All right, good evening. I am Cindy Darling, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek and welcome
to the Tuesday, March 4, 2025 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council. The City
Council is conducting this meeting from the City Council Chamber and the meeting is being
video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the City's website. As some attendees may
be attending in their first City Council meeting, I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly
about how this is going to go tonight. For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity
for public comment on the item.
Thus, if you desire to speak on an item
on the agenda this evening,
please hold your comments until we get to that item.
Additionally, we have a section on the agenda
entitled Public Communication,
which is for public comments for items not on the agenda.
Any comments during public communication
should not relate to an item
that's on the agenda this evening
and consistent with section 9.5,
the City Council Handbook,
30 minutes will be initially allocated
for public communications for items not on the agenda.
Additional time for public communication
for items not on the agenda will be provided
at the end of the open session portion
of the meeting if necessary.
If you desire to provide a public comment,
please complete a speaker identification card
and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time.
I'll tell you when that is.
Await your turn and then when you approach the lectern,
state your name, city of residence for the record,
and 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 meetings are conducted officially
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
in the council chamber and can be found on our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the council
and please do not use threatening, profane,
or abusive language which disrupts,
disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct
City Council meeting. Again, everybody is going to have their two minutes to make their remarks.
Written comments submitted ahead of time and received up to two hours before the meeting
have been posted to the website for public review and are included in the meeting record,
what will not be read separately into the record. So now, I hope you all will stand and join me in
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.
All right. City Clerk Suzy Martinez, would you please call the roll?
Councilmember Davini? Here. Councilmember Francois? Here. Councilmember Silva? Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Wilk? Here. And Mayor Darling? Here. All right, next on the agenda is a proclamation
declaring March as Red Cross Month. We are recognizing the Red Cross this month
because they are the people that are there
when you need the help.
We recognize the compassion
of all the people of Contra Costa County
and we renew our commitment to lend a helping hand
to our neighbors in need.
Red Cross volunteers are here to donate blood,
help in emergencies, provide a whole host of services
and have been doing that for over 140 years.
And so I would invite Matt Smith,
our Red Cross volunteer to join me up here.
And then there will be a photo op afterwards.
Okay.
My boss had gotta get a picture.
All right, good evening everybody.
My name is Matt Smith, I am a Walnut Creek resident.
I'm a volunteer with Contra Costa and broader Red Cross.
I have a lot of jobs with Red Cross,
but my main job these days is being a shelter manager
for evacuation shelters,
and it's been kind of a crazy six months.
I was up in Chico during the park fire up there.
I was in Georgia for Helene and down in LA for the fires down there.
So you know, our emergencies are spiraling more and more as we deal with the various
changes in our climate.
We deal more and more with emergencies and the need to help others.
So with that, you guys have been very good to us over the years.
It's a great honor for me to receive this proclamation.
I appreciate that.
Thank you for the city of Walnut Creek.
You probably were.
Red Cross, as Mayor Darling pointed out, has been around since the Civil War when a remarkable
woman named Clara Barton, the angel of the battlefield, took it upon herself to serve
both Confederate and Union soldiers that were injured, wounded on the battlefield.
And this was something very new.
The international Red Cross had just started two years ago, and she adopted those principles.
And since then, Red Cross has continued the philosophy of helping all who are in need,
regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, who they voted for.
Our criteria is that if there's somebody in need and they need our assistance, we will
jump in to help them.
And you know, we currently do a lot more than just disaster assistance.
We have these five lines of service.
is one of them. But as Mayor Darling pointed out, we also do blood services or in your
case Mayor, Ms. Darling, plasma services. We do education. You might have taken one
of our CPR classes. These days we're also doing residential wildfire resiliency classes
because that's something that's needed. We do aid to military families. We do international
support for the international Red Cross as well. It's a big mission but there's
over a hundred thousand volunteers for Red Cross spread across the nation and
right here in Contra Costa County there's about 3500 volunteers as well. So
obviously with such a big organization we need the support of the communities.
We're a completely charitable nonprofit organization so we need all sorts of
support. By the way we are rated as a four-star charity by charity navigator
which is their highest rating, so we are always mindful of the donor dollar and
so we really appreciate you kind of stepping up, recognizing us, and giving
us your support. So thank you so much and on a final note I'll just say hey
we're always looking for some volunteers and if I ever bump into you as a
shelter I prefer to be with you as a colleague instead of a client. So thank
you so much for this recognition we much appreciate it. Thank you so much for all
the work you do. We're going to join him up front, but first Councilmember Silva has.
Thank you very much for your work. In case there are those in the audience, either here
or virtually, who would like to make a donation, how would they do that?
Well we are. We have some state-of-the-art technology. The best way to do it is on our
website. But if you're really motivated, we also have an app and you can do it that way.
But I would direct people just to Redcross.org.
It's a great website and if you decide, it might just suck you into volunteering too.
There's a lot of really cool things you can do.
You don't have to go on two-week deployments.
There's a lot of different things you can do, even a lot from home, if you want to be
a volunteer.
So Redcross.org and thank you for asking.
Thank you very much.
Yep.
Okay.
Anything else?
In that case, we will now.
Can we get our picture?
All right.
Thank you, Mayor.
Matt?
Thank you, first of all, for your volunteer service.
Sure, of course.
And if someone wanted to take the wildfire resiliency
class or CPR class, that'd be more local then.
That'd be on the Contra Costa Red Cross website.
Yes, and we're just pushing that out right now.
So this is something that there's a community need.
There's been a lot of requests for it.
So we're just rolling this out.
It'll be done much the same way that we do our CPR classes,
where we promote them in a variety of ways.
try and get the word out to the community.
My name is Matt Smith, and I'm SmithMat1025,
a Gmail of course.
So I would be happy to provide information to those,
but you can always check the website as well.
That's kind of the thing.
Thank you so much.
And the app, don't forget about our app.
And now it's picture time.
And now it's picture time.
Thank you, that's always great
to recognize community volunteers like that.
Next up on the agenda is the consent calendar.
I will note that we have received an updated set of minutes
for the February 20th, 2025, item 2A.
Does any council member wish to pull
any of the consent calendar items for discussion?
I'd like to pull item 2F for a brief comment.
2F, anything else?
All right, is there anybody in the audience
that would like to provide public comment
on items 2A, B, C, D, E?
All right, I'll bring it back here.
I'll move to approve items 2A through E.
Second.
With the amendment on the minutes.
All right, roll call vote please.
Mayor Pro Tem Wolk.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Aye.
All right, we'll go to 2F.
Thank you very much.
I pulled item 2F which is the approval of the final language
for our 2025, 2026 strategic priorities.
And I wanna thank staff and the consultant
for organizing and managing that goal-setting session.
It was very productive and I really appreciate
how you refined the language so it turned
from a word salad into something coherent.
And with that, I'll move the item.
And I will second that.
Anybody in the, well, do we need to do public comment
on that, public comment on item 2F, which is the priorities.
