Captions test one two captions test good evening and welcome to the June 4th
2024 City Council meeting this is a regular council meeting and the council
is conducting this meeting from the City Council chamber this meeting is being
video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the city's website as some
attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek Council meeting. I wanted to
welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process. For each agenda item
there will be an opportunity for the public to comment on the item. Thus, if you desire
to speak to an item on the agenda this evening, please hold your comments until the City Council
considers that item. Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled Public Communications
for which the public communication comments are for items not on the agenda any comments
during public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this evening
consistent with section nine point five of the city council handbook 30 minutes will
initially be allocated for public comments and which are items not on the agenda additional
time for public communications for not on the agenda will be provided at the end of
the open session if there are people who didn't get a chance to talk during the 30-minute
first time. If you desire to provide a public comment, please complete a speaker identification
card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait your turn and when
When you approach the lectern, please state your name and the City of Residence for the
record.
You have two minutes to address the City Council.
Please keep in mind that this is a City business meeting.
The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that all meetings are conducted
effectively and efficiently, and that all members of the public have a full, fair and
equal opportunity to be heard.
The City Council handbook outlines decorum expected in the City Council Chamber and can
be found on our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the City Council.
Please do not use threatening profane or abuse language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise
impedes the orderly conduct of the Council meeting.
Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.
Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been
posted on the website for public review and are included in the meeting record but will
not be separately read on the record.
And after all of that, let's stand up with the Pledge of Allegiance.
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.
Okay, we have another thing to do, and I have to get the right paper out.
This is part of the opening and we're considering to take action on a request from a council
member to participate in a meeting remotely due to emergency circumstances pursuant to
Government Code Section 54953F1.
Receive notice that a council member is participating in the meeting due to just cause circumstances
pursuant to Government Code Section 54953F1.
At this time I will ask our City Clerk if any notifications or requests for virtual
meeting participation have been received by a member of the Council.
Mayor Hasker, we have received notification from Councilmember Francois to participate
in the meeting remotely.
Thank you.
Councilmember Francois, would you please address the Council?
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and colleagues.
I am not feeling well this evening, and so I would ask the ability to be able to participate
remotely in tonight's meeting pursuant to the Just Cause provision of the Brown Act.
Okay. And because of that, let me let you know that we are also available for Zoom comments,
and the zoom webinar idea id is 8 8 4 1 1 5 4 6 9 9 1 and the passcode is 4 8 2 7 2 4
alrighty that's the hard part the next item on the agenda is the roll call
councilmember françois here councilmember silva here councilmember wilk here mayor pro tem
darling here mayor haskew here at this moment then we are excitedly looking
forward to a presentation by central Contra Costa sanitary district nice
welcome thank you good evening mayor haskew and members of the council would
you lean into the mic yeah my name is Florence Weddington and I am a longtime
resident of Walnut Creek. I have lived here since 1990. I've raised two
children here both graduated from Northgate High School and I am also the
Division 3 representative for Central Contra Costa Sanitary District and so I
want to thank you on behalf of Central San for allowing us to come and give you
an update on what's going on with Central San. Thank you. So Central San
has been serving the county for 78 years. And, oops, I think this is, is this the right
slide? I think you can need to go backwards. Go back a few slides. Okay, one, just go
forward one now. Thank you. So our vision at Central San includes three main
elements. First, we want to be an innovative industry leader in the
environment and environmental stewardship and sustainability. We want to
deliver exceptional service to our customers and we want to maintain
responsible rates. Our mission is to protect both public health and the
environment. Next slide. So an overview of Central San, we service a 146 square
mile service area and that includes nearly 500,000 residents and over 15,000
businesses.
We maintain 1,500 miles of underground pipe, and we clean over 13 billion gallons per year
of wastewater.
And we are one of the few agencies in the country who has 25 years of total compliance
with our NPDES permit, which is our National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.
And we also produce 600 million gallons of recycled water every year.
And we have crews that are inspecting, cleaning, and maintaining all of our facilities, and
they're on call 24-7.
Next slide, please.
Our board is governed by five members, five directors, and we have staggered election
year terms.
I serve, as I mentioned, Division III, which represents all of Walnut Creek, including
Rossmore, and of the five of us, four are up for election in November, next slide.
So this is kind of just a basic graphic of what it is that we do.
We have a collection system that captures waste streams from both residential and businesses,
And it transports it to our treatment plant in Martinez.
And it goes through primary and secondary treatment from there before it's discharged
out to the bay.
Next slide.
So this is an aerial photo of our treatment facility located in Martinez, California.
We're right at the intersection of 680 and Highway 4.
And we have over 300 acres of property that are dedicated to the treatment processes.
And you can see in the far background—I can't point to it—but in the far background,
you can see Sassoon Bay, and that's where we discharge our treated effluent to.
Next slide.
So our treatment plant includes primary, secondary treatments as well as UV light disinfection.
Next slide.
We test thousands of samples every day just to make sure that our wastewater is safe to
discharge to the state, or to the bay.
And we also support special projects that includes testing for microplastics as well
as PFAS.
Next slide.
We also produce recycled water, which is a very valuable resource in times of drought.
And we do make this recycled water available to all of the residents that are in Contra
Costa County.
All that's required is that you do an onsite training and then you can you're free to pick
up recycled water and our residential fill station that is at our Martinez Treatment
Plan.
Next slide.
So, as I mentioned earlier, our collection system consists of 1,500 miles of underground
pipe and we are always inspecting cleaning and maintaining those those
pipelines and our crews are on call 24-7. Next slide. So just for some
information about Walnut Creek we have 244 miles of sewage pipe in the city of
Walnut Creek and at our household hazardous waste collection facility we've
We've had in the past five years, we've had over 27,000 people visit that facility.
We've had almost 7,000 folks visit our residential recycled water fill station in the past five
years and we've had 179 appointments for Walnut Creek small businesses to dispose of hazardous
waste.
added 300 square feet of patio dining allotment to each restaurant at no
additional charge and of our employees 59 or 54 out of 294 employees work out of
our Walnut Creek collection systems building and we have 20 employees
overall that live in Walnut Creek. Next slide. So we are continuing with our
construction replacing aging pipes building new infrastructure and planning
for the future. And then this is a project that we just recently completed. It was a
major update on our Locust Street collection system pipeline. And it was a great example
of the city coordinating with the utilities. This project was coordinated with East Bay
Mudd's water main replacement and the city of Walnut Creek's planned paving on Locust
Street and so we just recently completed that and we just want to think all of
the Walnut Creek staff are planning ahead of time and working with us to
help coordinate these efforts with our agency as well as the others. Next slide.
And then another thing that we're really proud of is we have our maintenance
access cover beautification project and you may have seen some of these covers
in Broadway Plaza as we try to put them in our highly visible areas, and then we
also, as we are replacing the covers, we replace them with these beautiful ones
and they represent the beautiful things within our service area. Next slide. So
we are continuing to just with our wastewater testing monitoring for
pollutants of emergent concern, we've been monitoring for a dozen plus pathogens, including
some of the ones that are listed here that I'm sure that you are familiar with.
If you want to get more information about the testing that we're doing and what's going
on, there's a website that's listed here on this slide.
Next slide, please.
So just a little bit more about our household hazardous waste collection facility.
It's very popular throughout our service area in Walnut Creek of the almost 33,000 households.
We've had almost 5,000 participants, which is about 15% of Walnut Creek residents that
are utilizing that facility.
Next slide.
We also are very conscious of educating our public and we like to reach out to our youngest
customers so because they're the next generation of environmental stewards so we have some
programs to help them understand what we do but we also have our Central San Academy which
is for adults.
We are about to kick off our next session which starts June 25th and it runs for four
weeks and it's an opportunity for our customers to learn more about what we do.
Next slide. So I told you about all the great things that we're doing at Central
Sand, but we do have some challenges. I wanted to take a little bit of time to
talk about the challenges that are coming our way with this nutrient
watershed permit. Next slide please. So first off, what are nutrients? Wastewater
contains things like nitrogen and phosphorus that come from human waste, food waste, and
various soaps and detergents. And while these nutrients are essential to sustain life, we
We do need to maintain a balance.
Too many nutrients can do some harmful things.
Next slide, please.
So the state is currently working on new permit provisions, and they're based on an August
2022 algae bloom in the bay, which killed thousands of fish.
And in the last month, the Regional Board issued a proposed mandate that wastewater
agencies in the Bay Area reduce their nutrient loads by 40 percent.
So while Central San is very, very concerned about nutrients, we care about the Bay and
we're committed to protecting the Bay and reducing the nutrients, we want to make sure
that the regulations that are coming our way are based on science and not being reactive.
Next slide, please.
So in order for central SAND to be able to meet the requirements of this new permit,
proposed permit, we would have to spend $665 million and there's, it's kind of hard to
see on this slide, but there's about 12 different projects that need to be done, and it's at
a very high cost. Next slide, please. So, like I said, Central San is very, very concerned
about nutrients, but we don't think a one-size-all approach that is not science-based is the
best way to go. This graph here shows the different regions of the bay. There's, you
know, the lower San Francisco Bay, South San Francisco Bay, Central Bay, San Pablo Bay,
and Sassoon Bay, which is where Central San releases its discharges to. The wastewater
agencies right now it looks, you can see that if you look at the last line that
Sassoon Bay typically has, it's less than one percent of the time that the
nutrient loading in that Bay is harmful to the fish that are there. And if we go
ahead with these proposed projects, the change that's going to happen in the
the Sassoon Bay is not going to have much effect.
So in some of the other areas, yes, you'll see some changes, but not in Sassoon Bay.
Next slide, please.
So here's a picture that kind of shows what the current conditions are on the left.
You can see Sassoon Bay up at the top of the chart where there's the central sand arrow
pointing to where we discharge to.
And that dark blue color indicates
that the bay is in the healthy region.
As you move throughout that part of the map,
you can see that it changes in different parts of the bay.
If you look on the far right
at what the regional board is proposing,
you can see that if central sand complies,
that area stays exactly the same.
It's still in the healthy region.
The other parts of the bay,
there are improvements for sure,
but it doesn't seem quite fair
that central sand would have to do all of these improvements
because we are gonna have to pass all these costs
onto our Walnut Creek residents.
And we estimate that the total cost to each community for all the nutrients that we outlined
earlier are $665 million.
I think you can go to the next slide, please.
It will be $665 million.
And that would be a total cost if we just took that $665 million.
It doesn't include interest over time or inflation or anything like that.
It would cost each of the households in Walnut Creek about $5,500.
That's if we issue bonds to finance and cover it over a 30-year period.
That translates to about $200 annually per household that our residents would have to
pay, which is significant. And like I said, it doesn't include any inflation or cost
of borrowing the money. All of the agencies in the Bay Area are trying to make these improvements
in the same timeframe. And so you have competition. I mean, there's a lot of things that could
make that cost, costs go up and so we're concerned.
I don't know that we would be able to, you know,
do this without having a big impact on our residents here.
Next slide please.
So this shows this, this slide shows, you know,
of that $665 million for our whole service area,
about 27.6 billion would have to be paid for
by Walnut Creek residents.
Next slide, please.
Okay, so here, this just applies the percentage
to Central Sand customers, so that's about 24.4%.
Next slide, please.
So I wanted to bring this to your attention
because I don't think that the public is aware of this issue
and we would like the regional board to provide time
and opportunities to educate the public
and receive input from the public
because it does have an impact, like I said,
on all of our community,
but I don't think that consideration was made
to the impacts of disadvantaged communities,
people on fixed income, senior, or other communities.
And so, you know, can the residents of the Bay Area
afford to bear this financial burden?
I think that's what we need to look at,
because this is on top of all,
these increases are on top of, you know,
increases with all of your other utilities,
telecom, gas, electric, water, internet,
so prices are just gonna keep going up
and it can be a burden to all of us.
So we need your help,
but we wanna thank you first of all for,
I know that the city wrote a letter to the regional board
addressing this issue, so we really wanna thank you,
but we need as many voices as possible
to be able to speak out on this issue.
And there is going to be on July 10th,
the regional water board is going to have a meeting
at 9 a.m., anyone can join virtually
and let their voice be heard.
And I think it's important that we're able
to get this message out so that people know
what's coming their way.
So, I think it's also very important too
because one of the members of the regional board
who has input on that is a Walnut Creek resident.
And so he should be aware of the impacts
that it's gonna have on his community as well.
So anyhow, I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this
but I do thank you so much for allowing me
to just give you a little update
on the good things that we're doing
and some of the challenges that we're facing in the future.
