able to be there and respond to disasters whenever it's needed. And we've already

partnered with some of the employees and they got trained in sheltering. And in hope that when

there's a large disaster in Contra Costa that we are prepared and to be there for the community

whenever it's needed. So thank you so much for that. And we look forward to working with you.

and if there's anything that we can do prepare this hands-only CPR or blood drive or even

volunteering to build our capacity so that we can be there right away when something happened.

Let me know because again I'm in volunteer services so we're always building our capacity

to respond right away when there's a need so thank you so much.

Is there an opportunity for public comment on this?

Sure, why don't we do the certificate

and then we'll take public comment.

Thank you, Madam Billie.

And with that, we'll ask if there is public comment

on this matter.

It appears we have one speaker.

Good evening, forgive my attire.

I just came from my oldest granddaughter's

softball practice.

So I'm a hodgepodge of a dress shirt and other clothing.

I just want to say, as I said last year,

I have no issue with the American Red Cross,

and I have no issue with our local people who spoke here.

But I think it's important for the public record

that people understand that the local Red Cross

is different and independent from the abomination

known as the International Red Cross,

which most notably didn't lift a finger

or pay any visit to any of the Israeli hostages

captured during the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023.

And as the council made clear last year,

honoring the local Red Cross folks

is not any, excuse me, endorsement or honoring

of the international Red Cross.

I'm not here to ask you to condemn them.

I condemn them, but I just want to be clear

that we're just because they share their name,

quote, Red Cross, unquote, quote, in their names,

that nothing that is happening here tonight

is honoring the very awful people

running the International Red Cross.

Thank you.

My name for the record is Nick Warren off.

I've lived in a render for over 23 years.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak

on either of the items for the good of the city?

Seeing none, we will now go to the public forum.

The public forum is an opportunity

for members of the public to speak on any item

but we do not have an item

that's listed on the agenda.

If the speaker will not be

present when the agenda item

is taken up.

We ask that people limit

comments to three minutes and

I'll ask if we have anyone for

public comment.

I have, I mean, for public

forum, I have not checked.

Yeah, we have at least one,

which is Emily, for public form.

Please come on up.

second one as well. Hi, thank you. I wanted to make sure that you all got my email about the

serious accident on coral. It was very jarring to have that happen a week after we had been

discussing the safety measures. I don't want to, you know, there was a young person involved. I

don't want to go into anything too detailed, but I'm requesting that you expedite, do whatever you

can to expedite bringing that up for about the safety measures on coral and whatever you can

in terms of instituting temporary safety measures like the temporary sidewalk.

If we could get some enforcement out there that would really I think go a long way. I know that

safety at the elementary schools is important and I've seen myself that that's effective

but some circulation I think would really help and that's it thank you oh one other thing if

you are I don't know exactly what the plan would be for the sidewalk I don't like if it would be

like the sidewalk on Moraga Way which only takes up street or if it would go into people's yards

but this neighbor who I don't know should probably know before they go about fixing their property

if it's going if a sidewalk is going to go in there. So thank you. Thank you. And while we cannot

comment on that, I would just note for the record that we had several letters this week on the same

topic and appreciate you coming to speak in person about it. Thank you. We also have a I'm sorry, did

you have any questions or comments? Okay. We also have Shaheen Tans and I hope I'm pronouncing your

this. Good evening. I'm here

to talk about the agenda item

H two actually because I won't

be here when it comes up on the

agenda. This was an item to do

with revising the private road

acceptance policy that was

instituted a few years ago and

which has been a focus of the

I sent a communication earlier today to the board, to the council, sorry, and I hope that

you all get a chance to read it at some point.

But when I did that, there was one point I forgot to mention, and one of those points

was authorize the city engineer to grant exceptions.

I feel that's a very bad idea, and it's nothing to do with Scott.

What will happen if you do this, it will make the whole policy effectively toothless because

the city engineer will be allowed to grant exceptions to it.

The engineer will become, he or she will become subject to political pressure and be put in

a very uncomfortable situation.

And also once an exception is granted, other people will want exceptions which might be

similar, but not quite the same.

They might claim discrimination if they're not granted the exception at that point.

That's all I have to say on that and I know that there's going to be a vote on this revision

to the policy soon.

I'd like the council just to remember, to my knowledge, Orundah is the only city really

going down this path.

Many other cities have considered it back in 2017-18 and they all, after a while, rejected

doing anything about it.

And Arinda's pretty much the only city going ahead with it.

And is that a good idea?

Or is it raising red flags if everybody else isn't doing it?

So that's just something to consider.

So that's all.

So please read my communication,

perhaps speak to councils from the other cities,

get some second legal opinions from people you know,

and then decide.

Thanks.

Thank you, and thank you for coming to speak tonight.

Looks like, do we have another speaker on public forum?

Thank you and good evening.

Over the last couple of years,

there have been movements

such as United Against Hate,

Californians Against Hate, and the like.

And as some of you may recall,

I have opposed those for a variety of reasons.

My worst fears have been realized

because at the most recent meeting

of our local high school board,

the Akalani's Union High School District,

people spoke up asking the board

to ban a student club called Club America,

which is an outgrowth of Turning Point USA,

founded by the late Charlie Kirk.

This is a community that when I say this,

I'm talking about La Marinda,

is a community that prides itself ostentatiously as

being in support of diversity and inclusion.

But what happened at the high school board meeting

was that several people spoke at the public forum

asking the board to ban Club America

because they did not like the fact

that it was a conservative organization.

And they pretended that it was a hate organization.

And as you all know, the First Amendment provides

for freedom of speech and association,

freedom for the thought and the speech we hate.

Hate speech is constitutionally protected.

And when these people spoke against Club America,

the people in the audience applauded the speakers

asking that that group of students be banned.

And Superintendent Nickerson

and the members of this high school board

did not have the courage to stand up to those people

and tell them no, the first amendment allows them

to be an on-campus club.

So I just urge you next time you think about

you are united against hate campaign to reel it in.

Thank you.

Is there anyone, first of all, any comments on that

or which I guess we can't really comment.

Anybody else for public forum?

Great, seeing none, we will move to our modified agenda.

We're gonna do council member and city manager reports

just to do announcements before we get into the main agenda.

Does anyone have any meeting

or other updates they'd like to share?

I have a little bit of a list.

So if you think of one, hold up your hand by the time I'm done.

First of all, I just came from the Alomarin

to Sunrise Rotary Good Character Awards.

You may know those from the newspaper

where they take three stand up middle schoolers

from each of our middle schoolers, Stanley,

J.M. and OIS and give awards for what they think is outstanding character and it was just a

wonderful chance to recognize some of our young citizens. We did Coffee with the Mayor on

February 25th where we talked a lot about what's going on in our business community,

economic development, some changes in our small business community and just answered some

questions. They did ask questions about what's going on with the BART funding and it was just

just a really nice interactive form. On Saturday this past week we did our commission and committee

interviews and look forward to welcoming some new faces onto our city commissions and committees

soon. We also got a legislative update from CalCities last Thursday where we had Senators Grayson,

McNerney, and Rahab come and talk about some of the bills that are coming along this year and

take some questions from people about what to expect and what their priorities are. So

it was nice for I think everybody here tonight was there to hear firsthand what's coming along

from Sacramento. And finally, I had not done a certificate, but it is Women's History Month

in the month of March. And so since we learned today that the Miramati Gym is officially being

that we're going to have a

with renaming our gym. With

that, is there anything else

that anyone forgot? Or would

like to add? I'll ask the city

manager for her reports as

Just a couple of quick updates, last week we had training sessions for Ladras, our evacuation

planning tool for residents in the audience, and those potentially watching at home.

You can visit arrindereddy.com and use our evacuation modeling tool to take a look at

over 100 different scenarios for evacuation.

The model itself is going to be updated.

The consultant Lazarus, the company that offers the program

is making updates to its modeling including Embercasting.

And so over the next couple of weeks,

we'll be including that as part of the public portal as well.

Just a quick update on the information related to BART.

We did receive some correspondence from BART

that after their last work session,

the BART Board determined that they were going to apply

what they're calling the alternative service framework,

a little bit different from what we reported

at our last meeting and so much that they are not,

they won't be looking at station closures

in the first sort of round.

If there is no revenue measure

that either is placed on the ballot or passed in November,

they will be looking at service cuts first,

you can look at what they're

looking for. And then looking

to 2027 2028 for station

closures and they've changed

their language around station

closures to say that the board

will make those decisions about

station closures. I think part

of what I've heard is that they

really want to see what impact

ridership impacts there might

be from some of those service

cuts before they make any

decisions about station closure.

So I just wanted to give that

update for the public and for

and I will leave it at that.

Thank you very much.

Mayor, again, I see that we're gonna have a member

of the public who wants to comment on these items.

I was just gonna ask if we had public comment.

Thank you, Nick Warren off speaking.

The record should reflect,

or let me say initially,

I am pleased to hear that Lazarus is going

to update their modeling to take into account

Embercasting. The record should reflect that between the release to the public of the LADDRIS

software and tonight I have been an extremely vigorous critic of the initial iteration of LADDRIS

specifically, because it did not include ember casting, ember casting being that the wildfire

casts embers a mile or two ahead of itself. And of course, then those embers start spot fires,

which can render one or more evacuation routes unusable. And when that information

Come to light. I very publicly frequently.

And harshly criticized that product. So I am very glad to hear.

That that law.

Which is only 1 of several is being remedied.

And I am sure that before I get back to my seat in the rear of this auditorium.

The city manager will tell you that my criticism had absolutely nothing to do with changing

With Ladras changing its software. Thank you

Mike was off

My first question is if anybody has any changes to the items on the consent calendar anything

like to pull for discussion. Mayor if I could just mention that we do have item 5.2 which is the

ratification of the fire code update. I mentioned I just wanted to mention that Chief Isaacs is here

in the audience if you had any questions for him prior to the adoption or if you wanted to have him

come up and speak quickly. I'm putting him on the spot. But if he wanted to make any comments about

the changes to the fire code? Thank you for that opportunity. Given that we have the chief here,

I would just love to pull F2 so we can simply give him an opportunity to speak. It's a joy to

have him. He's in the upper right corner, trying to hide. You knew he wouldn't miss that. Real

quickly, Chief Isaacs, we're going to vote on the other consent calendar items and then we're

we're gonna do your F2 a few words please.

So with that, do I have a motion on,

and I would just note for the record

that we did get a public comment on F2 in writing.

If items F1, F3 and F4, do we have a motion to adopt?

So moved.

Do I have a second?

I second it.

Roll call vote, please city clerk.

Council member Mccani?

Aye.

Vice mayor G?

Aye.

Council member Hoxie?

Hi, Mayor Iverson. Hi, thank you. And with that on I will bring item F2 up and we'll invite

Chief Isaacs to please just say a few words. Mayor, council members, thank you for the

opportunity to speak tonight. Every three years, the state of California updates the

fire code, they require that we make any modifications to the fire code and then we

update it because we're a fire district, we have to take it to both the city and the town,

as well as the county for ratification. We do make amendments to our local fire code.

The majority of those amendments have been in place since 2020. The only changes we really

made to it were we took some of the stuff out where the state fire code has caught up to us.

The other big item or topic for the fire code this year is the adoption of the California WUI

code. So traditionally the RUI standards were found in three of the code books. The building

code, residential code and fire code. So the state finally kind of got smart and they pulled all those

requirements out of those individual code books and placed it into one code, the YLAN urban

interface code that is before you this evening. That is a new code. We did a couple modifications

to that just to streamline some language. It deals with construction standards. It deals with

access water standards and also defensible space standards once the state finally decides on what

they're going to do with zone zero. The fire marshal worked very closely with town and city staff

as well as the county fire marshal group to make sure that we were aligned in as many areas as we

county-wide, and that's the document that you have before you do this evening.

Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

One question. There's the general principle that our local code can be more

restrictive but not less than restrictive than the state code. Is there

anything in these amendments where we opted for something a little bit

different and more restrictive than the state recommended standards?

Yes ma'am, all the modifications that we put into the code road with standards and I'm sorry I forgot to bring our code with us or with me this evening but there were certain areas that we do go a little more restrictive the one that really to that jump out at me the under eve sprinklers for new construction and the road with the state code is 20 foot for a new road.

road, we go 28 feet because we use that road as a firebreak in areas of the district. So we also

allow for modification. So if a developer was coming in and said, hey, for X reasons, I can't

meet that 28-foot road width, we can work with them to grant modifications.

And just for clarity, first of all, thank you, Chief Isaacs, for being here. And just for clarity,

because I know there's been a lot of talk and a lot of buzz in our community about one is zone zero

coming, what will it mean locally? These amendments so far there have been no modifications to MLFD's

fire code around zone zero. Is that correct? That is correct. Ordinance 2303 and 2303

or 2308 still stand. We have not made any changes. We have the two-foot non-combustible zone,

not the five foot that the states gonna implement was zone zero. We have no update when the

state's gonna pick that topic back up. But potentially, if the state were to require

it, that would mean changes locally as well. Potentially. Potentially, yes. I'm saying

this because our residents may be looking at landscape and when folks are doing that,

you know, I would hate for someone to landscape keeping in mind a two foot barrier and then,

you know, six months or a year later have to re-landscape.

So it's something I assume we should be thinking about.

Yes, ma'am.

Were there any other comments or questions?

With that, I would, and thank you very much

for taking the time to be here tonight, Chief.

Thank you.

Do we have a motion to adopt F2?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Do we have any public comment on F2?

Seeing none, do we have a motion to adopt F2?

I'll move adoption of item F2.

Do I have a second?

Councilmember Hoxie, we're cold calling you.

Would you like to-

I'll second.

Yes, absolutely.

I'm trying to keep an eye on you.

Great, roll call vote, please city clerk.

Councilman Nunez-Nalani?

Aye.

Hoxie?

Aye.

He?

Aye.

And Iverson?

Aye.

Thank you.

And with that, the consent calendar is now fully passed

and we will move on to policy matters.

Item H1 is our City of Arrunda 2026 legislative platform

want to see if we can. I'll

ask the city manager if this is

her category. Yes. I'm

honorable Mayor members of the

council. This one from a staff

perspective would be very quick.

Last year, the council adopted

its first legislative platform.

It's time for updating that

platform for the new year. The

city worked with its consultant

Town Cincon Public Affairs to put

together an updated framework.

Thank you. We have a few red

line changes that we're showing

as an attachment to your staff

report. But to summarize some

of the areas where we were

trying to refine some of our

support and opposition

positions. The first being

supporting limits on the

application of builders remedy

once a housing element has been

certified. Supporting tools to

address long term vacant

commercial properties.

Promoting pedestrian and

local authority to assess service-related fees for street maintenance and supporting the

sustainability enhancement of BART service at the Arinda Station and opposing any service

reductions, changes, or funding reallocations that would adversely affect the current level

of service at that station. So with that, I will turn it back over to the City Council,

see if you have any questions for me. I believe that Casey, our representative from

from Townsend Public Affairs is joining us via Zoom

if you have any questions for Casey.

I'll note that the legislative session has,

the bill introduction period has concluded.

Casey and the Townsend team and the city staff

will be working to go through the pieces of legislation

that have been proposed and determine the city's position

based on the council's adoption

of this updated legislative platform.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to the council

for any questions.

Does anyone have any questions or comments?

Well, actually, let's do questions

and then we'll do public comment.

My question is this is Arinda's legislative platform,

but I'm assuming that it mirrors to some extent

the La Marinda effort of working together.

Yes, so earlier, I believe,

right before the beginning of the year,

we brought you a La Marinda framework

that the council took a look at.

It's more narrow than what we're proposing

for the citywide platform and reflects the cooperation

and the mutual areas for the three cities,

town and city of Lafayette and town of Moraga.

And so that effort is underway just getting kicked off

because Moraga took their framework back to the council

at the end of January.