Anyone? All right roll call vote please. Council Member Silva? Aye. Mayor Darlene? Aye.
Council Member Davini? Aye. Council Member Francois? Aye. Mayor Proton-Wolt? Aye.
All right and now we are to public communications. I've lost track of where I
was on my script. Public, next on the agenda, sorry. This portion of the
This meeting is reserved for comments 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.
We can request clarification or refer the item to staff.
Consisted with section 9.5 of the city council handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated this time
for public communication for items not on the agenda.
Additional time will be available
at the end of the meeting if necessary.
If anybody is interested in addressing the council
on their public communications,
please step forward to the podium
and bring your complete speaker card.
And I think since it's Jan Warren,
I don't need to give her a whole lot more.
Written communications have already been submitted
and are on the public website.
So we will turn it over to you for your-
Good evening, good evening.
You all look mighty sharp tonight, my goodness.
Jan Warren, I live in the woodlands
and I have a new pastor and they have a two year old
And I had said they'd come over to the Heather Farms
playground, and I was bragging about it.
And I went by there on Sunday, and I probably
hadn't been over to the playground
in four or five years.
I was shocked at the condition of the padding.
I've never seen it so poorly.
It's got potholes.
And I mean, I was embarrassed, really.
And so I just wanted to bring it.
Maybe y'all haven't been over there either.
We don't have little kids anymore.
But I don't know where it is on the schedule
to have it redone, how many years we get out of it,
but it is a wonderfully used and loved place
and hope that we can get it looking more spiffy soon.
Thank you.
Anyone else for public comment?
Can we ask Public Works to speak to the...
I was just gonna say Jan,
that Rich Payne is right back there.
He probably knows.
maybe for the public's interest as well.
Yeah, they could have just report on,
I think it's somewhere in the capital plan,
but, okay, Rich, you can tell all of us
when we're gonna fix the All Abilities Playground.
Rich Payne, Public Works Director,
Mayor, members of the Council.
In terms of the resilient surface
is what we're talking about at the All Abilities Playground.
It is definitely on our list of projects.
It's something that we've been looking at this year.
aware of the condition. It is, it has been listed in our CIP and we're looking at it
in terms of probably looking at the next year cycle and it's competing with other projects
but we're certainly aware of it. In addition to a larger project, our operational team
has got it on their list of things to do
to do some spot repairs throughout the park
just to make it usable, a little bit more usable
and a little bit more attractive than it is right now.
Thank you.
Cindy, council member Silva.
So is there any consideration of the area right next to it
going to be under construction
and the potential damage of construction
simultaneously with the repairs?
Yeah, that's one of the things that we were aware of doing
a larger project and that's what we considered.
The impact, dust, and that sort of thing happening
adjacent to the all abilities playground.
So this is something that we have sort of considered
and that's the reason why we're just going to start
with just some patch repairs of the existing
resilient surface and then hold off doing a larger project until after the
aquatics community center is completed. Thank you. Thank you and thank you for
helping answer that question. You're welcome. All right next on the agenda is council
member and staff announcements reports on activities or requests. City attorney
is there anything to report out from the closed session? Yeah, Madam Mayor, the
council had two items on closed session this evening. With regards to the real
property negotiations, the council provided direction to your negotiators
and there's no reportable action. With regards to the second matter of
Chulen Bhat versus Walnut Creek, the City Council in conjunction with the
Municipal Polling Authority did authorize the filing of a petition of
review that was by a 5-0 vote of the City Council. Thank you. Thank you.
City Manager. Yeah, good evening, Dan Buchshai, City Manager, building off of the
the theme of emergency preparedness and response from the Red Cross presentation earlier.
I wanted to provide an update relative to wildfire preparedness.
And more specifically, on February 24th, the state of California,
through its statewide fire department known as CAL FIRE,
released what are known as local responsibility area maps, which highlight the intensity of fire risk.
whether it be medium, high, or very high fire risk.
There is a public comment period for folks to review those
if you would like to do so.
Here in Walnut Creek, practically speaking,
the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District,
more commonly known as CONFIRE,
provides emergency, or provides fire preparedness
and response services for not only Walnut Creek,
but most of Contra Costa County.
So they are responsible for publishing these maps,
seeking public comment and will ultimately need
to take those to their governing board,
which is the County Board of Supervisors
for adoption of those maps.
The practical effects of this are a few things
in that building codes will likely be updated
and likely heightened for more fire retardant type
of materials for new buildings.
We'll see maybe even some retrofit
of some existing buildings.
I wouldn't rule that out, especially for those
that are in the very high risk area.
There may be additional requirements
in terms of minimizing landscaping for houses
or other structures that are in very high fire risk areas.
So more to come on that.
For those that are interested in viewing the maps
and commenting, you can go
to the County Fire Department website,
which is cccfpd.org which stands for Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
So just one more time that is cccfpd.org and those maps will be available for comment for
at least 30 days.
Thank you.
Councilmember Silva did you have a question?
I'm hearing conflicting comment on whether the maps were significantly more severe for
for Walnut Creek about the same as they were before.
Do we have any assessment?
Generally speaking the maps most everywhere are more,
there's more identified fire risk on the maps
than there were previously.
Obviously the conditions are the same,
it's the way in which they're being categorized.
So there are certain areas, not surprisingly,
those that are closer to the open space in Walnut Creek
where some of the intensity of fire risk has increased.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
questions for the manager. All right. We will move on now to council member reports on AB 1234
activities, council member assignments and various activities and upcoming events and
since we did stay to the city I'm going to kick it off. I really appreciated my fellow council
members to join me at the future of Walnut Creek. I understand that our staff now has a tape of that
event up on the city's website if anybody wants to hear. There's a lot of good information in there
about everything from fires to priorities to housing and I understand that it's not just me
and Caitlin Sly talking to each other but Matt Bolander has put lots of great film in there so
it's entertaining. I sit on the MCE board for the city of Walnut Creek and we are in the process
of adopting our budget and rate setting for the year. We have not raised electric electricity
rates since 2023. We have not yet formally adopted the budget, but it is looking like we will not
increase the rates that the homeowners, the individual accounts pay. There may be an increase
in rates for the large utility users like commercial agricultural uses who can't avoid
the four to nine period of the day. It's a different charge. It's not a per kilowatt charge,
but it's a charge, they pay MCE to have the power on standby for them if they need it.
There may be a small increase there in that rate. We will finalize that rate setting later this
month at our final meeting. Several of us attended the East Bay chapter of the League of California
City's legislative hub, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Silver and I were there. We heard from a
From a number of our local legislators, the legislative season is in full swing and there's
lots of ideas and things going around and we are, we have an adopted legislative platform
and we will be working with our local legislators to help move that platform forward.
And today was the women's conference, which was quite fun and in keeping with the tradition
of having it here at the Lesher, it was great fun to have it here in our own hometown.
A lot of folks were there today,
a lot of good connections and a lot of great speakers
and a tasty lunch, even if it was something
that was very bite size that you could carry around,
but they had lots of ice cream, which was good.
