because it's so mellow here in the room. Go ahead Sherry can we go ahead and get started.
Okay good evening and welcome to our regular meeting of the City Council Tuesday May 19th.
We did just finish a closed session on um sorry. Go ahead Sherry can we go ahead and get started.
Okay sorry. Good evening and welcome to our regular meeting. I'm like who's that beautiful
Voice. Sorry, I don't know what's happening. I'm trying to get started. Oh, thank you.
Sorry about that. Groundhog Day movies. Should we try again?
Check groundhog day. I'm just gonna pick up where we left off.
Yes. So I have your blessing. And did you ask me to call a role while I was dealing with this
yes yes I did but if you would please just go Councilmember Hoxie here
councilmember Riley vice mayor g here mayor Iverson here and note for the
record that councilmember malconny is absent and I would also note that we did
have a closed session on the leases at the library we have no reportable items
coming out of the closed session with that we will have the Pledge of
allegiance please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all. Thank you. Oh, there's the closed session report on the agenda. We
will now adopt the agenda. Are there any suggested changes tonight? I will move we adopt the
agenda as presented do I have a second second all in favor aye great we'll move
on to items for the good of the city and we're gonna start with a fun
proclamation recognizing May 17th to 23rd as National Public Works Week
rooted in service powered by community I keep looking at director Christy here
as if he's single-handedly gonna represent do you have a few words for us
for the public course department and we appreciate this proclamation I think it shows a lot that the City Council has consistently.
Been aware of this week and always has supported the department so we really appreciate that I think that it's I'll say this for most people in department that it's a true pleasure working for a city that's so much more than the city that you know we're in the city, we're in the city, we're in the city.
um. City that's so professionally run both by the city management, but also certainly by the city council.
And I think we've we've done pretty well over the last few years, certainly this last year, and we appreciate the hard work of everybody in the department, certainly the.
The field crews and the facilities crews that really are on the ground and keep things running and keep an eye out for things in our very responsive pretty much 24 seven so.
Thank you for doing this proclamation. We do thank you
Thank you. Um, I'd want to say a few words then I'll come down and present your proclamation
Mostly just the fact that you know, the public works is something that so few people appreciate, you know
until there's a storm or something goes wrong or they do call and something gets responded to immediately, but the
Service level that you provide to our little town on such a small budget and a small crew is
extraordinary and we appreciate you so much and your entire staff so I know this is National Public Works Month, but here in Aranda it feels
Very personal and high service and can't thank you enough
Vice Mayor Gianni, I know you always love to speak. I certainly agree with the mayor
The most wonderful thing is is that hardly anybody in our community has any clue what you all do?
and that's wonderful because
it means how well everything is going and
And you said the word, Scott,
that I think it is very true of your group
and that's professionalism.
I think that you've been a very high caliber group
and that the city benefits greatly.
And again, near and dear to my heart,
I'm always peeking in and checking up
on everything I can see in town relative to public works
because I can't stop myself,
but it's all very, very well done.
and just appreciate you guys so much
in terms of the caliber of knowledge and skill
and commitment that you bring.
And I just want to add and have us all recall
that your department has grown
and you're managing more people
and providing I think greater service.
Thank you so much for all that.
Just thank you for all you do
and for how high quality this service you provide
to our community is.
I'll quickly read just the little last part of it.
I do hereby, as Brandon Iverson, mayor of the city,
do hereby recognize the week of May 17 to 23rd,
2026 as National Public Works Week.
I urge all citizens to join with representatives
of the American Public Works Association
and government agencies and activities, events
and ceremonies designed to pay tribute
to our Public Works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize
the substantial contributions they make to protecting our national health, safety, and
quality of life.
Our next item for the good of the city is recognizing that the month of May is Jewish
American Heritage Month.
We recognized Arab American Heritage Month in our prior meeting, as well as Mental Health
Month, but this one we wanted to wait until Councilmember Hoxie could join us, because
she did want to say a few words, and I just, you know, I had some prepared remarks about
the contributions of Jewish Americans to our nation and specifically here in Arinda.
But what took me away from that was I was at the Temple Isaiah, right at the Arinda
Lafayette border this weekend for the high school's time of reflection and
was so saddened that to go to this beautiful temple where they've got a day
school I had to go through gated security there were the tire shredders
on the way out the pedestrian gate had gated security and the fact that
Episcopal and Catholic Day schools don't have that and it just reminded me
how important this recognition is that this community that is so deeply
ingrained in the arena community and what I think of as just so naturally
part of our town and community still has to have that kind of of awareness
and and not feeling as safe as everybody else and it and I just made me realize
that this is a moment that we should reflect both all the things to celebrate
and all the things that we still need to really recognize and be protective of
of our friends and neighbors.
And Council Member Hocksey, I didn't know if you had words.
Thank you so much.
And thank you so much for postponing this discussion,
this recognition until tonight.
I really appreciate that I'm here.
I'm very honored.
My family came to Arinda.
My maiden name is Rubinstein.
My family moved to Arinda.
My mother taught school in Arinda 1960.
And they were really one of the first Jewish families
in Arinda that were openly Jewish, belonged to a synagogue.
The realtor told my parents that although the covenants
in their deed restricted sales of homes to Jews, blacks,
Mongols, et cetera, et cetera, and although the Supreme Court
had struck down those covenants, it
was the practice in Orinda to respect them.
But he was going to help them buy a house
because he was angry with some of the neighbors on the street
that they were interested in living in.
And so they ended up purchasing the house in Orinda,
although another home they were not
able to buy because of their last name and Jewish identity.
So it means a lot to me that we're here at this point today.
I feel like our community has come such a long way in creating a fabric of acceptance
of people of all different religions and backgrounds and it's very important to me that we recognize
and celebrate all of our differences because we are one community and it's really makes
us much stronger and a much better community today than I think we were back then.
And so I'm just I'm very appreciative of this moment and our ability to share it.
So thank you, Mayor, and thank you, everyone, for being here to celebrate it, because it's
a nice thing.
Thank you.
And I think we're really lucky to have you on our city council and one of our our city
luminaries.
It's we're very, very fortunate.
So thank you for for having the courage also to share that story.
anybody else want to say anything? With that, we will move on to the public
forum. The public forum is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on any
item within the jurisdiction of the city that's not on the agenda or someone can
address the council on an agenda item if they will not be here when the agenda
item is taken up. Is there anybody from the public who'd like to speak? Seeing
none we will close the public forum we did not get any written comments we will
now move on to council reports does anyone have anything they'd like to
share I just wanted to give a short recap of last week on Thursday and
Friday the 14th and the 15th Arinda hosted the Contra Costa transportation
authorities spring workshop and we had elected representatives from everywhere
in the county. We got lots and lots of nice comments about Orinda, including our
public art, and there was a lot of recognition and appreciation of our
community center and just sort of our general civic complex in terms of
hosting the event. It was a very positive workshop that was geared
toward hopefully the eventual renewal of our county sales tax, which is critically
important to Arinda and all of the cities in the county in terms of the money that supports
our paving programs and that we get as part of that tax.
But it was also a very positive meeting in terms of bringing together all the cities
in the county to discuss our transportation needs and things that we would like to collectively
continue to work on for the county with all the communities in the county.
And as part of that, all of the transit operators and BART are part of Country Cross to Transportation
Authority as well.
So if I can, I'll just think that it's important that we continue to emphasize, especially
given the environment we're all in right now in the Bay Area, but just continue to point
out that things continue to improve significantly at BART.
The ridership has continued to improve.
The on-time performance has continued to improve.
The crime has gone down substantially.
The new fare gates are turning out to be very, very good for the system, both in terms of
crime, safety, security, and increasing and enhancing revenue that had been missing from
so much over the years.
That was good news as well, and of course they are a critical part of talking about
transportation in the county.
Just I'm happy to answer any questions if anybody has any, but there'll be continued
opportunities to participate as the county moves forward with our transportation plans.
I had one request and that's that I wasn't able to go to any of the workshop, but I looked
for the presentation and there was nothing except the agenda that was posted that was
publicly available.
Yeah, it's all publicly available.
I'll make sure that I get it actually downloaded and get it to Sherry so that it can be sent
out.
please, that's great.
It's really interesting.
So thank you.
Other reports?
Sure.
There was a TSAC meeting last night that I attended.
And one of the TSAC members is very concerned
about bike and pedestrian safety.
And I was raising questions about whether that could be
a general standing discussion item on the TSAC agenda.