So we're just kicking off the regional efforts

with KC at towns and public affairs as well.

There's no conflicts between the two lists

from what's on the platform and what's on the framework,

but certainly this is more exhaustive

than what's on the framework.

The framework really tries to hone in

on sort of core regional issues,

transportation, housing are the ones

that I can come off the top of my head,

but just in case the community was curious

there might be certain overlap,

but there's nothing that's conflicting

between the two platforms.

This is maybe a little bit more of a comment,

but sort of a follow-up to the question.

And that is given the timing,

and I know that when we had the La Marinda framework,

it hadn't really happened yet,

but I think it would be good in my opinion,

if the La Marinda framework would also support the BART.

part of what's in the platform.

I'll have to take a look and see if there's

broad enough language in there.

The thought of trying to recirculate this

to three elected bodies for re-adoption, it doesn't.

Yeah, I'm not trying.

Something I would be looking forward to.

But let me see if there's a way to incorporate it

under the current framework.

It would certainly be nice to have our combined support.

I know from talking to everyone that we do,

but it would be nice to make it codified.

Okay. Are there any other questions?

Yes, please.

Let's go Council Member Hoxie and then Mel Connie, please.

I'm wondering if you could tell us more about any legislation

that's been introduced on the vacancy issue.

Sorry, I didn't hear on that issue.

If any legislation is being introduced

or considered about vacancies,

what what can be done about vacant storefronts? I don't I'd have to ask Casey we haven't done our

deep dive yet on the bills that were introduced in the last by February 20th so I don't know Casey

if you can think of any bills that have addressed long-term vacancies? Yeah Casey with Townsend

Public Affairs. Based on the bills that were introduced as of last of as of the 20th I'm not

aware of any that directly speak to the vacancy rate. I would have to double check, though,

just to confirm. Additionally, there are about 600 spot bills. So probably in the next two

to three weeks, we'll have a little bit better of an idea of all of the those policy proposals

as they get fleshed out. But I'm happy to take a look at that and get the information

to you through staff. Thank you. And Councilmember Malcani, actually,

Councilmember Hoxha. Did you have any other questions?

No, thank you, not the first time.

Councilmember Malkani?

Yeah, there were, I was just hoping that Casey

or someone could speak to why there were some items

that were removed, and whether that was to be consistent

was sort of, and I was sort of wondering,

is that in terms of the changes,

which ones are consistent generally

with sort of Cal City's platform,

or was it a regional effort?

I'm happy to take a stab at that council member. Several of the items that are stricken,

for example, in the parks and community services section, those were actually repurposed and

put into the public works section in just some areas that felt maybe a little bit more

appropriate for the specific items.

Some of the SB 1383 items just got shifted around.

So that was kind of more of a formatting cleanup

than the substantive change.

There were a couple of additional changes

where the platform spoke to maybe more of a federal

or a state local, or excuse me, a state impact

and not as much of an impact on the city.

So those are some of the more kind of surgical red lines,

if you will, where those are more kind of some

of the language modifications.

So I think that covers the bulk of the strikeouts.

I don't think that there was anything that was pulled out

because legislation addressed it.

I think it's more just all kind of formatting and structural.

Okay. And then what about there was,

it was removal of language in the community

and economic development section.

Maybe it was put elsewhere and I failed to recognize that,

but item 11, it aims to achieve fair and proportionate

representation on county, white and regional boards.

Was that a legal update or no?

No.

I'm trying to find it.

I'm looking at a strikeout on,

I think it's item H one packet page 132 from 32.

My recollection is that was one that kind of felt fell into the category of not necessarily being as city specific, but to the to that more more regional and county wide. I don't believe there was a specific conversation about about broader than that of that necessity of the removal of that item.

Yeah, I don't I don't recall why we took that out other than we didn't.

We weren't sort of monitoring the, I guess the state's.

Countywide and regional.

So the regional and countywide boards process.

So I guess I just want to confirm that by taking it out, the understanding there is is more that it's it's something that extends to

jurisdiction beyond a window as opposed to we're not saying that we're not committed to fair

representation on county wide and regional boards because that was I think it's something

that's very important but it would be something that would be addressed through for example the

Contra Costa mayor's conference or you know but but we do make our own appointments and so for

that reason I guess I would like to leave it in but okay but I don't have you know I could be

persuaded, but I could be persuaded as long as we are recognizing that it is a priority. I don't

know that it needs to be in the legislative platform, but I do think it should be a priority.

We're still doing questions, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are there any other questions?

I had one for Casey. There was some advocacy letters that we got recently, and I didn't

really do much to support them, but about landslides being included in disaster relief,

that that would be a category that could be covered in some cities in Southern California,

we're trying to maybe get a coalition of cities who are similarly potentially affected.

Is that something that is somewhere in this platform or should we consider adding that?

Um there are there is a broad category under public health and safety um it's it's under

funding opportunities but relates to disaster large-scale disaster preparedness initiatives

um but I don't believe there's anything in here that gets quite down to the level of specificity

related to um landslides other than kind of broadly being in in disaster preparedness measures.

Okay with that I think we'll go to public comment and then we'll bring it up for discussion.

Looks like we have at least one public comment. I don't have any written speaker cards.

I did not have time to fill out a speaker card because I was late getting here from my

oldest granddaughter's softball practice. Sorry, I'll notify the clerk of my contact information.

My public comment is that I would request that tonight somebody give us an overview

of the process of how the Townsend works for the city, and particularly in terms of the

communication. So for example, Madam Mayor, you mentioned you received some position letters.

I'm just wondering if those are, if there's any public notice process or if that's to whatever, if they're publicly available, if there's some place on the city website where somebody can.

Uh, see what's going on. Someone who wants to keep up with legislation. So, for example, if Townsend alerts the city that Scott Wiener has introduced some new bill to deincorporate to Rinda.

Would Townsend notify the city? And would that be a matter that someone could just

weekly public records act request to see what's

Come in over the transom. I would just like and I think other people might be interested in

how the process

Works, do they draft the position letters and send them to you for signature. Is there collaboration?

How does the whole thing

work that is my request my public comment is that someone give us a three-minute speech on how it

works and what's available and where thank you first i'll ask if there's any other public comment

on this item that will close the public portion of this and bring it back for discussion i'd ask

if the city manager would like to address anything that's been brought up so far um first i'll start

with Vice Mayor G's question about the framework. The current La Marinda framework as it relates to

transportation and related infrastructure talks about two things. One, it says the coalition looks

to encourage and support federal and state actions that invest in local public infrastructure projects

with regional benefits. It also goes on to note that the framework would support expanding local

transit, micro transit bus services and emerging transit opportunities. So I think under that,

heading in that context, that would be enough for the region to talk with one voice on the matter

related to BART. If the council is interested in me doing what the public speaker asked, which is

just a summary of how we work with towns, and I'm happy to do that as well. I think that would be

how this all works. Sure. So the towns and public affairs team Casey, in particular, and I meet every other week via teams online meeting where we talk about a variety of topics, including bill introduction timing. We talk about the appropriations process, we talk about support and oppose matters when legislation is in front of us.

in front of us. We discuss the regional group. We discuss trying to think what else we discuss.

Those are the core pieces of advocacy visits to Sacramento. That's also on the list. In fact,

there will be the city summit in April and we would be up in Sacramento and we're looking

the city staff for review. We

are working to plan an advocacy

day up there as well. The

letters are largely crafted from

Townsend. Any support and

opposition letters sent over to

city staff for review. Staff

reviews the letters and then we

send them to the mayor for

consideration of signature. If

I'm unable to get a hold of the

In some cases, at least one case that's happened.

And then we submit those to Casey.

Casey submits those to the portal

and the state for the various committees

that are reviewing bills

so that our positions are on record.

I'll do my summary.

Thank you.

And with that, I'll ask if anybody on the council

would like to lead off with their comments.

We will call the remote person, if that's true.

the city. I think it's a good

I think you were.

Yeah, I mean, I did think there were a couple provisions where it went into a specificity

that you don't usually see on a platform like when we already talk about e-bike safety,

of course, safety to me means helmets and safety equipment, but to specifically mention

it in the platform seemed unusual.

I guess I, I maybe it's more of a question for, you know, for Casey from Townsend.

Is that something that we typically see in platforms?

Is that to be consistent with sort of Cal State?

So some of the changes surprise me and again,

I don't really see the reason to,

I mean, I was, I guess, you know,

for the community and economic development former item 11,

we had, I mean, again, this is like, you know,

parsing out the details now,

but we were given a red line, so.

item 11 was removed and it previously said that it was part that, you know, staff recommends

that city support state or federal legislation that aims to achieve fair and proportionate

representation on county wide and regional boards. And I would think we would want to

continue supporting that. So I would want to leave it in. So that's the only thing I,

like the two items that sort of stood out to me.

I also thought the bar thing is really important

to our region, so I'm fine with including it,

but it also seemed, it's very specific

and I think the prior platform included it.

So I guess the level of specificity,

I just thought is atypical

of what I've seen in alleged platform before,

but I'm not opposed to what it says specifically,

so I don't have a problem with what's stated.

to the public. I'm fine with

it. I think overall for what

it is and what it's intended

to be in terms of our

priorities, I'm supportive. I

think it captures a lot of the,

as Councilmember Hoxie said, I

think it captures a lot of the

key items that have been, you

know, raised lately and fall

into this arena. So I'm

supportive.

I had a million questions and red lines on this when I first read it and the city manager explained to me that it really helped me understand that, you know, because I felt like our priorities were getting subsumed in all of this laundry list of any issue that might come up and the way the city manager explained it is

by having this list anything that comes in asking for us to just give our support at the state or

county level they know that they can write a letter of support because it's in this laundry list. So

you know in the frequent meetings and check-ins between towns and the city manager and

other groups that represent us they know the priorities. They know the top three

And so the fact that this is kind of a whole kitchen sink,

it is not getting lost about where our focus

and priorities are.

And it was just that if we don't include something,

it might have to come to us to ask what our position is.

So that helped me relax.

And in the spirit of, I think Vice Mayor G's come out

of like, this is good.

I don't wanna go messing with the red line

because if you open up that red line,

I'm gonna have a lot more things

that are not are into issues.

There's state issues, and there's all the specificity

on things that are representative of ours

that are their agendas, and we support them

because we support them, but I really don't want

to start getting the red pen out.

The other comment I would make though is,

I don't want this to be like the tax code

where we only add and we never subtract,

and so I don't want to be afraid of something

maybe was a specific issue last year or the year before.

It was maybe some legislation in progress that got done.

So I am inclined to trust the recommendations

that came from towns in the city manager

on what is added and subtracted.

That's just my inclination as we look at this.

And I would just mention that the landslide

as disaster relief might be something to look at,

to talk to our friends in Southern California

because I remember when we had a landslide issue here,

disaster relief was not available at least without some insurance stuff so

that's just something that it's not a live issue but maybe a longer-term one

were there any other questions or comments and if not do we have a motion

I guess I just if I don't know if that one item Casey do you have any insights

on why we're taking that out. So I said, not beyond kind of the regional nature of the

Metro, I don't think there was a specific. That's fine. We have a long agenda with it.

If there is a, if there are, let me just ask this because this is the time to talk about

it since it's before us. If there is any state of federal legislation pending that deals

meeting. And I think that's

with the issue of having fair

representation on on you know,

regional boards. Can you make

sure that the city of around is

made aware of it. So we have an

opportunity to chime in as to

whether or not we support it

because I don't want it to not

be on our radar because we're

that. Thank you. Uh I think we

have a motion. Do we have a

second? I'll second. Great. Uh

maybe we have a roll call vote

please. Hi. Toxi. Hi. Gee. Hi.

And Iverson. I thank you.

Motion passes unanimously and

we go to item and thank you,

Casey, for joining us tonight.

We'll go to item H to the

Infrastructure Committee report

on activities, including the

I am not sure who is presenting this.

Is the subcommittee going to present or the city manager?

So I'll kick us off and then I'll turn it back over

to the infrastructure subcommittee.

So, yes.

So before we get started,

council member Hoxie wants to make a statement.

Thank you.

I wanted to take a moment to note for the record

that the home my husband and I own in Orinda

is located on a privately maintained road.

That road is a cul-de-sac serving approximately seven homes.

it could impact my property.

I consider carefully whether I

should participate in this

discussion. I learned that the

F. P. P. C. and that we are not

part of an H. O. A.

Historically, we and our

neighbors have cooperated as

needed to arrange and fund

maintenance of our road. Our

road was not offered for

dedication to the public when

it was created by subdivision

map and was never accepted for

neighborhoods by the city or

county because the city's policy

regarding privately maintained

the public generally rule. The

the city of Orange. I work with

city staff to evaluate my

parcels private road situation.

And found it is relatively

common in a rinda. For example,

approximately 22% of a rinda's

residential properties are on

privately maintained roads of

various types. Approximately 19%

of a rinda's residential

properties are like mine. And I

residential properties are like mine and privately maintained roads that were not dedicated for public use on a subdivision map. And approximately 20% of Arinda's residential properties are like mine on privately maintained cul-de-sac roads, not through roads.

that. I'm not going to be

considering those characteristics

of my property. I believe it

satisfies the 15% threshold for

applicability. For the FP PCs

jet public generally rule. So

I've concluded that I may

generally participate in the

council's policy discussions

regarding private roads. I

plan to do so while staying

alert to potential conflicts of

I do not know whether my neighbors and I would ever request that the city accept our street

into the publicly maintained system, but if such a specific request were to come before the city

while I'm on the council, I would recuse myself. Similarly, I would recuse myself if the council

discusses whether the city's policy should differentiate between privately maintained roads

based on whether they are serviced by an HOA or homeowners association or other similar entity.

My property is on a privately maintained road, not serviced by an HOA.

City staff have calculated that approximately 13% of residential properties in Orinda share

that in common with mine, which is below the FPPC's 15% threshold for the public generally

rule, which raises a problem for tonight's conversation because of bullet point two in

staff report which differentiates those roads on it that are maintained by an HOA and those that

are not. So what I'd like to do Mayor if it's all right with you is recuse myself at the beginning

of the conversation while you discuss that particular point regarding HOA maintained roads

versus all of the privately maintained roads and I'll wait for a city manager or city attorney to

have a question. I'm going to

text me and tell me I can re

join the conversation. Does

that sound reasonable? I know

this is the recommendation of

the city attorney, but I am not

aware at this point of whether

there will be a general

presentation. And because

there are, it's not just like

we're voting on A and then

staff. I would like to know if

there is an informational part

that Councilmember Hoxie could

listen to before we sever this

forum for discussion purposes.

So the answer is yes. Council

member Hoxie can hear the staff

report. She can hear questions

Council member. Yeah, okay.

Thank you. You can hear public

comment. And then when it

comes to deliberation, I think

that's where the Council

should determine basically

whether the segmentation

approach that we sometimes

take whether it can be applied

in this situation. That's

really helpful. And that would

be my preference if that's

all right with you, Council

member Hoxie. Yes, that's

fine. I'd like to participate

as much as I can. But

then we'll ask you to just leave and come back to the Zoom when we are ready to discuss

anything having to do with the HOA issue. Thank you.

I'll just do a brief background on the infrastructure committee. It was established in February of

2024. In June of 2024, the council reviewed the committee's work program, which was refined

the city of City of Toronto. I

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

committee for over 20 years.

I have been working with the

needs to be accepted. Um,

additional agencies that provide funding for the

maintenance of roads. Additional background on the

render Woods maintenance agreement and a discussion

about a proposed framework for the acceptance of private

roads. And following that discussion, the committee

requested additional information, which will be

bringing back to their next meeting, and that included

more information regarding the program in San Anselmo.

that we need to come back to

the mayor's office. I wanted

to turn it back over to the

committee because at that

meeting we did discuss the

framework and thought it was an

appropriate time to come back

and discuss it with the city

council since some of the

things that were being

and this is really a pivotal point

for moving to the next phase

of trying to work through any policy changes

that the council may wanna consider.