Thank you.
Are there any questions from the council?
Thank you so much and it's so nice to see you.
I hope you're enjoying the job.
I think it's been about a year and a half, is that right?
Just a little over a year.
Just a little over again.
Thank you.
I appreciate the heads up on this nutrient quality issue.
Science is basically on top of mind in many arenas lately.
Help me understand a little bit in the community
why the water quality in Sassoon Bay,
or the quality of the discharge, is so much better than it
is in the rest of the Bay.
Is it industrial load?
I'm sure it's.
So I think some of it is on how the water flows
in these areas.
I think there's a lot more flow through the delta than maybe
some of the other parts of the bay.
I should probably have, you know,
I brought some experts with me who can speak more
competently on this topic.
Good evening.
My name is Roger Bailey.
I'm the general manager.
And yes, you're indeed correct.
I think the issue with nutrient is a very complex issue
in terms of how does it impact all of the Bay.
But basically, when you look at the flow going
through the Bay, we do have two rivers that come together
and then eventually push that water out into the Pacific.
As you get further into the South Bay, it's more stagnant.
So there is not a lot of movement.
And so as a result, the conditions down in the South Bay,
there's not a lot of flushing that is going on.
So I think that we have that benefit.
But I do want to say that Central Sands position really
is to do it in a more responsible way.
I think the solution to removing the nutrient
is to do recycled water.
And that's the emphasis that we have.
Instead of spending $650 million,
that will not have any measurable positive impact
in Sassoon Bay, we can spend that type of money
to do recycled water.
And when we do that, even if it doesn't make a difference
to the bay, we'll have water supply to our residents.
So it's a kind of win-win scenario that we're looking for.
But you have to convince the Regional Water Quality Board
to do this.
Exactly.
And so our conversation with the Regional Board
is to work with us to make recycled water happen.
It's a little bit more complex,
but we do need their effort.
They do have the power of their office
to help us to advocate for good policies
as it relates to recycled water.
And I think that they can help us with that.
So how many sanitary agencies are discharging,
are causing this problem?
Or is it other types of water agencies
that are creating this concern?
I think there are 37 agencies that discharge into the Bay.
And I want to make it clear, it is not very apparent
exactly what the relationship is relative
to the nutrient impact as it relates to the fish scale.
It's still unknown.
And so one of the big issues that all of these agencies
are concerned with, collectively,
it will cost us over $13 billion as a region
to address this issue without the assurance
that it will have the intended outcome.
Best wishes on July 12th.
Thank you.
We've been through these conversations
with the water quality board over various other cycles.
Same water quality board, right?
Okay, first of all, there's something Florence
didn't feature in her list of things that you guys provide.
we found out there's an RV dump station out there,
and I was like, woo-hoo, we scored on that one.
But I recognize that the problem
that you guys are having with nutrients
and the challenge with where your discharge is in the bay.
What is the regional board upstream doing?
Is like SAC regional under the same mandates?
I knew, come on, Roger, stay up there.
Yeah, it's a very good question.
Several years ago, Sac Regionals spent almost $2 billion
to do nutrient mitigation,
and it is not clear if it's having the intended outcome.
And so one of the things that we need to be careful of
is not spending money and then discovering later on
that the intended outcome is not guaranteed.
So we wanna do something different.
What we wanna do is to do recycled water,
and even if it doesn't make a difference
to the nutrients in the bay, at least-
at the water.
You get in the water for me.
So speaking of recycled water,
because I know the Rossmoor folks or yours are picking up,
are you still thinking indirect potable reuse
or are you thinking use in parks?
Or are you thinking both?
For us, it's all of the above.
Ultimately, it depends upon the relationship
that we can strike with the water agencies
because central sand cannot directly provide recycled water.
We have to provide it to the water agencies
and then they in turn were provided to the residents.
So if the water agencies want to do indirect
or direct potable reuse,
we certainly would work with them to get there.
Are you talking with East Bay Mudd
about the potential to use that old shell pipeline
to move water up to Rossmore
or is that still kind of on the back burner?
We did, that's a good question.
And she's the right person because she has been working
on it on the East Bay Mudd side.
But yes, we have done assessment on different alternatives
to get the recycled water to communities such as Rossmoor.
And part of that does come down to costs, costs of doing it.
And so on the East Bay Mudd side,
they're concerned about the most optimal way of doing it.
And it might not necessarily be the shell pipeline.
OK.
Well, if you guys ever get to the point
where you need somebody to go out there and help you shop
for money, we're always willing to.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My only comment is thank you for talking about this.
And I think that this is not being understood
by 98% of the residents of Walnut Creek right now.
And they're gonna have a very rude awakening
if we don't get a lot of messaging out about this.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Matt, do you have any questions?
Yes, I was just gonna thank Director Weddington
for coming tonight
and providing this very valuable information.
I think you and I first met on a public art walking tour
two years ago in Slick Park,
and it's so nice to see you involved at Central San,
and we appreciate you bringing
this very valuable information,
and especially appreciate the science-based approach
to solving problems.
I'm wondering if maybe you can just elaborate a little bit
on some of the services Central San provides
in terms of the hazardous waste collection facility,
what types of materials can residents bring to that facility?
So you can bring, I might forget some,
but you can bring paints, you can bring cleaners,
you can bring old medication, oil,
batteries, fluorescent light bulbs,
just about everything, right?
Pesticides, yeah.
There's a lot of things and you bring it there
and then we make sure that it's disposed of safely.
It's not, you know, go into a landfill
or down the storm drain,
but disposed of in a way that's responsible.
Just don't mix it in the trunk of your car.
Yes.
One service that I wasn't aware that you provided
was recycled water.
So I assume you have to bring your own jugs or buckets,
or how does that work?
Yes, so you would bring your own containers.
People can bring gallon containers,
or people can also, you probably have seen the totes
in the back of trucks.
I think we have a maximum, a limit of 300 gallons per trip.
But yeah, you just need to come in and talk to the folks there,
get your initial training, get all signed up.
You just do that one time, and then you
can come in and get your recycled water. Wonderful and then finally on the
Central Sand Academy to sign up for that would someone would just go on your
website? Yeah I believe that's on the website you can sign up on the website
and there's I think there's a limit to the number of unlimited so come on
come on. Alright the more the merrier. Alright thanks again for coming tonight
and nice to see you. Good to see you too, thank you. Thank you very much for
coming. It's good to see everybody's bright and shiny spaces. Next on the agenda is a proclamation
of for Gun Violence Awareness Day and so let me read it to you. Whereas every day more than 120
Americans are killed by gun violence and more than 200 are shot and wounded with an average of more
than 17,000 gun homicides every year. Americans are 26 times more likely to die by gunshot
gun homicide than people in other high income countries. In an average year,
3,299 people die by guns in California with eight deaths per 100,000 people, a crisis that cost the
the state, $41.9 billion each year,
of which 1.1 billion is paid by the taxpayers.
Cities across the nation, including Walnut Creek,
are working to end the senseless violence
which evidence-based solutions.
Protecting public safety in the communities they serve
is the highest responsibility of our elected leaders.
It supports the Second Amendment rights
law-abiding citizens and it goes hands in hands with keeping guns away from people with
dangerous histories. Local officials and law enforcement officers in partnership with local
violence intervention activists and resources know their communities best
are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it and are best positioned to
understand how to keep their community safe. Gun violence prevention is more
important than ever as we see an increase in firearm homicides and non
fatal shootings increased calls to domestic violence hotlines and an
increase in city gun violence and whereas we renew our commitment to
reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the
hands of people who should not have access to them and encourage
responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe.
Now, therefore, Iloella Haskew, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek,
on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council, do hereby declare the day of June 7th,
2024 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
And I encourage all citizens to support their local communities'
efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence
and to honor the value of human lives.
And would somebody come forth and get the petition?
So my name is Michelle Peterson, or Senate Peterson.
I am the group lead for Moms Demand Action
for GunSense in America.
And we have actually worked with some of you here.
And I wanted to say a special thank you to the council
for recognizing this.
As you said, Mayor, gun violence takes a tragic toll
on our lives and our communities daily.
And having cities be aware of this
and helping make citizens aware just really,
we really appreciate it.
And we are here not in a front of the Second Amendment at all.
We are here just to raise awareness and have safety
be a priority.
People can own guns, and people should feel comfortable also
being safe.
So I just want to thank you very much.
I really appreciate you.
Does anybody have comments or questions?
I would just like to thank you for the advocacy work
that you do on this.
This really truly is a national problem and a tragedy.
And the longer that we go on without being
able to address these kind of things,
the bigger the problem becomes.
So thank you for the work that you've done on this.
and keeping counsels, our counsel and other counsels,
on their toes.
And you want to talk about what the orange signifies?
Yes, so orange is the color that hunters wear to be seen.
And for awareness for gun violence in the National Gun
Violence Day that you were so wonderful to make
a proclamation for here, we wear orange
to signify those that are lost to gun violence
in our country every day and every year.
And when I started this work over eight years ago now,
I'm a volunteer.
I have a young child.
The death toll was 95 people per day,
and we are now over 120 people per day.
So this is an issue that's not going away.
And having incredible councils like yours,
making people aware of this issue just
is really important to us.
So, just thank you so much.
Kevin, Council Member Wilk has an orange
for those that can't see.
There it is.
I was wondering about Kevin.
Wow, he's looking very dapper tonight.
Yes.
But I just wanted to say thank you guys so much
for all you do.
I think it's a tremendous part of the community,
not only to prevent people from violence from others,
but gun-assisted suicide and keeping people safe from that
is something that we all get behind.
So thank you very much.
Yes, and thank you for bringing up the suicide
because suicide is very impulsive.
And access to a gun is I was a firefighter.
I've seen suicides.
I've saved people who have overdosed.
I've saved people who have tried to hang themselves.
But I've never seen us be able to save someone
that tried to kill themselves with a gun
or killed themselves with a gun.
So thank you for addressing that.
Because we need to take care of those people as well.
Matt, do you have anything to say?
I just wanted to thank you for your advocacy efforts
and the good work that you're doing.
As you know, our council, thanks to your partnership,
adopted a safe gun storage ordinance two years ago.
And I've heard from members of the community that say,
I feel like I was a responsible gun owner,
but I saw that you passed that ordinance
and I went out and bought a gun locker
and I'm storing my gun in that locker now.
So we're getting the word out and messaging
and I appreciate the partnership
and for you being here tonight.
Thank you.
We had a very graphic experience in our neighborhood.
A young woman was shot by a former young man
in the hall of her house.
And it took a long time before we all
could even figure out, and what do you do
to support the family?
The family is as, well, not as wounded
as the person that died,
but certainly terribly, terribly wounded.
So thank you for doing what you do.
We appreciate it.
No, thank you, thank you.
And thanks for recognizing that it affects
the community as well,
not just the individual that was affected, so.
Thank you, we appreciate you.
All right, next on the agenda is the consent calendar.
Do I have any, does anybody wish to pull an item?
I wish to pull item 2B and 2I.
That's two.
And I'll pull item 2E.
Okay, 2E, okay.
Does anybody of the public wish to make a comment
right now on anything on the consent.
I see somebody coming on the consent calendar.
Please step forward.
Hello, my name is Barbara Ganes.
I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 1996.
I wanted to talk.
Oh, can you hear me?
No?
Okay.
My name's Barbara Ganes.
I've been a resident of Walnut Creek since 1996.
I want to talk about 2I on the consent calendar.
Although we all know that we're experiencing
climate change occurring at a rapid pace. Some states were even in a climate emergency.
And although I commend the Public Works Department for anticipating the need for various environmental
consulting services in the next five years, they are asking for a 600 percent increase
in funding for these projects, which I think is very excessive. It makes one ponder as
well if that much money is needed for environmental consulting. Perhaps plans being considered
have some serious environmental faults.
Over the previous five years, the Public Works Department
spent approximately $500,000 on environmental consulting
services.
But in the 2-I agenda report, they
comment that they want $3 million
spread out over five years.
So that's a six-fold increase.
The questions I have, was there any detailed analysis done
by the Public Works Department?
determining why they need six times as much money
that they have in the past five years.
Was there any submission of quantitative
or qualitative reasons why they need 600% more money?
So I'm asking Council, please do not authorize
the city manager to enter into the Master Consultant
Services Agreements for up to three million dollars.
Please continue with the current policy
of having staff bring individual contracts
for console authorization and approve as they are required.