And last, Council Member Dafini and who else was there?
You were there for the Club Studio Open House.
That's the new gym that's out in the shopping center,
Citrus Plaza Shopping Center,
and they have beautiful facility and we all got tours
and got to hear from them about what,
how happy they are to be here in the city.
And so now I will take a volunteer to go next.
Council Member Silva.
That's how we roll, duck under the table
when they say they're gonna take a volunteer, right?
Thank you very much, Mayor.
In keeping with, let's see,
I'm gonna start from the end of my list.
I was at a recent meeting
of the League of California City State Board of Directors,
and a couple of things to note for my colleagues
is first we had a robust discussion
about how to keep track of and monitor
and continue to communicate about the status
of the implementation of Proposition 36
and what the state's going to need to do.
so we are on top of that and working on it.
The other thing is we had an in-depth presentation
and discussion with two current city managers
and former city managers about wildfires.
Riva Feldman, who was the city manager of Malibu
in the Woolsey fire, and then Sean McGlynn,
who was the city manager of Santa Rosa for that fire in 2017.
And they were both called into service
during the Palisades and Eaton fires
just recently in Southern California
because when disasters happen like that,
cities call in every resource they can get.
Mutual aid just isn't for fire and police.
Mutual aid is also planners and it's housing people
and it's communications people
and it's city managers and finance people
wherever they need support to get things done.
It was an interesting conversation,
and I think that there were some takeaways from it.
First of all, the first comment was
that there is no water system designed in the world
to battle urban wildfires like that.
Urban water systems are designed for drinking,
for other personal uses, and for putting out one or two
homes that are on fire next door to each other,
not a thousand at one time.
So this is kind of the myths.
So there was water, it's just the systems
are not designed to be able to handle it.
Going forward, we need to have more resilient communities,
but not just at a house by house basis.
They were talking about when winds are whipping
at a hundred miles an hour, you need resilient neighborhoods.
So this means that everybody has to change
their defensible spaces and what their homes are built of
in order to combat and prevent and keep back wildfires.
A couple of things, defensible space, you might hear them talking about that now, zero
to five feet.
Nothing green, nothing green, even a cactus, nothing green.
And in addition, they're talking about the fact that our ADU laws are probably those
ADUs are being allowed in the wrong place because they're too close to your neighbor's
lot.
They're too close to fences.
I mean, if you really have to design to prevent or hold back and restrain fire, you've got
to rethink a whole bunch of stuff that address our housing priorities and our sustainability
priorities.
And I would guess a couple of other, this was also sobering not only what was happening
on the ground but city manager former city manager of Santa Rosa he's now
Escondido but was describing that 2,000 homes were burned in the Santa Rosa fire
in 2017 that put 2,000 individual homeowners in the position of having to
be developers. We ordinarily don't go through that process and they had to go
through that process. Each of them one at a time. And so it's very sobering. On a lighter
note, the Recycle Smart Board, which Councilmember Francois and I are the representatives from
Walnut Creek on the sixth agency that collects the trash, recyclables, and organics. And
We received a report on a semiannual budget update and our budget is on target.
And the other thing that we're doing right now is trying to figure out what is it we're
going to need to do in terms of education and I suppose we could say an enforcement
and encouragement to improve the rate that we are recycling the organics and using the
blue bin versus the black bin.
And so over the next few weeks, we're doing a waste characterization study.
It means we're dumpster diving.
We're bringing in certain loads of trash to the transfer station where it comes in before
it gets sent to the color canyon landfill or the recycler processing, and we're sorting
it to see if the black is truly what can be in the black.
The recyclables are truly in the blue, and the organics are truly in the green.
So this will tell us where we think the problem is, whether it's single-family homes, multi-family
homes or commercial, and ideally help us be able to improve those recycling rates that
we have right now.
And I'm going out to do waiting around and watching a waste characterization study tomorrow.
I was told to wear clothes I can allow to get dirty.
The most recent meeting of the Rossmoor Golden Rain Foundation, they reported, I reported
on updates from the city, particularly our strategic priorities.
They had a lot of conversation and public comment related to their plans to build a
pickleball facility.
And they are having an interesting challenge of, and this, Kevin, is in your bailiwick,
an interesting challenge of providing transportation on the weekends, primarily within Rossmoor,
but also outside of Rossmore.
Post COVID, the Rossmore buses haven't,
they've not been able to staff them on the weekends as well.
And the Rossmore fund has been stepping in
for weekend transportation funds
to allow for shared drivers.
So that's interesting.
The East Bay Radio System Board,
which I serve on as a two-county public safety radio system,
we just recently received an operations report
and we are at 29% capacity,
which is the good news is we have plenty of capacity
in case of emergencies, in case of catastrophes,
big special events or the need to expand the system.
We've had Vallejo and Benicia are part of our system
because we have the capacity to be able to support them.
And what's good about that is the interchangeability
and the fluid nature of traffic
and people who work in Vallejo but live here, et cetera.
It's seamless.
And I would mention that we are seeking
a public community funding grant
from the federal government.
We haven't yet submitted the application,
but we're seeking grant funding
to be able to procure two radio sites on wheels.
Some call them cell on wheels, which are cows.
Others call them sites on wheels, which are sows,
all these animals.
But it basically means that in the case of a disaster,
such as the palisades fire, or a big event
where 500,000 people are showing up,
you can roll out these emergency sites
and continue to provide service for the community.
And lastly, I will mention that it is,
we're in early 2025 and planning has started
for the 2025-2026 community service day.
And after 14 years, we are changing things up a bit
and rather than have one community service day each year,
we're going to have two different events.
In the fall, we're going to do a food drive,
a community wide food drive.
And that'll be on September 27th.
And in the spring, we're moving the cleanup to spring
right after, in late April,
after schools get back in, et cetera.
And that will be in on April 18th, 2026.
So we're in the process of transitioning to a new schedule,
but we look at it this way.
Two seasons, two opportunities,
twice the impact at least. Thank you very much mayor. Thank you and I think um I'll
go as well. I just wanted to say first of all I really wanted to thank council
member Silva for talking about the wildfire issue in the urban areas. I
happen to meet with our Contra Costa fire chief the week of the Palisades
fire was asking directly this and he said literally there is no city in the
country or world that is prepared for fighting a fire like that in an urban
environment using just fire hydrants, especially when you have winds over 60 miles an hour.
And he said to me specifically, the way to fight wildfires is from the air. And when you have 60
mile an hour winds, you can't do it. And so I appreciate you bringing that up. Something else
that he had brought up is that you can't move water. It's expensive, very expensive to move water.
you can't move water over high hills or low mountains like the Tehachapis.
Any water in the Central Valley or anywhere north of the LA area, the water cannot be moved down
there to fight fires or anytime. He goes, that's just a fallacy. And I think it's really important
that we dispel these myths when there's so much misinformation out there that impacts our lives.
So I really appreciate you bringing that up as well.