Vice Mayor, you wanna kick it off and then I'll add?

Yeah, I think, and again, City Manager Smith,

please correct anything if I don't phrase it quite correctly,

but what I want everyone to know

is that the key word really here for our discussion tonight

This in and of itself is not a written policy at this point.

What this is is a.

Outgrowth of our year and a half of meeting with the public and people that have been interested in the topic material.

We have a current policy 56 dash one eight.

That is about the acceptance of private roads.

of private roads. I guess my comments would simply be that it has never had any private

roads attempt acceptance under it without providing unnecessary commentary. It was never

a policy in my mind, and I was there, that it was not really intended to be a tool that

was really allowing people that lived on private roads to explore whether they wanted to offer

them for acceptance to the public or not. Quite frankly, it was primarily drafted to,

the separation of public and private roads in a way that, you know, again, was deemed

important to the city's fiscal situation. So, it was never, you know, it was deeply

contested in some ways at the time and it did not, and I did not support it at the time.

But the reality is it turned into our policy and it's been kind of one of those things

that sits on the shelf, because it really can't be used for anything.

The way it's written, there is no private road in Orinda that can really apply to be

accepted into the public road system under it and be accepted.

It's just not going to happen.

That's how it's worded.

So obviously that's been a troublesome point for a lot of our residents that contend with

with living on a private road.

And again, I think it's important

that our community remember that, you know,

this is fully 20% of our community.

This is not four or five homes,

and this is not just a handful of people.

This is, if you look at the map of all of our private roads

throughout the community,

it touches almost every corner of our community.

And, you know, and some of them, you know,

and the, as people that have paid attention to this issue

know the description of our private road network is just a maze of differences. Some of them are

very new such as I'm looking at some of our audience members. Some of them are very new that

were the newer developments like Wilder and Linda Woods and The Downs and at the time you know they

were part of development agreements when the city didn't have the resources to maintain roads and

they were very formalized as part of the development agreement. Some of them are roads

that date back into the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s in which there's simply no understanding at all of some of

the reasons and rationale for why things occurred. We certainly have a whole host of roads that were

offered for public acceptance and not accepted,

although the documentation as to why is completely lacking.

We have other roads, as Council Member Hoxie mentioned,

that were never offered.

We basically have one of almost everything somewhere that you could imagine.

What we don't have within the whole system is really any of

our privately maintained roads that are not open for public use.

I mean, quite frankly,

we have one little segment of one in North Arendelle,

where occasionally they choose to gate it off.

But other than that little tiny piece,

the vast majority of all of these roads,

which is quite an extensive amount when taken together,

are all being used by the public.

Now granted, they're virtually all residential roads,

so there may be very little traffic on some of them,

but they are open for public use.

So as part of the subcommittee's work,

the discussion of the policy of 56-18

has been of great concern.

Again, the subcommittee is not at a point.

I mean, eventually our goal is to come back

to the full council with, again, recommendations

that we hope will improve this situation in our community

because it's been an incredibly

and continues to be a very divisive issue.

Even sometimes when we don't hear a lot about it,

there's very strong opinions and feelings about it

on both sides, whether you live on public roads,

whether you live on private roads,

whether you think we should do something about it,

whether you think we shouldn't do something about it.

We have opinions across the board in every category.

Our hope as the subcommittee has been

to continue to explore it.

We've, I believe Council Member Malcani agrees with me

and probably even city staff does,

is that we've had enormously amazing public conversations

with our community in the subcommittee.

I would say the participation of the public

in our subcommittee has been the highest I've ever seen

for any topic, it remains of great concern

and we have heard amazing, amazing feedback

in every way, shape or form.

At this point in time, I don't think the subcommittee

is not at a point where we're trying to recommend

here is the solution and pick one thing

even though we know there are very strong feelings

about what that solution should be

by many of our residents.

The reality is, is again,

just like we don't have any private roads

that are sort of one size fits all,

we're not sure that the solution is one size fits all either.

And so I think what we've talked about

is that over time, we'd like to see the possibility

that there could be better options than there are today

and what those all are going to turn out to be,

sort of remains to be seen.

But the existing policy 56-18, I,

this is a personal opinion, so it only belongs to Darlene,

but it is, in my opinion, it's a very adversarial policy.

It is not intended to be welcoming

to a lot of members of our community

in terms of what it's potentially offering.

And in an area that I personally feel very strongly

does fall into I believe public works in all of its way shapes and forms falls into the

domain of why government exists. So I think that you know all the conversations we have

have been exceptional and this framework is a summary of so many things that we have talked

about in a way that we could as we move forward tend to look for ways to provide options that

would instead of being, you know, the 56-18 policy of no, you can't do this to maybe find ways that

if it was acceptable to the city, that we could allow people to do this. So the key word again

is framework. That it's not that everything on this list is an absolute given one way or the other.

And I do hope people understand that at this point.

But because there are so many key ideas here,

I think it was important that we bring it back

for consideration by the whole council

before we try to draft or have staff help us

draft new policies.

So those are my comments.

And to the extent that Council Member Mancani,

our other representative on the subcommittee

or the staff have comments about that,

I would welcome having those added.

Well, there's someone quoted this to me recently.

Nothing has been said unless everyone

on a committee says the same thing.

I'm gonna try not to do that now

since I think you well summarized,

but I do wanna emphasize at the risk of redundancy,

a couple of things, which is just,

you know, there was a lot of frustration with the old,

or the existing policy because it's really seen as something

that just is impractical and essentially almost impossible

and really serves as a roadblock, right?

And so that engendered a lot of bad feelings

and I think, you know, resentment and bitterness

and frustration, you know, which frankly,

from my perspective was understandable.

So what, you know, I do agree

that this is simply a framework, right?

But what it represents really is I think the reason,

I think the Infrastructure Committee and staff

really wanted to bring this to the full council

is because it is a tone shift in a framework of,

don't talk to us about this issue too.

We do wanna talk about this issue.

Now, do we have the solutions completely?

No, we don't.

But it is a tone shift and it's a tone shift

in that it's a policy that's no longer functioning

as a roadblock but is actually a real functional policy

with an attempt at objective criteria.

You know, the criteria is trying to address

the varying circumstances within ARINDA

and recognizing that neither the problem nor the solution

is a one size fits all.

And I had independently written that down from you.

I know you just said that Vice Mayor.

but because of that and these factors,

we felt it had enough form now that we could

and wanted to bring it back to our colleagues for input.

And one thing to remember in this discussion is

we aren't, it is a framework, but again,

it is a check-in point on a continuum

of trying to address, you know, the problem,

multifaceted problems and challenges

with privately maintained roads.

I know that again, one of the first questions

almost everyone asks immediately

and maybe of being gotten ready to be asked tonight,

but obviously policies, you know,

ultimately result in some potential impacts on costs.

And there's been no attempt at this point.

I mean, we've raised the issue

that everything costs something,

but there's no attempt to compare this

or have this defined, or if the question is,

what is this all going to cost?

We don't have any answers to that right now.

We've not tried to encapsulate that.

We've not tried to go down that road,

even though we know that ultimately that will be

absolutely critical to a whole lot of things, right?

So it's not like we're being ignorant or naive

or just trying to have magical thinking here

about how this all works.

We know that this has serious cost implications,

whether it's to our residents, whether it's to the city,

however it gets structured,

maintenance of roads and drains requires money.

So that will all have to continue to evolve,

but the framework itself is not attempting to say,

this is going to cost this much or that much.

So I just wanna make sure that we're clear about that.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Hoxie, did you have questions?

I think it would be helpful if the vice mayor

would just go over the framework

that her committee is proposing at this time

for the public and for everybody to think about.

I would not only agree with that,

that it would help if you guys would sort of

walk us through these, but when you get to the one

about 20 years versus five years,

because the current ordinance says five years

before it needs maintenance,

and 20 years before it needs to be replaced,

and I'm paraphrasing,

if you could go a little bit deeper on what you mean

by what in five years was the one question I had as well.

I mean, that was something that I think as staff

was taking a look at resolution 5918,

we noted that in order for the city to accept a roadway,

it would need to not be maintained

for essentially 20 years, right?

It would have to be in condition.

And Siva, I think you should probably come sit up here

in case you get called up to talk about some of these things.

But really the intention, at least that staff had

this framework back to the committee was what are the things

that we've heard over time that have contributed to basically

not receiving any sort of application and getting a

pavement threshold of up to 20 years is a perfectly maintained

road, I would say. I don't know, Seva, if you want to comment on that.

comment on that. If I can just before you respond the exact wording in the current ordinance is

provided pavement life of 20 years, the roadway should be in a condition to not need surface

maintenance treatment for five years. So if you can help clarify what you're proposing relative

to that standard. Yeah, good evening Madam Mayor and Council Members. The five years is

in line with how we are approaching our current public street pavement maintenance. We go through,

as I mentioned in prior sessions, we use a program that allows us to keep tabs on the condition of

the pavement and do preventive maintenance. That's kind of our primary goal to extend the pavement

life and that cycle roughly falls in that five-year time period. So one way to look at it is

more than likely a street will get surfaced with what we call like the minimum surface

treatments and slurry seal around five-year cycles. So that's the connection to this five-year that

you're looking at. Again, it's slightly different from the life of the pavement. So when you're

talking about pavement life, it's a different context versus maintenance, which is for the

five years. And I'm not sure if this is a question to you or I guess Vice Mayor G when you walk

through this frame that framework if you could be very specific about what test you are proposing

because I get that Slurry Seal is about every five years and replacement is different but

I cannot translate the current ordinance to the proposed framework without little help.

So can I chime in on something just for a suggestion and I'm just thinking back

So in the infrastructure committee we had the benefit of actually a staff presentation from our city engineer and our director about the framework and I don't.

I don't know I'm happy to let the Vice Mayor do that if she wants. I don't feel like I can go through and necessarily answer all your questions without turning to staff with all of them.

So maybe we could go through the framework with our city engineers presentation or just walk us

through it and we could chime in as infrastructure committee members. That might be one way to do it.

And then the other thing is that a framework is simply, you know, this is a framework as guidance

that can then be used to develop a new ordinance or a new resolution. So I don't know that from the

framework we're not going to have exact language as to what a resolution would. In other words,

any resolution, my understanding, would be brought back to the Infrastructure Committee first for

some fine tuning and then to the Council. We didn't want to say to staff as an Infrastructure

committee, take this policy framework and go develop resolution without doing a check in first

with the full council. Does that make understand? I think what council member Hoxie asked for and

what I agree is we would like for one of the two members of the subcommittee to literally just walk

us through your nine bullet points and explain the rationale so that we can comment. And we know

we're just commenting. Okay. Can I make one correction on the framework? I think it was a

area in the project. So I

believe this is staff here.

Bullet to where it says

eliminating the requirement for

all property owners to sign an

application when an offer for

acceptance when an offer of

dedication on the road already

exists. That is an accurate the

that shouldn't be in there at

all because it currently does

not require that. So that is a

change. So I just wanted to be

the city of Davis. And the

city of Davis. And the city of

Davis. And the city of Davis.

I think what staff was attempting to do in presenting these bullets to the

infrastructure committee was to.

Go through resolution 59 dash 18 and try to identify areas where.

We could be more, I guess, less restrictive and more encouraging.

And I think.

the road. And then the other.

Items is the lowering of the

pavement condition threshold,

because there was a lot of

discussion about from when we're

talking about the staff level.

If we should come up with a PCI.

You know, is this about

maintenance of the road? So. We

right now it says that. Basically,

in order to accept the road, the

condition of the road has to be

suggesting that that's a very high bar.

I don't know what PCI that potentially could be equated to,

but that that is one of the reasons why

we're not seeing anybody step forward because,

and we did do a PCI index of all the roads,

including the private roads.

So we also have that information available to us.

And in many cases, it was a lot better than we expected

and some it was exactly as expected, right?

The PCIs aren't as great as we would want them to be.

some of that. The other piece of

course is the current resolution

restricts and prohibits

communities that are served by

homeowners associations from

participating at all. And so I

think those were kind of the

bigger items of the bullets.

And we could talk a little bit

about, I mean, obviously the

final bullet under there is just

the city. And the staff in the

city are willing and supportive

of requests that might come in

to make changes. You know, in

looking these bullets, there's

a lot of requirements in

resolution 59-18. I'm not going

to sit here and say with any

proposed framework to modify

definitely it's a very involved process in order to take a road from being public, I mean,

privately maintained to publicly maintained. And the committee did take an opportunity to look at

other ways to do that, right? It's a spectrum of choice. There's the Orinder Woods model in which

the city is playing a role in maintaining it. The model San Anselmo is using in assisting their

And then on the other hand,

one of our private road owners which by the way we can only find one program in the state of California is really about providing grants to neighbors and residences.

So it was really trying to meet residents where they were at some residents want to maintain their roads and want to maintain private roads but might seek some assistance.

have the the the Orinda Woods example, which I think when we brought that forward at the meeting,

there was a lot of surprise about how many other roads in Orinda Woods are actually public.

Because I think when it's being discussed, everybody thinks that most of those roads are

private, but in fact, there are very few that are actually private. So that was a good discussion

And then this is sort of on the other end of, okay,

are we going to address policy?

So again, the committee is looking at the idea

of grants programs, supportive programs

to help privately maintained property owners

who are living on those roads.

And then looking at changes to the resolution

that make it less challenging to move forward.

So I think just the framework is dealing with this one piece

but I think the committee is trying to look at

a broad range of options for which

they can make recommendations back to the council.

I think when we wanted to bring the framework

is simply because we don't want to spend

more staff time digging in and researching

and coming up with the financial implications of all this.

If the council's not interested as a body

in pursuing any major modifications 59-18,

then we need to know that so that we're not spending

an inordinate amount of time and infrastructure committee,

a well-attended group, a very engaged group of residents,

and so we wanted to take this opportunity

as we have eight months left in this group

to try and come up with some solutions.

I don't know, Siva, if you just wanna talk through

any of the bullets that are listed there

in the proposed framework,

aside from the two that I've mentioned.

I was just looking a little closer

at the particular question the mayor had

and just looking at the current resolution wording

that is two components to that paragraph.

One is talking about the life of the pavement

and then the second part of it talks

about the maintenance component of it.

The proposal is to not focus so much on the life

of the pavement and rather change it focus

the PCI component of it. That's why the five-year term comes in. Part of the reason is they are

looked at in different manner. To know the life of a pavement there's more invasive testing involved

and reports that needs to be generated doesn't quite necessarily reflect how we maintain the roads

currently that are in place. And also last year we did a pavement management review of the private

roads for the first time. So that gave some insight into what the current condition of the

roadways are. So all those factors came into play to recommend that as one of the framework item.

Yeah. And I'll add, and I think it's important, especially for the mayor and council member

Hoxie, since you don't attend the subcommittee meetings and Siva can correct me when I

make a misstep into what I'm saying. But when we did, as you know, we did the assessment for

for the first time of evaluating the pavement condition

of the private roads throughout the community that,

and we did it in the same fashion

that we do for our public roads.

So we were able to get the same kind of comparative data

for the first time in this very long discussion.

And I guess what I would and I'll have Siva help me

if I misstate something, but the overall GCI rating

if you took it all, average together was around 69, right?

It was at, was that?

I don't know how to correct the exact number,

but it was over 60.

Yeah, it was in the, you know,

it was near collectively all of it being, you know,

in pretty good shape overall,

but that was characterized after you split it out.

remember you have the larger, newer HOA communities

like Wilder and some of the other newest places

in the city where the pavement is in excellent condition,

both because it's relatively new

and has never had any really serious maintenance problems.

So all of it is in excellent condition.

In fact, by far and away, probably the best condition

of any of the roads in Orinda,

even taking into account some of our pretty well maintained

arterials at this point.