They did move forward with the RFP for the bike and trails.
master plan. So that will be going forward and they talked a bit about the process of gathering
community input for that master plan and how to reach out and make sure we're getting all the
different users and groups to really participate in that process. They talked a little bit about
there were no new traffic calming requests. They talked a little bit about Orchard Road and when
when they were gonna be able to start the process
of signage and pavement markings and such on Orchard Road.
And then I'm looking at my notes,
but mostly it was a lot about the e-bikes
and bike and safety in general
and safety riding a bike through downtown Arrinda.
That area under the freeway there gets narrow
and is difficult.
So I thought it was a good meeting.
It wasn't very long.
they didn't have any new calming requests.
So it was relatively brief.
Thank you.
I would also just mention that with the changes
to the Morago A light timing and the pedestrian crossing,
I think we've all been CC'd on quite a bit of feedback.
And so as the TCAC liaison, if you could help
just make sure that that conversation is,
comments are going up, comments are going back down
through that committee, it's gonna be an ongoing.
Right, and we did talk about that a bit.
And we talked about making sure that the coral drive sidewalk
and four-way stop signage and all of those things
were on the CIP and moving forward in the proper way.
And we talked about the speed bumps
that we've discussed on Arctic
and who's responsible for getting that process going.
So there was conversation about that.
Thank you very much.
Other, a couple of weeks ago,
Council member Malcomi and I went to the schools two by two
and the main hot topic was crossing guards.
You're all aware of, and we just sort of had that opportunity
to share our position and we didn't waiver or compromise.
We left it as is for now, I guess.
That's correct.
That's correct.
We'll see what happens next.
and then yesterday I went to the Art and Public Places Commission and it seems that they have
signed, they've gotten all the loan agreements signed for a new five-year term, there's one
pending that seems like the person is hard to reach and you know never kind of shows up,
so they've got 99.9% done. The big and exciting news, you may think it's transportation, but the
exciting news is there's a new elephant in town. The elephant is the most adorable repurposed
metal, and it's tucked in. It's really large. It's tucked in under the trees and among the
manzanita in front of the community center. Where? I let you find out. It was quite the
the ordeal to get it installed. And it was a fun story and looks like it's got a happy
home and it's on loan. That is big news. Yes, it's a big news. I could show you my picture,
but you can also go see it. Then the other news was in order to widen and to improve
the road for the new ADA accessibility to the kinder gym, they have to remove a tall
hole that has butterflies on it just to be safe. You have to look up to see it. And now it's...
We walked out there and talked about where we'd relocate it so that it was safe. It was like
five feet or so or 10 feet away from where it is. That's it. Thank you. By the way, I think that's
the first time we've ever gotten an update from the Art and Public Places Committee, so I hope we
hear more things like that. It's really fun to get to follow along on things, so thank you.
I've got a lot because we had a lot of meetings this time of year and also we had the monthly
mayor's liaison meeting where we get a lot of updates. The one I wanted to lead with is
a really good news story out of Miramati. They have a program called Challenge Success,
which is their way of saying that, you know, as academically achievement oriented as our
schools are and we have so much to brag about, they really try to redefine success in terms of the
mental and social strength of the kids that we're sending out in the world, and they were
saying our scores are way up, not only against state averages, but also against Mira Monti's
own measurements, even relative to pre-pandemic. The focus and investment in the social and emotional
wellness of our K-12 kids is paying off, and it's really showing up even in the data. So they're
incredibly proud of that in the school administration. And for those of you who have not heard, the
The principal of Mira Mardi is also moving on
to the head administrative role for the K through eight.
So he's staying in Erwinda,
and they hope to have a new principal
by the end of the month.
Campo Lindo had a search,
so they actually had a pipeline already.
The Tabor Czech student still needs a family.
It's a boy this year, so please help us get the word out.
He'll be arriving August 10, we hope.
We had the mayor's conference here,
hosted here in Miranda on May 7th you were all there it was very well
attended especially by our former mayor is a huge success so thank you all and
thank you all staff for coming and doing that with us. May 9th was rotary
field day at Del Rey another big success. May 13th our Safeway did their
re-grand opening. Council member Hoxie and I did that one and it was just a
really great celebration. You sort of forget how many people at Safeway are
promoted internally. How many people in their management, you know, started at the stores
and worked up and it was just a really a very memorably fun event and they're really proud
of what they've done there. May 14th was Biked to Anywhere Day and I know they did
an event at BART and May 16th we did the grand opening and leash cutting of the dog park
and Councilmember Hoxie was there for that one as well. Upcoming events before our next
meeting on June 1, we're doing the Pride flag raising. And Councilmember Malcani is
not here tonight but that was a new tradition. She just started last year and I really want
to commend her for what I thought was a really lovely way of celebrating and so we're going
to continue the tradition this year at 10 o'clock on June 1. With that I'll turn it
over to the City Manager.
Mayor, members of the Council, you forgot one meeting and that was your downtown revitalization
committee meeting, so I don't know if you want to briefly talk about that.
Councilmember Oxley and I did the downtown revitalization meeting, where we have green-lighted
to be brought up to the council a facade improvement program, which works with landlords to do
small enough improvements that we hope it will make for quick and easy decisions to
upgrade exterior facades around town, and our city manager has a lot of prior experience
doing that so we've got someone who really has good experience of getting
people to take our free money and and work on their curb appeal. We also talked
very very briefly about the idea of an entertainment zone in Theatre Square but
that's that was just a very conceptual intro discussion. Thank you Mayor, members
of the council. Just looking back I'm going to back the calendar see if
there's anything I need to report on. We had on Friday May 8th there was the task
force the the wildfire task force that Senator Grayson's office has been
convening and we attended that meeting in Lafayette and the mayor joined me in
that and I was a one of the speakers at that event showcasing the software that
we use to help with our modeling for fire and evacuation and the ask to the
group was why is Orinda the only one paying for this this should be a
regional approach. I think that message resonated and hopefully
we'll see some action as a result of that. So we're still
working through that. And in fact, I think Assemblymember
Bauer-Gahan at the meeting wanted to continue to engage on
the topic and is working to set up a meeting with CAL FIRE so we
can have more discussions on those types of topics. And as a
member of the PMA, I'm just I'm the chair of the East Bay Radio
Communication Systems Authority and so we had a meeting last Friday with the
Finance Committee to discuss amongst other things parity amongst the
counties in terms of financing the maintenance costs associated with the
system. There's a there's a disparity between what Alameda County gets
compensated for and what Contra Costa County gets compensated for so we're
working through that slightly boring topic but I thought you guys would be
interested in knowing that I am the chair of that authority.
So spend some time working on that.
And in terms of what's happening here in Arinda,
we can interrupt before you move off the wildfire topic.
One of the things that I thought was worth sharing
was the confire speaker after you
was showing how they're modeling firebreaks.
So when they get the money and they do these firebreaks,
like they've got one around Black Hawk,
which is a classic wildland urban interface.
if homes start going, the structure to structure
would spread very quickly.
And so when they do that, they're
getting that into the dynamic fire modeling maps that
are being used by the state, by insurance companies.
And they're really working hard to make sure
that the insurance companies are understanding
when work gets done to make places safer,
that that gets into their pricing.
And so that sort of two-way modeling
that we've been talking about for years
sounds like it's actually just starting to happen.
So it's early, but it was very exciting in the room for people to start realizing that
work is happening and communication is happening.
And that there's this centralized repository for all this information that anybody could
potentially go on, click on, see the last time a fuel break was maintained.
When was that shaded fuel break?
When does it need to be maintained again so that we could look for grant funding to help
continue those efforts?
So that was in fact, sorry, I didn't mention that.
Okay, so in Arinda, we've got a lot of things happening.
Thursday nights in Arinda is underway.
We've got the food truck events currently now.
And then on June 4th, we start with the concert series.
So we are rebranding and repackaging
our Thursday nights in Arinda program.
And we hope to see everybody out for that fun evening.
We've mentioned the signal timing changes on Moraga Way.
Those have had some impact on the cut-through traffic.
And the first day was very painful,
but I think people are getting used to the change.
And the police are out there as well,
both monitoring what's going on there
as well as monitoring orchard for the new speed limits.
Let's see what else I can mention.
We're working on the library roof
in case anybody comes by and wonders,
I thought we were done with the library.
We are done with the tile,
but now we're moving on to the roof to make replacement
of some of the roof pieces.
And the lights are a glow over at Wilder Sports Fields.
The new LED lights are fully operational
and something to see.