Please do not write blank checks
and let Public Works fill in the dollar amounts.
If this money was coming from their personal
or from anyone's personal bank account,
you can bet there'd be more oversight and accountability.
Thank you for considering.
Thank you.
All right.
Do you want to take?
I will move to approve,
or do we,
A,
C,
Through A,
8. And do we get the K? No, we don't get the K. Second. Okay, may I have a roll call vote? Mayor Pro Tem
Darling? Aye. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Councilmember Wilk? Aye. Mayor Haskin? Aye.
All right, next item is items. So I've pulled the warrant, item 2B, because I had left a
message about a question, but I'm thinking my question got garbled. It was
a voicemail message. It's about an item on the warrants that if staff get the
question. I think what I'll just ask is for consideration of approval of the
warrants but consideration of please get back to us. There's an item on the
warrants related to PG&E and it's it's an it's a very high number. My husband
being a former PG&E employee looked at it and said he doesn't think it's a
meter usage charge. He thinks it's a construction charge that's been
mischaracterized because it's so big. So if you could just get back to us on that.
Yes, I will get back to you. Thank you. Okay, you want to move to? I'll move item
to be on the consent calendar. I'll second. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem
Darling? Aye. Councilmember Francois? Aye. Councilmember Will? Aye. Mayor Haskew? Aye. Motion
carries unanimously. Thank you. Next. And I pulled item 2-I in order to ask staff
some questions because I reread based on the comments from the public and I think
there was some misinterpretation on the public's part as to what was really
happening so I wanted some clarification if possible. Good evening.
Heather Ballinger, Public Works Director. Do you want to ask a specific question?
I do. First of all are we actually allocating this as a budget or are we
just basically creating the master agreements against which we could bill if we budget it?
That's exactly right.
Okay.
Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
So we, every five years we go out and we do what we call master consulting services agreements.
We ask for qualifications from consultants, and we go through a rigorous process to review
the consultants, interview them, and so we choose, and that's in the staff report tonight,
recommending six consultants that we would use, and they're basically on-call agreements,
but we put a dollar amount to them.
But it's just a placeholder.
We're not asking for that allocation at all.
We would come to you with a task order or a specific project.
But we need to put a dollar amount to each of the consulting services agreements.
So did we do this five years ago?
We have done master agreements, but our purchasing policy has changed slightly, and so it's become
a little more rigorous for us and so we've asked, you know, we're trying to be more transparent
and go through the process slightly differently, but.
And what would be the average size of these contracts because it looks like $500,000 might
be the average size and that's really the cap amount across all of these entities, but
it could be $20,000 times five different projects?
Exactly.
range. It could be 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. It ranges depending on the project, the scope
of work. So the 500,000 is the cap, and it would also be a cumulative cap.
And some of these are for operating budget purposes, and others most significantly, because
these are environmental, might be in the capital budget?
For both. Mostly the capital budget, though.
And this question might actually go to the city manager currently, or to the finance
director or anybody who wants to jump in, we currently are purchasing policy $100,000
for a formal quote. So if there was going to be any of these, if the project was likely
to exceed $100,000, then these would be having to compete for the project.
They've completed all of these.
The $500,000 is now approved, but generally if it's a big project like that, it will be
in front of you for a different reason, but the consulting services, the environmental
piece is allowed up to the $500,000.
The other caveat is that it has to come to us.
If we didn't do this, our threshold is $125,000 for it to come to Council.
We don't approve a contract for $10,000.
That's right.
And what is the type of work that these environmental services consultants may be required to do
that would have necessitated you to actually create this larger scope of possibility?
Well, they do environmental documents for us, so if we're doing a project, if we're
in the beginning stages of starting design for a project, they'll do the whole environmental.
They do environmental assessment.
They do quality checks, you know, such as if there's toxics or that kind of thing that
that we need testing, but mostly environmental documents.
So by environmental, give me an example of where we might,
like the South Main Bridge,
or will there be environmental work there?
Yes, good example.
The OBAG money that we just got,
we're doing a big project on Mount Diab,
or Newell and California, or sorry, Newell and Broadway.
We'll need an environmental consultant
to do the whole environmental document.
So this really reflects the level of capital work
as well as operating work that we foresee
in the next five years.
Right, so they'll do CEQA, NEPA, yeah.
Thank you.
Councilman, if I could just add a few comments
just more generally about the updated purchasing policy
and what you're seeing is these are some of the first
new master service agreements to come through
under the new purchasing policy,
which is why it seems a little different,
but you know, looking at the policy more generally,
it's really about trying to balance competition,
allowing people to compete for the services,
Transparency, obviously bringing this forward to council
to authorize the amounts.
Accountability that we have sufficient task orders in place
that lay out the expectations and contracts
for the work that would be done.
And we hold those vendors to those standards.
And then also efficiency that we can enter into contracts
a little more quickly with these folks,
but through this master service agreement
and get the work done.
So it's really a balancing act of those four variables.
And we've done rigorous, competitive, yes.
This selection process was,
there were probably many more that competed
for the opportunity, exactly.
Are we ready to take this one, Under?
Mayor, I just had two questions.
Oh, sorry, I apologize.
I was absolutely not gonna forget you and then I did.
And thank you, Director Ballinger.
Can you just elaborate too on the point about
Any project that's funded
through these environmental consulting agreements
would essentially be budgeted for in our capital budget.
So the council ultimately approves that, right,
in the capital improvement plan.
Exactly.
And so it would be budgeted either in our capital budget
or in our operating budget.
So there's council oversight there,
and then just responding to Ms. Guinness' comment
about the six-fold increase.
Yeah, and it's really not a six-fold increase, because it's $500,000 for each consultant,
but we're not planning on spending that for each consultant.
Like I said earlier, it's like a placeholder, if you will, or an account that it's just
a set-aside, and then it just so that it gives us flexibility.
So it's a cap, and essentially it could be used for one consultant or $500,000 or $600,000
for one consultant or spread out among all six of them, but you're not anticipating that
it will exceed that cap. It won't be six times 600,000.
Right. Right. And one consultant would not exceed the cap either, so we'll stay within
500,000 for one consultant. But to be honest, most environmental documents that we do do
not require $500,000. That would be a large consulting services agreement for environmental,
so it would probably be accumulative over time. And then it is for five years.
Thank you.
I do want to just clarify one point, if I may, Mayor.
So it is up to $500,000 for each, and as Director Ballinger noted, it likely would not be used
for all $500,000, but you are authorizing up to $3 million to be spent through this
master service agreement, should they be fully maximized.
So I want to be clear about that point on the record.
And then secondly, to your point about the budget, to just add further assurance, you
know, the Council adopted the capital improvement budget, and anything that has already been
approved has been budgeted for, we could proceed.
If there are other projects that are not budgeted that come up that exceed my signature authority
of $124,999, meaning $125,000 or more would go to your counsel for approval if it's a
project that has not been previously approved by the budget.
So I move item 2, I, and really thank staff for finding these ways to be efficient and
cost effective.
And I love efficient contracting, so I will second this.
Roll call, please.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Darlene.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Wilk.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
Fine.
And then I pulled 2E, which was the adoption of the resolution
declaring the month of June 2024 as LGBTQ plus Pride Month.
And we have flown the rainbow flag on Friday afternoon.
We had Council Member Silva, Mayor Pro Tem Darling,
and myself, along with several members from staff
and another eight to 10 members of the public
come to watch us raise the pride flag
for I believe the fifth, fourth,
I've lost track, it's at least four.
So I wanted six years.
That's what I thought, okay, for six years.
I certainly am proud of the Council for doing this.
I'm proud of the community for being involved in this.
And I'm proud that we led the way in the county
for really, I think virtually every city
in the county now does this.
And we were among the first.
So just wanted to acknowledge that.
Thank you to everybody for your involvement.
And with that, I'll make a motion to approve.
Second.
Council member Wilk.
Aye.
Council member Silva.
Aye.
Council member Francois.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Darlene.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
Great.
Our next item is public communications.
Under this part of the meeting,
it's reserved for comment on items not on the agenda.
Under the Brown Act, the council cannot act on items raised
during public communications,
but may respond briefly to statements made
or questions posed, request clarification,
or refer the item to staff.
Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated at this time
for public communications for items not on the agenda.
additional time for public communications
for items not on the agenda will be provided
at the end of the meeting if necessary.
And I have more to read.
I would like to remind the public
if you would like to provide a public comment,
speaker identification cards need to be completed
and turned into the city clerk, you have two minutes.
Please keep in mind this is a city business meeting.
The city council has adopted rules of decorum
to ensure the meetings are conducted efficiently
and effectively and that all members of the public
have a full, fair, and equal opportunity to be heard.
The City Council handbook outlines decorum expected
at Council Chamber and can be found on our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the Council.
Please do not use threatening, profane, abusive language
which disrupts, disturbs, and otherwise impedes
the orderly conduct of the council meeting.
And that's it.
Does anybody want to come for public comments?
Yes, please come forward.
My name is Jerry Baer.
I'm a Walnut Creek resident.
And I applaud you for what you did with the gun group.
I have a question.
Is there a way that the city council or the city
of Walnut Creek can establish either a law or a regulation
that anyone under the age of 18 that buys a gun
has to have at least five hours of practice of how to use it?
Because what's happening in a lot of the cases,
people get guns, have no idea how to use a gun.
They just buy it and get a license.
I'm very old.
When I started driving, they were using horses and carriages.
But I still had to learn how to use a whip.
The truth is kids don't think about it.
And someone will say to his buddy, hey, get a gun.
You're old enough.
You can go there.
All you need is $500 or $1,500 to get a good gun.
And, to me, it makes sense if the city says something to the police department can work
hand in hand with this in working out some kind of a program where if you're 18 or under,
you have to spend five hours or two hours, whatever it takes to learn how to use the
darn thing.
Just an idea, I thought maybe you could play with it.
Thank you.
Thank you. We needed a new toy.
My name is Barbara Ganes, resident since 1996.
I talked on 2I, which is all I was going to talk about,
and thanks for discussing it.
I still got my issues, but anyway, it's fine.
And I just want to make a comment
about last night's pros meeting.
I wasn't able to attend.
But apparently, at the end of the meeting,
there was an announcement that the flow trail is being canceled.
I don't know if you heard that or not, but I just wanted to make a comment.
I know it might make a lot of you extremely happy because you won't hear from me as much
about it, but I just wanted to thank everyone that might have been involved in helping get
that project canceled.
So thank you very much.
Anyone else?
Madam Mayor, there are no hands raised on Zoom for the public comments?
That's correct.
Thank you.
All right.
Then we're closing the public comment session and we're moving on to council member and
staff announcements, reports on activities or requests.
Are there any closed session announcements?
Madam Mayor, the council did conduct the city manager's evaluation this evening and I would
turn that over to you.
Okay.
I will do that when it comes to be my turn if that's okay.
Great.
Okay.
City manager.
Yeah, just wanted to do basically a public service announcement
with the Crow fire that had occurred near Tracy recently
and is burned at the time over 14,000 acres.
Just a reminder to everybody that fire season is upon us,
which will only worsen throughout the year.
And I'd like to encourage folks to sign up
for emergency alerts and to stay informed
and receive evacuation orders.
The alerts are one of the best ways to do that
in addition to social media and others.
is actually better than social media because you can get the information directly through
the alerts.
Please visit if you are interested the city's website at walnut creek ca.org slash emergency
if you want to go more specifically you can also just get there through the website at
walnut creek ca.org and you can through there you can sign up for WC alert and you can also
sign up for the Contra Costa county community warning system so I would encourage folks
to sign up for both of those, as both the county and the city may put out information
depending upon the nature of the emergency.
This is also as easy as texting 888-777 to be registered for WC alert.
So again, please visit our website and sign up for these emergency alerts if you're not
already receiving them, and that's my update, Mayor.
Thank you.
I usually pick on Matt, but I'm going to save you for the second to last.
and start with Kevin. Kevin, would you please do it?
Sure, I think a few people were with me at some of the different events. We had
of course a wonderful annual Memorial Day ceremony
at Civic Park. We had a couple of hundred people that came out for that.
The entire city council was there. I loved the idea and I
I heard from other people about they really enjoyed
the fact that we wrote that we read the letters from people that were talking
about family members that that were veterans
And in some cases, they unfortunately died during the war.
So it was a terrific ceremony.
Thank you for being the emcee on that one.
I was also at COLLAB, which opened up.
We had the ribbon cutting for there.
I think, again, most of the council members
were there at that one.
This is a fertility clinic that's in the Shadelands area.