Another sobering fact, this was in a private conversation
with a fire chief from Oxnard who had boots on the ground
himself, as well as mutual aid.
And he said, what he worries about most now
is 15 years from now.
Because the equipment that they wear for wildfires
is very different from what they wear for urban home fires.
The plastics, the things, the batteries, the things that
melting, all of that is toxic and they are going to be suffering significantly.
It'll be like 9-11. Yeah, from a slightly different angle, the water district
operators in all the major fire areas have found that it's taken them far
longer to clear their systems of those toxics and they ended up having
significant outages in their water supply. Just another cheery thought of
something we could look forward to if this happens. Well, it just shows that we
We need to really take this as an intelligent approach, not be political about this, not
be biased about this, but look at this from purely scientific facts of what's possible
and what needs to be done.
And I appreciate our council and councils prior to this one for really taking a look
at it in that manner.
That is a sobering thought.
I'm going to add on a little bit to the mayor regarding the meeting with the legislators
last week at Cal Cities.
had four state legislators that were there. Each one of them talked about fire
issues, home insurance, as well as housing and affordable housing, the fire
mitigation. This is all part of absolutely all of their conversations. So
our legislators in Sacramento are absolutely paying attention to this and
looking to tackle this as one of their major objectives, or I guess in this case
four of their major objectives for the year. I didn't hear a unified approach. I
heard unified concern unified concern but they'll figure out the approach but
just the fact that this is top of mind and we're not hearing some outlier
things that they want to tackle these are all things that they really want to
focus on and then I just to quickly address something that councilmember
Silva mentioned regarding the vehicles in Rossmore County connection we had an
interesting interesting update from them this last week because autonomous
vehicles seems to be the way to get to get more of the vehicles in Rossmore
There's already one route that does have autonomous vehicles,
but there's a loophole that was discovered
just a few weeks ago that CCTA is trying to resolve,
and that is that if a driver,
the driver does not have their hands
on the wheel of an autonomous vehicle,
but should they need to for some reason,
something is in the road or they have to,
for whatever reason, take over for just a moment,
The insurance kicks off at that moment
that we have from the insurance provider
for the autonomous vehicle,
and now has to go to a different insurance.
And that loophole has meant that we've had to delay,
or had to suspend the autonomous vehicle program in Martinez.
And I think maybe in Rossmore as well.
We expect this to come back soon,
but I don't know how nobody actually thought about this
when the autonomous vehicles program started.
But anyway, that is a loophole that's been discovered.
Odd.
Oh, CCTA.
But it's through, yeah, so CCTA primarily.
So they're the ones, they are very motivated
to make sure that this gets through.
So they look at this in the future.
I was asked to give the introductory keynote
at the Model UN conference at Los Lomas this last weekend.
Loved doing that.
It was an honor to speak to well over 100 students there
that are looking to learn how to collaborate and negotiate
as they take on the roles of different countries.
I thought this was very timely.
This is something that I hope that these students
can bring over fourth over the next decades
as collaboration with countries is very important.
I'll leave it at that.
We also, the mayor and I were in our finance committee
meeting last week regarding the pension trust.
That is something that'll be coming forward.
I believe it's our next meeting
for discussion with the council.
I also spoke at the government classes for the seniors
at Murray and Christian High School last Friday,
which is always interesting
and there's always some good questions
that come along with it.
And I love the fact now that the teachers say,
all devices, cell phones, iPads, down.
Makes a big difference.
So I always love doing that.
The other thing that I love doing as well
is just yesterday I was at the Read Across America
Buenavista Elementary to second graders.
Second graders have no filters.
They'll ask any question in the world.
I won't even say what some of those questions were,
but they were very engaged.
And I think you're, are you doing it, did you do it today?
I'm doing TK tomorrow.
TK are a much easier audience.
So no, it's always fun.
I love doing it at the second grade.
Actually I saw Kristy Yamaguchi was doing it today.
Very interesting.
I'd go have her read to me.
About ice skating.
I was at the, as Mayor mentioned,
I was at the opening of Club Studio and another gym, P-Volve,
which is out on Ignacio Valley Road
in the Sports Basement Center.
So I guess a lot of gym enthusiasts
and a lot of fitness is happening in Walnut Creek.
And that's my update.
All right, thank you very much.
Council Member Francois.
Okay, thank you, Mayor.
Kicking things off,
I attended the Economic Development Working Group Meeting
that's hosted by the Chamber,
subcommittee of Chamber and business owners, property owners, other interested
parties looking at propelling economic development in our area. A couple of
subjects that we just they touched on the founders and funders event which was
hosted by the Chamber and Sutter Health Five Star Bank and in in shade lens in
in late January was an opportunity
for early stage venture capital funding
for health and sports tech.
It exceeded their expectations.
They had over 100 attendees and heard pitches
on things like wearable sports performance, clothing,
technology that'll generate highlights
of sports programs and events.
And then for our elderly and their caregivers,
devices that will predict and prevent falls.
So it was exciting to have so many people out in Shadelands
talking about startup technologies,
focused on healthcare and sports items,
an opportunity, one of the venture capital investors
that was there, his advice was to be memorable,
leave funders with one thing they're going to remember
about your story and the value you create for them.
And they had a showcase that was a competitive event
where various different proposers could pitch their ideas.
And the winner was Kevin Yu, founder of Haptic,
which is a technology company that creates navigational
products for visually impaired individuals
that allows them to communicate through touch.
So exciting to hear about that event, for sure.
They also reported on the Brokers Working Group,
which our staff attends, our assistant city manager,
Charles Ching, our community development director,
Erika Vandenbrand, and they meet with several dozens
of commercial real estate brokers on a periodic basis
to hear real stories of what's happening,
what sort of challenges they may be facing
in leasing new spaces,
and there's another broker's working group meeting
follow-up scheduled for later this month.
And then the economic development working group
is also working on forming a subcommittee
focused on examining Measure A.
And for those of you who may not know,
Measure A was a voter-sponsored initiative in the mid 80s
that essentially froze the height limits in place
as they stood at that time,
ranging from 25 feet to 89 feet.
So unlike most cities throughout California
where if a developer wanted to propose a project
and change the height limit,
they could seek to do so through a rezoning effort
and it would have to be approved by the city council,
because of measure A, those height limits
can only be changed through a vote of the people.
And so the chamber wants to examine
potential opportunities to revise or refine measure A
and do an education campaign and potential polling
as to how that might play out.
So I'm told the shortest height is 17 feet,
I wasn't aware of that.
So I attended, oh Harry's Hofbrau, is that where that is?
I attended the Future of Walnut Creek event.
I thought the mayor did a great job.
It was nice to see how well attended it was.
It turns out if you feed people lunch,
it seems to increase in numbers.
And it was a great talk with you and Caitlin,
and then also hearing about exciting things happening
in shade lands and in our downtown area.
Council Member Silva reported
on the Recycle Smart Board meeting,
so I won't repeat that.
I do serve on the ad hoc committee for Recycle Smart.
We're in the midst of reviewing proposals
for collection services.