And of course we had the dog park opening this weekend.
And I would be remiss if I didn't thank staff publicly,
thank to Sherri Smith for her work on the mayor's conference.
It's not an easy thing to put together.
So I really appreciate everything that you've done
to do that for us.
and to Todd and his team for the dog park opening project
because I think the little giveaways were very cute.
Thank you.
All right.
If that is everything, and I know that was a lot,
but it's just that time of year.
So we will move on to the consent calendar.
The consent calendar, as you know,
are items that are voted on all in one motion.
I'll begin by asking if anyone has anything
they would like to pull for questions or discussion.
Adam, may I have one item that I'd just like to be able
ask a question about on I-4. On I-4, perfect. With that, do I have a motion to adopt I-1
through I-6 with the exception of I-4? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in
favor? Aye. And that will go to I-4 and I'll ask Vice Mayor G if she could lead us off.
I just had a question for staff. I apologize I didn't ask it earlier and
And that is, I guess I never thought about this before, but if, if someone has an accident
and damages, you know, the traffic signal pole or is there no insurance payment for
that?
Or Doug will get up and talk about it from a risk management perspective.
I was going to say, I was just curious.
That's all.
It's not do try.
So in this instance, they were an uninsured motor, risk.
So we're placing a claim with our property insurance, and hopefully we'll get some reimbursement
for this, but we need to get it fixed before that process plays out.
If someone is insured, though, will private insurance?
Yes.
Most of the time, we're able to file a claim with somebody's insurance company and frequently
get paid for items like this.
Good to know. Thank you. That's a great question. Does anyone have a motion to
approve? Aye for. I'm happy to move approval of aye for. Second? I'll second.
All in favor? Aye. And with that we will move right along to item K-1 and policy
matters. That's a report on the city's efforts to obtain grant funding, a topic
near and dear to everyone here tonight. Honorable Mayor, members of the City
Council. Tonight we have with us California Consulting via Zoom. Matt Kam and the team
from California Consulting are here to give you an update on the efforts ongoing both with them
and with the staff and so I will turn it over to Matt and his team for the presentation.
Okay good evening. Thank you Linda and thank you Mayor Iverson and the Council for having us here
I'm joined by my colleague and senior project manager, David Marquez.
We're having difficulty hearing you, or will you be able to turn up your volume?
Can you hear me better now?
Okay, great.
So I was just saying thank you to Linda Smith, and it is an honor to be here.
I'm joined by senior project manager from California Consulting, David Marquez.
I am a project manager here at California Consulting who has worked with the city
for the last three years, almost to the day, or a little more than three years, actually.
And so, yeah, again, we're here to present our successes, challenges, and everything in between.
A colleague of mine did work with the City of Arinda for two years before I came on in 2023,
just want to say that. So if we could go to the next slide. Yeah, and here are the successes.
is again we started working with the City of Arrinda on May 1st, 2021. Again, I've worked
here since August or with the City since August 1st, 2023. I am very proud to have
worked with the City to raise $2,170,177 in grant funding over the past three years. I
should say that grant funding is not raised in a vacuum. It's only raised due to the
efforts of everyone in the city. So it is great to work with Scott, with Siva, with Doug, with
Linda, and everyone that that figure isn't just from California Consulting. It is a figure that
is representative of all of us. Could you please move to the next slide? So on the first Tuesday
of every month, we have a Zoom meeting with Linda and her team and we discuss the needs of the city
and compare them to the grant opportunities that are out both at the federal level and at the state
level. We also throw some of local opportunities from MTC and other
organizations in the mix too and we decide what is the best route to go.
Sometimes we pass on opportunities, sometimes we jump on opportunities. As it
says area during these meetings we present information about them and then
when we do decide to go forward with a grant opportunity I coordinate closely
with city staff. Again, I cannot complement the city staff enough for the efforts and
generosity. It is just incredible. It takes a lot of time to write effective grants and
everyone there has always been willing to give it, so I'd like to thank everyone there.
If you could please move to the next slide. Okay, and I do want to make another point
that on those meetings that not only do I join in city staff, but also the grant specialist,
Sammy Day Ambrosio from our company, David, and our CEO, Steve Simwelliam, also joined.
And we're also joined by Caitlin Williams, who joins us from Washington, DC.
She keeps on top of all of the federal grant opportunities.
Again, in total, we've raised $2.1 million.
And I'd just like to go over some recent awards over the past few years.
Last year, we received award from the Office of Traffic Safety for $79,600.
That was to replace an outdated paper citation system with an e-citation system.
I worked closely with Chief Rossi and Linda Smith on that, and I know they're both working
to implement that now.
The next grant was the MTC, Transit Oriented Communities Planning Implementation, a parking
management grant for $300,000.
This is a good example of a local grant that came across our desk with about five days
to get it in.
I worked with Darren and a number of other people there to get this in, and very proud
to say that we did get the money. Then moving on to the Caltrans Highway
Safety Improvement Program, that's about a 1.1 million dollar award. There is about
a $300,000 match on that. It was awarded last year for four traffic projects. One
was flashing beacons at six stop signs and intersections. Another was to install
speed warning signs at six roads. Another was to install pedestrian crossing, a
feature at three roads and the final was to assess and document all signs and
pavement matches within the city. So obviously a very big grant and a very
important grant for Arinda. And finally the Cal Fire Safe Council State Fire
Capacity Grant. This was actually awarded to FISMO Fire Safe Moraga Arinda. We at
California Consulting assisted with this. They were just getting started at that
point so it was it was great to help Mark Evans land this for that for that
organization and basically it feeds into the program that helps groups of houses apply
for what we'll call the micro grant funding from this award by which they can match the
funding with their own funds and do home hardening and defensible space work to clear brush so
that the whole block is fire safe.
So those are just four of the grants awarded over the past few years.
If you could please go to the next slide.
These are the grants that are pending and I heard earlier that TSAC had someone at
TSAC had a concern about e-bike safety that is an absolutely valid concern in this day
and age.
I'm proud to report we have a grant for $8,200 pending.
It was submitted in 1.31 of this year and it would fund the development of a short video
that would present important aspects of e-bike safety aimed at youth.
So fingers crossed that we do get that one.
And then this is rather recent, and I do have a correction here because we were submitting
this as we were building the PowerPoint and the report.
This is for $165,000, this Cal Fire Safe Council.
And this is the same grant that FISMA was awarded a few years back.
We have gone for it this year.
And it is for basically the same program activities related to fire fuels reduction, where again,
groups of houses can apply for the micro grants and then match the funding and make their
houses safe.
Obviously, when five or six houses make their house safe, it can form a firebreak and help
to keep the community as a whole safe.
So if you could please go to the next slide.
Yeah, looking ahead as to what we can do on the grant's front, we have an active transportation
program grant that is live right now.
I'm working with Linda and Scott Christie to potentially identify a project related
to multimodal or nonvehicular travel.
that helped the bicyclists, pedestrians,
and other forms of travelers in Orinda.
Urban greening, I'm working with Todd Trimble
to potentially identify a project
to add more green space to Orinda.
And then we have a large grant
to Prop 4 Statewide Park Development
and Community Revitalization Program.
I'm also working with Todd Trimble on this one
to decide whether it's feasible to...
Well, right now we're looking at pickle ball courts
at Wilder, potentially.
There's also some other opportunities.
And then I do wanna point out that the Cal Fire Grants,
this is not on the report that I submitted,
But it's, of course, on the slide.
A number of these have come out in the last few weeks.
So one is wildfire protection, which
could help programs like the defensible space program
that we carry out with FISMO.
And another is for potential forest fire resilience,
meaning you could go in with a group of people to try to,
let's just say, arrange to cut down and install
defensible space and open lands.
And it is a very large grant that one
from about five to $20 million.
So if we could go to the next slide.
Yeah, that is basically my report for tonight.
Before we go to questions, I want to turn it over to David.
David, do you have anything to add to what I said?
No, Matt, you covered it well, so I appreciate it.
Yeah.
So any questions from the mayor or any council members?
Yeah, please.
Thank you very much, Matt.
My question is, how are you and staff
feeling about the environment or the opportunities
for possibly more safe routes to school funding?
I know that we don't compete overly well in a lot of programs
that are targeted to more disadvantaged communities,
but we have a lot of needs that we could help meet
if we could obtain some more safe routes to school money.
And I know that, again, I talked a little bit earlier
about the County Transportation Authority
and there are opportunities there
that I've been discussing with staff,
but just curious about the broader environment
of opportunities.