And great to have them as part of Walnut Creek.
It's all ribbon cutting is about the most favorite thing
that I think any of the people on the council do,
because everybody's happy.
And people are just happy part of Walnut Creek.
Along with that was another grand opening for CHIPs.
For those of us who live in the North Gate area
and the east side of town like myself,
this is a great new dessert place
that we again had a ribbon cutting
and had the grand opening.
So there's a lot of businesses that are opening up
in Walnut Creek, not just in downtown,
which gets the lion's share of the PR,
but all throughout Walnut Creek as well.
And then along with Mayor Pro Tem Darling,
I participated in the Clayton Pride Parade,
which was on, now I'm forgetting, it was Sunday, right?
Sunday, all right.
And we represented Walnut Creek.
There, a tremendous amount of people,
must've been a couple of thousand people
that were out for that.
And again, just great to see people that,
again, just happy to be out.
It's so nice after some of the things that we do
where people are just happy in some of these areas.
One of those happy places was the Art & Wine Festival.
See, I get to talk about all this
because you pick on me first.
But Art & Wine Festival, what a great annual event.
The Chamber of Commerce runs this.
We had thousands of people.
I don't even know what the number was.
We'll have to get that number from the Chamber of Commerce
in the weeks to come.
Thousands of people were there.
I volunteered for one of the shifts.
And again, people were just thrilled to be out,
enjoying the, it was great weather,
enjoying the experience, music, food.
There were games there, there's rides
and wine and beer and art.
So again, thank you to the Chamber of Commerce.
And if you missed it this year,
it's the last year for a while
that it's gonna be in Heather Farm
because with the construction of the aquatic center
next year and the community center,
it's going to be downtown next year.
And if you missed it, do not miss next year.
That's my update.
After all, happy news, please, move on.
Thank you very much.
I would like to build on a couple of things.
In terms of Memorial Day, I really want to give a shout out to staff for the work of
that.
It was very difficult to find families and friends of those who died in service of their
country in a time of war.
So it may be a one-off because it is so difficult to find that.
So thank you to staff for doing that
and for members of the public
for contributing their stories.
At the Recycle Smart board meeting in May,
we took three important actions.
Walnut Creek is one of six agencies
that are on the Recycle Smart
which handles the garbage recycling and organic services
for La Marinda Danville, Walnut Creek
and the unincorporated county areas.
At our May meeting, we celebrated
with two high school students,
their work locally at their high schools
regarding recycling.
And we also adopted our 2024, 2025 annual budget,
which the fiscal year starts July one.
And we took unanimously the board voted
to take an opposed position to the initiative
that is proposed for the November ballot called,
well euphemistically called the Taxpayer Deception Act,
but basically it would impact garbage rates
as well as all sorts of other fees and charges
across the community.
I was very pleased to be able to attend
one of the opening night productions of Cabaret
at the Leisure Center of the Arts,
which is playing now until June 23rd.
If you don't have a ticket, you should get one.
Not only is it a fabulous production,
it is very thought-provoking and timely.
If you can realize that Cabaret is musical
by Kander and Ebb that takes place in the 1930s Germany.
And there's a lot of interesting messaging.
There were a couple of fabulous numbers
in which I couldn't figure out
if it was really appropriate to clap
because the message of the song was not one
you would be wanting to clap about.
So you had to think about it.
So get tickets at lecherartscenter.org.
Thanks to all of us for participating in Art and Wine,
the chambers here this evening.
If you can tell us how many glasses we went through
when you come for your subsequent presentation.
I know somebody was counting them
and I ended up getting all the way home
with an extra drink ticket.
I couldn't figure out how I did that.
It's probably a good thing.
The, today I participated in a statewide briefing
on legislation and the state budget.
And at this point, the state legislature is very intent
on adopting the statewide budget by the end of June
or they don't get paid.
Aw, shucks.
The budget was started in January at about $291.5 billion
and it's now down to $288 billion
with a gap of 27 to 30 billion each of the next two years,
which is a lot better than where it started.
But the closing of the budget gap is really,
includes some deferrals, reductions and eliminations.
And one of those eliminations I really wanted to point out
because we rely on these funds and those are the HAP funds
for homeless and housing services.
And we need to be talking to our legislators
about not losing those funds.
The legislative joint budget proposal
does keep the $1 billion in HAP funds
for the sixth round, but does not keep the $300 million
in grant funding.
And so if we're relying on some of those funds,
we may be at risk.
So if we can reach out, send letters, send cards,
skyrite, whatever, that would be very important.
And then finally, and we will celebrate this,
and honor this individual,
our former mayor, Charlie Abrams, passed away last evening.
And he had been battling leukemia for a while.
and we are all sorry that he will no longer be part
of our community and part of our former Mayor's events
and celebrations.
He will be greatly missed.
He was a transportation traffic engineer.
He counted cars for a living
and he was on our planning commission.
He was on the city council for 12 years
and we will honor him at some time subsequently.
the news is rather fresh and just being distributed.
Thank you very much, Mayor.
And Charlie also sat in one of the front pews
at St. John Vianney with us and our kids behind him,
irritating him, but he was always very gracious about that.
Janet loved it, his wife was like all over my kids.
Memorial Day was really a great event.
I think having it not be a bunch of politicians talking,
but using the voices of the people who have lost people
was very powerful.
It was witnessed by the fact that I could not read
my whole phone without stopping for a second
and breathing for a minute.
We did raise the pride flag, that was a lot of fun.
It was the first time I got to actually be here.
I'm usually out somewhere on vacation.
The Clayton pride parade was really a lot of fun.
It's very family friendly.
The organizers give you very clear instruction
that this is for families and there's nothing.
And so I was in between my cousin Margaret's Taekwondo
troop with their Chinese dragon.
And the Rossmore LGBTQ convertible was behind me.
And I got to ride Tiffany Plato, one
of the local business owners out there.
She runs restaurants out there.
She had this beautiful yellow convertible
I got to ride in, and it was quite fun.
Art and wine was OK.
It was hot.
and nobody cheered for me, but I sold a lot of drinks,
so that was good.
The collab bash was awesome.
If anybody's interested, Thalia Sagal, the doctor who
has organized this as a powerhouse,
she will give anybody who wants a tour.
One of the things that she talked about at the bash
was her efforts to work with patients undergoing
cancer treatment.
So if somebody is starting cancer treatment,
she has funding that she's worked to get from a couple of different nonprofits so that people
can go through egg or sperm retrieval in advance of the treatment so that they could protect their
fertility, which is just an amazing, she's an amazing person. I also got to sit down with
Luz Gomez, our new East Bay MUD director. She came here to speak to us recently and she and I set up
coffee and it was really a lot of fun to talk about water with somebody and so that was really
great fun. The DRAA business leaders, you can probably speak on that, but the three of us were
there anyway, but Miss Monet, one of the performers that grew up in Pittsburgh, came back and sang,
and she's just a true delight. On the fire side of things, the other thing in addition to making
making sure that you have your emergency notifications on is fire safe your house, pull your weeds.
If you have a fence and you're backing up to the open space, make sure you have that
defensible space behind beside your fence.
I have several friends who needed to go through tremendous modifications of their houses to
keep their housing insurance this year.
People are getting canceled left and right.
So the more we do as a community, one friend of mine had to go replace her gates on both
sides because they were wooden gates attached to the house. I'm looking at
it's like okay your house isn't gonna burn but everybody around you down. So
that's an important thing to look at this time of year and then the last
thing I got to go last night with a couple friends of mine who are
volunteering in the open space over at Sugarloaf and there is I did not even
know this was there they told me to meet them at the native plant garden I'm
like what the heck is that? And it's a little native plant garden in Sugarloaf
And the three of them maintain it.
They have the plants labeled.
There was a soap, soap work was the last plant
that was really blooming and they shared with me
that the flowers open up as the sun goes down
and all the bees come over and enjoy it.
So that was one of those little unexpected gems
of the open space and we will all be Thursday night
at the Shadelands and Saturday to start celebrating
50th anniversary, lots of fun things coming up with that to celebrate our open space.
So that's my I am not going to forget you.
Matt, you're on now.
Hey, thank you, Mayor.
And thank you, colleagues, for all that you do for our community.
I, along with Councilmember Silva, attended the Recycle Smart meeting.
I couldn't find really anything on my list that she hadn't already covered,
although I will point out and sort of challenge
our Northgate and Los Lomas students that Recycle Smart does offer
scholarships for college-bound students. And this year, the
scholarships went to a student from Monte Vista and campus. So
it'd be nice to get you in the mix if you're in the environmental
clubs at either of those schools and have undertaken some programs
or initiatives, you would be eligible. So please go to the
website and look for more information about that. There
was also a highlight in our executive director's report about
a pilot program Walnut Creek is conducting on sustainable
business highlight program and perhaps we could have one of those businesses highlighted at one
of our future meetings so we can talk about the good work that's happening right here in Walnut Creek.
I echo the comments on Memorial Day. Mayor, I thought you did a terrific job and I especially
appreciate all the hard work that Betsy Burkhart and Matt Bolander put into making that such a
successful event. It was very moving to read letters from family members who had lost a loved
one in service to our country and I was privileged to do that. I know that we all were and I will
remember that for a long time so thank you for that opportunity. I did attend the economic
development working group of the chamber. We had a conversation about the Diablo Valley data
and issue or the Diablo Valley Data Project, which is an effort undertaken by folks at
DVC to attract high-tech companies using a data-driven approach. So they're trying to
combine data about where people work, who lives in Contra Costa, how we can match up
the employers with the employees and make our region more attractive from a tech standpoint,
tech, autonomous vehicles, drone technology, medical devices. One of the suggestions that was raised
at the meeting was from the owners and operators of the Um, Shadelands, the ultimate field house
and the COPPA training facility, which is a specialized training facility for soccer players
and uses a lot of technology to gather information that they can share with that group. We also talked
about gathering information from the city and various other cities in the region about
permitting time frames so that we can understand what's the current baseline and how we might
be able to improve on that. And then on the agenda in the future is preparation of a technical
advisory panel with the Urban Land Institute, which would kind of be a symposium focused
on expanding, likely focused on expanding healthcare opportunities in Walnut Creek and
the region. And that is my update.
Thank you, Matt. Okay. That leaves me. And about the only thing I wasn't with everybody
with was a CalCog legislative day because I do that as a result of my being on the Contra
Costa Transportation Authority Commission.
And so we learned a lot about, we were up in Sacramento and we had lots of different
state people coming in and talking to us about the items and how frustrating it is to deal
with the budget and how they basically got broadsided by the fact that because we couldn't
file tax returns until October, they never were really sure what the money was to be
budgeted for.
So they just assumed that the same windfall that had happened the year prior was going
to continue and boy were they wrong.
So we got that and lots of other things.
they gave us an update on housing,
the housing association,
and I've let Erica know about that and that's it.
Sadly, I was scheduled to be at the farmer's market
on Sunday and a terrible tragic accident happened there.
And as much as it's an effort for me to get there,
I would have much rather been at the farmer's market
up full bore than having to deal with the fact
that two of the workers there were seriously injured
and, I'm sure, is still in the hospital.
And all of the people who rely on the money from the farmer's
market had to skip town.
And not skip town.
That's a bad choice of words.
But they didn't get to sell their wares.
And so that was a really sad, sad, sad time for me
and they and everyone around.
The DRAA celebration that Mayor Pro Tem talked about
was a celebration of the business support community
and the business community and how much it has supported
the arts in Walnut Creek and how they make so much
of our growth toward our strategic plan be in action.
And so it was really nice to be able to thank the people
who helped us make such strides in bringing the theater
up to the extraordinary quality levels that we have now.
They also reminded that the biggest fundraiser
for that on Broadway will be in October.
so plan on having your fancy duds
and showing up for a really good time.
And my last item had a coming attraction
from the city attorney,
and that was during our closed session,
we had a manager's, our city manager annual evaluation.
And the city council is very pleased,
and we shared that news with him,
with his service as the city manager.
And we look forward to continuing to work with him.
And even though we think you're nearly perfect now,
watching you grow to getting even more nearly perfect.
So thank you for all the work you do, Dan.
And that I think takes us to the next item on the agenda.
So that will be turning the page.
approval of the assessment report and annual levy of assessments for Walnut Creek Tourist
Business Approval District for fiscal year 24-25 and setting a public hearing high. Please, please
start. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council Angela Sway, Economic Development Manager.