Our collection service contract expires in 2027.
So we're looking at entering a new,
likely 15 year or more contract for collection services.
We received two bids from Recycle Smart
and MDRR, the staff is reviewing the numbers now
and we'll have interviews scheduled for later this week.
And then, you know, all the talk of wildfire
had made me think it'd be great to hear
from Deputy Chief McAllister or someone from Confire
at some time in the near future
about maybe the new fire maps and defensible space
and how we can be a fire resilient community.
That's my report.
That'll be coming to a council near you soon.
Thank you.
Council Member Definney.
Yes, thank you, Mayor.
Also attended the ribbon cutting at Club Studio,
which was a nice event
and the future of Walnut Creek as well.
I wanted to dovetail on what our city manager spoke about
with the Contra Costa County fire map.
It's actually really interesting
and it's pretty easy to use.
You can kind of scroll the screen back and forth
and see what the old neighborhood,
how it was rated as far as fire hazard.
And then as you scroll over, it shows you the new ratings.
And so you can look at your property.
And actually, I'll tell you that fortunately,
most of Walnut Creek is actually in a low fire zone.
So we did fairly well from that standpoint.
I met with some of the leaders from WCEF this last week,
Executive Director, Curen Seleuja and co-president Ina Rasputic. To give you a little background,
I know we've had WCEF here before, but in the 60s, California was in the top 5% as far as funding
per pupil. Schools used to get most of their funding from property taxes, but after Prop 13
in 1978, now only about a quarter of our funding comes from local property taxes and parcel taxes.
Two-thirds of the funding comes from the state, and that's through income taxes.
So though California income taxes have gone up since the 70s, it hasn't made up the difference.
In 2013, the state introduced California's local control funding formula. Under this formula,
Occalani School District receives the lowest state allocation, so that's Los Lomas for us,
of funds in the state, and the Walnut Creek School District is among the districts with the lowest
allocations. California ranks 33 out of 50 in funding per student. Walnut Creek
school district average is eleven thousand six hundred per pupil per year.
The California average is fourteen thousand five hundred and the national
average is sixteen thousand one hundred per pupil per year. So the Walnut Creek
school district is four thousand five hundred and twenty nine dollars below
low national average when it comes to funding per student. So by voting to cap
our property taxes in 1978 we indirectly voted to defund our schools and due to
various factors we haven't recovered since. So we need to reframe how we view
funding for our local schools. It's not all paid for by our taxes and without
contributions from our local education funds California schools are underfunded
and provide students with only basic education.
The Walnut Creek Education Foundation only asked parents
for $825 per student at the beginning of each year
with a goal of 1.6 million per year.
We could really use two or three times that
and to date we've only raised 1.13 million
for this school year.
This money pays for supplement, pays for or supplements
in K through 12 math, language, social studies,
science, library services, a wealth of electives
including art, computers, college and career readiness,
music, and it also promotes smaller class sizes,
a wellness center and a wellness center
among many other things.
Subjects we consider basic would be unfunded
or underfunded without WCEF support.
So if you are a parent with a kid in school,
Please budget for an annual contribution to WCEF
is the only way to maintain the programs and services
at the schools, the aid schools that WCEF serves.
And for those who don't have kids in school,
remember strong schools are educating our future leaders
and attracting people to our community,
which raises everybody's property values.
So I believe this is a great investment either way.
They are having their next event on March 19th.
It's going to be Taste and Toast.
That's from 5.30 to 8.30 at the Broadway Plaza Fountain.
You can buy tickets or donate on the WCEF website.
From 4.15 to 6, they're going to have TK through 5th.
And it's Hice Creek Middle School and Los Lomas Choir
at the Broadway Plaza near Macy's and True Foods.
And from 5.30 to 6.30 at the Waterlight Plaza,
there'll be performances from the WCI Jazz Band
and the Las Lomas Duet.
The Taste and Toast event starts at 5.30
and goes until 8.30, where you'll
be able to sample food and beverages from local eateries
and stroll through the downtown.
So this is your chance to make a meaningful impact
on our public schools.
Every ticket supports vital programs and resources
for students in our community.
Another event that I attended was the Rossmoor Big Band. That was on February 19th.
That was a fantastic show. The Rossmoor, the Big Band of Rossmoor, which originally
called the Rossmoor Fun Band 30 years ago. The band is directed by Moe Levitch and Greg Brown,
and the current band consists of 38 musicians ages 14 through 86. The senior Rossmoor musicians
are mentors for the local middle and high school students. So there's a several generations playing
together. The band practices together every Wednesday evening. It's a great show. They
played songs from the 40s and 50s big band era as well as some current hits. The many
talented musicians. We have one of the top high school trumpet players in the state here
in Walnut Creek. And the next show will be the band's 29th annual Generations and Jazz
Festival and that is March 16th at 7pm at the Rossmoor Event Center. So hope you can
make it. Thank you very much. Moving on next on the agenda is a consideration
item entitled the 2024 housing element annual progress report and I invite
staff to step forward and provide the staff presentation. I will note that we
have received correspondence since the distribution of the agenda item. Oh we're
gonna take a two-minute break for a glass of water. Hi. Welcome to the
of Walnut Creek City Council.
I understand this is your first presentation,
so introduce yourself then.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.
I'm Crystal DiCastro.
I'm the acting principal planner
for the Community Development Department.
And this item before you tonight
is the 2024 General Plan Housing Element Progress Report.
As an overview of the presentation tonight,
we'll go over the background
of the Annual Progress Report, or APR,
and why it's prepared,
as well as a housing element
and regional housing needs allocation progress or RENA.
We'll also highlight the key achievements
since the housing element was adopted in 2023.
The housing element contains goals, policies,
and programs to achieve a certain number
of allocated units known as RENA.
RENA determination begins with the California Housing
and Community Development Department
determining the required number of units for the state,
the variety of affordability levels
and what they are for each region in the state.
The city of Wanna Creek falls within the purview
of the associated Bay Area Association
of Bay Area Governments, or ABAG,
which is a regional agency for all Bay Area counties.
ABAG assigns a target number of units
for local jurisdictions to plan for
over the eight year housing element planning period.
The RINA number allocated for Walnut Creek is 5,805 units.
Each year, cities are required by state law
to submit an annual report documenting their progress
towards RINA and the housing element goals.
The Housing Element APR is submitted to HCD
and the Land Use and Climate Innovation Agency
each year by April 1st.
It includes a snapshot of the city's housing production,
which is the number of units issued building permits,
development activity,
which tracks the development applications submitted,
and implementation of the housing element goals
through program actions that facilitate housing development.
This slide indicates the number of goals,
policy, and program actions.
Notably, of the 144 actions,
110 actions have been implemented
since the housing element was certified.
Yes, well done.
The following chart displays the 110 actions
that were implemented for the eight housing element goals
and certification.
Blue indicates the actions that were completed.
An example of this is in a one-time directive,
such as a specific code update.