Yeah, what I'm seeing is Safe Routes to School
is part and aspect of many grants that are out right now,
for example, ATP, and it can factor into it.
As far as Safe Routes to School,
The specifics as to what you're looking for, it would obviously, I hate to give this answer,
but it depends on the specifics, matching them to local statewide grants.
The statewide grants tend to be more focused on disadvantaged communities.
At this point, federal is relaxed on a bit, and there are more federal opportunities coming
out right now, so that is a possibility.
But the long and the short of it is I was welcoming the opportunity to meet with Linda
and speak about the local opportunities.
We at California Consulting really have our finger on the pulse of the statewide opportunities,
but opportunities do come along from county and MTC that we can certainly assist with.
I want to turn it over to David.
David, as far as Safer House to School, do you have any perspective on this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just want to kind of build off the point that you mentioned that you're exactly right.
regards to state, we are at a disadvantage because we're not a disadvantaged community, but
there is active transportation ATP planning grant and there are fundings that are passed through
from the state through the NPOs such as MTC that we can take advantage of the opportunity.
The challenge is always, you know, when the timing is, when these grants come out. Sometimes
We have an ATP cycle right now, so we could anticipate a release of a proposal,
some grant opportunity in maybe less than six months. I think the ATP is June 22nd,
and that was very much skewed to disadvantaged communities. But those that are offered through
that MPOs are not and there is funding that many MPOs secure to fund to kind of help fill
the gaps where those needs are and we do have to take into consideration you know factors
and it's very important at the local level that incidents even whether they're near misses
or issues dealing with traffic safety,
especially pedestrian or bike safety
in and around schools are reported or documented.
What we're finding with grants is the importance
of documentation and community involvement, engagement,
and as a bigger part of the scoring rubric
taken into consideration.
Obviously, there's the quantifiable data, okay?
We can look at that, the number of incidents,
collisions and injuries, we look at that.
But many grants are also looking at the level of,
like I just mentioned before,
the level of community engagement
and what is being reported,
whether it's a city council or to the school.
So what I always encourage,
what the cities that I work with
is to always document, have that record,
and that is always appreciated by the funders.
So they know when we fund you,
you're gonna have that strong support and awareness there.
So that's something, so we can continue doing that at Arinda.
So we can look at more of the local grants.
There are some foundation grants.
They're not that much money, but they do help.
And as mentioned,
We usually don't look at federal grants
for safe routes to school,
but we are seeing that more with the SS4A safe streets
for all and other opportunities there.
So we are seeing some more funding
coming from the feds a little bit.
So that's a little bit different.
And this started maybe about four years ago.
So hopefully it continues in the next few years.
So different sources.
So we'll continue to do that.
And I just urge the city to continue to document
and be vigilant about engagement on this issue
because that's all documented.
And that's all it's information that Matt provides
in his and that's an asset.
And he includes it in his applications.
But may I just follow up questions.
citizens don't know about grant applications.
So are you just saying, you know, people talking,
you know, sending emails to the city saying,
we have a dangerous situation here or what is the,
when you say what do you mean?
Yeah, let me, yeah, I provide that.
It should be a little more clear.
Yeah, it could be, you know,
simply a presentation in city council,
letters to city council, letters to the mayor,
letters to the city manager, petitions,
You know emails I've used, you know, I've printed emails, you know because
you know, that's that's a constituent and that's data to me and
That shows the level of concern when you take that step and report it to your city
You know, that's taking the extra step and level of concern
so that's that's what I mean so any any place whether it's a letter to the principal or to the superintendent or
a competition to city council and such, take that information, and we can use it as documents.
And I do regularly, when I need to, I will go through and scour archives, and Matt and
I talk about this, I go, let's look in the archives, let's look, see if there's been
a staff report or this issue has come up as a concern on an agenda in the last couple
years and we'll include that information. So sometimes we dig deep.
Just one other follow-up question. How are we doing relative to other
jurisdictions? When you say like two million over four years, is that, I mean
are we like the bottom of the stack relative to other towns or is that okay?
Because I mean, I know we always get told that we're not a priority for grants.
How are we doing?
Yeah, it's hard to compare because the type of projects that some cities, I work with
a number of cities, and some cities that I have, they look at certain grants and they're
smaller amounts, and some look for grants that are like $2 million and above.
So it's kind of a little bit of an apples or oranges.
I will say for a community that is not considered
disadvantaged, the grants have been provided as competitive.
So I would look at that.
And we do work with many non-disadvantaged cities
that are documented as census tracts as not being
disadvantaged.
So I think it's comparable for the time for I
I know when Matt, when you started.
And I think the key thing here is familiarity.
What we'd like to do is when I urge staff to do
our grant writers, our project managers,
I actually refer to them as project managers,
not grant writing.
Because you're really kind of sometimes like mechanic
and you're putting all this information together,
is developing these relationships with the agencies,
with the funders, with the program managers,
And just getting in front of them and letting them know about our cities.
In this case, and what's going on and building that relationship and that helps us develop much more competitive applications. So what I would look at is kind of the trend. And I think it's been much more positive in the last couple of years, if.
You would agree with that, or not Matt, I do. Yeah, absolutely.
does anyone else have any questions great I will open it up to the public to
see if we have anyone who'd like to speak on this matter and not seeing
anyone I don't have speaker cards I think we will let you guys get back to
your evening thank you for doing this and move along is there any direction or
comments that anyone would like to give if I could I would I mean I know they're
off-screen but I really do enjoy working with California Consulting and our
our monthly meetings and our brainstorming.
It's not limited to just the monthly meetings.
The monthly meetings are a kickoff
for separate individual meetings that we have
throughout the course of the month.
I've had two meetings with Matt in the last week.
There are so many new opportunities
that we're starting to look at now
relative to Prop 4 funding for wildfire work.
There's a large grant of between five and $20 million,
five million to $20 million,
which I think that would be something
where we would need partnership with M-O-F-D
to sort of approach, you know, large grants like that.
And we're working on this smaller grant
with the Fire Safe Council.
There's FEMA just announced their grants
for wildfire mitigation work
and $638 million is being released.
And so we're gonna take a look at that
and see how we can send that off to the chief
and talk to him today and told him to take a look
at what's the opportunities there as well.
on top of which the appropriations request
that I think we're gonna get through the federal government
which could add another $2.3 million worth
of grant-funded work in Arinda over the next couple of years.
So, you know, I think the program and working with them
has been, it keeps us focused on looking for money
and, you know, every time we have an opportunity,
we come out of a council meeting,
we get in those meetings and we talk about the thing
that the council wants us to try and prioritize
And then they help us try to find where we might be able to look for money for those.
So it's a, it's a really nice working relationship and I really appreciate their support.
And thank you for that followup.
That was really helpful.
Please.
I just want to make one last comment and that is, is, and again, I'm sorry to sound like
a broken record, but the, the, the new moving forward transportation expenditure plan that
county has to develop in order to keep the sales tax going is basically it's
going to be a completely new blank slate wish list because it's going to be a
creation of what the communities in the county believe that the voters will vote
to support so it is our opportunity especially as a smaller community it is
our opportunity to really, really help define, you know, what we would like to have on our
wish list in terms of anything that can help our community.
Remembering that, of course, and I know the council members know this, but that our school
bus program gets a significant portion of funding from that measure.
So, but it is a huge opportunity for sidewalks or other things that people want that we,
again, have a difficulty finding ways to fund.
Thank you.
Any final comments?
Great.
We'll move along then.
We'll wrap that item up and move to K-2, which, and sorry, Director Cross, I know you're
ready to go.
Proposed inclusionary housing ordinance recommendations from the affordable housing subcommittee.
Mayor Iverson and council members I'm providing you with the update and review
thank you update and review of the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance
and the recommendations from the housing subcommittee and let me mention that the
housing affordable housing subcommittee is composed of vice chair G and council
member Mulconney so a little bit of background the housing element and key
dates is that on January 31st, 2023, the City Council adopted a housing element. On March 30th,
2023, HCD, California Department of Housing and Community Development determined that the
Arenda Housing element was in full compliance with the state housing element law. Since May of 2023,
the city has been working on the inclusionary housing ordinance and housing affordability
project. So why are we here again? We're here because of the housing element policy and some
key considerations that have been consistently talked about. You'll find in the staff report
we also refer to these as variants. So key considerations are project size threshold,
percentage of affordable units, design and timing requirements, and luffi amount,
developer incentives, and affordability administration. What the action plan,
or I should say the Action 3G states is determine the appropriateness of an inclusionary ordinance
within two years after after adoption of the housing element if determined appropriate
adopt an inclusionary ordinance within one year of making the decision. So again the the policy
and implementation process or part of the process is where we are now in terms of implementing our
housing element and determining whether to adopt the inclusionary housing ordinance.