Tonight's item 5A is the annual T-Bid Redewal. To briefly recap, the city established the Walnut
Creek Tourism Business Improvement District, which is the T-BID in 2010. The purpose is to promote
tourism within Walnut Creek by funding activities through a levy of assessments through the hotels.
The assessment is 3% of the guest room rate on all occupied rooms. The T-BID is managed by the
Chamber of Commerce and visit Walnut Creek DMO as a contract by the city. And the annual T-BID
assessment renewal is a two-step process. Tonight's meeting is the first meeting with
a presentation from Visit Walnut Creek and the chamber. And the second meeting is the
public hearing scheduled for June 18th. This morning, the city clerk's office provided
you with an addendum to the assessment report, which included a proposed amendment to the
the fiscal year 2023-24 budget.
And those that adjustment included some items,
adjustments to the overhead costs,
additional trade shows, event support
and personnel changes.
Also included was a revision to the profit
and loss statement and balance sheet.
And that was some cleanup done to accurately
reflect net assessment revenue.
So to no longer record the city's administration fee
as an expense.
At this time, I'd like to introduce Nicole Hankton
and Bob Linshine to give a presentation
and to answer Council's questions.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Good evening, everyone.
We all made it through the hard wine festival.
I'm still a little sore.
I hope you're okay.
Get started.
So starting right out of the gate on...
Is that better?
Okay, starting right out of the gate with our partnerships.
We have partnerships going on
with local community partners, Ultimate Field House,
where we are the, our hotels are the exclusive lodging
partners for all of the tournaments
and events that come through Ultimate Field House.
It's not only basketball tournaments that we found,
we were also able to host an expo for the half marathon
that was to happen in March.
So we've been partnering with them very well.
And on their website, only the Walnut Creek hotels
are listed for tournament attendees and organizers.
We also have a relationship with St. Mary's College
for visiting teams.
And we also get a lot of visual marketing
at all of the games at St. Mary's.
So we'll be continuing some of those partnerships.
Next up is our conferences
where we really get a lot of exposure
to meeting planners who are procured
by the conference organizers
who will book in destinations of our size.
We try to primarily focus on those particular conferences,
that book planners that procure events
anywhere from 50 to 300 attendees
because that makes more sense for us.
We were also able to, in this last fiscal year,
gain a basketball tournament that happened on April 14th through 16th. Hotel
occupancy for that weekend was 85% plus and we were also able to procure
corporate events. We have also started a data platform called Noland that allows
us to track programs that are booked in Walnut Creek. So one of the challenges
that we were facing is we were going out on the road and we were meeting with
these event and meeting planners talking to them about Walnut Creek sending leads over
to the hotels and then it disappeared. We didn't hear anything else. We didn't know
if they booked or not. Nolan is a data platform that allows us to go back and see if those
events were booked. It allows us to track and it also allows us to check out events
that are of the size that would be conducive to Walnut Creek and we can also go grab those
as well, so Andressa and I are very excited about Noland.
Sponsorships and also memberships that we're continuing, one of them very
important is CalSAE, so we are a sponsor of their
annual events, Elevate and Seasonal Spectacular. 70% of the
members are event and conference planners,
primarily association planners, which is not a market that we could play in
before because Association meetings used to be huge and we just couldn't accommodate them
but COVID happened and they shrunk those sizes down and did the meet they do the meetings
regionally now and now we can play in the Association market which the hotels are really
happy about. New visitors guide, a great piece of marketing. This is the 2024 version. We print
10,000 copies. I have everyone has a copy. 4,000 go to the Oakland Airport. 4,500 are
distributed to visit California Welcome Centers in San Francisco, Modesto, and Fairfield. And
we also regularly distribute them to folks that request them through our listing with Visit
California. And then we also have remainders of copies that we distribute through Walnut Creek
downtown. We have some out in the lobby and also chamber members sometimes
request them, such as real estate agents, people with short-term rentals. So it's
been a great piece of marketing for Walnut Creek. More marketing collateral
that you also have samples of Leisure Travel Guide. These are for our tour
operators. We attend shows like IPW and Go West. We primarily speak to tour
operators who specifically want to know what are the key points, what are cool
things that we can do in Walnut Creek, the top things that we can do to hang
out, how many days do we need to spend there, when we fly into LAX and then we
drive up to Yosemite, can we stop in Walnut Creek on our way to Napa.
Self-guided procured driving tours are very, very popular, especially with the
UK and China. They're flying into LAX, they're renting a car, and they're using
a procured tour and they're driving through California to experience the local activities
that we all participate in and they want to participate in as well.
So we're trying to get Walnut Creek as a stop on those tours.
We have a meeting planners guide that we are very proud of.
We just launched it in April of this year.
It's everything you need to know about booking a meeting in Walnut Creek.
hotels, how much space they have, other venues that you can book meetings
because the big call for action right now is unique venues, anything with
natural light and we do have that here in Walnut Creek. So there's also an
online version with a button for planners to submit a request for
proposal. So we rolled that out and you also have copies of that. More marketing
collateral. We are part of an app called Wander Maps. It's customized very cool
things to do in different destinations. So if you're traveling, I recommend you
check out Wander. You can enter in the destination in which you're traveling
and it will highlight things in that destination for you things for you to do.
So what we did was we patterned our Wander Map after our visitors guide and
actually after our cocktail trail as well and coming up we're going to be
adding hiking trails on Mount Diablo and also biking trails because we've
learned that that's very popular on wander maps and people are looking for
that. Jumping into digital this is a whole lot of gobbledygook so I am going
to do highlights. The website engagements have increased and this was driven
primarily by the Google Ads that we've submitted for groups and celebrations,
basically being the same, I believe, audience, especially if there's any group
rooms that are booked. We also added a new venue this fiscal year, The Garden,
which has been getting a substantial amount of traffic. People love that venue
and both segments performed better than they did in our last quarter. Our
Our leisure campaign generated 71% of the total campaign clicks, so people are coming
to Walnut Creek primarily for leisure, and that was 49% of our digital spend.
Out of the four campaigns, a celebrations campaign had the best click rate.
So people are coming, celebrations encompasses weddings, birthdays, baby showers, any, we
we didn't specifically book weddings, we went more after celebrations and it's paying off.
And groups drove most of the engagements on our website.
I'm going to just give highlights on this.
Total click outs to venue partner sites.
So Ruth Bancroft Garden, The Garden, we have a lot of gardens, Lesher Center, that's what
we consider venue partner sites.
They did really well, over 1,400 clickouts, and then our hotels did very well as well,
clicking out to the hotel partner sites.
I realize that there's a lot less clicking out to the hotels, but people tend to research
hotels on their own.
It's not really something that they click out from a destination website, but the hotels
are seeing traffic coming from the Visit Walnut Creek website.
So the highlights for this one, there were over 2,600 website engagements just in Q4
of the fiscal year with an additional 12 from unique venues.
I just want to highlight unique venues a little bit.
It is a very inexpensive platform that we're using that connects with event planners that
are looking just for that, unique venues.
And Walnut Creek does very well.
We get, leads were up 26 last quarter to 48, and this is a small, like I said, independent
platform, but we've been very popular on it, and we've gotten over 1,400 engagements from
unique venues, so we're very happy with that so far.
Another piece on our website is Website Visitor Origination.
The top five states, California, obviously, Washington, Kansas, Oregon, and Texas, and
We noticed Kansas, Coffeyville, Texas, I mean, Kansas,
I don't know where that is, but we figured out
that there was a little glitch with our Microsoft ads,
which is why Coffeyville, Kansas,
kept popping up in our engagement results,
but we have since fixed that.
So the next time I present, we will have,
there won't be any anomalies popping up.
But we do, and I think I presented this last year,
we are seeing more growth in visitors from Texas.
And I think that may have something to do with a lot
of Californians moving to Texas.
We're continuing our Mount Diablo co-op,
which means that we partner with Visit Concord,
Stay Pleasant Hill, Visit Tri-Valley, and us,
and we pool our money and we get to be a part
of these huge marketing buys that,
the digital marketing buys that SF Travel puts out.
And we decided to go through with that again,
last fiscal and total rooms generated from the five days
in Mount Diablo region just for Walnut Creek
were 1,039 rooms generated just from this campaign
and over $215,000 in room revenue generated.
So, and it's all leisure.
So we did really well with that.
So if we have another opportunity to do this
in the next fiscal, we will likely go in
and that is a $5,000 buy each time
that we participated, which was twice.
So we spent $10,000 and got over $215,000 in room revenue.
So this is a good one.
We're excited about it.
We also started some geofencing ads, very super targeted,
creepy, big brother ads that I enjoy.
So we did it for our cocktail trail.
We target visitors that are going
into restaurants in Lafayette, Danville,
and other surrounding areas,
as they're browsing on their phone,
Walnut Creek ads pop up.
And we're directing them to come to our cocktail trail.
These ads have been performing very well,
especially on Facebook.
It popped up on Costco.
I was looking at Costco the other day
and I wasn't too far and Walnut Creek ad popped up.
So I was very happy about that.
So we are also starting to target
college sports enthusiasts so that we can get those rooms
booked in the area for folks visiting St. Mary's
and even some UC Berkeley.
Digital ads in the international market,
we stepped into that this last fiscal year
and we did not do too bad our first time out.
We targeted the UK from August 23rd, sorry,
2023 to December 2023.
We targeted, our ads are on Kayak, Momunda and Opodo.
These are European online travel agencies,
and as you know, Kayak is also in the US.
And we got over 3 million impressions,
and we got just over 12,000 clicks.
0.42%, not bad for our first time dabbling in this market.
We're going to try it again,
and we're gonna pump things up just a little bit
with our creative,
and hopefully we'll get better clickthroughs this time,
but it was good for our first time out in the UK.
We're also exploring ads in China,
but it's a little bit more complicated to do that.
So we're exploring that opportunity
and then also exploring partnering with Visit California
to tag on to some of their campaigns in China
since we had a China FAM this past fiscal
and it was very popular.
That should stay strategic plan instead of report.
So we completed our strategic plan this year.
The plan goes from 2024 through 2027.
This was an amazing experience.
This is my first time with a DMO going
through the strategic plan process, and it was great.
We brought in stakeholders from all over Walnut Creek,
the hotels, downtown, folks from the city,
and everyone gave input, and the agency that we worked with
pulled it all together, and we established
our top four strategic goals.
Increase interest and visitation to Walnut Creek, of course.
Direct room night growth.
Enhance community engagement, advocacy, and partnerships,
and foster a sustainable, accountable, dynamic organization.
And then below those goals,
We broke it out even further.
It gets more detailed, and then it gets even more detailed
where myself and our team, we have goals per quarter
that we need to accomplish that are laid out
in the strategic plan.
So we're super excited to get started on this,
and we think you'll see results.
Just to go through some highlights for this last fiscal,
we had China tour operators for our fam.
They loved Walnut Creek.
The feedback that we constantly received
was that Walnut Creek was beautiful,
Walnut Creek was fancy, and Walnut Creek felt safe.
Safe came up over and over and over again.
So thanks to all the efforts by city council
and our law enforcement to make our visitors feel that way,
I was shuttling them through Walnut Creek
and we were driving through downtown and they said,
stop, let us out, we wanna walk.
So I said, okay, great.
And I just patiently waited at the hotel
for them to come back, but they had a great time.
We attached a familiarization tour
to the East Bay Women's Conference.
So we invited nine meeting planners to come out
and we treated them and we wind and dined them.
We did site tours with our hotels
and they got to see the space at the Lesher Center,
which most of them were totally unaware existed.
And we talk about it on the road all the time
but we find that the impact it has when they actually see it
is way better than us talking about it at conferences.
All of you heard about the Half Marathon Revelway series,
we also brought that to Walnut Creek
through one of our conferences.
It did not happen, but it was a great experience
and economic impact report out of it,
despite the marathon being canceled by Mount Diablo.
Another highlight is more sponsorships
with Walnut Creek Downtown.
that's been an amazing partnership with them
and the Chamber of Commerce.
And we leveled our staff back up to pre-COVID levels
so I don't have to be on the road as much anymore,
which is amazing.
So we have three of us now, myself,
Andressa is our sales and marketing manager,
and we have Chris, who we share with the Chamber of Commerce
for our marketing and communications manager.
Now this is the economic impact report
that I mentioned about the half marathon.
So although it did not happen, our team,
I'm very proud of our team.
We jumped in, Chris designed that graphic that you see.
We had a booth at the expo the day prior to the race,
and we played Plinko and we got people to take the survey
and give all of their economic information.