Orange indicates the continuous actions,
those which are performed within a specific timeframe,
such as an annual or quarterly forum or meeting.
And yellow indicates actions in progress.
actions that are ongoing with no end date,
such as community service collaborations.
And to highlight this city's key achievements in 2024,
here's a list of several actions that were implemented.
They include process streamlining actions,
such as establishing the residential
objective design standards,
and adoption of the ADU ordinance updates.
Affordable housing production and preservation activities,
such as maintaining the site inventory
and ongoing subsidies for affordable housing
as discussed at the developers housing forum.
And speaking of the developers housing forum,
it is one of the achievements
under the many housing services programs provided.
The developers forum was held last fall
and it's an annual event.
The city also applied for pro housing designation
from the state.
This designation increases the city's eligibility
for state funding, improving residents' access
to affordable housing.
The state's benchmark for tracking RINA
is based on the number of building permits issued.
Since 2023, the city has met
approximately 1.6% of its RINA goal.
It's important to note at this time
that the city relies on the private market
to construct housing.
With that said, there are approximately 1,400 units
in the pipeline, accounting for 24% of the RINA goal.
Pipeline projects consist of projects
that are currently in the development review process.
With nearly 1,400 units in the pipeline,
almost a quarter of those units are affordable,
and about 75% of them are market rate units.
The pipeline projects are currently
at various stages in the development process,
from application submission to building occupancy.
The numbers in the circles here indicate the number
of units at each state in the process.
Not all projects are required to go through every stage.
The timeline of each project type varies,
depending on the state and local laws
that define the development process.
As you can see, most of the units
are at the application stage at this time
and working their way through the process.
For the 2024 reporting year,
the city accomplished its committed goals
by streamlining development processing,
implementing housing actions,
and updating policies to increase housing production.
And although the city's RINA numbers are low,
it's important to remember that the city
is only a quarter of a way
through its eight-year planning period.
Therefore, meeting RINA is a work in progress.
Looking ahead, the city will continue its efforts,
Ensuring housing needs of the community are met
while contributing to the broader goals of the state.
That concludes the presentation
and staff's available for any questions.
Thank you very much.
Good job.
Questions?
Council Member Defendee?
Let me just, one of the questions,
thank you for the presentation.
That was very nice.
And I appreciate seeing the good work that we're doing
towards getting towards those numbers.
One question I had is about when we say we're trying to meet Rina, my understanding is that
what we really need to do at all times to stay in compliance is show that we have the
inventory and that whether or not the units are actually being built or not is not one
of the metrics that we're being measured by.
Is that correct?
Yes, so as for the city we're not in the position to build the housing but we're there to report on
The progress towards meeting Rina. Yeah, okay
so then
So we have the the projects that were the
The the action items that we've taken that we've completed
And then there's maintaining the inventory
are there other um
are there other like benchmarks that were being held to or other metrics that we are required to
do in order to stay in compliance? So the metrics, so the timetable for the whole period is the eight
years as found in the housing element 2023 to 2031. So the metrics are found in the APR,
that's the application submitted, the entitlements, the building permits and occupancy. And so state
compliance includes reporting those numbers at each stage and identifying
the actions in the housing element we're as a city continuing the good faith
efforts to facilitate the production of those and so that's the metrics that we
report to the how to the state are those items the some of the the projects that
that were mentioned, like the say builder's remedy project
that's been proposed for Mitchell Town Homes.
Applications that require general plan updates
like Toyota, Honda and applications
that require a density bonus.
Are those numbers that we can use to say
that we're meeting our arena target
or is there this concept that we're supposed to be able
allowing for these units in our base zoning,
and so therefore things that are requiring exceptions
don't apply to the arena numbers.
So that's a great question.
In the housing element, go ahead.
I was just gonna say I saw Steve grab his microphone.
Okay.
The base zoning accommodates the arena allocation
of the 5805 units.
So that serves as a floor.
Any other projects that require the density bonus
or builder's remedy,
There's a potential for them to increase the arena numbers that we're reporting.
Those weren't accounted for when we constructed the housing element.
They would only add to the amount that we have for arena.
So we don't see those, like many of those 1,400 aren't being applied to the 5,800.
They would just be a bonus on top of that?
So those are in the pipeline.
So those numbers are in the pipeline but what I was referring to that if there was anything
Other than that, they would be added as an increase to the pipeline projects.
I think...
Yeah, I'd like to just supplement that a little bit.
So it helps, I think, to break down what we needed to count towards the Rina numbers initially.
And Walnut Creek was really very advanced in the fact that we had the specific plans
that already anticipated a number of new units.
And so those were what we used to show that we had enough.
We didn't ultimately have to rezone any property
like a lot of cities had to do.
On the other hand, the new units that are actually produced
do count against your RINA obligation.
Density bonus units also count,
but they don't count when you're trying to show
that you have enough units in the pipeline
in your existing zoning, which Walnut Creek already had.
And so as any of those units come online,
they get approved and come online,
they do count against us satisfying our RINA obligations
during the time period.
They just don't count as part of our inventory.
Would they?
To satisfy the bill?
In some instances, in some of instances it's somewhat split
because some of the sites were in our existing zoning
were already zoned for mixed use,
but for instance, an applicant is in now
that's proposing to do more than what our specific plan
called for, and so the base number of the units
that were in our current specific plan
would have been counted towards that,
but the additional units, if the council were to approve
this alternative development approach
would also count ultimately to us
meeting our arena obligations.
Thank you.
All right.
Mayor Pro Tem, since I'm looking to the right.
Yeah, I think a lot of my questions were answered
during that exchange, but, and thank you,
that was a terrific presentation.
Are we well on track?
Do we need to step it up and see more?
Are we essentially, we're on the highway,
It's going fine, stay on the progress
that we're currently making.
So we're on track.
We do have, you know, we are only a quarter of the way
through the eight year planning period.
So we're on track and as time goes by,
there'll be more projects that we have,
especially the pipeline projects.
So what happens if there's a project
that we are not anticipating within this?
And as an example, you know,
we know there's a couple of projects
and one of them is a builder's remedy.
are these then, as we just heard, part of this whole process?
Or if there's something that is truly in an area
that we were not anticipating,
does that not count for additional numbers?
So the builder's remedy project that is proposed
is in an area where the general plan
did not designate residential.
And so those units were not anticipated
to the extent that they were actually ultimately approved
constructed they would again count against our arena obligation but
they're not what we had anticipated they're not what our certified housing
element anticipated would be used to meet our arena obligation okay all right
thank you thank you and I'll turn to councilmember Silva to ask questions for
as city attorney so they will we had to come up with an inventory of potential
the sites and locations to meet the 5,805 plus.
But we don't get dinged if a different project comes in
and the 100, it's 100, it goes into the count.
That is correct.
And we don't get dinged if our crystal ball
wasn't perfectly clear and perfectly on target.
It's just, we're really looking to achieve
and make feasible and achieve the goal?
That is correct.