Then I would say there was probably a pretty hefty

midsection of private roads that were in,

you know, anywhere from, you know,

pretty good to, you know, the upper ends of it.

They certainly were not in terrible shape.

They were not really falling apart.

They had been maintained in some way, shape or fashion

by the residents and then I would say there was a sector

of probably much older and probably not particularly

well maintained and that probably drug down

a little bit of the overall average.

So when you think of the universe of our private roads,

by far and away, more, you know, the majority of them

are actually in really good shape, okay?

Because you have to easily take a look

at the ones that are very new.

And they are not places that would require a lot of maintenance

any time soon.

So kind of remembering what that universe looks like.

And again, some are, and there's just

incredible differences across the board

with how they do get maintained.

So, but again, if you look at the whole universe of them,

you know, once upon a time, we always talked about them

like every mile of it was just, you know, turning to rubble.

That's not a good,

that's not an appropriate characterization, so.

Thank you.

I know we have a lot of people

who would like to speak on this from the public.

I did want to just ask, there's one about,

sorry, removing zoning

and subdivision compliance standards for adjacent properties.

I just didn't understand that issue.

Could somebody explain what the problem is

with the current one and what you're hoping to achieve?

So I think you're the default if nobody else talks.

Yeah, I mean, I was, we did get the benefit of us.

The city attorney might be able to chime in on that.

So the initial development of this came from staff

and was a framework that was presented to us.

So, and we chimed in on it.

So do you want the city, it might be helpful for the mayor.

does anybody know why that is on the bullet point list?

To go through the rest of the ones we haven't talked about?

Well, and then we'll try and-

I have a guess, which is that we measure setbacks

from pavement and from roadway.

And so this might have to do with,

in the old poly, the existing policy,

requiring that setbacks be adequate.

Can you explain what the sentence is saying?

So it says private development on the property fronting the road generally meets zoning and

subdivision standards applicable to property on public roads.

So if you are on a privately maintained road and you would like to seek city acceptance,

you will be measured, you will be tested against the standards we apply to publicly maintained

roads for zoning setbacks.

And we don't think we should have that anymore because.

I'm just having a hard time giving feedback when I literally don't understand what is

being proposed.

Mayor, one thing is that many of the private roads are much narrower than many of our public

roads.

And so those setbacks would mean that you're in the middle of someone's home if you have

measure from the pavement. So it disqualifies a lot of private roads because of the narrowness

of many of them.

And I think that was overall, Mayor. One of the points that's come up over and over and

over again is that basically, again, the policy has always been focused on essentially holding

the private roads to the very pinnacle standard that we would hold a public road to. And that

we have many, many public roads in this community that do not meet the standards that we are

asking for in the existing policy. They just don't. They're not as wide. They're not, you

know, they don't have the same characteristics, you know, evenly throughout the community.

Many of them were built at completely different times. Some of them were, you know, not particularly

built to what I would even call real engineering standards at the time and so again the feedback

over and over for years has simply been that we're trying to hold everything to do with the

private roads at a level that's here whereas we have a lot of public roads that are down here.

So that's what I think a lot of it is. That is very helpful I think what count I mean unless I'm

seeing a different body language from our staff does that kind of make sense that what those

set back rules were about was about kind of measuring from Center Road to where development

happened. That's my understanding. Thank you. I literally just didn't understand what the

words meant. So if there are there any other questions or should we turn this to public

comment? With that, I would love to let the public opine. We got quite a few written

comments that are all in the correspondence that's been shared. I have one speaker card

for Bob Finch so Bob will ask you to come up and it looks like Mr. Warnock might also like to speak

and if anybody else would like to speak please come on up after Mr. Cathy after Mr. Warnock

will have you speak as well. Thank you. I'm Bob Finch and I'm on the board of the Wilder HOA

where funds for road maintenance are pre-collected in our dues but the dollars in that part all come

from the pockets of the residents just like on any other private road. My comment is that I simply

want to thank the Infrastructure Subcommittee for its good faith, open-mindedness, and diligence

over the last two years and I would add as a member of the Arendons for Road Fairness

that we have been working for nine years to get to this point.

I urge the City Council to approve the proposed framework as a framework. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Warnoff and then Kathy Finch will be after.

Good evening, Nick Warren for the record.

Initially, I want to address Vice Mayor Gee.

That was the most one-sided presentation

of a complicated subject that I have ever heard.

And I think you should seriously consider stepping down

from the infrastructure committee.

You know, there are two sides to the issue.

I don't have the time tonight or the inclination

to go through the other side.

But to make such a one-sided presentation

is a disservice to the body on which you sit.

Secondly, I want to address my friend council member Hoxie.

That was a very thorough, well-reasoned,

and well-thought-out presentation

on the subject of conflict of interest.

And I left my hat in the car,

But if I were wearing it to keep my head warm,

I would tip my hat to you

because it was very thorough and carefully reasoned.

However, and there's always a however,

the very same city manager some years ago

when Abe Phillips was on the council

and was a candidate for reelection,

the very same city attorney,

If I said city manager, I misspoke, I apologize.

The very same city attorney publicly advised

our good friend Eve Phillips

that because she lived on a private road,

she could not participate at all

in the discussion before the council.

And Eve, Ms. Phillips,

correctly followed the city's attorney's advice.

And these people who have been part of that group,

I forget what it's called, Fair Roads or something,

maybe it's Equitable Roads these days, who knows.

But these people got together and publicly verified her,

publicly verified her,

because she followed the advice of the city attorney.

And she was very pregnant with her twins at that time,

and she couldn't even campaign and present her side

that she had to follow the advice of the city attorney.

And it felt to me to go door to door

and to post on social media a defense of her.

So I'm sure we're not gonna hear from the city attorney

some legal explanation of why the two situations are different.

But as long as we've had this historical exegesis about this issue,

the record should reflect my opinion,

speaking as a private citizen and not a member of any group,

that Vice Mayor Jay has shown bias that disqualifies her from the committee

and that I deplore the inconsistent positions taken by

the city attorney. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments before we go to the next

public speaker? I just want to thank the vice mayor for her earlier comments and thank the city

attorney for her continued expert. Vice, I do have one comment which is the, as I understood the

conflict issue as the person running the meeting, if the HOAs are potentially going to be counted

that essentially dilutes the impact of the issue

and makes it more general.

When we are talking about private roads

without including the HOA included units,

that would be a conflict and council member Hoxie

will recuse herself the same as E. Phillips did.

So that's not the city attorney speaking,

but that's how I went into this meeting

understanding the way we should run the program.

And Kathy, thank you for waiting.

Kathy Finch, please.

Yes, my name is Kathy Finch.

And first, I want to thank the infrastructure subcommittee

for well, making 20% of the city just feel included

by being part of the study.

I mean, I just think it's wonderful that you can now,

and we can all now see the city as a whole,

all of the streets, whether they're public or private,

whether you're going to maintain them or not,

to see where they stand.

Same thing with public drains.

I think it's just such an important issue.

Nevermind, you know, the financing of what's going to come.

It just, you know, makes us feel publicity and be included.

And I wanted to only address the first speaker

who seemed to think that, you know,

you were taking over control of private roads,

which I know this is just a framework at this point.

But he said that other East Bay cities,

it should be a red flag,

that all these other East Bay cities

have decided not to do anything about private roads.

But as Vice Mayor Gee noted,

Arinda is really different.

It's unique in as much as we've got

20 to 22% of the city on private roads.

And I mean, it's a really large group of people.

The other thing that I wanted to comment on

is that the city itself required many of us

to be on private streets because there wasn't enough money

at the time, like 20 years ago when Wilder was being considered.

He didn't have money to maintain our streets.

So it's unusual, I think, that the city says,

You must be private, but we are requiring you to be private.

Some people in our subdivision have said things like,

it's weird.

I mean, what if they said, OK, you can live here,

but you can't go to the public schools here?

I mean, they feel cut out in just that way

because they were required, and because there's such a large

proportion of our members, and also because the bond issues

of the city that is in the

county. And the fact that the

city has passed. Um. They were

fine when they were requiring

everybody to pay for, uh,

arterials and collectors. But

when they went to require

people to pay for residential

maintenance, but barred private

street residents from that same

benefit of their tax dollars.

that we have to pay for the

you, but I want to say that

this is a very large homeowners

association where I've been a

resident for about 30 years. I

appreciate all the work that's

gone into the framework we've

been observing along the way.

The framework as I read it

really is an either or framework

and maybe that's where it needs

to be at this stage. It's either

or members of private roads, either opt in to be considered for the city's services or stay out.

And I'd simply like to suggest that there's possibly another path that should be included,

if not in the detail, maybe the framework. And that's to take some model that like our

Our Homeowners Association has done,

is I think it's been on the scale

as just recently described,

as having better than average roads by our self-maintenance.

And it would be beneficial to encourage

either homeowners associations or groups of homeowners

to maintain on their own,

but be given some form of support to be able to do that.

And I did not know about the San Anselmo bottle,

or even the original Woods model before coming up here.

But I'd simply ask that the subcommittee

take that into consideration before the framework

is adopted.

Thank you.

I would like to ask if there's anybody else

from the public who would like to speak

before we close the public portion.

And I believe the best way to do this

to talk about the HOA inclusion or not first because that will determine councilmember Hoxie's

additional participation. So we will ask you to pop off the zoom, please. And we will have

the city clerk will text you when it's time to dial back in. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.

So as included in the framework, currently 59 dash 18 excludes HOA's from participating in any

the process to move towards public road acceptance. And so I think this is, I think a key piece

of any changes that could be made to any program that the city would offer in the future. So

I think that's much of what infrastructure committee members were hearing at those meetings

was around. I mean, there's a large group of folks that were living in HOA areas, not

just Wilder, but other areas as well that have Hacienda streets, those roads of Hacienda

I think is another one as well. So it was really, I'm happy to stop talking. Very happy

to really just have a conversation about, you know, if there is a desire to potentially

include them. That doesn't mean yes, the answers tonight. But if there is a desire to do that,

would allow staff to go back and sharpen their pencils about impact, right? What does the impact

look like if, for example, the Wilder community came forward and said we'd like all of our streets

to be public and, you know, what sort of financial impact that could have to our road maintenance

program over time. So, I mean, we just didn't want to, as staff, spend time researching all

these issues unless we had some consensus amongst the council. These are the issues you want us to

research, so I'm going to turn it back over to the three of you to discuss and give us some

feedback on that. If I may, because I'm talking to two people who are already sort of advocating,

it's going to be a very short discussion. I'd like to frame this because it's an issue I've

thought about a lot and I'd actually like to credit both Bob and Kathy Finch right when I

got elected. We had a call to talk about private roads and I was just listening to these issues

for the first time but they really opened my mind about the the considerations to get beyond the

knee-jerk Prop 13 argument. You know the way I think about HOAs is they do have well-maintained

roads they do have assessments that have already been collected so they've got reserves and after

some number of decades at what point does a subdivision just become part of the city and

and you need to stop treating it like the new neighborhood.

That said, the reason they were excluded

is that Prop 13 is so different

from the way the rest of the country

operates with subdivisions,

because we cannot collect assessments in more,

the costs go up with inflation,

and our ability to collect against those costs

is limited to that 2%.

as long as they stay in their HOAs,

their assessments allow them to cover costs

with assessments that actually keep pace with inflation.

And that is a really fundamental imbalance

that we cannot correct for the non-HOAs,

but you can correct inside them.

And so the first thing I would like to hear

the subcommittee address is,

do you affirmatively advocate including HOAs,

have you formed your own position, and if so, how do you deal with that problem?

I guess I'll just chime in. The thought process, I don't know that I can address your exact

question because it goes for the financing and Prop 13, and yes, this is why when you

walk around Florida, there's roadways and infrastructure, and I look at their taxes

in our taxes and, you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but we have Prop 13. That

is true. But I will just address why he's going to mention they don't have a state income

tax than we do. Right. But still, anyway, there's a lot of other things. But anyway,

the prior resolution has, or the existing resolution I'm saying, because we still have

This is still our says acceptance of existing privately

maintains subject to the following criteria.

One says, except where the city council approves an exception

private rows for which a homeowner's association or similar

entity was established for subdivision street ownership

maintenance are not eligible for acceptance by the city.

given the number of residents who have been participating

for the last year and a half,

or however long it's been in this,

in the infrastructure subcommittee,

who either are members of an HOA or, you know,

living in HOA and also even other residents

who aren't part of an HOA who have expressed

some support that members of an HLAA should,

to me, including this in the framework,

is to me, taking the position that HLAs

should not uniformly be excluded from this process, right?

To the extent we're trying to create an adoption process.

participation cannot be the criteria

if you can't address the financial reason

why they were excluded to begin with.

And I'm sorry, it's so hard to look both ways.

No, no, no, I mean, no, well, let me add one thing that and again, you know, staff can can provide you with a lot more detail but again remember, it's not that we don't take any of our road and infrastructure funding from our property taxes, we do, but the reality is is our transportation funding

from a multitude of sources, and it's not all based on our property taxes, okay?

So remember that.

We've had road bonds, we have sales tax, we have measure R, we have return to source from

our county sales taxes, we have state of California grants, and I mean, the problem with transportation

and I'm looking at Scott and Siva, there are days when I say I should have stayed in water

and wastewater because it's a lot easier. Transportation is a nightmare and you have

to have five kinds of colors of money to fund anything these days and it's just getting

worse not better. So remember that as well as there's a whole multitude of other issues

you're not raising when it comes to the difference between private and public. Public is subject

to all of the public works requirements.

And quite frankly, private HOAs can maintain their roads

cheaper than the public can.

That's just a fact, but that doesn't, again,

that's not trying to take this into consideration.

This is trying to, as our city manager said,

this is trying to move toward a tonal shift of,

we've had a lot of division in the community already

over this topic in the broadest sense.

And then to me right now it makes no sense

trying to create a new framework

that we would still sort of try to separate out

another group of people that represents a very,

you know, broad swath of our community.

And there are different kinds of HOAs

within our community as well.

So again, they're not one size fits all.

So I, just in the broadest sense of again,

this being a framework rather than a lot of details,

I don't see the logic of what we're trying to accomplish.

Just still wanna segregate the HOAs out and say,

gee, you can't participate.

Because again, that just affects an awful lot of people.

How can you say you don't see the logic

when private homeowners associations

can assess consistent with inflation

and the rest of the city cannot?

I mean, to lose the ability to assess commensurate

with the need is huge and the prior city manager used to always say we could, even if we look

at the private road issue, we can never consider letting HOAs in because it would blow up the

budget so dramatically to have the same Prop 13 constraints apply to an additional 20 percent

of roads and I know they're in good condition today, but we're talking about a long, long

policy change and I just I am concerned that the arguments I'm hearing are well

gosh they really are participating and we should include them this is not about

inclusiveness it is about and a financial burden the city could not bear

and if we say that we are going to change the framework to allow HOAs I

think it would be incredibly naive to pretend like but we might not actually I

mean I think if you're gonna say HOAs can be part of it we must be prepared

to design a program that affirmatively includes and addresses and figures it

out which I'm still open-minded but I'm not hearing any arguments other than

inclusivity to deal with the big problem. Well there's no doubt that over time

there's an enormous amount of financial you know lens that has to be implied to

to anything that comes up.

But remember, I sort of interpret

that the way you're seeing this is this means

that all of our private roads are immediately

going to become public or gonna immediately

all apply to become public.

And that's not what the framework

and the policy is intended to do.

Some people feel, and the community feel really strongly

that they wanna do that, others don't.

But could you address that comment specifically

to the HOAs that are participating?

like Wilder, Arundel Woods, Rendegrove,

kind of the three bigger ones,

which of those do you expect in,

and I don't mean in the first six months,

but in short order to request a process for integration?

I don't honestly know, Madam Mayor.

I mean, we don't know because there's so many other details

of this that aren't outlined at this point.