In review, we did a couple of study sessions with the Planning Commission plus the City
Council July and August of 2025. Again, you see those same variants or key considerations
that we have been discussing. Where we landed in 2025 on size of development, that this
would apply to projects that are 11 or more units, percentage of affordable units. We
landed at that time at 15% of units in applicable residential projects to be deed restricted
affordable housing units. The best mix of affordable units. We talked about including
clear language on affordable units as the same as market rate within our ordinance amendments.
In Lu-Fi for projects below on-site requirements, we set an in Lu-Fi at this time in 2025 for
$26.30 per net residential square footage.
Any development incentives?
We had none for recommendations at the time, already qualifying for waivers and concessions,
but that really is talking about the state density bonus law.
So in January of 2026, we came back before you.
We had some key actions.
One of them was to further discuss these four points with the Affordable Housing Subcommittee
in which we held that meeting on Monday, April 13th of this year.
And those four focus areas were to elaborate on maintaining affordable housing quality
while creating units, to consider a 10% reduction from 15% housing percentage, consider including
single-family homes which currently we proposed to exempt and then to calculate
an in lieu fee or a flat fee per required affordable unit and consider
partial build-out alternatives. This is just a reminder map of the economic
feasibility and market study just to show for 2025 where our consultant, Lisa
wise consultant has placed the ARINDA in terms of the medium single family home
prices and ARINDA are notably hired in surrounding areas with recent
observations of approximately 1.95 million. ARINDA's market is
characterized by limited supply and consistently high home values. This chart
is again reminding us that the study showed where did we land on that $26.30
per net residential square footage. The median comes from that top line comes
from our evaluation of surrounding communities and where they landed so
that would have been Lafayette, Moraga so they were looking at $25.22 per
net residential square footage. We landed at 2630 as an average of those
medians and also avoiding the maximum in lieu fee which was $69.39 so that's
where that 2630 comes from and that was within our original market study. This
chart is going to come back again. So going over the four areas which were the
key topics which is maintaining affordable housing quality while
creating units. This is a little bit more staff driven and a staff proposed
modification. The IHO inclusionary housing ordinance advances affordable housing as an
integrated part of residential development projects. Adopting an IHO avoids units that
are of low quality and requires units that are comparable in size and type to market
rate units. The state density bonus law does not include explicit requirements related
to building quality to assess the amenities and common areas. The IHO will help the city
ensure affordability units are comparable in size, quantity and type.
The reason I'm mentioning this is this is one of the proposed modifications that staff
is putting forth before you to amend the ordinance so that we could possibly address maintaining
affordable housing quality for City of Arrenda.
The next three items is where I'm going to say heavily the Affordable Housing Subcommittee
weighed in. The responses here are going to be a mixture of what was received from that
meeting. The second section here is the 10% affordable housing percentage, basically reducing
from where we landed in August of 2025 from 15% down to 10%. Here we are saying multi-family
rental and some multi-family for sale residential development projects were considered feasible
at 15% affordable however the consideration from this council was to look at 10% and yes this is
a policy decision that you you decide but a 10% affordable housing percentage would help projects
navigate local development conditions and increase economic feasibility. The reduction would address
the challenging development setting while at the same time signal the city's commitment to affordable
housing. So this is a combination of what we've heard from the members of the
subcommittee. I'm going to go into touch of state density bonus law because both
the IHL and inclusionary housing ordinance and the one that comes from
the state the state density bonus law are tools used to encourage additional
affordable housing. So what does Orinda has? Currently we do not have the
inclusionary housing ordinance so therefore many of the project if not all
All the projects have used the State Density Bonus Law.
So what I show you is Orinda Grove, I believe this was 73 units total, so eight below market
units.
Two Orinda Way, Monte Verde, 66 of those units are affordable, for 15 Orin Way, formerly
10 Orin Way, Vista Verde, 51 of those units, it's 100% affordable, and then of course the
the most recent approved project is 23 Alter in the Road,
where they have one very low below market rate
by using the state density bonus law.
Not to go too far into this law, but to be eligible.
Here is what it looks like.
To be in the very low income,
it starts out with a 20% bonus for 5% affordability,
and that is like a sliding scale
that can go up to a maximum 50% bonus
for a 15% affordability.
So take the project I just mentioned,
23, Altarenda has a base proposed density of about 18.
And I've already, in my mind, rounded up.
So if I take 5% of that,
that yielded one very low market rate.
So what that yields me is now I'm allowed
to address or administer 20% of my base units.
And that's how we get to the 22 or the 23.
So yes, state density bonus is a way
of encouraging affordable housing
and is a state requirement that's also available.
For section three,
we looked at including single family homes.
This table is coming back again
to say from the market of feasibility study,
it was stated that single family homes
were not feasible, even going as low as looking at a 4% affordable units. It just wasn't feasible
to do so. Of course, the council may make the decision to decide otherwise. But the
100% market rate was the feasible level. And so therefore, applying a 10% affordability,
a better word didn't make sense.
So including an exempting single family, the single family for sale scenario again did
not achieve adequate return on costs even when considering a much lower 4% affordable
housing percentage.
But what we discussed at the subcommittee was that ARINDA has very few opportunities
to accommodate single family residential development projects with 11 or more units where 11 or
more units exist in Arrinda where inclusionary housing ordinance would apply.
Section 4 was looking at the flat in lieu fee per required unit versus the square footage
and net residential square footage. So what this table is trying to show from the consultant
is where we originally landed was the $26.30 in lieu fee that would be multiplied by the
residential square footage. So if you go 26.30 and you multiply that by 209.885
you get a total of 5.5 million. So to stay within this range of what the
study showed, what the consultant did was sort of transition to get us a flat fee.
They transitioned some of those numbers. So you'll see it says per required
affordable unit 204.444 and 211. Those are exact numbers but for us to have a
a consistent in lieu flat fee, it was determined that 207, 872 would be our flat fee number
that we would apply to our affordable units. So it would change. Again, 2630 is for per
square footage. We're now moving to flat fee. So now the new flat fee, given the same methodology
that we were using in terms of standardized cost, looking at the market
rate units versus affordable, the differences between the affordable units,
we would now be looking at $207,872 per affordable unit and that would still
bring us in that ballpark of 5.5 million. So that's what that table is
showing. So the in-loofy units of calculation, why there is a benefit here
this is the end of the year.
The end of the year is the use of the net residential square
footage method makes administration difficult and not
easy to apply the partial build proposal.
So a flat fee per required affordable unit basis would
facilitate the administration of the development applications,
including the partial build applications.
We would round up and not down as was suggested by the
subcommittee for calculations of whole affordable units to
and create more units and fund resources.
This line is again showing you we would fall into the 207,
872 as the recommended flat fee.
Again, for multifamily,
this is assuming we are still keeping single-family
residential as exempt.
So this would mean the multifamily for sale
and for rent we would be looking at a flat fee right now
at 207, 872.
But for me in my mind, this also says
that we would need a periodic review
to update Aurinda's flat rate fees. The maximum is showing you what we originally knew from early
to 2025 and that's what we did not want to be. I'm not mentioning MTC, TOC, because we are not
evaluating that right now. The ordinance, and so therefore the ordinance would be amended and
changed. We're creating a new section, a new chapter 1714, where we're looking at inclusionary
housing and affordable housing incentive program and the density bonus so the IHO inclusionary
housing incentives for developers would now be reduced affordability mandate lowering
the affordable unit mandate from 15% to 10% to improve the overall project financial feasibility.
Operational flexibility implementing a partial bill scenario allowing developers more options
for how and when affordable units are integrated, simplified in new fees, providing developers
with greater cost certainty during the planning phase with a flat fee.
Then of course I'm just reminding you here that you have waivers and modifications built
in or proposed within the ordinance that an applicant may submit a request of City Council
to waive and modify requirements of this section.
Of course this, and I'm gonna go through this again.
So city, so my direction or receipt direction
from city council with the questions of,
is the city council supportive of the recommendations
from the affordable housing subcommittee
and staff proposed changes?
That is to change the percentage requirement
from 10% to 15%, excuse me, other way,
from 15% reduced to 10%, continue to exempt
the single family residential development projects,
change the in lieu fee from the net residential square footage
to a flat fee per required affordable unit.