The only time, and this again, you look at it in totality,
if for instance, the city had property designated
for hypothetically 30 units per acre,
and you allow, and that's in the housing elements,
one of your sites, but you allow development
that's at 15 units per acre,
then you do have to have a way through your other sites,
through rezoning some additional land,
through some new developments like
if the Builders Remedy Project were ever approved
or Tawana Creek,
because that also was not designated for that level,
you would have to offset that loss somehow or another.
And I really think that one of the other,
we could make all of our numbers,
which we did in the last cycle,
we made 2300 and change units,
but we didn't make the requisite percentage
of those units were not affordable at some level.
And so we provided the housing but not enough housing
that was affordable at all of the various levels.
So that's the other aspect of this challenge, correct?
That is correct.
I wanna ask you what I hope is a fun question
and not one that's too hard.
And by the way, I thought the presentation
was really excellent, it was clear.
So give us a couple of examples of what's in the 59 units.
Is Hope Village the six micro units
that are at Grace Presbyterian Church, is that in the 59,
or are they still pending their certificate of occupancy?
So that's in the 59 listed.
And I just thought, what about 1910 North Main Street?
I don't have that in front of me.
135 units.
There are curtains hanging in the windows.
But sometimes, you get certificates
of occupancy and phases.
So we don't have that information right here in front of us,
but we can get back to you.
But essentially, the information that was there is in 2024.
This is the number of housing units
that receive certificate of occupancy.
So my point is not to get back to me,
but it's really to remember that there are projects
that are still in that final stage
of getting their certificate of occupancy.
And the 59 could be 259 in a couple of months.
or the next year, yes.
My other question is really about what are the barriers
because there's, I was watching the news today
and it looks like the prices are going to go up
and building materials have already skyrocketed.
Is that going to impact the speed of things moving through
the process and what other barriers are we experiencing?
So as a city, we can help facilitate the production
of housing, however, there are things that are out
of our control, you know, like the interest rates
that you mentioned materials and labor costs
and that's all up to the private market.
So, thank you, thank you.
Council Member Francois.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you for the presentation, nice job.
Just my questions were similar to Mayor Pro Tem's
in terms of are we on pace
and it might be kind of interesting to see
where we were two years into the last housing cycle
because I think there are challenges ahead.
Sorry, more of a comment I guess it's leading towards.
I guess turning it back to a question.
On the Housing Development Forum,
could you summarize some of the feedback
maybe that you received from the developers
on what the challenges, constraints that they were seeing
in terms of moving forward with housing projects?
So I'm kind of last person standing almost
in terms of the Housing Developers Forum,
but they really had mentioned the two things in particular.
One was the cost of land and the other was interest rates.
And those were the key barriers that they found.
And that, I guess, you know, from COVID periods
and so forth, interest rates had doubled.
And that was killing a lot of projects in the interim.
I think that's all the questions I had for now, thanks.
Thank you, and I'll just, thank you for a great presentation.
Looking forward, I know we're doing pretty well
at getting ADUs, you know, people are interested in them.
They stop by the farmer's market all the time.
Are we doing any kind of customer satisfaction survey?
What is working and not working for the people
that are actually getting ADUs built?
Because everybody that I talked to at the farmer's market
has this great idea, and then not all of them
are coming to fruition, and what are we doing there?
So we are working on a survey regarding the ADU process.
I don't know if the housing manager
would like to talk more about that.
She was raising her eyebrows behind you, so.
Good evening, mayor and council members.
I'm Stephanie Brine, the housing manager here
at the City of Walnut Creek, and we are in the process
developing a survey for ADUs and people who are building ADUs and it's in
collaboration with with ABAG. I think we're going to be utilizing their
survey metrics for right now but we do have ideas on how to get feedback and
and how to make sure that we are facilitating the process as much as
possible. Yeah great that's great because it's I know it's something that's where
individual homeowners are interested in doing it and they're not natural land
and developers so it'll be interesting to see
what the results are.
Yeah, all right, thank you.
We're getting extra questions here.
One more for Council Member Silva.
So perhaps staff could comment on what they see
as the barriers to making ADUs easier for,
you know, the neighborhood homeowner
who has never built anything before
or maybe put up a tough shed in the backyard from Sears.
So, I guess there are three areas of challenge, you know, an opportunity.
So one is dealing with, you know, particularly PG&E and trying to make sure, you know, things
are working, you know, etc., and somewhat also with, you know, other utilities, but
that's really the big one.
So that's one.
Second is that the building codes really don't distinguish between an ADU and, you know,
any other residential unit and so forth.
So that's another one.
And then just the third, if you're not a developer and you're not used to doing this all the
time, the requirements to be able to get through the development process can be very daunting.
And so that we can do something about.
And what we can do about that is to try and better delineate the steps in the process
and then make it easier to the homeowner
and we're, or developer, if you will, there.
And so we're exploring different ways
to be able to do that.
Could I build on that a little bit?
So I have heard at least two people tell me,
well, this should be so easy.
I should be able to do it over the counter
the way I do a kitchen remodel.
And based on what you said,
do you think that's a realistic expectation?
The only time it would be a realistic expectation
is if there was a perfectly flat lot
that didn't need it to have any grading done with it
and that the plans that were developed
had every specific thing in it
and then the homeowner slash developer building it
followed the plans to the T.
And so, and everything was structurally sound
so that the next big wind didn't blow it away.
So if those were all the conditions that were in place,
then we could be able to look at it and review it.
The reality is that we have yet
to get that level of specificity
because even in the pre-reviewed plans,
the Pradu that we have on the website
and plans that have been certified,
elsewhere there's still the site that needs to be prepared
and then there are also the utility hookups and so forth.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Finney, one more question.
Yeah, in regards to funding,
I know that land costs and construction costs have gone up.
Now on our community development block grants,
I think 50% of those money goes towards
like underserved and Walnut Creek.
What percentage of that goes towards
like affordable housing, per se, the actual housing?
Our CDBG funds are used only a portion of which go to actual services about two-thirds
of the entitlement that we get goes towards housing preservation typically, and that would
be in the form of a home, like a low-income home rehab loan program.
All of the funds could be used towards building affordable housing.
historically our entitlement has not been large enough to make that kind of effective use for
those funds. Okay and then in the housing element um when it's spelled out where we get the funding
for these um uh for affordable housing there's the regional funds but all of those funds like
the the one barrier grant advancing california housing authority metropolitan uh transportation
commission grants they all had tbd on them how are those shaping up are they looking like a
a good source of funding? Are we getting more than we expected regionally? Less?
There's still TBD because they're essentially, either something has to be voted into law
in order to have that, or else from the state, the state needs to provide funding for it. In
some cases, like federal tax credits, the feds need to fund that too. And so all these are big
question marks. So still TBD. Okay and then I just want to expand upon that if
I if I may you know councilmember Silva referenced this earlier you know for the
prior arena cycle the city met its overall number but didn't meet the
distribution in terms of the different income categories and you know the
biggest challenge facing Walnut Creek and likely every entity throughout the
state in our instance 60% of our reen allocation is to be below market which
which is a considerable number, we're talking over 3,000 units.