We haven't really, this sort of tonal shift of,

we could get there instead of continuing to say,

no, we can't look at our infrastructure

in a more holistic manner is relatively new.

There's a lot of devil in the details that's not here yet.

But-

And this isn't, okay, when you're asking about,

I feel like the, including them in the framework,

We're not excluding them in the framework

does not necessarily mean that they're gonna apply for

and be accepted as public roads in the next,

when you're saying short order, I don't know what that,

I view this issue as a many year issue for us to resolve.

This is another step,

we simply don't have the finances to allow all these HLAs

immediately to become public roads.

We just don't have the budget now.

However, to have on paper a resolution that excludes them

from any possible path in the future to me is the problem.

That's what we're doing here.

We're not necessarily taking the next step in my mind,

and I'll ask to correct me if I'm wrong,

that there will be this immediate acceptance

of all HLA roads or even large HLA's

because again, we need to proceed with step by step,

here's old nuanced solutions,

not an overnight dramatic sea change

where we all became public roads.

I mean, if we wanted to self-tax ourselves,

5% sales tax, we could probably do it,

but we can't do it unless we did that

And we're not, I'm not by any means suggesting we do that.

Our residents wouldn't want it.

So.

You said was super helpful.

May I, again, I think the idea is we're kind of

workshopping here and without two of our five.

So it's, you know, get what you pay for.

But what you said about a framework,

I think was incredibly helpful because,

and we'll kind of pull it back up.

I had two comments.

One is, when I was reading this before the meeting was,

it was, it feels kind of touchy feely, right?

This is a tone reset where we want to shift

conversation which would be fine if you weren't, I actually think the decision whether or not to

include HOAs is the single most important fork in the road we're going to face in this conversation

and I don't want to make light of it and just say it's a tone shift. It's a monumental potential

fiscal change and I'm still open to it so I'm not I'm not saying we can never but I am saying

that is no tone shift. That is a massive policy decision that we cannot make without looking at

how you pay for it. That is the decision. So I actually really liked what I heard from the

finches when I was first elected about the fact that their roads are really well maintained and

we are solving this for the life of the city and they do have pretty good reserves already.

So I still would like to explore HOA solutions however,

semicolon however, inside the 5918 framework,

I think is the wrong place to do it

because the 5918 framework is an actual ordinance

that says we shall, you know, this is how we will

adopt private roads into the public road system

and I, when you say framework, my other note here was like,

It's like tennis without a net, right?

We're gonna have a framework and it's gonna have no rules.

That's not a framework.

The framework is the 5918 ordinance,

which is an existing law,

which I agree isn't going to work

without some modifications that make it work.

But when I think about

what the infrastructure subcommittee is doing,

it's so much more than 5918.

5918 is not the framework.

the framework is actually this whole idea of coming back

with something where it's not like the TSAP

where a neighborhood is asking for a speed bump

and they have to petition and figure it all out

for themselves.

This is the city figuring out how we can play a much bigger

role, the figuring out the PCIs was a breakthrough, right?

That was the ability to then look at things and say,

hey these are these are actually not that hard and we can help and we can

help people organize for those that need some work we can help people form an

assessment district we can help do the neighborhood organizing and the idea

would there would be a private infrastructure program that would over a

long period of time create a path for anybody who wants to do it to do it

that's not neighborhoods self organizing but what was on tonight's agenda was

this very specific list that felt like modifying 5913 and it felt sort of cut

before the horse where we are talking about well oh let's take out the no

subdivision restriction but with no plan for what we do if we say we will

consider private road adoption of subdivisions. I think 5918 is not the

framework. The framework is the framework and so I kind of felt like that bullet

point list was misplaced relative to tonight's check-in. Okay so just a couple

of thoughts and then I'll, okay, one thing you reminded me of in this

conversation is that we had a public comment about assessment districts and

and that there might be various ways

and different communities

or different neighborhoods might want different things.

And that is very much still an opportunity

and a possibility and different, you know, San Anselma,

there's different things we could still do.

This, I think it might be, maybe not,

but it might be helpful to just currently 5918,

The first sentence of the resolution says,

the acceptance of existing privately maintained roads

into the city's public roadway network

shall be by resolution of the city council

and shall be subject to the following criteria.

So what it is, is it's criteria.

And so what we're calling framework is criteria.

It does not say, if you meet all this criteria,

you are accepted.

It is still by resolution.

But what we are doing is we had a, in my mind,

this is just how I view this,

we had a resolution that included criteria

and it said the only path is if you meet all this criteria

and it's basically impossible to meet, right?

Like you asked about the 20 year to have,

I remember now from the infrastructure discussion

because we asked about that, right?

And it was, the response was that it was,

basically we weren't even sure

how someone would show that, right?

So to this point,

the question is, should the criteria say

that HOAs are excluded?

And to me, that's a lot more narrow

and doesn't require us right now to say,

How are we going to pay for all the HOA privately

maintained roads becoming public roads?

We are simply saying that in the criteria,

we are not excluding them, which is big.

I'm not saying it's not huge.

I don't want to minimize that.

It is big.

It is a very big policy change.

But I do favor it.

And I also absolutely underscore underlying in bold.

To me, removing this exclusion from the criteria

doesn't mean and shouldn't be, you know,

read as we are going to immediately be able to adopt

all these roads as public roads,

because to do anything like that has a funding mechanism

and a funding implication,

and that has to be accounted for

because we don't overspend here,

we maintain our reserves.

So I do agree that that is a huge, huge thing

that has to be done,

but also view this resolution along those lines.

I don't know if that's helpful or not.

Yeah, I agree in the sense that again,

what ultimately comes out of this, maybe a lot of things,

but the goal was not to, at this stage,

just continue, well, I think Council Member Malecan

who said it well, not to just start excluding,

because first of all, it's not an immediate acceptance

of anything, right, as well as the fact

that we know from listening to people,

And we have listened over the last year and a half.

And we know both from lots of the written comments

we've gotten, what we've heard in person,

what the city's dealt with over the last decade

on this issue is, you know, we have people

that are perfectly happy with their private road

and don't want anything.

They don't want anything from the city.

They don't, they're perfectly happy with the situation.

We know that we have people that are on the other side

that believe for whatever combination of reasons

that the city should adopt their road into the public system

in some way, shape or form.

And we have, believe it or not, quite a few people

in various categories in between.

We have some people that really care

about the ownership of the road.

We have other people that just care about the finances

of getting the road maintained.

We also have some people that are not all that adverse

maintaining it but they're having difficulties doing that because they don't have an HOA. They

don't have a mechanism to get their neighbors to contribute they just they have all kinds of other

challenges that just make doing your own public works kind of hard. You know and I and I want to

save some of those comments for when councilmember Hoxie can come back but the specific question here

is where there is an assessment, where there is an HOA.

And again, I'm sorry to be so hard-nosed about this.

But I feel what is being set forth is like a tone set.

And I agree, 59-18 is not working.

But again, to talk about specific changes

to this law in the same spirit as,

and somebody used the expression good faith, right?

I think that's the tone reset happened

when we formed this subcommittee, when we re-upped it.

I mean, I don't think we would be spending the resources

we've been spending for years on the subcommittee

if we were not committed to work together in good faith

to find a better way to deal with private infrastructure.

And so I just, again, it felt to me like you guys

were trying to disassemble 5918 from the inside

and leave nothing there but kind of an empty shell.

And that's, to me, not the point.

The point is to come back and say,

forget what's in 5918.

We'll deal with that when we have the final program,

legal changes, financing figured out.

But what I was hoping would come back in a check-in

is to say, number one, HOAs, should we or should we not?

Should they be at the table or not at the table?

Which is, I think, what you meant with the HOA conversation.

But then, go ahead.

The question is, if we're developing criteria

for potential, in order to even be,

If we're developing criteria, should HOA's

be excluded from the, as part of the criteria,

as one item in the criteria,

that HOA's are excluded from this resolution?

But that's the question, the resolution.

That's my point.

Not the resolution.

We are not, sorry, I'm not understanding.

I, as the person in this conversation,

is the one of the three people

who are not on the subcommittee.

I am nowhere near prepared to say that we should

include HOAs in private road adoption

until you have been able to address

how we deal with the imbalance of assessments

can adjust with inflation, property tax cannot.

So do I want to say they are not part

of the subcommittees charter?

No, they absolutely should be part

of the subcommittees charter.

First, you have to answer the question about if we can.

Is there a solution out there

that works to include the HOAs?

Well, I guess my feeling is we would never know that

if we arbitrarily exclude them right now.

But do you expect?

Yes.

I mean, I understand your concerns,

which I think come back primarily to cost, ultimately,

but we all know that.

We all know that however this gets approached

and even the people that live on private roads

in this community, no matter how strongly they feel

one way or the other about various topics,

all recognize that at the end of the day,

it comes down to how could this be structured cost-wise?

And there are a lot of questions around that.

But I guess in my mind, I don't want at this point

to say because you're part of an HOA,

it means that you can't be, again,

Because I guess my sense of the goal originally

was to find ways to keep this,

to find ways to bring this issue together

more than letting it continue

to be a very divisive, painful issue in the community.

And to me, if you're right again,

not allowing HOAs to be considered,

then that's again, just being divisive

rather than finding ways to find solutions.

even though I'm not disagreeing with you

that there may be financial issues

that may or may not be able to be overcome in the future.

Go ahead.

The actual language says that HOA's

are not eligible for acceptance by the city.

So it says under-

You are not hearing my feedback.

So I wanna try this one more time.

As long as you're trying to redraft that law,

I am not going to agree.

We're not ready.

As long as you're telling me,

because like Darlene on my right is saying

the infrastructure subcommittee

would like to keep working on potential solutions.

I am on board with that.

Then you're saying, well 5918 says that HOAs are excluded.

5918 is a path to adoption.

I'm not ready to put HOAs in the path to adoption, until we can solve the big fiscal imbalance

question.

So I want, I would like to see the subcommittee keep working on HOA inclusion, if there is

a way to do it, but every time you point to 5918, I'm going to say no, because that is

the, that was actually something saying, if you do these things, the city can adopt your road.

That's not what it's, it says you're not going to be considered unless you do all these things.

It's, it's disingenuous to say, oh, you could do all these things, but then we're not going to

consider you because we can't afford you. And you knew all along, we could never afford you. I mean,

that it just, if it's not possible for HOAs, then it's not possible.

I mean, I don't think that considering finances

when you're looking at adoption is disingenuous.

I think everyone knows we have to be looking at that as well.

So I don't, I'm not trying to, I hear what you're saying.

I just think that to me, what is before us, right?

What we're looking at is something very specific

and the issue of whether there will be what,

when and how there will be a financial,

there will be funding basically to adopt any,

any private road in any homeowners association

or all of them or one of them

or is a very fact specific inquiry that will happen

at the time and may frankly happen way down the road

because there isn't funding for it to happen now.

So I am not trying to be, say that we do this

and then, oh, well, we've already done it

so everyone gets accepted, right?

That is, no, that, I mean, I guess I'm trying to be

really clear about the understanding of what it means

to rewrite the criteria in here, right?

And that the expectations should not be,

and I think that those that have been attending

subcommittee meetings get that

because there's been a lot of talk about

we keep, one question that keeps coming up

in the subcommittee frankly is,

well, what's the next step?

How does this get happen?

How does it get happen?

And we keep having to say,

we're not there yet, right?

We're not there yet in terms of refiguring out the funding.

What we're trying to do is keep moving forward

towards problem solving,

recognizing that this is a really big problem

that may take, frankly, I personally think years to solve.

And that doesn't mean that the infrastructure subcommittee

will exist for staff purposes.

I'm not suggesting that that needs to exist

for years and years.

But I think that the council will continue to,

be revisiting this issue for years in terms of,

especially when you get to funding.

So I'm not, but if this exclusion was maintained,

the way I view it, and maybe I'm misreading it,

but the way I view it is,

if this exclusion were maintained,

then no matter what the circumstances,

no road in any homeowners association,

no residents living on a privately maintained road

in any homeowners association could ever seek adoption.

And that to me is different from everyone gets it.

The same thing back and forth.

And everybody in the audience is

thrashing in their chairs.

So we can move forward with saying,

I'm gonna rephrase it the way Vice Mayor G said it,

which is we are not going to say that HOA's are

categorically cannot be considered off the table.

I thought HOA's were in the charter of the subcommittee

from the beginning and should be.

And for that purpose, I would like to invite

Council Member Hoxie back in the conversation.

But every time you point to that law and you say

change this sentence, I am going to say no.

What I would like is for the subcommittee

to come back with an actual program that says,

here's, I mean, yes, this law basically says

you can't be accepted as a public road

unless you do all these things

and you need to be darn near perfect.

And I agree that that law as our one and only way to work

didn't work, but what I expected from the subcommittee

was something that doesn't worry too much

about what that existing law says,

but says, here's a program, here's a solution.

And I'm not hearing a solution.

What I'm hearing is wordsmithing the existing law.

So I do want to get Council Member Hoxley back.

Can I ask you a question?

I think that, and again, I don't want to be overly presumptive,

but I think certainly a lot of members of the community

feel that ultimately, if we can come up

with anything that is better than what we have today,

that 5918 would have to either be revised or replaced

or one of the two.

That it, we probably can't come up with solutions

and then still have 5918 be exactly the way it is.

I guess my, and so it's a question to you.

Of course, of course, of course.

I think we wouldn't have formed a subcommittee

if we were trying to just redline 5918.

I think the idea was we need fundamentally new programs

and approaches and it might be a grant program,

it might be a maintenance contract,

it might be a way that we work with any HOA

or private road for something that changes the criteria

to things that are PCI based

and where we help people form assessments when,

because the whole thing about neighbors

having to collect from their neighbors,

I mean, the existing system affirmatively doesn't work

and I'm excited to see things move forward,

but yeah, I just think that the excessive focus on 5918

is not constructive.

And I know staff wants to spend their time

as well as possible.

And so I would focus on more of the big picture solutions

before we worry about what this bullet point says

or that bullet point says.

The reason this is before the full council right now

is we didn't want to ask staff to spend time and effort

into redrafting something

that was then totally out of whack

with the policy desires of the full council, right?

Because it's a lot of work and it's tricky

and evidenced by the conversation we're having, right?

It's a tricky thing to redraft.

So we didn't want them staff to spend time redrafting

until we got, this was one of these things

where we looked at it and said,

okay, some of this framework looks good.

This looks good to us, right?

but let's bring our colleagues in before staff spends time

putting, so I'm not trying to wordsmith something,

I'm just trying to tell you that on that point,

that's what I think it addresses.

I went back and looked on the other point

and the removal of zoning and subdivision standards

for adjacent properties,

that also that bullet point appears to me

to address a very specific clause in the current

a 5918, and frankly, I made a note

that when it goes back to the Infrastructure Committee

we better understand that better.

So that was a helpful feedback.

So that's the idea.

And I think in many respects, Madam Mayor,

we're putting you in a really difficult position.

I mean, some of this may have to be re-discussed

when we have Council Member Riley with us.

Right, true.

And to whatever extent Council Member Hoxie can participate,

I think that's important as well

because obviously we sort of have a tough situation

councilmember Makhani and I have sat through a whole lot that you haven't had the benefit of and our other two council members haven't either so I think it's probably important that we get this is a this is a really word dynamic and it's it's really suboptimal so I will say though please and I'm I'm only one person but there are only three of us that aren't on the subcommittee do not redraft 59 18 until you have some

something that works figured out. Start with the solution and then redraft the law. You're

truly putting the card for the horse.

When you say until you have something figured out, what do you mean?

Come to us and say, here's what was broken and here's how we're going to fix it. We think

that the, you know, so you come to us with a presentation that says, here were the constraints

on getting roads adopted.

The technical standards were too high.

The city was so concerned about liability

that they made impossible standards to pass.

Neighbors had too hard a time.

Some neighborhoods were well-organized.

Some were poorly organized.