Where did you book your room?
How many rooms did you book?
What was the rate?
How much did you get a rental car?
How much did you spend?
Do you plan on doing some shopping?
And we worked with the Sports Economic LLC
to conduct this survey.
They crunched the numbers for us.
And even though the marathon was canceled,
we were able to collect over 220 responses
for the survey, which they only needed 100 for a baseline.
And we collected over 220.
You'll see lodging came in at over $86,000.
Now that includes hotels and short-term rentals.
Rental cars are up there.
Transportation, obviously, airfare, et cetera.
Shopping, over 80,000.
Food and beverage is the highest.
It came in at over $116,000.
Entertainment, things that they did while they were in town,
either before or after the marathon.
and then miscellaneous could have been anything
from buying gear, purchasing things that they needed
for the marathon, medicines, you never know.
So then there's business spending
because Revel also spent money in Walnut Creek.
So bottom line is the total economic impact
for Walnut Creek was over 784,000.
And that was one event, but keep in mind we're small.
So that half marathon was a citywide for us
because we only have five hotels.
So incredible.
And over, it was close, it was about 1,100 people
that came, runners, and over 850 of them
were from outside of Walnut Creek.
I think we saw someone that was from Ecuador
who came to the race.
Revel has a very strong national and international following,
so we are working with them again.
And this time, we're doing it in June.
So hopefully there will be no cancellation.
And that is it.
I also have a little bit more to give you.
I was asked about total rooms for the hotels altogether,
and I do have those numbers.
Total rooms booked and consumed in 2022 for all of our five
hotels, 250,241.
And in 2023, 245,695.
There's a little bit of a difference
there because San Ramon was under renovation in 2023,
and we reaped the benefits from that, especially the Marriott.
So there's a little bit of a difference there.
Does anyone have any questions?
So those are room nights, not room dollars.
Those are room nights, rooms booked and consumed.
Thank you.
Okay, is that your, you're ready for the questions?
I'm ready for the questions.
Okay, let me check and see if there are any,
are there any questions?
I will start with Council Member Cindy Silva.
Thank you very much for the report.
It's always exciting to hear about this
and it's been, this is year 14.
I'm looking back at how long this has been around.
The hoteliers really came together on this because they wanted to find a way to pool
their resources, where it turns out to be they charge the customer for the additional
resources, but pool their resources to be able to increase room nights and room rates
because the more room nights than the ability to increase the lodging rate goes up.
How are they feeling about it, and thank you for the information on the difference between
2022-23 and 2023-24 which is where we yeah we won't have 20 24 would be
forecasted yeah but so how are they feeling about the results of all of this
work mm-hmm you know what I hear from them in the board meeting is they really
appreciate and are enthusiastic about the support that we provide of course
They love the leads, they love the RFPs,
and I think they understand that they need the promotion.
There's a Marriott in every corner, everywhere.
But what the planners and what people want to know
is the awareness about Walnut Creek as a destination
and why they should book in Walnut Creek.
And I think we're kind of that top level view.
We can see the trends,
we can see what's going on top level.
And then when we funnel down the leads to them,
they can close.
So I think they appreciate that relationship.
In the early days, I'm not sure they understood
that you weren't just an advertising arm
for five different hotels or now seven,
that you were basically marketing the destination,
which meant marketing the restaurants,
marketing the arts, marketing the outdoor activities,
a reason for people to come and then they'll find the hotel.
Absolutely, absolutely.
A second question, you used the term procured,
but not the way we were using it earlier on the meeting,
which was a procurement process, what is a procured tour?
So we work with tour operators
that actually have a client base
and they find out what it is they're looking for
for their tours and they go through
and they find the destinations
and everything for them to do
and they set it up for them specifically.
So is it also another term for it as curated?
Correct.
OK, I was trying to.
Thank you.
And then I have a question about the budget.
Thank you for sending the additional numbers.
Yes.
You're running at a loss projected for this coming year.
I knew I could get you out of the chair.
Yeah, it's actually an investment.
If you look at the fund balance, there's
a considerable balance as a result of collecting the TOT,
or I should say the assessment, and not being able to perform.
So we do have an excess fund balance.
So we want to invest the money.
So what the income statement is really showing
is spending of the reserved assets for this year.
Yeah, the fund balance, basically.
OK, thank you.
When I printed it, it requires a microscope to read it,
and I forgot to bring it with me.
we printed on 11 by 17 because I can't I need it on a flip chart yeah you know if
I can acknowledge the staff the main reason for a lot of these changes in
format was we were using an old format and they wanted to make sure that the
city's share was deducted from the amount of the assessment rather than
being an expense net revenue amount yeah yeah thank you very much thank you mayor
You're welcome. Anybody else? Yep. Just a quick question. So are you, as we come
out of COVID, are the hoteliers feeling like they're getting back to normal or
is it? They do feel like they're getting back to normal. The business segments
have changed, so the markets have changed. So for example, you know, business travel
used to be a lot more, it is decreased. It's slowly coming back but it's nowhere near what it was.
Business travel was a lot of our properties, bread and butter, but now they're just, you know,
they're having to think differently. We got a lot of leisure during COVID. We're still getting
leisure. The weekends are doing great, so it depends on which hotel you talk to, and sports
are great for us and continue to be. And then in the select service properties, they do really
well with traveling nurses for the long-term stays, so yeah we're back.
It's a different world.
It's changed.
It's a different world.
Yeah, exactly.
And then are we benefiting from, you know, you talked about how people felt safe here.
Are we benefiting from the contrast to other cities that are bigger destinations around
us?
Yes, we are.
We are.
And we are actually going, we are reaching, I won't say going after, I will say we're
reaching out to those market segments that typically would have booked in those larger
cities and we're reaching out to them and offering them Walnut Creek as an alternative.
Okay, thank you guys very much and thanks for, I love your enthusiasm for your job.
It's a fun job.
I mean, Walnut Creek's not hard to sell.
Thank you.
Matt, do you have anything you want to?
I don't, I just want to thank Nicole and Bob for all their hard work.
Thank you, Matt, I appreciate it.
I have a question and it came up when we were at the cancer facility at John Muir's hospital
and it was that they were concerned about places for people to stay and eat because
they expected that their constellation of people under treatment, if they have to be
there overnight or for several days would have a place to say have you have
you talked to them at all that's the first part of the question and the
second part of the question is are you nervous that we have enough hotel rooms
I could always use more hotel rooms we you know we haven't talked to them
specifically about that I have been in the loop very much so with Bob and the
chamber keeps us abreast of everything that's happening. Have we broached that
subject specifically yet? No. But that is definitely something that we can work
with them going forward. Medical tourism is a thing, unfortunately. But yeah, that
is definitely something we can work with them going forward. It is actually in our
strategic plan. And we have CoLab now too. Yeah. Thank you for mentioning CoLab but
Specifically related to John Muir, the YVR corridor
has been talked about relative to maybe repurposing location
for a potential hotel.
We know that there's some discussion about Shadelands
as well.
One thing that happens is people come a distance from medical.
And places to stay are absolutely essential.
So we're having some conversations with our health care industry, not only on the availability
of talent, but also the issue that you bring up, Mayor.
It's a real issue for us.
Thank you.
Thank you for staying in touch with everyone.
Okay, I guess I have more questions.
We have a new hotel coming online.
When is that slated and when would you put it in the book?
Yeah, I have heard fall of this year.
That's what I've heard.
Kilton Garden Inn, you're referring to, yes.
I have heard fall.
I'll get an update Thursday.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yes.
Last chance, going, going.
All right, thank you very much for your presentation.
You're welcome, and I just want to call out
that I have some giveaways, of course.
This is a nice, cozy picnic tote,
and you can carry it as a tote or a backpack.
You can put hot or cold things in there,
and there's lovely pockets on the side,
and each one of you will get one.
Super, enjoy. Thank you very much.
All right. All right.
Mayor, if I may, one item.
Council Member Silva, thank you for telling us
the unfortunate news about Charlie.
I would suggest you adjourn the meeting in his honor tonight.
Cool.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Council.
For tonight, the recommended actions are one,
to adopt the resolution approving the TBID,
annual assessment report for fiscal year 2023, 2024.
And that includes the revised fiscal year program budget.
And then two, to adopt the resolution of intention
to levy the assessment for the upcoming fiscal year, 2425,
and set a public hearing for June 18th.
Comments, questions, motion.
Public comment, yeah.
Silly me, well, it actually turned out to be nobody.
We checked on the Zoom.
No hands raised on Zoom.
Okay, all righty, now.
Do we have motions or other activities?
Just have one question for the attorney.
Can we do this as, do we have to do two separate motions
or can we do it as one?
You can do it as one motion.
All right, I move to adopt the resolution
approving the Walnut Creek Tourism Business
improvement district annual assessment report
for fiscal year 2023, 2024,
and to adopt a resolution of intent
to levy assessments for fiscal year 2024, 25,
for the T-BID instead of public hearing
for our next meeting, which is June 18th, 2024.
Second.
Roll call vote, please.
Council member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Darling.
Aye.
Council member Francois.
Aye.
Council member Wilk.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
you for the presentation and thank you for the good news. Are we okay? We're gonna have
a leg-stretching break, so five minutes. We'll see you all back here.
The next item on the Tuesday, June 4, 2024 agenda meeting is two items. They're both
public hearings. One is to waive reading and introduce an ordinance making zoning amendments
to update the city's density bonus ordinance
to comply with state law.
And I am proud to present Aaron Sage who will be doing this.
And Aaron, welcome.
This is your first presentation before this council.
We are happy to have you here.
Thank you very much.
I'm very, very happy to be here as well.
Good evening, Mayor Haskew, Mayor Pro Tem Darlene
and members of the city council.
Aaron Sage, principal planner
with the community development department.
As a quick aside, if you'll permit me,
I worked with Charlie Abrams about 20 years ago
on one of my first projects with the city of Berkeley,
and he was a pleasure to work with.
So very sad to hear of his passing.
I didn't know Berkeley hired 12-year-olds.
I'm older than I look, apparently.
So one of the items in my portfolio here in CDD
is implementation of our housing element,
which, as you all know, was adopted last October.
And so tonight are two of the first items
in the bucket list of to-dos from the housing element.
So without further ado, let me jump into the first one.
This one relates to updating our density bonus ordinance update.
Get my clicker here.
So let me just start with a little bit of background,
much of which you may already be familiar with.
State Density Bonus Law currently requires local governments
to grant additional residential density
beyond what would otherwise be permitted
by the local government zoning ordinance.
It also requires additional benefits and flexibility
known as concessions or incentives,
reduced parking ratios, as well as waiver or reduction
of any development standards that would get in the way
of achieving the density that an applicant is entitled to
under state law.
It also requires local agencies to adopt an ordinance
to implement the provisions of state law.
And that's what the city did in 2009.
And it has not been updated since that time.
However, I want to point out that one unique thing
about our local ordinance is that it
includes a provision to go beyond the density that's
permitted under state law through a conditional use
permit process.
State law has been amended several times since 2009,
and there's a summary of some of the major changes
in your packet.
But this does present a challenge
for not just Walnut Creek, many other cities,
in keeping up with the state legislature
and updating that local ordinance
every time it's updated at the state.
Sometimes in one legislative session
there could be four or five bills all amending state law.
So the purpose of this item is to bring our local ordinance
up to speed with state law.
There was a previous attempt as detailed in the staff report
by city staff to do this.
That was in 2018 with a study session at the Planning
Commission and then a study session before you in 2019.
And generally, there was support for additional flexibility.
Many of the things that were brought forward
during that previous effort are included tonight
by way of removing some of the specific boundaries
that were previously in our ordinance.
And also by making the CUP provision
that I mentioned more open-ended.
So going back to the housing element,
the specific language there is that we've committed
to amend the density bonus ordinance
to ensure compliance with current state law
and maintain the existing provision for density bonus
benefits that exceed state requirements.
That's that CEP provision that I mentioned.
This item is due by June 30.
And as you probably all know, under state law,
we have to make timely progress toward implementation
of our housing element if we are to maintain the state's
certification of the housing element.
So this slide just highlights some of the major amendments
in the package from the current ordinance,
removing affordability and bonus percentages
that are already specified in state law
to avoid redundancy and also to avoid having to go back
and amend specific provisions that are often amended
by the state on a frequent basis.
That also applies to the number of incentives
or concessions and the parking ratios.
That change alone is reducing the length of the ordinance
by almost half, it's going from about 13 pages
to about seven pages, which will make it a lot easier
for applicants and staff to understand and administer.