The amount of subsidy is in the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be needed to build those.
And that money, we don't have the ability to generate that locally in Walnut Creek that requires considerable money from federal states or other contributors.
And that is the single biggest challenge to getting the affordable units built.
And obviously, we're doing everything we can, but it's really a money game at the end of the day when it comes to the affordable units.
particular. My last question is in regards to SB 35 soon to be SB 423
which would I think was on our housing element as an item that we wanted to
create the language for to make the multifamily units that are being applied
for with 50% affordable more of a ministerial process. Is that one
the programs that we've completed. So we still have more work to do. Thank you. Thank you. All
right. Thank you staff very much for fielding all those questions and I will now open up the public
comment portion. Anybody that wishes to step forward to the podium, please complete a speaker card
and once at the podium introduce yourself, your city of residence, consist of city policy related
to public comments, each speaker gets two minutes for your remarks. Two. You don't get a frequent
flyer discount. Oh okay. Jan Warren, the Woodlands, just want to rattle through these really quickly
for two minutes. I want to bring up good old 699 and where we are, because it seems like every time
we get close, something time's out and we have to go look for more money. And so that we've been
been in that for a long time now. I'm curious about, I think I saw a couple of deadlines
on asking for affordable housing developers to, okay, here's what we're thinking about.
How much money is Walnut Creek going to help us with? What's the status of that? In terms
of the ADUs, most of what we've built have been ADUs, and that's great. I think I did
see a couple of prefabs but we may just have to put in things that because of
the fires you could still do it to just what's the material you know that you're
going to be using it sorry no plants. Where's my other numbers here so this is
an annual report I assume we won't get another annual report until a year from
from now unless there's a new project that we're going to review.
And I think I already heard about this.
The last thing is I'm just going to throw it out for craziness, but years ago we used
to look at the in lieu fee and then we finally got it attached to a number with a percentage
increase every year.
Is that right?
Okay.
I'm wondering if we could look towards the future and and freeze that in Lufi to send
a signal to the developers that Walnut Creek is really trying to help you.
I've heard a lot of complaints about that and and I don't know it'd be more theoretical
maybe or at least good news or something but might help them.
Thank you.
Any other public comments?
Step up.
Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, Charles Krelling, Commissioner.
I want to tie this topic into a little bit of potential legislative agenda.
So we're doing a great job planning.
We're slowly building units.
But if the rental owners and the individual property owners cannot get consistent, affordable
fire insurance, you know, what are we actually accomplishing?
So I would request of city council to think about
as a part of all of your legislative agenda thinking,
working with the state, the governor,
and the insurance commissioner to give whatever input you can
with regards to how fire insurance is starting to pan out,
or I should say not pan out for our state,
because that'll hinder actually having people occupy
the homes that we're trying to build, thanks.
Thank you.
Other public comments?
All right, seeing nobody else hurrying towards,
I will go ahead and close the public comment period,
bring it back.
I don't think we brought a whole lot of other things up here.
I did wanna ask for a 699 YVR update, Erica, or Stephanie.
Stephanie.
while you're at it the affordable housing RFP process okay those two
things okay we are looking at financial closing for 699 YVR in mid April and
we're hoping to have construction start May May 1st is what they're saying
currently Wow yay yeah long long road in terms of the affordable housing
RFR that we released we are going to be bringing it to this to counsel in May
for review in terms of recommendations and to our HCD committee of course in
April next month all right thank you so much
questions do you have more questions can staff remind the community where the
development where they can look up on the website what the progress is on all
the various projects across the community. So on the city's website
there's actually if you Google or you know search for projects then there's a
website that shows all the major projects that are inclusive of not only
housing but any other major projects that would be there. And it's a map and
it's illustrations and a description and the address you can go look at the lot. I
I did that I used it this week in order to pursue a couple of ones just trying to figure out where they were
And many cases they're actually pictures too and the renderings and so forth
additional questions from anybody
Comments we'll start with councilmember Dafini. No comments
Just appreciate the update and we hear about housing element in Reno numbers all the time
so great to hear that we're on track and
Obviously something that is important to talk about whenever we hear about new projects and understand how that does fit into the Reno numbers
So appreciate it
Councilmember Silva
Thank you very much to staff. We've received this report
Year over year. This is not a new report, but I appreciate that. We're now getting the report
publicly so that we
Can talk about it and inform the community better and also share ideas
And so thank you and I'll be supporting moving this forward to the state
Yeah, thank you very much for the report to answer some of the questions that we heard from commenters, which were good
You know it is an annual report
So even as new projects come into the pipeline and applications get submitted we won't hear about them until next
March but though they will be accounted for and we'll get an update on that
I also recall that as part of our priorities under economic development
We we did want to look for an examination of our fees and I would think the affordable housing fee would be part of that
So that'll be part because fees can definitely pose a constraint to housing development and we want to make sure that we're not doing that
Insurance is part of our legislative update and one that we're all very concerned on including
Myself who was not renewed for my insurance and I think I speak for a lot of Walnut Creek residents who are struggling with that and trying
To find a new insurer. So I think that's that's the new normal and not a good way
And so it's a concern for us and all of our residents
I think to the city manager's point that
We are on track, but you know when you look at the affordable number, it was only 25 percent not not 60 percent
So I think that'll continue
To be a struggle. I think it'll it's going to be hard because of the land costs the other things we're talking about construction costs interest rates and
I
Think we'll need to get really creative
In order to kind of continue to build a community where everyone in our community can afford
To live work and and visit here. And so I think that's going to be a challenge for all of us
Over this eight-year cycle to not just meet the market rate numbers, but see what we can do to meet the affordable numbers
And I appreciate receiving the report and having this conversation and look forward to continued updates as the years go by
Thank you, and I share many of the the comments and concerns of my fellow council members
I appreciate the hard work you guys are doing at it
I do recognize the difficulty of what we're trying to do in a city where the dirt is so expensive as is the money as
as is the wood. And if you put those three together, you come up with affordable housing
projects that cost three quarters of a million dollars and will require a significant subsidy
for them to be available. But I think we are all working together to make sure that as council
member Francois said, we're a city where everybody can live, work, play safely and enjoy the quality
of life we have here. So we're going to continue to look for opportunities to provide the breadth
of housing that people need to meet that goal.
I had the pleasure of talking to a young couple
at the farmer's market on Sunday,
and they had bought a house that had an ADU
and now had somebody living in the back
that was an older woman.
And they were just so pleased with it.
So I'm glad we're looking at a lot of different models.
I'm glad we're evaluating our work,
and I will be happy to support moving this,
accepting this progress report
and directing staff to submit it.
If anybody would like to make such a motion.
I move to accept the 2024 annual report
and direct city staff to forward the report
to the California Department of Housing
and Community Development
at the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.
And I will second that roll call.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Darling.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Walke.
Aye.
Thank you all very much for coming here tonight, and with that, I believe we are adjourned.