Neighbors had a horrible time with the legalities

of forming assessment districts.

And neighborhoods had a horrible time

with knowing what to do to fix their roads.

So if you were to come and say,

here's how we're going to deal with neighborhood assessments and organization and sort of the

legal aspects and here's how we're going to deal with neighborhoods knowing what they need to do

to get their roads up to an adoptable standard and here's what we think an adoptable standard

looks like and here's what we're going to do about the fact that some roads are maybe have soil

erosion issues that are really not good for city liability but are also not good for homeowner

liability. What do we do with things that have engineering flaws or problems?

Here's what we think we should do about HOAs and the adoption criteria when an

HOA is involved. There's a couple things that we have talked about for years now

that are the known kind of the big boulders of the issue. And so before

we're talking about what the bullet point says about subdivision compliance,

it's like, well, what's the solution?

So that particular bullet,

I always have a note to go back onto,

but with everything else,

I thought we were coming with that.

So I guess, anyway, what's the best way for us to move forward?

Cause you're right, it's not fair to have the conversation

also, I think with the-

It's like you came with a legal solution

to a business problem.

And I want to hear the business solution

before we worry about how we're gonna draft it.

but I would like to invite Council Member Hoxie

to be able to share her thoughts and opinions

because Lord knows she's gonna have some as well.

And I do think-

So what are we, so we're just putting,

I think we've discussed it as much as we could.

Can we discuss the rest without that clause?

So the way the FPPC segmentation rule works,

which is the one we're operating on right now,

an issue has to be segregable

discussion, as much as there

is one tonight, has to be

reached and then cannot return

to this discussion once

Councilmember Hoxie comes back.

Hearing the discussion, and

please correct me if I'm

wrong, I'm hearing consensus

that a property's membership

in a nature way or non-

membership in a nature way is

that the city of New York has a

can be invited back. That's my understanding as well. Okay great. So I think we've reached a

final decision. And I'm sorry this is so hard it just it's a hard issue. Thank you. Okay so

Councilmember Hoxie I texted her to return. Is she back? Okay hello everyone. Hello. Hello so we've

been I've been monologuing I know that surprises you. So we would love for you to kind of share

Thank you. Thank you. Um,

after your questions, your

thoughts, your concerns, and

I'll have the subcommittee

respond with you similarly.

Thank you. One of the

questions I've been thinking

about is sort of how assuming

the city can't afford to take

all private roads in at once.

Is there going to be some sort

of prioritization of what

types of private roads for

could be an evacuation route or. Um roads that are already in great shape. I mean, is there any sort of.

Prioritization as part of this framework. I think not yet. I mean, it's not an issue that's been talked about yet. Council member Hoxie. I mean, it's certainly I would certainly say it.

Would easily be on the table in the sense that.

When you weren't with us, Council member maul Connie explained.

And I do agree with that.

I think that that's a good point.

I think this is envisioned.

Maybe not by everybody and certainly by not every member of our public,

but I think there's a recognition.

That this might be a pretty lengthy process.

Absolutely.

Something that's going to happen overnight.

It's not like we're going to take it.

I agree with that.

Yeah.

significant period of time, it makes sense

that you would ultimately probably end up with,

what do you do first, second, third?

Right, I mean, there's some roads that I know of

that are clearly more problematic than others.

For instance, I think up near the top of El Twine L,

there's a private road that's actually a through road

that could be an evacuation,

that really you can't pass through

without a four-wheel drive vehicle at this point,

because it's in such bad repair.

At some point we have to decide,

that the sort of thing the city wants to help those homeowners deal with because they obviously

seem incapable of doing it on their own because they haven't for all these years. And then

one of the issues that I have faced on my own road is just, particularly vis-a-vis storm drains,

how difficult it is to actually get a contractor to respond to a private homeowner. And so one of

everyone. Yeah, So one of the

things that I think the city

could do to help in the interim.

Would be to just help. You

know, willing groups of

homeowners access the

contractors who can do the kind

of work they may need to get

done. Because some of these

contractors are used to having

big city contracts, and they're

not used to dealing with small

homeowner groups. One thing

Council Member Hoxie. And

brought up a lot by residents.

Council Member Hoxie is what

you're talking about exactly,

which is that folks have said

some that yes, it is very

frustrating for a group of

homeowners to try to figure out

how they're supposed to, you

know, basically so, you know,

like the city. Yeah. Fix, I'm

I think the pavement is the easier aspect of it.

It's the storm drains because they're under the roads

generally or next to them.

They're harder.

When they back up, it's usually a crisis, right?

Because someone's house is getting flooded.

Water flows downhill.

So the water going through those drains

isn't coming from necessarily your road.

It may be coming from the public road above you, right?

So I think those are some of the more difficult issues

to deal with.

And they tend to require being dealt with

very timely fashion or you're going to have some real damage. So I would like to see if we could

include something to address those kinds of issues as an interim step, maybe. Just a thought.

So the things that have been discussed are the need for technical assistance,

the need for technical assistance in terms of, you know, helping to find contractors in terms

of forming assessment districts and the exact scenario that you just mentioned in terms of,

you know, dealing with all the drainage issues including the scenario just mentioned have been

good. Okay. Well, I'm sorry. So you're saying it's resonating,

including with our audience. Good. I'm glad we're discussing this and I'm

there's going to be people

I'm happy to see work at least

addressing these issues with a

willingness to help homeowners

because I think that's what's

been missing.

So I'm very appreciative of the

work the infrastructure

committee has done and the

direction we're going,

understanding that it's a long

process, it's not like we're

going to deal with issues all

with that. So we're going to

come up with more specific

solutions, additional financial

analysis, the impact of any

changes and really put a lot of

staff effort and time into

coming up with solutions. Like

a range of solutions, not

simply a change of an ordinance

or resolution, but more broad

the council's consideration. I

think we just wanted to check in before we spend a significant amount of staff time, which is what

I think this next phase is going to entail and make sure we weren't completely off track. The work plan

says things like explore ideas, discuss and develop options. And it sounds like what the council would

something to ask. I think what

the council would like to see

is some financial. Coupling of

what those solutions could be

and what sort of impact they

could potentially have on our

general fund or any funding

that we have available long

term, right? And then staff can

also present back to

infrastructure committee and

back to the council. The

We're pretty small if you haven't less than 40 employees and to do something that's fairly

significant would be a lift, right?

We could talk about all of those things, but we didn't want to engage too far down that

pathway.

We had just gotten through all the data collection, basically, right?

Data collection, questionnaires, PCIs, we're doing the mapping of the storm drains.

We're doing all these things.

we've got most of the data now.

And so now it's like, well, what do we do with all this?

We need to come back and check in and say,

59, 18 has been mentioned as an impediment.

So how do we clear that hurdle,

but tell us all the other things that are out there

that other communities are doing.

So that's where we're at,

but it sounds like the council is okay

with Infrastructure Committee

really diving into program development at this point,

with financial implications

what those could be. And just again, I hope everybody chimes in with their reactions.

Definitely agree. You know, I would just reiterate hearing you talk about all the

work that's been done. That initial scope, I mean, when we started everything that the committee has

already done, that was like the first 10 bytes of the elephant, right? It was a huge undertaking

because we didn't even have the most basic data. And so people would talk about the private roads

issues with these growth generalizations.

And so, believe it or not,

that was not just gathering the data to get started,

that was in and of itself accomplishing

some really significant, meaningful tasks.

So I actually wanted to just take a moment

to put a big interview in the column

for everything that that committee has already achieved

because the committee could have stopped right there

and that still would have been a tremendous accomplishment.

I think what I'm hearing you say is it's actually time

to go back to the scope of work now that we've done 80%

of phase one and figure out what the definition

of phase two looks like, right?

What is the appropriate scope of work and come back

and maybe get some buy-in on that?

And just when you mentioned financial analysis,

what I don't wanna do is have everybody waste

a bunch of time quantifying, you know,

financial analysis for its own sake.

would actually, my hope is that the whoever and it's probably Doug or

someone on his team could look at the HOA kind of structural finance problem

and really start with some of the things that Vice Mayor G said about what

proportion of all of the ways you fund road projects is property tax versus the

other soup of funding sources. How big is the problem really and are there you

that that's the approach I'd

like to take. I would look at

it not as just numbers for the

sake of numbers, but really

with an eye to how could we get

past that obstacle that has

always stopped us in the past?

Again, just speaking of my own

reactions to your feedback.

what the city manager said.

So I don't know if you have

the approach you'd like to take.

How is that different from sort

of what the city manager

described earlier?

Is it just more?

Just more detail.

Right.

I mean, I do think that.

Yeah, I'm.

have things continue to come back so that we also don't go down a rabbit hole of a really

intensive staff analysis where we without making sure we have consensus because I don't

want to waste. We don't have a lot of staff. Staff time is precious and I don't want to

to waste any of it. So I and realistically, I think there's, there probably needs, I mean,

depending on, I mean, there's all kinds of ways we can approach it. But at some point,

quite honestly, part of it probably requires additional outside resources. There probably

is a short term fiscal component as well. Because to be able to answer a lot of questions

that both the council and the community wants to have some meat on the bones is going to

probably take more than what we can do in house, I would assume.

Yeah.

So if there's consensus that we would be going back and expending more resources, including

maybe consultant resources to flesh out opportunities for program development, we could do that.

I'll work with the staff, and probably won't be ready

for your next infrastructure committee,

but we can have additional discussion at the next meeting,

which I think is on the 19th.

I might be getting that wrong, but it's coming on this month.

I think it's the 16th as our next meeting.

16, you're right.

So it's only in two weeks, so we'll work towards

putting something on that agenda,

where we can continue this conversation

and the outcomes of this meeting

to frame up what program development looks like for.

Maybe we can discuss if there's an efficient way

to approach program development.

Yeah, that's right.

That might be a good topic for us, maybe, yeah.

Thank you, Council Member Hocksey.

Did you have any final thoughts?

I know we didn't get to involve you

as much as we would have liked.

No, thank you, Mayor.

I'm very happy that we're moving down this road.

I think everyone is thinking about it

in a very rational, systematic, thoughtful way.

And so I'm happy with the work we've done.

I agree with your comments about just the mapping

and the, you know, understanding the condition of the roads

and the situation we currently have right now is helpful.

And I'm hopeful that we can come up

with some creative solutions

that will address some of these issues going forward.

Thank you.

And just one final thank you

to our infrastructure subcommittee and to staff.

This has already been a huge, huge effort of time,

but I actually think you're doing something

very important for the city and I just,

these are tough conversations,

but really, really thank you both.

Well, to that end, credit really goes to staff, I think.

I mean, and to our residents for continuing to show up

again and again and talking with us.

And with that, just, it's getting late,

so I'm gonna move this along to item H.

Mayor.

Yes.

I'm sorry to interrupt,

but unfortunately I'm going to need to sign off now.

I'm hoping, given the lateness of the evening

that we could postpone item H4 until our next meeting.

And we also have item H3 we haven't gone to yet either.

Yeah, but she was just asking you if H4 because I believe.

It was my item, you know.

If we were to reorder H4, do you need to go kind of right now?

I really kind of need to go.

It's fine.

I haven't had dinner and it's just about eight o'clock here

I don't know. I don't know.

When the natives are getting

hungry, Um, I would be happy to

defer item H four city manager.

Do you have any concerns about

that? I don't I'll make a

motion. Do I have a second?

I'll second. Okay. Um okay.

Great. And if we can please get

a roll call vote, do we want to

make that to a date certain? I

can bring it back at the next

City Manager. I'm sorry to miss

the conversation on the housing

law study session, but I will

catch up with the city manager

and I'm sure this is a first

conversation, not last. So

we'll have more opportunities

to discuss it together. And

it's posted on YouTube. If

you've got the time and

availability, always, you can

always catch up. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry to bug off.

Okay. Bye bye. We will turn now to item H3, a study session on Senate Bill 1123.

I was going to say, Madam Mayor, before we do that, given the hour, should we just go

ahead and extend the meeting? Yes, City Manager, how long do you...

Boy, this is going to be a test for Darren Hughes to get under a 10-minute presentation.

I thought you started to just say no.

I almost wanted to.

Under 10 minutes, Darren.

OK.

I will do my best.

How long should we extend the meeting time to?

10.30?

10.30.

I'll propose we extend the meeting time to 10.30.

Can I just ask one question?

It is efficient for us to have this study session

with three council members.

I know it's recorded so the other council members

can watch it.

I am looking forward to it and I'm excited for it.

But I do want to, it's an important piece. So I guess I'm sort of asking,

I don't think there's anything time, is there anything time sensitive with this presentation?

Not particularly time sensitive. We are looking for two points of direction.

I do believe staff has a recommendation on one of those points and the other point could

probably be deferred if necessary. I guess I'm a little bit torn because I feel like it's more

more of a unilateral, like I actually felt the matter,

the last matter that was more us getting consensus

was less conducive.

This is more educational.

So if we think the other council members would watch it

on YouTube, we could probably proceed pretty well,

but if there are any concerns, I would agree

it's not time sensitive.

Well, I'm also asking, is it unilateral

or are we giving feedback?

because that's what makes me, I didn't know that.

Sometimes in a study session, we give feedback.

Sometimes in a study session,

we're just getting information.

So I agree with you if it's simply,

it's a state law, receptacle.

Yes, staff is asking for direction on two items tonight.

So this is a study session to kind of present this new law

and provide a little bit of the context

around some other housing laws

that interact with this law.

So we are looking ultimately to draft an ordinance

that we would bring back to the planning commission

and city council, and we would take direction

from tonight in order to do so.

So if the council with a body of three tonight

is uncomfortable in providing direction

on behalf of the entire city council on an ordinance,

I mean, certainly we wouldn't want to bring back an ordinance

and have more discussion and more debate later

about whether or not we should have been drafting

I am sorry. G? Aye.

Aye.

All right. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you very much, City Council and members of

the public. This is on Senate Bill 1123, a new law that went into effect as of July 1st

of 2025, or rather an amendment to an existing law, the starter home revitalization act.

Tonight, we're primarily bringing this forward to provide a little bit of context to talk

about some other laws that can give us some sense of what this law might end up looking

like in Arenda.

And also those laws interact with two points for discretion that we are asking for guidance

from the City Council.

So these two particular points are whether ADU's accessory dwelling units and junior

accessory dwelling units would be permitted on newly created small lots in relation to

this particular law, and whether a subsequent SB 9 lots may occur on these parcels. So I'll

get into the details of what all of that is next. I'm going to start with some context

on the ADU law and on SB 9 law. So ADU law, these junior accessory dwelling units, this

something that's always been around in a window we've had a an ordinance for second units that

required discretionary review. But in 2017 state law basically took away a lot of that discretion

and said that and required that jurisdictions process these units with a ministerial review

process. So no public hearing, no public notice. This is something that we can process over the

counter. In 2020 there were some statutory updates that actually enabled a little bit more of a

widespread application of this law and reduced a lot of the barriers. So it's really 2020 onward

that Orinda started seeing an uptick in accessory dwelling units and these accessory dwelling units

can be up to a thousand square feet. They can be attached, they can be detached, there are a

couple of different types of configurations and designations but really this law has allowed a

lot of flexibility for private homeowners in Orinda. One of the biggest reasons that people

come forward under this law is for being able to house various generations of their family

to age in place to have children move back into their childhood homes. So what we've seen in the

last six years of processing ADUs is an uptick in approvals. We've seen a total of 140 ADUs

and 9 junior accessory dwelling units that were approved throughout Orinda. That doesn't mean

that all of these will be built. Some of them kind of drop off in the process. Currently,

in that same time frame, we've seen 74 units be applied to the building department and get

approved and finalized and now people are ostensibly living there. So, a slightly different

law that also requires ministerial review rather than design review is SB 9. This went

into effect on January 1st, 2022. This is something that basically has two arms. One

of these is ministerial processing of new single family residences and the other is

ministerial processing of lot splits as single family zoned laws. So these are urban housing

developments for the units, urban lot splits for the lot

splits.