And then the staff initiated modification to the ordinance
to date the definitions and remove the state density bonus
law from exemption section.
Should you agree to move forward,
our next steps would be to prepare the reports
for planning commission and return to the city council.
That's where I conclude.
Thank you very much.
I'll start by asking if we have questions for staff.
I have a question about the single-family home exemption.
Wasn't Arinda Grove a single-family home project?
And they were able to have eight affordable units
as part of that project.
So I'm still unclear as to why we feel like
it's unattainable today when Arinda Grove was built.
It seemed like they could incorporate 10%
affordable units. I think what the Lisa Wise consulting is looking at here is
your return and your yield on cost and they're saying with today's standardized
cost you're you're just not going to encourage someone to build especially in
the Brenda we have topography issues we have concerns and some of these numbers
are not even considering those level of additional cost so what we're looking at
is the potential return on costs and yield on costs that won't, uh, is not feasible for the
single family residential. But wouldn't it be better than to include single family and have the
applicants come to us and explain why they would need a reduction or an inability to meet that
target rather than just exempt them from the get-go? That is your decision.
Can I ask a follow-up question?
In my mind, I don't think of Arinda Grove as single-family housing.
Well, that was my question too,
but I think they are,
they're just close to each other.
But they have a joining wall,
they have common walls and-
Do they? I don't know the answer to the question.
I'm looking at this because she has a little more history
possibly over in the Grove,
but I have the same question, honestly.
Okay.
Okay.
They do seem like at least duplexes, right?
Yes.
So we would need to look at the subdivision map
and compare that to how the housing actually looks out there
to see how they would be treated
under a new inclusionary housing ordinance.
So I guess to council member Hoxie's question,
when the subcommittee met,
I would have never considered
development single-family homes. Okay, that probably is our most recent example of a
similar project that was able to incorporate the 10%. So that's like trying to understand as well.
Can you remind me what the waivers and modifications apply to? It was like on a previous
slide you know what I'm talking about? Just remind me what that's all about. Is it about the fee?
There's a list. It's anything within that section of the inclusionary housing ordinance. So yeah,
they can come to you and say it's a hardship, a financial hardship, and we would like to not
include or make any of our product affordable. They can ask you for that exemption. And let me
Let me look at the code here.
And then they could also ask for less than 10%.
They just negotiate that.
They can negotiate that as well, yes.
And my second question was, we're
not talking about TOC because it hasn't been passed.
That's still the case?
They are working on some revisions to it.
So it's not relevant yet.
Just not relevant yet.
And I don't want to mention too much,
because one of the changes I've potentially
saw that they were trying to implement is that you no longer have to bring it
back before your City Council so I don't want to speak on it until I know what's
what's coming down the pipe. I have one question I am not sure I know when we
say we have to have affordable units say the 10% is that moderate low income what
exact below market standard is being applied?
Yeah, it can be any of those income levels.
It could be moderate.
I'm sorry, it's low and you're very low.
Okay.
I believe it was set at low, the 10% requirement was set at low, and then from there, there's
a conversion of if you wanted to make it moderate, there's a conversion that you could use to
get to that.
calculation that Lisa wise had in there. I feel like that should have been in the presentation.
So it's actually less than 10% of it's very low, it's more than 10% of it's moderate, it's 10% if
it's all low income. I apologize, I'm using my memory to get to that, but I would want them to
look into how it's being defined in the program. I was wondering that as well. Pretty material to
It's rather a long, complicated formula, but I believe it's in packet page 118 to 119,
which is the draft ordinance that we're working on right now.
And there's a conversion table rate that's provided, depending on if the developer would
prefer to build more moderate units or more very low.
Okay.
10 percent if it's low 80 percent and on page 119 is the chart of adjustments up or down.
Right.
And it, oh the for sale is for condos and the, okay so table one is for apartments,
table two is for condos.
Condos.
And so at moderate it would be 15 percent moderate and percent low.
Right.
Okay, thank you. Any other questions? All right, with that we'll open up to the public and see if
anybody would like to speak on this matter. Seeing none, we have no speaker cards. We will bring it
up for deliberation. Vice Mayor Gee, since you're on the subcommittee, would you like to lead us off?
I think, yeah, I was gonna just offer, and I'm sorry Council Member Malcani couldn't be here with
us tonight, but I was just gonna offer that in our subcommittee's meeting with staff and the
consultant team. I think the the focus was on trying to achieve some balance in which we were
trying to to take the right steps to recognize that you know development requires things to be
affordable for the developer to make it make economic sense. At the same time obviously we
We care very much about the housing needs and complying with everything that we need
to try to achieve as a community and also taking into account our neighboring cities
and what their standards are.
Also recognizing that by setting what our recommendation was that there's still a lot
of flexibility.
It is more probable that the state density bonus would be used rather than this, but
even then that there's a lot of negotiation capability with this.
So we didn't feel that it was really going to hinder the possibility of development occurring
and that we had the continued ability to monitor it, change it if need be, but that we felt
by at least including the 10%.
We were also showing some good faith commitment
to what the housing issues are all about
in today's environment.
So that's kind of a recap
of what our discussion was that day.
Obviously staff and the consultant team
gave us more background
as to how they arrived at some of the numbers.
but I think at the end we, council member Mancani
and I felt that the goal was to try to achieve some balance.
I like the reduction from the 15% to the 10%
because it reflects what I think the experience has been
in Arinda particularly with the Arinda Grove project
which had approximately 10% affordable
and that was successful.
I'm concerned about exempting the single family development.
and I also understand that we don't necessarily have a lot of opportunity for single-family development.
But, I mean, Wilder was probably the largest single-family development we've had in years,
and there was no such requirement on that project, to my knowledge.
But I suspect they could have made that kind of a requirement work if it had been in place at that time.
I don't know that there's any other land available for that type of an opportunity
in Orinda at this time, but particularly that's not in the highest priority fire zone.
But I do think it's something that I'd like us to continue to think about, whether that
exemption makes sense.
So I think I'm in favor of all four recommendations, and I thank you for all your hard work and
the last two years of everybody working on this.
feeling about the single-family issue is I don't know as a practical matter it's going to be an
issue. I can't imagine, I'm trying to imagine any space enough for that many houses, even tiny houses.
I mean maybe you could like knock down all the churches in Moraga Way and you'd be able to put,
you know, all the churches sold their property and that would be your space, but I don't see it
happening. So I guess I'm not concerned about it and I guess we could also bring it back,
you know go with this now and then if we've discovered that there's all this acreage out
there maybe we'd bring it back.
I'll chime in and again this is this is a relatively big issue although it seems like
not very controversial given the lack of comments but you know again we're not judges on a panel
So if anybody, I'm happy to keep talking to build consensus, as you know, I remain opposed to this.
And this is my guess. And I think the subcommittee did a terrific job. You really, I thought the
interest in balance and the thoughtfulness really showed. And I appreciated so much
the way you address the issues. So I actually think as far as inclusionary housing ordinances go,
This is a good one and I would support this to sit in a drawer until we have a problem because
what I yeah I look at the statistics and I counted 117 fully affordable units
uh out of four projects right so we've gotten four projects two were a hundred percent affordable
and two had below market rate units that were used because of the state density bonus incentives
So, when you've got carrots, why would you add sticks when what I think we've been hearing
from HCD being so hard on our requests about things is you build some housing and then come talk.
Right? They're not saying you've got too much market rate and not enough affordable. What
they're saying is Arenda's not building housing. So, taxing housing when we don't have an imbalance
of market to affordable feels like we're solving a problem that doesn't exist because everybody
else is doing it.
And I just remind this group that rent control gets trendy.
It always does.
They pass a bunch of rent control and then they remove it and then they pass it and it
changes forms.
This is the flavor of the weak rent control and I really understand the goal just as rent
control gets really popular because it's so dang expensive to live here.
And Arinda has almost no entry-level housing.
So I'm very pro-getting housing built.
I just don't think taxing it with a $207,000 fee
is necessarily, and whether they pay the fee
or they build it, you're taxing housing.
You're adding cost.
And Wilder, I would just remind Council Member Hoxie,
bankrupted two developers.
We got the ranch house out of it.
We got the sports fields out of it.
They built sidewalks.
It's gorgeous.
And two developers went bankrupt.
So I don't think there was so much profit
that they could have put 10% into affordable units.
And the only other comment is when you say,
well, just ask, right?
If you want something, just ask for it.