We're revising the CUP supplemental bonus provision
to remove specific affordability requirements
to qualify for that provision.
A lot of the comments we received in 2018 and 2019
really said, well, what about this option?
What about that option?
Can we be more flexible?
And so by basically just saying,
And if an applicant wants to do anything that is not otherwise permitted under state law
or that goes beyond what is mandated by state law, I should say, that can be done through
a CUP process.
Deleting the provision that inclusionary units do not qualify for density bonus, which conflicts
with state law and case law.
Deleting the requirement to show, quote unquote, economic feasibility for waivers or reductions
of development standards.
Also, again, that's in conflict with state law, and revising requirements for affordable
units to be, quote, dispersed evenly and compatible with the design and appearance
of the overall project, and we've replaced those requirements with objective standards,
which as you know is now required by state law.
So the Planning Commission recommendation was very straightforward.
They recommended adoption of the proposed ordinance, and they had no further changes
to forward to you.
So our recommendation is here on the slide, but basically to introduce the proposed ordinance.
Make the CEQA exemption that's noted there.
I'll also point out that an errata sheet has been distributed.
We would ask that that be included in your motion tonight.
I only included a portion of that errata sheet on the slide because the slide deck was due
much earlier in the day, and we discovered some additional changes that need to be made.
So with that, I will be happy to take any questions you might have.
Looking for questions.
Yeah.
Kevin, please.
Thank you very much.
So just so I understand, is this something that is now being required by the state?
Because we're certified in the housing element.
This is to retain that certification?
Essentially, along with all the other housing element programs, we have to, as I said, implement
the programs that we've committed to
in the housing element.
And if we fail to do that then the state will begin
a process which could culminate in decertification.
There would be several steps that we would have to go through
to get to that point.
But we want to steer completely clear
of any sort of enforcement inquiries or action
by the state if at all possible.
So these are part of the promises,
the commitments that we had made
when we presented our housing element
for certification and were approved.
correct. Okay, thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Just one quick question and welcome to
all agree. So on the CUP process, don't recall it being used very often when it
comes to this. Do we know how often it's been used? I don't have that information
right just handy. I'd have to get back to you on that. And so the my
recollection council member Mayor Pro Tem is it's I don't actually recall it
being used yet, at least during my tenure with Walnut Creek?
Yeah, I was thinking back and it's like, wow.
It's also that the state law has changed pretty dramatically
to allow greater density bonuses.
And so in some ways, when Walnut Creek first adopted it,
there was a greater potential need for it.
It's probably more likely to be raised now
on a project that either does not have enough
affordable units to do it or alternatively
is less than a five unit development.
So as I understand it, so if somebody comes in
and they don't have enough affordable units
to really take advantage of the current state
density bonus law, they can come in and propose
under a CUP process something that gives them
some flexibility, even though they wouldn't be due,
they wouldn't have earned that under state density bonus.
That's correct.
And the ordinance talks about kind of a proportional benefit too.
So if they're, you know, if they're four-fifths of their way to meeting the required elements,
we may give them four-fifths of the bonus.
And that would be a discretionary process that would go through the planning commission.
Correct.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Anything else?
Cindy?
Other?
Cindy?
Thank you very much and thanks for the presentation and for all of the work on
both this and the next item that you're going to do. I did have some questions
that I sent the staff yesterday and I think some of them are worth
elaborating on here if that's okay. Absolutely. So we just adopt it we just
had the second reading on the objective design standards earlier so those would
be applicable when you reference to the objective standards. Yes. And that meets
state law. Now state density bonus law has been in effect for since the mid
1970s right? Correct. So we have always been compliant with state law. This is
bringing these into alignment with each other. The as the council recall the
legislature has been very active in changing state density bonus law so we
We have always complied with state law.
Our ordinance has not always tracked word for word state law.
For instance, some of the changes you have this evening are to remove the tables, which
show the percentages of it, because that's a set of objective standards that are set
forth in state law, and those are what we have to comply with.
So when we set out to do this five, six years ago, we were not doing it because of the housing
We were doing it because we wanted to be more aggressive and open to utilizing the tools
of state density bonus law and having local density bonus standards as well.
That's correct.
And some of our standards were out of, were inconsistent with what, how state law was
written even then.
These are specific to onsite development, so someone can't pay a fee and then capitalize
on the concessions by paying a fee.
under state density bonus law but with the supplemental CEP provision that in
theory could be approved by the city. Okay during the process that we were
doing five or six years ago we did we were talking to stakeholders and a lot
of the questions were about what would what would we need to do in order to
make it more economically feasible for you to provide more affordability
greater affordability and projects and there were four things that I think came
up high on the list. Concessions are height, restrictions, storage, parking ratios, and
streamlining the process. So does the State Density Bonus Law now address height even
more clearly for us? A relatively recent law. So for quite a long
time since I've been working with Density Bonus Law since the mid 2000s, there's always
been the provision that if a development standard including height prevents a project from
achieving the density it's entitled to, that standard has to be waived.
I think you might be getting at measure A with your question.
So there I believe it was a relatively recent law that made the stipulation that when state
law, when density bonus law is talking about a development standard, that that specifically
includes a standard that's adopted by the electorate.
So I think that, you know, if there was ever doubt about Measure A before that law was
passed, that doubt has been removed.
And we've been actually using the standard.
That's correct.
Council's aware we have applied state law in the past to say that the height restrictions
could be, under Measure A, could be modified by a density bonus project.
I would offer to the council that the state law change that happened last year was really
just a conforming change to make sure that there's even greater clarity in state density
bonus law, but the way that state density bonus law was written before was very clear
that a height standard was a development standard that could be waived.
The parking ratios have now been established by state law, particularly those near transit,
such as the BART station.
There are reductions in the parking ratios.
So now, in many cases, developers would not need to use parking as one of their concessions
and they might be able to just take advantage of state law and it would save a token, so
to speak?
Correct.
Yeah.
They're more likely to not need to invoke one of their concessions on parking because,
you know, the baseline state standards have been reduced.
But they're, you know, if they're far enough from BART, you know, they may still have some
kind of parking requirement that they want to ask for flexibility on.
The storage, the amount of square feet per unit of storage, we specify that in our design
and development standards our zoning.
Are there state density bonus law standards less than that, or would that have to be addressed
as a concession or a waiver?
Yeah, there's no specific, like with parking, there's no specific reduced storage standards
that the state mandates, so that would have to be done through the other channels that
density bonus law provides.
Actually, those are the questions that I had.
Thank you for clarifying it, and it's great to have a shorter ordinance.
Okay, Mayor Portim, and then I'll go to Matt.
Okay, and I just had a quick question.
One of the commenters raised the issue of whether or not it's appropriate for us to
be more lenient than state density bonus law.
In what ways, I mean, is it just our CUP process
that allows the greater flexibility?
Yeah, I read that email and that was my understanding
of what the commenter was referring to.
So the idea that this discretionary process
that we retain control over is somehow
what he's likely referring to.
That was my understanding, yeah.
And you know, my thought when reading that email
was just that we've made the commitment
in our housing element that we're gonna retain
that provision, so from the state's perspective,
even though, from the state's perspective,
at this point, we don't have the flexibility
to just get rid of that provision.
Yeah, and in all likelihood, it sounds like
there's enough flexibility in current state density,
bonus law, that it would be a very special circumstance
that we would get to the CUP.
Yes, now that's a very good point.
There's so much, the state has moved the needle so far
in terms of how high you can go now
without even have to go to that CUP provision
that in my opinion, it makes it much less likely
that that would be needed,
at least for typical types of projects.
It would be an oddball project.
Something that didn't quite like four units
and you don't quite have enough affordable housing
because it's only four units kind of thing.
Right.
All right, thanks.
So I wanted to ask another question
about the oddball project.
and thank you for the presentation. It was very good. On the CUP process, I know historically,
you know, the ordinance had referenced the 35 percent density bonus, which is now 50 or 100
percent depending. So we're amending the ordinance to allow a CUP for projects that may not otherwise
qualify for the density bonus law one and God's backyard and et cetera what
the difference is between SB 4 and what this would do and I know we're going
beyond state law in with this so is this ministerial is it by right can you
accept you know I should have probably suggested a table that says this versus
this right you do it off the top of your head I think I can hit the major points
So both SB4 and this ordinance would allow by right approval.
So that's one thing that's the same,
but it starts to diverge after that.
SB4 is geared toward multi-unit developments,
and they have to be deed restricted affordable units,
or they have to at least have a certain percentage
of deed restricted affordable units.
So that gets you into deed restrictions,
qualifying the renter or the homeowner,
and monitoring to the city we have to do some kind of monitoring and you know that's a
whole different kind of ball game from just an ADU that doesn't have those restrictions
on it.
And this affordability in the ADU is really by design because it's smaller and therefore
it's probably more affordable.
Correct.
What about the minute, what is the approval process for SB4 versus this?
At this point, I could tell you that it's a by right approval process, but beyond that,
there might be certain procedural requirements within SB4 that I'd have to take a quick look.
I did print out the bill and have it with me tonight, but I'd have to dig a little deeper
to answer that question.
Zoning administrator.
So I'm thinking that in terms of these things, there's a lot more site preparation, there's
a lot more involved with it and then with the ADU or the accessory dwelling units they're
easier to get in place and the restrictions and the requirements aren't nearly as stringent
just structurally in terms of building them also.
But in terms of entitlement it won't have to go through the Planning Commission or City
Council unless there's something.
For this particular ordinance that's correct.
The other one is related to architectural standards,
and I understand what you're proposing,
I just disagree with it, so I will wait until comments.
All right, are there any more questions on site here?
I'm not,
One quick question. Okay.
And I didn't see this on here,
I apologize if I missed it somewhere,
but do they have to be single story or?
Generally, yes, I mean,
there's a 16 foot height limit in most cases.
It's gonna be really difficult to try to squeeze
two stories into that height limit.
Thanks.
Matt, do you have anything?
No?
Okay.
So, public comment, yet again, I'm looking at the hordes that are sitting here and they're
smiling and so we're going to move back to here and you want to get your comment over
with Councilmember Silva?
Madam Mayor, if I can, Ms. Martinez, are there anyone on Zoom?
Oh, thank you.
There are no hands raised on Zoom.
Thank you.
So I have two comments, and we'll see what my colleagues say.
I understand that we only said that we would do one per site.
But I also think that the likelihood of them happening
is less, the more constrained the number,
because there is a lot of infrastructure investment that
has to be done on these sites.
And these are larger spaces.
And the likelihood of the corner of the parcel
where they would want to have one
having sanitary district power
and other infrastructure already in place.
It's a long pull for all of those utilities.
And that's different than a single family home
where I might only have to go six feet.
So I thought we might wanna consider,
I appreciated what the Planning Commission said
and I thought we might wanna consider going more
even if it was only two per site.
I am concerned, actually three concerns.
My second concern is that I think we should restrict
this, define it so it is, the religious, the organization that is doing this owns the property.
One of the sites that was on the map is actually a tenant in the Palos Verdes shopping center.
Now the shopping center isn't likely to allow them to do it, but I think it's, we just have
some confusion there.
The other thing is, if we're, so I think we should, if there's some language we could
put in that would make it clear that it's not random so to speak.
And then an architectural consistency, what we're doing is basically the language that's
proposed here is the language that's used in the single family ADUs and what that makes
sense that you would have architectural consistency with a single family home, same type of exterior,
same type of window, same roofing line.
And then I start to think about the various faith-based buildings, the main buildings,
don't look like single, don't look like homes, they don't look like cottages, they look like,
more like commercial buildings with narrow windows, et cetera.
And perhaps we can come up with objective design standards that would allow a cottage
to appear at the back of the property as opposed to what might look like a storage unit, inadvertently.
That is the only way to make
that happen.
So those are my three comments.
Matt, I'm going to go to you
this time.
Yeah, I'm in general agreement
with Councilmember Silva's
comments.
I do think it makes sense to
require that it's the owner that
is applying for the ADU as opposed
to a tenant.
That caught my eye, too, in terms
of the architectural
compatibility.
And I think there we're really
opposed to, and I agree with you that those are large commercial buildings, essentially.
And you don't really necessarily want them to be, you don't want them to stick out, you
want them to be compatible with the site, but I don't think we necessarily want them
to match the faith-based building structure.
And then in terms of the number, I'm not sure, I didn't watch the Planning Commission, I'm
I'm not sure if they specified a particular number.
I don't think we committed to a specific number.