So this has the major impact in Orinda

is that this law has generally supplanted

the need for design review for a lot of new units in Orinda.

So typically in the past, people would come forward

under a design review process.

There would be a public notice.

They'd go to Planning Commission.

But with this law, allowing for up to two units

on an existing single-family residential lot.

Most people who have a new home to propose,

whether that's on a vacant lot,

or maybe it's an additional home on an existing,

or a lot with an existing home,

will instead of going through design review,

just make sure that they're meeting

all of the objective standards

and come in under this law,

which doesn't require any form of noticing.

So one aspect of this law,

While most of the discretion is in the state's hands,

the community had discretion over one particular aspect,

which is whether or not or how we allow ADUs

on these types of lots.

The lot splits, these ministerial lot splits

that allow a resident who has to be living on the premises.

If they do a lot split,

then the city has codified a limitation

on the number of units that can be

approved for each resulting lot.

So that maximum is two units per lot.

And that's just to prevent someone

from being able to do a lot split and then subsequently

have two primary units through SB 9 approval on both sides,

two on one, two on one, and then additionally get ADUs.

So this is going to come into play.

this is just context for what we're going to be asking for

with ADUs in this new law that we're looking at.

So this one hasn't seen as much proliferation in Arinda,

just because of the scope

and some of the limitations that are involved.

We've seen 18 entitled units in the past four years

of this law being active.

There are three in the process.

And then for lot splits,

there have been seven completed lot splits

and four are currently active.

Some of those lot splits are actually

between existing units.

So someone had a second unit on a parcel.

They were able to, as the homeowner who lived on site,

divide between them and sell off the other unit.

So it wasn't necessarily for producing more units.

It was just to give them some flexibility

to get rid of that second unit.

And then seven of the units that we've seen,

or seven of the 18 entitlements that we've seen

have had ADUs in association with the SB9 units.

So they came forward with a new home

and either a detached or an attached ADU

associated with that.

Most cases, I think in very few cases,

we've seen people push this to get three or four units,

but there is some possibility for that.

It's just, we don't see people normally

take advantage of this.

So this is just a brief overview of how ADU

And SB9 law works where you can start with a vacant lot

and get up to four units in various configurations

and maybe do a lot split and have two on one side,

two on another side,

or have up to four units on something

that doesn't even require a lot split.

But those configurations and maximizing the potential

with these is not something that we normally see.

Usually this is flexibility for just getting a new home

through without having to go through design or view.

So that brings us to, that's a little bit of context

background before we get into the starter home revitalization act. So this law requires

ministerial approval and there's a shot clock of 60 days for us to, once we deem an application to

be complete, we have 60 days as staff to approve or disapprove of an application. And they can use

this, there are two arms kind of like with SB 9. One is subdivision, so up to 10 parcels and the

other is development of up to 10 residential units. That doesn't have to be one for one.

You can subdivide into two parcels and put five on each of them. There's nothing in the

law that excludes that kind of configuration from going forward. So this is made up of

the original version of this law was SB 684. It didn't have a whole lot of impact in Orinda

because it was specific to multifamily, but 1123, the one that we primarily focus on here,

expanded eligibility to vacant single-family zone lots, and then subsequently AB 130 also allowed

a developer to designate a remainder parcel. So I'll get into that in one second in terms of what

that specifically means. So there are a couple of eligibility criteria. I think the primary ones

that I want to look at here, or to draw your attention to is maximum size so the parcel can't

be more than 1.5 acres. So anything that's greater than that in size generally isn't eligible if it's

a vacant lot. Vacancy, this is not as straightforward as it would seem because of that designated

remainder aspect. Vacancy can mean a vacant lot that is less than that is no more than 1.5 acres

of which we have quite a few in Aurinda, but it can also, because of the designated remainder,

be a portion of a lot that is deemed as excess land by someone who owns that particular lot.

So if there is a house in Aurinda and there is enough space, they could say, okay,

we're going to take that existing home and some land surrounding it and say that's the

designated remainder. And then the other portion, as long as that is less than 1.5 acres, is what

can go through this act, can be subdivided and developed through this act. And that designated

remainder, the existing home, the existing use, does not actually have to, does not count against

the 10 total units or the 10 total lots. The only point with that is that we do have to,

that designated remainder would have to meet all the subdivision standards that we do have on the

POCS because it's not protected by state law. So it still has some limitations, but this designated

remainder basically means that someone with a developed parcel could subdivide a portion of

theirs in accordance to this law. And then the last thing that I want to point to here is fire

safety. I think I have a graphic next. Yes, so the wildfire hazard, sorry, the fire hazard severity

zones in Orinda, you can see this red on this one side on the right hand side, that's all very high

fire hazard severity zone. This law prohibits this law, this sort of subdivision and development

within that zone. So that immediately eliminates in present day a whole bunch of vacant lots and a

whole bunch of lots that would otherwise be eligible. So over here on the left side we've

got the vacant housing element sites. This is just stuff that we these are the sites that we pulled

from the housing element to show whether or not they were 1.5 acres or smaller or greater. But

that whole everything that's on the west side of Orinda, basically, and then the very north

of Orinda would not be eligible right now. This could fluctuate because these zones may change

at some point in the future, but for the next few years at least, we would expect that only

parcels in this gray area and the gray and the yellow and orange areas would actually be

eligible. So for vacant lots that are listed within the housing element that reduces us to

50 parcels that seem like they could ostensibly qualify from the outset. But that still means

that anything that is not a vacant parcel if they had enough space they could in theory go through

this law. I'm going to ask you to go a little quicker. I'll speed it up right now. A couple

of requirements, parcels have to, we have to allow parcels as small as 1200 square feet.

The average habitables floor space across all of the units that are proposed can't exceed 1750,

1750 square feet because these are supposed to be smaller homes. We can't impose standards on

floor area ratios that are less than 1 or 1.25 which means that we do have to allow quite a bit

of the lot to be developed. There are side yard setbacks that are drastically reduced

from setbacks that we have in our own standards. There's no setbacks required between new units

and we can't require more than one off-street parking space. We can, however, require adherence

to all objective standards. That's the standards that we find in our zoning code and standards

that we're looking forward to with the current draft version of the city-wide objective design

standards. And we can't, but we can't employ those standards. We can't enforce those standards

where they would preclude development in accordance with the act. So one example might be height.

We have this requirement to allow a certain floor area ratio. If someone subdivided in such a manner

that's the lots were quite small and they needed to build up in order to meet that minimum floor

area that we have to require, we have to allow, then there might be a cause for exceeding the

height standards in that particular instance. I'm just going to, this is looking, this is a

brief look at our objective design standards that are in draft format and the types of housing

that these pertain to. So right now we are looking at, because I cited as an example that

that you could have in theory five units or nine units on one particular lot.

We do have standards in the objective design standards that look at this and

that provides some additional regulations. Um,

and this is something that staff is looking at a little bit more closely now and

making sure that everything in SB or in SB 1123 is accounted for as well as we

can through these objective design standards. Um,

density requirements if it's in the housing element. So if it's a vacant site,

they just have to develop at least as many units

as it says in our housing element.

Most of the time, that's one to two units.

So as long as they produce that many units,

they could go through this.

If it's not in the housing element site,

for instance, if it's on a designated remainder parcel,

the math works out that they need 13.2 units per acre,

which means that the average unit needs to,

or each unit has to have an average of 3,300 square feet

associated with it at the maximum.

So somewhere between 1,200 square feet, or 3,300 square feet.

So we're assuming that this is not

going to take off in quite the same with the same exuberance

as ADU law.

It's not as accessible for homeowners,

but it might be a little bit more attractive to developers.

But one of the big things here is

that the topography of undeveloped space

in Arinda, the terrain, the slopes,

tend to make this a little bit to increase

the limitations for site access and make this a higher barrier to entry. So what we're looking

for from the City Council, two points. One is how should we allow ADUs because state

gives us the discretion to say yes or no to ADUs on these parcels. And we could do this

a number of ways. So we've offered a couple of policy options that we could consider that

range from just prohibiting them outright to permitting them

completely.

And then in the middle, we could consider size restrictions.

So if there is a minimum lot size,

then perhaps they could build an ADU on it.

And unit caps, we could also potentially say,

as long as your subdivision doesn't exceed 10 total units,

some number of those can be ADUs.

So there are a myriad of policy options here

that could be considered.

And then subsequent SB 9 lot splits,

state does give us discretion over whether or not

we can allow lot splits in accordance with SB 9

on lots that were subdivided in accordance with the start

at home revitalization act.

Staff's recommendation on this particular point

is to not allow this to happen and create

this rabbit hole of increasingly smaller lots

that would be allowed. Next steps, based on tonight's feedback, we would anticipate drafting

ordinance and come back to the planning commission and the city council with an ordinance that

meets your direction. And with that, I will hand it over for questions. Apologies.

Darren, can you put up the one through four on the screen? So that's there for their discussion.

And we do have a speaker card. So we'll do questions for staff and then we'll do some

public comment, we'll bring it back for any direction.

Any questions?

Start with Vice Mayor.

My problem is I have so many questions.

I find this extraordinarily challenging

and very challenging to understand.

So I'll try to think of all of them

that I have real quickly, Darren.

One, does the objective design standards,

are we allowed to do objective design standards

that would allow how these units could be laid out

on the subdivided lot?

Yes, this does allow for subdivision standards

and actually within the objective design standards

and their draft format right now,

there is a section on small lot subdivision.

So it is something that we are looking at

to make sure it kind of captures

as many possible scenarios.

We do have to look at that a little bit more closely

in order to figure out exactly how this law interacts

with our proposed standards as they sit right now.

And then how does it fit in the realm of infrastructure?

Such things as water lines, gas lines, egress.

It just seems, maybe I'm the only one,

but this seems mind boggling to me,

the idea that you would create this tiny little village on

one and a half acres potentially,

And then I'm assuming if, let's say,

I can see a difference if it's a totally vacant lot

to start with versus it has a home on it

that's going to turn into this remainder piece.

I assume that the remainder piece, if there's a home there,

doesn't count as part of the total square footage.

Correct.

And then truly out of all these units,

They can't exceed 1750 square feet.

So they really are like these teeny tiny little cottages.

They can't exceed 1750 square feet on average.

So someone could put.

Total or each one?

Each one, each one.

So you would take the total square footage between all of them,

divide them by however many units are being proposed.

So as an example, if someone were proposing 10 units,

the total square footage between all of them

would be 17,500 square feet.

So if some units are small and some units are large,

there's nothing in the law that prevents that.

They just can't exceed that average size.

Sorry, can you repeat that?

I don't think I understood what you said.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think I'm still confused.

I'm sorry.

There's an average size requirement in the law

because the aim is to get these smaller units,

but every individual unit, for instance,

could be proposed at 1,750 square feet.

So you could propose 10 units

that are all 1,750 square feet.

You could also propose five units that are 2,000 square feet

as long as five other units were 1,500 square feet

because you're meeting that average.

So there's some discretion from the developer

in that instance as to-

What was the 1,200 square feet?

That was-

1,200 square feet is the minimum-

Minimum.

Lot size that we have to allow.

And so then can these potential units that are allowed,

Can they be various configurations?

I assume they could be a whole collection

of little tiny cottage type things.

Can they be like one can be a townhome in this corner

and something else over here?

It sounds very complicated.

There's nothing really that seems to preclude

that type of configuration.

The example that I was giving

when I was thinking about this

was you could subdivide into two lots.

one just be a large single family residence,

4,000 square feet, and the other one might just be

nine townhomes that are all around 1,000 square feet

stacked together.

We may have some discretion in our objective design

standards to take a little bit more of a regular approach,

but it will be difficult to codify every possible example

someone could come forward with.

So it's just something that we're going to have to spend

we're currently having some

time focusing on with this new

lens of SB 1123 in our objective

design standards that we're

currently drafting.

Okay. I'll let.

In general, I don't know if you

know this, but with the current

ADUs, do we have any sense of

how many are occupied, like as

living quarters versus offices

or she sheds or, you know, we

of we do have the ability sometimes to at least see when someone is using this

more to get around square footages or to provide that really neat guest house

next to a pool so but we don't have very explicit numbers on what which AADUs

are occupied by family members which are being rented out there's there's

nothing within the planning department that requires follow-up on that

particular aspect. Remind me ADUs and what is it what is the definition of a

JADU as opposed to an ADU? A junior accessory dwelling unit is more of a

flexible space it's it's more of an efficiency unit usually and it has to be

carved out of existing space so if I come forward and I say I want to turn my

garage into this habitable space with a tiny little kitchen but it can share

are some facilities that can share the bathroom with the main home. It's just a smaller version,

a less intensive version of an ADU. But with a junior accessory dwelling unit, the homeowner

who goes through this does have to live onsite either in that unit or in the primary home.

It's meant for in-laws, parents.

can I ask another question? And you showed us a map of the high fire severity zones and you said

there was sort of identified I think 50 vacant parcels and you know there was a reference to

topography so it's sort of like how many of these you know and when you showed us the map even

And before you mentioned topography, I was thinking,

yeah, but this is Orinda.

We have so many, I mean,

how many of these vacant units could be even built out?

That's why I think that we're going to see this

as a slower uptick.

We have been speaking to some developers.

We have one application in progress right now

for one lot to be turned into four lots.

And we've had some interest in some other lots

in various configurations, but no official applications yet.

Some developers have made it clear

that there are a lot of barriers to this

because when you're talking about taking lots

that are that small,

particularly for the designated remainder issue,

that site access, finding ways to park these places,

all of those barriers become pretty significant

in Orinda's terrain.

So there may be some opportunities

for people to take advantage of this at smaller sizes,

scales that might be slightly closer to SB9,

which is not to say or guarantee

that no one will ever come forward

with a larger subdivision.

It's certainly a possibility,

but there are a lot of barriers right now to development

in the areas that just have remained undeveloped so far.

Okay.

I'm sorry, Mayor.

I can ask one more question and then I'll...

It's a little bit important.

And then I'll...

So, but theoretically then,

because I was thinking the remainder issue

might be the issue that is more of a,

resulted in development more than the vacant lots.

Because when I drive around Aranda

and I look at vacant lots,

a lot of them, I wouldn't want to put a house on

or anything on because of the topography,

but theoretically then is,

am I understanding this correctly?

that if if someone has a lot that is say two acres with a single family home on one area side of the

lot they could then keep their single family home and a you know half an acre take the other 1.5

acres and then build what on it like build an apartment looking place with 10 units in theory

Yes, but it wouldn't be because of the designated remainder and the minimum density requirements.

There's some squirrely math in there. If you do a designated remainder based off of the minimum

density requirements, it actually results in only being able to carve off about three-quarters of

an acre. You can't do that full acre now. You actually have to limit it even more to meet those

density requirements. But in theory, someone with a two-acre lot, as long as they are in a zone

in a zone that allows a minimum lot size and their slope, because we have these slope density requirements in Arenda. If they have a lot that is flat enough and has enough space and they can meet the requirements for their lot to their designated remainder parcel.

To meet all of the objective standards of our subdivision.

requirements. That other part, it's anyone's guess. I mean, they could use it to do something

similar to a smaller version of SB 9, but with a couple of additional units. They could

have a couple of family homes. They could have a couple of what might look like just

ADUs, or they could do a small apartment building if they were able to figure out all of the

logistics around that.

And then does the ownership have to all be one entity?

Right now these can't be sold as separate units.

So that's a part of the way the law works.

There's an interaction between the subdivision aspect and the development aspect.

If you subdivide and then don't develop, you actually can't sell off lots individually.

you would have to sell them as a whole.

And in theory, we would have restrictions

basically as part of the map that goes forward

and gets approved.

We would say, whoever buys that,

you are also subject to the development requirements

under SB 1123.