You know, three terms on planning commission,
we were begging people to bring forward projects
like 23 Alterinda Way.
And nobody trusted the city of Arinda
to spend the time and effort to option a property
and get the basic conceptual design and bring it in
because they didn't believe we'd ever say yes.
And so you just know that other jurisdictions
are easier to build, right?
If you've got a really good project,
you're gonna go to Lafayette
before you're gonna come to Orinda.
We have tough topography,
we don't have a good track record,
and we have landowners who have not shown
a lot of interest in development.
So I'm really excited to see
of very few good projects come forward.
And I just don't think we need this law right now.
And I think it's good, I really do.
I'm really pleased with two years of thoughtful work.
I would just love to see it sit in a drawer
until we feel that the moment is ripe,
whether that's MTC or that we're actually getting
a lot of market projects.
And again, this isn't my final word.
I would just love to.
Can I just ask, are we required to adopt
an inclusionary housing ordinance
as part of our approval with our housing element?
And wasn't it one of the steps in our housing element?
I'll ask Director Cross for City Manager.
It was not a requirement to adopt,
it was a requirement to consider and evaluate.
Will we be frowned upon if we don't adopt?
Have we adequately considered and evaluated at this point?
or do we need to do more to show-
You spend a lot of money adequately
considering and evaluating.
Whether or not you want to adopt,
that's totally at your discretion.
I don't know, I mean, LaShawn, you've talked to HCD.
I don't know if they're waiting for us to bring forward
an inclusionary zoning program or not.
I don't think that they are.
Just taking this analysis further,
I have been hearing that even if it's out of the drawer, it's a law.
People go around it and just use the bonus density.
So why would you pass the law?
Well, okay.
I don't know.
For that one small group that would use it.
I'm not an expert on that.
I couldn't answer it.
And don't pass the law.
I guess unless you can articulate a compelling reason to pass a law, don't pass it.
I just can't understand why signaling or wanting people
to say nice things, we don't pass a lot of laws in Orinda
and I just, I would wait till there's an external force
like the MTC, when we started this, the MTC was putting
all that pressure on us with the TOC policy,
and right now that pressure has been removed.
So I think if we ever need to do one because of HTC or,
I mean HCD or MTC, this is a good one, but we don't need to.
A city manager, wasn't there an area, just a second?
We were just talking about the one element
of the inclusionary zoning that is tied back
to state density bonus law.
Because right now, the comparability issue
is the one thing we're most concerned about with respect
to when affordable gets constructed with the state
density bonus, which that's what we
to see. Most of the projects coming in with right now we don't have any way to require them to get
some comparability between the units that are affordable with the units that aren't affordable.
The change that staff was recommending as part of the amendments to the draft ordinance was to do
that. I don't know how else we would do that without having that in place. Do you have any
ideas? I see. So just using the state density bonus law, a developer could build affordable
units in the same building that were significantly lower quality or smaller.
They could be much smaller. They could use different quality. They could put them all
in one section, not integrate them with the whole project. And so comparability was really a key
piece of, I think, what we were concerned about. When we look at state density bonus,
everything's favoring developers. The state is really pushing towards developers getting
the opportunity to build housing, and cities have very little control at this point. This would be
one thing that we could potentially try to work to control, which is really given an equivalency
experience to people that are living in affordable units that are not.
To be clear, that's what we're seeing when an applicant comes forward under state density
they're coming forward with small units.
We are pushing back.
We are saying to them that, you know,
under fair housing law and just, anyway,
we're pushing back and asking for more comparable units.
But if we had an inclusionary ordinance,
it might be one more tool in the tool chest.
But it doesn't actually apply.
You're just going to have it on the books
so that you say this is a value of our city.
You can't use that to enforce your state.
The way we're proposing to write it is that if you come under the state density
bonus law, those units will count as your inclusionary units.
So you will be able to check both boxes at once.
You have to do the comparability requirement in order to check that box.
That's the current thinking on the draft.
Now, will they be able to waive the requirement?
Will they find some other way to avoid it?
Possibly.
But this is our staff's consultants' effort
to try to get the council what we heard you say,
which is we'd like those affordable units
to be of high quality and comparable
to the market units that come through.
And I would, just a quick thought on that.
I'm really passionate about local control, right?
Drives me crazy when the state takes away our ability
to control the quality of what happens.
And yet, when you hear that California is so broken
that we can never get anything built,
we're talking about doubling up the laws
that are virtually identical to accomplish
one aspect of local control that isn't fully covered
by the fair housing laws that already exist.
And so the layering laws on top of laws
is part of why it's so hard to build housing.
So I actually really like the goal
and that I found that to me was the most interesting
and compelling reason to do it.
I hate doubling up laws to accomplish one thing
that's even enforceable, it's just hard.
And again, well, we just want to bring them to the table
to talk to us.
What we're finding is people just go build somewhere else.
I don't know, I find the concept of actually being able
to have that layer of a little bit more control appealing.
I think I would be in favor of it.
I would like to include the single-family homes to
the extent that it ever becomes an issue,
that someone's developing more than 11 homes.
I'd like to at least have them have to discuss it with us.
I don't think we have
something necessarily to vote on tonight,
but we are supposed to be giving
direction about what we would like to do with
the subcommittees recommendation,
And I think I'm probably in the minority.
So my thing would be to draft a law
with all of these recommendations,
but not bring it back for adoption
until it's a little more ripe
in terms of our context and experience,
because it's very hard to get rid of laws once you pass them.
So to me, it would just be a sit tight
with a fully drafted law.
And again, I don't know that that's the majority position.
so... What's the TOC timeline? Was it four years or... I think it's, they were holding 2028 I think
is when they were going to be revisiting, I mean I think they're looking at it in an incentive-based
approach now versus more of a punitive-based approach. Right, it is intended to be incentive
base. So, you would not have to comply with any of it. You would forego your ability to apply for
certain kinds of funding if you were not in compliance, but you don't have to comply.
Well, I'm sorry, wait. The way it was before was that you would be disqualified for funding
unless you complied, but now it's more just more like a point system, right? It's just
more eligibility, the more things that… Yeah, it's intended to be incentive oriented rather than,
you know, unitive. Yeah, disciplinary type oriented.
But it still doesn't exist. You're just saying that, yeah, the thinking right now…
Yeah, right now for the next two years, my understanding was that MTC just agreed to
leave the current structure and the current programs as is while they continued to work
through it. But their concept was to go to a more incentive-based system.
I've stated my position. I guess originally when this came up, I think we were thinking
it was going to be required as part of the TOC policy and that we needed to be ready
to comply so that we didn't disqualify ourselves from grant funding and other things.
But I also like the idea of giving the planning department a tool to help shape the kinds
of projects we have and on the other hand, don't want that to be a hammer so that we
don't get any projects ever.
You know, there's some middle ground there and I don't know from the planning director,
you know, how important this is to moving forward at this time.
Would you like for her to come?
If she has an opinion, I'd be interested in hearing that.
No, customer, I think the city manager mentioned it quite clearly.
I have had the recent, very recent experience of talking to a developer to let them know
I wasn't happy with where they had the below market rate unit and what they were showing
me in terms of the quality. So this is really the driving point for that proposed modification.
I would like to bring up another point. And I don't think this is the full reason why
to move forward with this. But I do think it's important and I think it's real in today's
environment about housing, especially in California, and that is, I think, again, we discussed
it at the subcommittee was, I don't think that this is structured in a way that would
actually prevent somebody from doing a development or for us to encourage them to do it because
there's enough flexibility and they have enough options.
And I do like the comparability component because, again, I don't like the idea of developers
trying to build 20 luxury units and then one little broom closet in the back.
And I just don't think that's the spirit.
And I do think that we – I do think we are trying to execute in good faith what we do
have to address for the state.
And one of the things that I do think is real and we did discuss this at the subcommittee
is there is a political environment around housing that is very real.
And a city like Orinda is very much a potential target.
Okay.
And I'll be honest, I don't we have enough to cope with, with these housing laws and
everything that is put on us, that I don't want to be a target of a lot of the advocacy
that goes around, um, for cities that are, you know, trying to not comply.
And obviously we all know that there are a fair amount of them in the state.
And one thing that I think that council member Makani and I were sensitive to is not only
the spirit of caring what this is about, but recognizing that Lafayette and Arinda do have
inclusionary ordinances.
And therefore that makes us stick out a little bit more if we don't.
And I can understand the logic of what the mayor said, and I can even agree with a lot
of it.