No, as long as there's not any CEQA implications
with saying, you know, two per site,
then I would be okay with that.
Those are my comments.
Any more here?
Mayor Pro Tem.
Yeah, on the number per site,
There's a balance there.
When we looked at Hope Village,
because it was supportive housing,
you could have all the services there needed
to make the neighbors feel comfortable
with what was going on there.
If we start getting up to three or four that are just ADUs,
I'm not willing, I don't think that's a smart move,
but I could go to two.
I think I would be comfortable with two.
I would like to make sure that it is the property owner
that is pursuing the development.
And on the architectural compatibility,
I could go with, it doesn't have to be compatible,
but could coordinate or something, you know, I don't know.
There's a way to...
So maybe staff would have a suggestion about,
because this would be ministerial,
how would we, you know, I was thinking,
okay, if these are mostly in residential neighborhoods,
then maybe it needs to be compatible
with the presidential neighborhood, not chartreuse and,
Erin, can you bring up the,
so staff has some potential language
to address at least two of these issues.
And if the council wants to change it from one to two units,
Erin, do we have that language ready?
Yes. And your slides too as well.
Yeah, we don't have a change to the number,
but that's a really straightforward change
It could just be, I assume, read into the record.
Correct.
Yeah.
But the other issues I think we've got,
we've made an attempt to address those issues, at least,
and we have some language that we can share with you.
So this slide addresses concerns about property ownership.
So the way that we proposed to address that is,
before we had, well, I should say,
in the current draft that was in your packet.
There's just a large paragraph with a lot of provisions in it.
And we didn't want to just make that paragraph even longer.
So we broke it into a paragraph one, which
would deal with single-family or multifamily dwellings.
That first sentence actually should
be highlighted as new text, where it says lots
with a single-family or multiple-family dwelling.
And then we have a new section two.
Again, lots with a religious assembly use.
that should be highlighted as well.
I should have mentioned the yellow is what's new as of that
was not in your packet.
And red is what was already proposed.
So what we would add is following requirements,
A, lot is owned entirely by the entity that
operates the on-site religious assembly use.
That should address the ownership issue.
And then B, is intended to address a scenario where
perhaps a religious assembly entity purchases a shopping
center or purchases a parcel in a shopping center, which
is not inconceivable that something like that
might happen.
So we wanted to address that as well.
So B says that the lot has to be located in a zoning district
that permits religious assembly uses.
That's already in the ordinance.
And single-family residential uses,
so that the requirement for single-family residential uses
to be allowed, that will rule out, I think, commercial zones, or at least other than—I
think that will address that issue.
And then we also have some language about plan development permits as well.
I can pause and see if there's any questions about this language.
Okay.
Where would the two units—up to two units go in the same place?
Not more than—
In the first paragraph where it says not more than one, you would change that to two.
In the second paragraph.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Yes.
Yes.
Section two.
That's right.
We don't have to find it in other places.
That's right.
And then this would take care of where you've got a non-conforming use.
A religious assembly in a non-conforming area would not be able to have the ADU.
Right, because we still have the language about the zone has to permit religious assembly
uses. That's right. So just a question then like applying this to St. Mary's Church on Mount Diablo,
to be the lot is located in a zoning district that permits religious assembly uses and single family
or subject to a PD permit. I don't think that church would qualify for either of those.
Yeah, I'm consulting my my table here because I have all the zones for all the different churches
here I should say for all the religious assembly uses so st. Mary's is in the MUD
and MUC it's mixed use right he'll just bear with me I'm just gonna verify if
those zones allow single-family but are we allowed to restrict it to single
family since state law says you can have a to use on multifamily well keep in
that this entire provision is something that the city agreed to as part of the
housing element but it's not a requirement of state law so you can you
can draft what you believe is appropriate until the state decides they
like what we did right that's next year's problem apologize for the delay
here. Okay, MUD does not permit single-family residential and- I think we
end up with the problem at St. Paul's Episcopal and Walnut Creek Prez as well.
MUC also does not permit single-family residential so that is that is one
example of an existing religious assembly use that would not qualify
under this language there's seven out of the 35 are would also not qualify based
on this language but I think that's a trade-off the council will have to
consider if the goal is to protect commercial areas from having ADUs come
in that's you know that's going to be a trade-off the council I mean could we
address that by saying multifamily instead of single-family we're still
Restricting it to two. I mean it seems like I don't know seven out of thirty-five seems like a lot to exclude if we're
Because I think what we've done is inadvertently this not only takes out st. Mary's church on Mount Diablo
But it takes out Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church and st. Paul's
Because they have some kind of high-density
Land use designation
That's true
So that with your suggestion councilmember Francois the the issue there would be that
Multifamily is allowed in virtually all of our commercial districts
including the example that councilmember Silva gave of the Palos Verde shopping center in the in the community commercial district
That's a zone that allows multifamily
So the owner of that shopping center under today's zoning could come in and say I'd like to build
you know, some multifamily on this site and make this into a mixed use shopping center.
And that's one of the reasons why we thought that perhaps it would be,
you know, not inappropriate to allow ADUs. But if we think ADUs, you know, are inappropriate,
then, you know, this is one way that would prevent it in those types of locations.
I think that that explanation makes sense to me that if the existing zoning on Palos Verdes Mall
already allows apartments and multifamily then certainly we should allow the ability for two
way to use. To me, I mean that's less intense than what's already allowed by the zoning.
I would agree. But Cindy, were we trying to solve for, what was the example you gave of a,
was it a church like at Los Alamos or in a school or something like that? Is that why
the qualifier for single families there? I know well I was just getting a little
concerned that tenants were going to start yeah and then the tenant leaves
and you've got 280 use on a commercial property. Maybe it's not so bad but I
also noticed that on Buena Vista Avenue the five faith-based between San
Lewis Road and south to the freeway are also in multifamily low so I think we
need to be really cautious that we're defeating the purpose which is I think
mission the mission of the faith-based communities may they may find us a good
opportunity for them the council could for purpose and recognizing we can
always come back and change it as we get more information the council could
strike B and that would still address the the concern that council member
silver raised because because as we're seeing in this conversation trying to
wordsmith be too much is creating its own set of issues but I think it would
make sense to retain the part about the lot located in a zoning district that
permits risk religious assembly uses which is what the map said anyway well
Well, if I could, on the map,
the map just was intended to show all of the existing uses
and not to remove any based on what their zoning was.
There were some nonconforming use,
right, the business park one, for example.
Right.
If I may, I think also,
I don't have an objection to keeping the first part
up to assembly uses,
but I think that is somewhat implicit
in the introduction to section two,
because the only time that that might not
Maybe the situation is if you happen to have a religious facility that's a nonconforming
use, that would be the only time that adding that language or keeping that language in
B would take it out of the possibility of being able to put ADUs on there.
Yeah, I thought there was something that Cindy had found where it was a nonconforming use.
Oops.
I had it on.
I turned it off.
had a nonconforming religious assembly on a nonconforming use.
Am I just hallucinating at this point?
Well, there seems to be one in the business park.
Yeah, I guess that was the one that is on Wigott.
Well, if you do keep the first on B,
if you kept the lot is located in a zoning district that
permits to resemble religious assembly uses period,
then you are addressing that issue.
Yeah, I would like to keep that first part of the sentence
and B.
That makes sense.
So how do we address the architectural consistency
so we don't have a lot of CUPs coming through
because they really don't want two cottages
at the back of the property looking like storage lockers?
I have some language to propose for that issue.
But before I do that, there was another item
that Councilmember Silva raised in her questions regarding
a property that had two churches on it.
North Creek Church has some kind of relationship
with a Persian church that utilizes the same.
Right, but it's still only one property owner.
That's right, that's right.
They're renting it on Fridays.
Right, and I think you,
it seemed that you maybe wanted clarification that.
No, I just wanted everybody to know
that that second church doesn't count any more
than the church at Los Lomas High School
or the one in Civic Park.
Okay, okay, great.
But then we can just skip over this slide.
So relating to design, again, what we would propose
is to break the design paragraph that we have now
into two different paragraphs, one
to deal with single-family or multifamily dwellings.
And so we would strike the language about religious assembly
uses here, but otherwise, this paragraph would stay as is.
And then we'd create this new section here.
So in thinking about this, before I read through it,
staff felt that there was some value in when
you have an attached ADU that is an addition to a religious
assembly building, that there would be some value in trying
to achieve some kind of consistency
with the architecture of that addition to the main building.
Because otherwise, it might look sort of like,
the best word I can come up with is Frankenstein,
where there's just something that doesn't relate at all.
But we did add some language.
So what we did in paragraph 2a is
we referenced back to the provisions for single family
or multifamily dwellings.
But we added some language to loosen it a little bit.
We added the word predominant.
So it now says the predominant building form, roof,
and window placement type of the main building.
We don't have that word predominant.
So it makes it a little bit hard to administer.
But with this, I think it gives a little more leeway to staff.
And then we specifically exclude minarets, spires,
and other architectural features that extend from the main roof
so that we don't get minarets and things like that popping off
the ADU's roof.
And then we have a specific provision
for stained glass windows, if that's a concern,
that that doesn't need to be replicated on the ADU.
And then 2B deals with detached ADUs separately.
The proposal here is to adjust reference
to the recently adopted design review standards and guidelines
for single family dwellings, but with a clause
that they need to utilize the same colors for the exterior
siding and trim as the predominant colors
based on square footage for objectivity of the main
building so that we don't get a beige church building
and a chartreuse ADU building.
We thought that that was kind of like a bare minimum compatibility
standard that we should have.
So happy to take any questions or suggestions
that you might have on this.
I'd love to ask a couple of architects,
but I think it does the job.
And as the city attorney mentioned,
you know, we can certainly come back and improve upon this language as we, after we've implemented
it and seen if there's any kinks to work out.
I think the most important thing is for us to remember that these are to be lived in
and churches and faith-based buildings are to be visited and to be focused.
They focus on, they have a different purpose and so I think we need to be hopefully cognizant
to that when we look at them.
Will they be allowed to, well, the second question,
will they be allowed to use the templates
and the designs that we've developed for ADUs?
Absolutely.
So maybe we should make a reference
or use one of the prescribed ones and be done, sorry.
I just wanna make sure that whatever the people
who really dive deeply into this stuff are happy with,
I wanna make sure that we still have the same kind
of opportunities like we did at Grace Presbyterian Church
because that is ideal with not only just the group
of people who will be a community unto themselves
but who have other services available on site
so that they can aspire to move to more standard housing
or I just wanna make sure that we haven't
overcomplicated this so that's.
Yeah, I was kind of assuming,
I was looking at this thinking,
what are these gonna be for?
And I was thinking, it probably won't make sense
for a church to do this if they're going for something
like we're doing at Grace Presbyterian,
they're gonna come in under one of the other provisions.
This is gonna be a way for a faith-based organization
that is having a hard time getting a preschool teacher
that can live in town.
And I can see several churches that have those kind of needs
just deciding, well, okay, let's build something on site.
And then...
It's not that they're very low income.
It's they are in need of an affordable,
a more affordable.
A workable place for some of their staff.
Workforce housing.
Yeah.
So it's not people coming out of,
necessarily people transitioning out of homelessness.
It wouldn't necessarily be a good match for that
because it's only one or two units.
It's not, doesn't have the services they would require,
but it's for people that just need a place to live
in a city without very many of those.
I'm kind, that's the case.
I'm very comfortable with this.
So, should I try this?
I will move to wave reading and introduce an ordinance
making CEQA exemption findings under section 15061B3
of the CEQA guidelines at amending title 10 planning
and zoning of the Walnut Creek Municipal Code
allow up to two accessory dwelling units or I won't try to amend the language, to allow
accessory dwelling units on properties with religious assembly uses with the changes we've
discussed here.
Yeah, to be clear, since we're introducing the ordinance, it would include the changes
you're seeing on the screen right now with no further modification to those.
Erin, if you could go to the other slide that has the number of units.
and it would be what you're seeing on the screen now,
except in the first line of two.
I would say you would sway,
not more than two accessory dwelling units.
Erin, that's the only place I saw.
And the subsection B, the lot is located
in the zoning district that permits religious assembly uses,
period, period, and the rest of that language to be struck.
Yeah, second.
That's right.
Roll call, please.
Mayor Pro Tem Darling.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
well I mayor haskew I motion carries unanimously thank you at this moment we
are going to go back into closed session and we will reconvene at the
second floor conference room regarding a conference for labor negotiations and
yes we'll see you there