But as soon as they start developing the lots,

they're able to sell off developed lots.

So if someone comes in and turns one lot

into four lots through this law,

and they submit their development application

in accordance with the law that shows development

on four different lots.

They can start developing them one by one,

and as soon as they get them a certificate of occupancy,

they can sell that one off, sell the other one off,

sell the other one off.

So you can sell them separately

as long as they're developed in accordance with the law.

You can't just sell them off individually,

and then people can do whatever they want with them

before and after that.

Vice Mayor G had asked a question earlier about the water and sewer, the kind of things

that normally in a subdivision application you would get, that would get looked at. Where

in this process do all of those adequacies get looked at?

We require as part of a, as part of our submittal requirements, and this is similar to what

we require for vacant or for subdivisions under SB 9, we require will

serve letters from the appropriate entities so we expect that someone by

the time they are getting to us as a point of completion we want to see that

the lots that are going to be subdivided are not only being legally created but

are actually accessible. They can someone can do something with that lot. So that

That is the same logic that we applied to that we're going to be applying to this law.

Someone comes forward and they should already have in hand the will serve letters that says

they're going to be able to meet all of their requirements.

They also have to go to the fire district and get approval from them and make sure that

all of the fire access requirements are being met so that for the most part gets ironed

out during the planning portion. But they're finalizing all of that with the building department

at Contra Costa. I had one other question. Can we still require one parking spot per

residential unit under this law? Yes, as long as it's not within a half mile apart. I know

you're going to say that. We can require one spot. Our current code requires four spots for single

and it doesn't have to be

enclosed.

There are no family

residential parcels, too

enclosed, too unenclosed.

This law says you can only

require one spot and it does

not have to be enclosed.

Were there any other questions?

This policy decision that this

slide we're looking at, this

only implies to 1123 split

lots.

It doesn't.

You could that that is separate and apart from SP nine lot splits where you could they

could still split slots and include ideas. Correct. So so this would be just applicable

to subdivisions that occur under this act. SB nine is separate. We do allow a to use

as long as they don't exceed a total unit count. Okay. Well, well, maybe this will come

a little bit further, but I

would really like to hear from

you.

I think it will come out in

discussion so we could just

take, move on, but one thing

that I would be interested in

hearing is from like just very

brief pros and cons from one

through three here, but maybe

I'll wait and that will come

out in discussion and if not,

I'll ask for it, unless that's

of interest to anyone else.

Okay, sure.

So one through three pros and

straightforward and it also limits the ability to get many units on these particular lots.

The one con with this might be that we are not affording people who might buy these starting

homes some of the same opportunities that you would if you were buying a different home

in Orinda where you can later on decide that you want a junior accessory dwelling unit

or an accessory dwelling unit.

But it is probably procedurally one of the,

and administratively, one of the easiest to work with.

Size restrictions and unit caps, this

could be a little bit more.

This is something that we would have

to look at a little bit more closely in order

to figure out exactly how this would work.

But chances are this is going to,

this would be enacted through deed restrictions.

And it would require a little bit more administrative efforts

to try to figure out, OK, which parcels are allowed

have ADUs in the future, especially number three with the unit caps. Let's say you say we don't

ever want this subdivision to exceed 10 units. The original developer created four units. That means

in some way shape or form we can get another six there. Just keeping track of individual

applications in the future for planning staff might be a little bit more difficult.

fairly akin to how we look at older subdivisions now and try to dive into what rules apply to

specific subdivisions. Thank you. Before we take public comment, we are three minutes or four

minutes to our extended time. I would propose that we go ahead and do 15 more minutes. Hopefully,

we won't need that much, but I would propose to extend the meeting to 10 45. Second. All in favor?

I see the clerk. I assume that's okay since we no longer have a remote person. Oh, that's true. Okay. Great. With that, Darren, if you don't mind, I'm going to take I do have a speaker card for Nick Warnock. And if anybody else would like to speak, please come on up.

Thank you. I will be brief. I submitted a short written submission. I hope you have all looked at it. I disagree with the

prognostication that the law will be infrequently invoked

because there is a major loophole in the law

that applies to any vacant parcel,

but a developer or an owner could demolish his, her,

or their existing house and then you have a,

and there's no waiting time to demolish the house

and then invoke SB 1123.

And the part that I care about

is what I've always cared about before you,

which is safe emergency evacuation.

Because I can see a number of these developments

lining up along our evacuation routes

and adding a lot of units.

Fortunately, SB 1123 has a safety exception

that I quote in my email.

And since there'll be no public hearings

and no public notice, my ask tonight

is that you provide direction to staff

to have to do it on an application by application basis,

but that you provide direction to staff

to invoke the safety exception and deny 1123 applications

along or within a hundred feet of an evacuation route.

Because maybe it'll be unnecessary,

but I would hate to see one, two, three,

10 of these start mushrooming as people start moving out

because a 10-unit apartment is built next to them

and developers swoop in and start developing them.

Arinda is the most dangerous city in California

in terms of wildfire risk.

Your primary responsibility as council members

is public safety.

And I would urge you to act responsibly

and direct staff to invoke the safety exception

on applications along with 100 feet of an evacuation route.

Thank you.

Looks like we have at least one other public speaker.

Please come on up.

Thank you for waiting so long.

I know this was a long way to talk.

I know.

Nice to be able to address you City Council, thank you.

My name is Ann Argyrebrite.

And mostly I just want to agree with what Nick just said.

I feel very strongly about that.

that I know it's easy to forget and become complacent

about fire risk.

But our son who lives in LA, his house almost burned down.

The fire embers reached his backyard.

And the only reason this house survived

is they had people up all night putting out the embers.

So he almost lost his house.

So we have to remember that that could easily happen here.

And we really do count on the city council

to keep the residents safe.

And it really is concerning about building up density

in Orinda, which is already considered possibly,

I think the Chronicle said, the next Pacific Palisades.

So that's a big concern.

And the fact that these statewide laws call

for ministerial implementation is actually very frightening

for individual residents,

because it really means that we rely on stated

and published guidelines from you and from the city

that show that we will be safe

when these things are put into place

because we really have no recourse.

Nobody even has to tell us that it's going up next door.

So that, I just really agree with what Nick wrote

and what he's saying.

And I know I have a lot of people that last minute

couldn't come but would come.

So I know there's a lot of people that would agree

with this.

So that's my comment.

Thank you very much.

Is there anybody else from the public who would like to speak

on this matter before we bring it up?

Yeah, please come on up.

And please just state your name and three minutes.

Hi, Tom Sekle.

Tom Sekle, thanks for pulling this over time

and for an issue.

You know, when Darren was going through the explanation,

This is incredibly complex and I appreciate that.

When I put in the context of other communities

that have multi-unit housing, it makes perfect sense.

You know, if this were going into a community that already,

I get it, that's where, that's what the law was written for.

I don't think it applies to our community.

And I understand that's not a choice we have,

it's a state law, but that's where the interpretation

and what you all do as the city council,

I think comes into play because, you know,

the interpretation of an ADU versus a law school, you know,

it's ADU, I think by definition has to be a rental property.

So if this is intended to be for starter homes,

well, it's a starter home as a rental maybe,

but that's not really solving the issue.

And it seems so convoluted to me to try to shoehorn this

into a Rinda when it's probably makes sense

intended for areas that already have multi-unit housing. Thank you very much. If there are no

other questions or comments I think we will bring this up for discussion. Would anyone like to lead

us off? I'd like to ask City staff if the suggestion from Mr. Warnock and others

is allowed. Are we allowed to, these laws get so complicated as to what we're allowed to do and not

do. I mean I think it's a perfectly good suggestion. My question is are we allowed to do that?

Yeah, I had the same question about invoking the safety exception because that wasn't part of the

presentation. It's true that the language is in the law but it is also I think a case-by-case

determination, right? It's not sort of a blanket determination citywide. It would be looking at

at this particular application, can you make the findings that there would be these particular

safety problems? So if you'd like to direct staff to do some more work to look into exactly

how that might work, we can absolutely do that. But I don't recommend tonight, for example,

directing us that for all 1123 applications that come in, they should be denied based

on the safety that we could express to staff that we want staff to be prepared or to look

into it so that in the event that it's applicable to an application staff would recognize it

and be able to address it correct because it ends up being sort of a two-step process

where you have to have your objective standards prepared before the application comes in and

then you measure the application against your objective standards to determine whether you

can make the safety findings. So if you'd like to provide direction staff, we can work

on figuring out what's possible. Got it. I mean, I'm not I guess I was I would look

for sort of your you're putting these options before us and I appreciate going through the

pros and cons. I didn't hear a clear sort of staff recommendation. I can tell you looking

this for me for is out of the question because I don't I mean I would I'm sort

of leaning towards number one here but I'm I I would want to hear if there's a

staff recommendation or what my colleagues think as well that was my

other question I'm easily going with number one I think the whole thing is

just I mean it is just way out of proportion now we all understand what

the state wishes they could mandate on everyone, but I think this level of density in the size

lots you're talking about is just wildly inappropriate to our community, unless you're going to do

what Mr. Warnock said, and everybody's going to start tearing down existing homes, and

you're going to flatten everything so that you can start turning everything into essentially

apartment zones. I mean I just think it's beyond, you know, and I shudder to think how this is

would be potentially accepted by, you know, a neighborhood, you know, if it's a current

single-family neighborhood now and, you know, I mean it's one thing for people to be okay with

their neighbors adding ADUs or, you know, doing certain things that are going on in the community

that I think are pretty well accepted,

but the idea that you might all of a sudden end up with,

you know, living next door to somebody

building a 10 unit apartment complex is,

I mean, I'll be honest, it's just frightening

in terms of thinking what our community is,

you know, what the reaction is gonna be.

And I fully agree with the public safety issues.

I mean, you know, it's, we're lucky, I guess,

that so much of, I mean, we're lucky, we're not lucky, we're horribly unlucky that we're,

have such high fire risk. But, you know, if it's reducing some of, you know, what we're able to

do here, but, you know, quite frankly, I, I wish that this was a situation where our community

didn't have to accept this law at all over fire danger. So, so it's easy for me to just say no,

I mean, this, this would be an amount of density that I just find very objectionable.

even recognizing, you know, the housing needs of the state, but I would simply fall on the no, no more, no more than.

I'll just chime in because we're kind of a smaller group tonight. And it's funny because I had, I fell out of my chair when the ADU laws first came through, and then I fell out of my chair when SB 9 came through, and we were told there was no such thing as single family zoning in the state of California, and it was just horrific.

And I actually had brought this,

when I saw these in the objective design standards

and I was like, what are our standards

for small lot subdivisions?

Like what are these things?

And yeah, it can be a small apartment building.

It can be a condo subdivision, you know, two stories,

but still it could be townhomes.

It could be all sorts of stuff.

And so I'm really glad we're having this conversation

because it's not just new,

It's hard to even picture what these look like,

but SB 9A ADUs actually turned out to be fine in a render.

The way that people are doing most of their ADUs,

they're not renting them to strangers, right?

They're either using them as a way to expand their house

with ministerial permitting,

or they're using it for caregivers, in-laws,

boomerang children.

they've actually been used to create sort of family compounds and it's the addition of density

in the way that's appropriate to Orinda, that we're not seeing apartment towers

in our downtown. What we're seeing is people taking the abundance of land and really nice

neighborhoods and just adding some density and so the reality has actually been just fine and it was

those were both terrifying.

So when I heard 10 little tiny homes on a lot,

it just boggles the mind.

But the reason I would actually advocate for number three

is I suspect that the kind of product

we're actually going to see built

will be more like two homes with ADUs.

They might use the junior ADU as a feature in a home.

I sort of think as long as it's within the same 10 that you could do as identically sized or

similarly sized separate units, something that might be two or three units with a mini feature,

it just gives people the flexibility to do the correct design that they want to do and I don't

think there's any different outcome between one and three other than three might have some more

small units than more big units. So, I find three to be actually more friendly to people

who are going to do it anyway. So, that would be my preference. The question we haven't

even talked about is the one about whether you would allow further SB 9 lot splits because

I think that was such an obvious no that we're not even talking about it. Just to be clear

on that second question about further subdivision, I'm a hard no on that.

I just hope that for a second between one and three because those are the two that I was looking

at. But I assume that it would be frankly just cheaper to build under three to build more units

than it would be under one. And that's why this is being proposed. I mean, is that correct?

I believe that we could probably tailor this in such a manner that we wouldn't expect those ADUs

or junior accessory dwelling units to be constructed as part of the initial development.

I see 3 as more of a future flexibility where something has already been subdivided into 4-5

units and future homeowners of those units could then come in later on and say you know what I

need an ADU or I need to carve out a space to be a junior accessory dwelling. So it wouldn't

immediately necessarily result in those additional units. It would just allow for it.

Three makes me think that you will end up with more units than one, either because it's more

cost efficient to do so or because you can do it in stages in terms of building. And that's why I'm

sort of frankly, leaning towards one because it gives us a tiny little bit of local control,

but I'm also looking to staff that, you know, I mean, we do want to and we have to improve,

you know, we have to increase the amount of housing locally, or at least encourage it. And

so, but we want to do it in a way that makes sense. And I don't, I don't certainly, when you

had a single family home putting in, you know, five mini homes or 10 mini homes.

For what it's worth. That answered kind of, yeah, my mind a little bit because I was thinking of it

as like the initial design could be more flexible. But yeah, building five and then turning it into

seven is not the desired direction. And you can always amend laws. So I would be fine starting

with one and just knowing we can always come back. If planning says, hey, we're seeing things that

would be better if we had this flexibility or we had more discretion, I'd be fine starting

more limited and expanding if the need presented itself. And it sounds like you guys are both

inclined to one anyway. Yeah, I should have asked this during the questions, but this is a very

difficult format, difficult time of night, et cetera. And that is, are we allowed to

have different kind of objective design standards for this than we are for things that we have

in downtown? I mean, is this get us, are we allowed to do a specific set of objective

design standards just for this law?

Yes.

I think the answer is that you're going to need to apply the same objective standards

to these single-family zoned parcels as you do to your other single-family zoned parcels.

There's a section in our current draft, there's like a little chapter for small lot subdivision,

so there are different standards. It's just that it's not a different law, it's one law that says

if you're a duplex or if you're a single family, isn't that right?

Well, so the downtown has its own already adopted objective design standards that don't affect any

We're working on, but have not yet brought to you for adoption.

The citywide ODS by the way, we're about to need more time.

Five minutes. Was that too aggressive?

Let's move to extend by 10 minutes. So until 1055.

All right.

Let's.

I'll move to extend to 1055.

Second.

All in favor.

We have consensus on number one in this policy decision unless staff wants to tell us why we should be doing something else. I think you have consensus on both, actually have a direction.

You know, I don't think we could do that.

I don't think staff wants to tell us why we should be doing something

else.

I think you have consensus on both actually.

Okay.

And I don't think unless I've heard otherwise staff is not recommending

additional lot split opportunities under SB nine.

It doesn't seem like you would like to see that either.

So it sounds like we've got policy direction.

does that help with that?

Do we need to do that?

And then,

the other thing is,

can we explore whether.

We can do anything else regarding public safety?

That isn't just application by application.

So those are the three things I wrote down.

Option number one on 80 use no SB nine lot splits and staff pursue

this, what it would take to make safety findings.

They're pretty important in all of this.

But with that, I think we're good on this matter.

Yes, we're good on this.

Yes, I think staff got enough direction

to move forward with the next space.

Terrific.

And since we've already done the various reports,

I believe- Thank you for answering

all our questions.

Yeah, thank you again.

That was okay, that's a really novel thing

to get around.

And it's really not as novel as it should be.

Are there any matters initiated?

I'm the region.

Motion to.

Could I get my five minutes?

Second.

Thank you.

City Council Regular Meeting - March 3, 2026

Agenda

2. February 17, 2026, Regular Meeting

Transcript