It's just that I think there are political realities around housing in this state, and
I think we have to consider that as well.
If we don't pass this now, and we don't have the comparability language in there, what's
in your toolbox to deal with the developers who want to put the portable unit in the back
and not make it comparable.
Our persuasive ways is probably what we have, which is relationship building with local
developers who we could speak to and hope that they do right by the people that are
going to move into those units.
It's really a relationship piece at that point between the developer and the city to try
and encourage them.
The types of developers that are going to be doing business here, quite honestly, are
going to be local developers.
We might see a few larger development types that are doing multifamily in the downtown,
but the people that we're seeing now are the people that are doing business currently in
Lafayette or Moronga.
looking for opportunities to do business in Orinda. And we want to create as much certainty
as we can in the process and state density bonus law gives them a lot more flexibility to
get their project moving forward. And I think we would be able to establish good working
relationships. There might be one or two that say, too bad, I'm going to build something smaller
because I'm allowed to under state law. I don't have any comparability requirements. So, I mean,
we would take that risk if we didn't have something in place that they would look to,
you know, take advantage of that. It's real money, right? It's not inexpensive to build a unit. And
so smaller means less risk for them in the project and gives them more profitability
that could make it pencil. I mean that's part of it too, right? It's not just some of these deals
are really tight and every deal is unique, every site is unique and so you know if there's other
ways for the council, if the council was intent on pursuing this ordinance but you know we didn't
want to necessarily have people not even look at the city before because this requirement's in place
I mean, there could be a process you could set up on the front end, theoretically, that
you could say, look, somebody wants to come in before they even get into the process.
They're telling you that it's not going to work with affordability, and they want to
waver up front from the council.
I mean, that's something we could talk about, and that would be something that would then
have them not invest a considerable amount of time optioning a piece of property or purchasing
a piece of property and crossing their fingers that they can get through a process.
They could work with staff, they could show us that it's not going to pencil, and then
we could share that with you.
They could share it with you, and you guys could give them a waiver on the front end
before they could even go through an application process.
I mean, that's an option.
For what it's worth, the city manager has mentioned that to me in private conversation,
and it's very appealing because that's the main constraint, right?
It's the amount of time and cost that they have to put in before they're even in front
of the planning department.
And so the ability to have that sort of local control element and a process that's very
streamlined and fair and gives them some certainty going in, if that's possible, I've just not
heard of that.
I haven't had it with the city attorney yet, but I'm hopeful.
I mean, but it's a very appealing way of solving the real problem and maintaining local control.
So I really like, if it's, I love what you were saying.
It might be a way forward, right?
Compromise solution.
Yeah.
Okay, another question.
If we don't pass this, is there any way to do like a policy statement in an ordinance
that just shows the value, our value in for comparability?
Does that have any meat?
Or is that-
That we were sitting here side barring about that a minute ago.
I will have to do some thinking and come back to you.
My initial thought is that you could try to put something
in your state density bonus, implementation ordinance,
but I don't have complete insight
into whether that would be acceptable to HCD.
So we would have to check on that.
What about changing the level?
So instead of that chart with the affordability at one
and then the moderate at 1.5 and the very low,
what if the moderate was at one?
And then affordability was, you know what I'm saying?
Like, would that help the situation at all?
I don't know, or help projects pencil.
I think everything's project dependent.
A $200,000 in lieu, if it's a 12 unit project
and they have one unit requirement,
paying $200,000 to get out of their requirement
might not be a bad idea, the worst idea for them.
Building that unit might cost them hundreds of thousands
of dollars more than what they, you know what I mean?
So it really is project dependent.
So it'd be hard to say that making one,
you know, making it moderate versus low,
I think low is sort of the 80% mark
and you know, moderate is 110, I believe in the program.
So I don't know if that gets you where you're trying to go.
I was just wondering.
Yeah.
I also just bring up one of the hardest things
about affordable units is, you know,
the more you're making them do something
it's a luxury unit, and then you're artificially keeping the price low forever, you're just
pushing the rest of the cost of that building onto the market rate unit.
So you've just now made the market ones more expensive.
That's right.
If you let them build those units smaller or with cheaper appliances or whatever, you're
making it more what they call naturally occurring affordable housing.
By allowing it to be a cheaper unit, it's less out of sync with the market and less
of the cost gets pushed on to higher rents on other people.
So there's really no right answer, I guess is the point is there's no kind of magic profit
that you're going to be pulling from.
It's all kind of, and that's where I was talking about retail, right?
If you've got the ability to have a loss leader, you could build 20% affordable and get more
density, but also maybe we want people to build some ground floor retail or we want
them to do more design elements, right?
It's all a puzzle.
So it's not advocating either way, it's just to point out that the comparability has pros
and cons about requiring it.
It's my value system as well, and I think we all agree, but I also know that you're
doing—you are then pushing cost onto the market rate units, and you've just made a
rent more expensive.
You're right.
I mean, I understand the economics of that.
I don't know.
I'm sort of on the fence and in some ways, although it's called inclusionary housing,
it's almost like a penalty for developers. So I don't have myself a clear view of what
the right direction for us to go is, but I could go either way, depending on what my
my fellow council members think and what our staff thinks
and what our committee thinks, because I value that.
I really like the preamble or the introductory paragraph
that states this philosophy and encourages discussion
up front that waivers are possible.
I feel like that is very pro-business.
If developer can afford to do this,
I don't know if that is a good compromise.
I know it's still layers of law
and I can't get rid of the layers and still approve this.
But that kind of preamble might be,
I go a long ways.
So it sounds like there's two things
that the council would want us to continue to investigate
including whether or not the comparability piece
could be live outside of an inclusionary zoning ordinance.
And then the second piece is whether or not
we could get certainty for development on the front end
prior to a full application into the city
that costs time and money and everyone's time and money
to see if we can create some more absolute certainty
on the front end about whether affordable will be applied
or not applied in this case.
Again, I think the universe for this
is gonna be extremely small.
I think we all acknowledge that.
I think in the Affordable Housing Cup Subcommittee,
we all sort of reached that conclusion.
We were sort of in our head trying to think
about what's left, you know,
most of the projects in the downtown,
most multifamily will always select state density bonus law.
I don't see why they wouldn't do that
because there's so many more protections for them.
And so our universe here is very small.
So we can do that investigation
and we can come back to the council,
we can bring it back to the affordable housing subcommittee
and see if we can create that certain,
if that's the direction.
Again, not in a hurry,
just seems like we're spending a considerable amount of time
this topic but this happens in every place so it's not unique to Arenda that this debate continues
and takes many meetings to get through so we can we can refer those two items back to affordable
housing see if we can get any answers and bring them back to the council. Or directly back to the
council. I have one other just very minor addition to that list and maybe that's with the affordable
housing subcommittee to look at how other jurisdictions have dealt with a comparability
issue in the state density bonus, because I've got to believe that's happening in jurisdictions
with much larger projects and at a more troubling scale. So maybe there's some benchmarking
that you can do as part of that answer. But I was very pleased with what you said. I'm
going to look to the vice mayor who's on the subcommittee just for the final word. Does
that sound acceptable? Yeah I'm fine with that and I'd be fine with all the
other things that got mentioned as well. I also wanted to get some
resolution in the future about whether Rinder Grove was single family or
multifamily. It might be well I was just looking at the approval staff report by
the way it was approved in 2008 which the economics of what happened in 2008 is
totally different today I mean I mean it's the height of the it's probably
right prior to the recession starting, but after that...
You know what? It was because summer of 2007 is when Lehman crashed. So it was one year into the
great recession that that was going through. And tons of entitlement work got done in that
period of time because that was the time to do your entitlement work, because then you would be
ready for market when things rebounded. So I could see that. And the economics were certainly much
different at that period. I'm still just thinking about the single-family exemption and wanting
us to consider it just a little more. Yeah, I think I don't know how much more we could do
and thinking about it other than policy debate about whether or not you think it needs to be
included or not included. And we're saying that from a feasibility standpoint, it doesn't seem to
pencil. We even think most of the single family projects, if we see them, if there are any
of any substance, we'll probably rely on state density bonus law as well as protection for
them.
All right. It seems like we're losing momentum, so I won't bring this to a close, but really
appreciate the staff report. And again, the subcommittee has really advanced this and
brought clarity, and I just want to thank you.
Um, and with that, uh, do we have any matters initiated?
No, I move we adjourn.
8.50.
Good job.
If, oh, maybe it's Councilmember Malcomi's being away.