I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walla Creek, and welcome to the regular meeting
of the Walla Creek City Council.
The City Council was 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 Walla Creek City 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 public 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, which is for
public comments 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 9.5 of the City Council Handbook, 30 minutes will be initially allocated
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 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.
Wait your turn, and then when you approach the lectern,
please state your name and city of residence for the record.
You will 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 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 the core expected in the council chamber and
can be found on our website.
All remarks should be addressed to the city council for public review and are
included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.
Right. Good evening. I'm Kevin Wilk, mayor of the city of Walnut Creek.
And welcome to the Tuesday, July 21st,
regular meeting of the Walnut Creek city council pursuant to California
government code section five four five four nine five three point four or SB
707 will also have remote public comments via zoom if you're
participating in the meeting via zoom and would like to make a public comment
please use the raise hand feature or press star 9 if you're calling during the
item in which you would like to comment on being heard right thank you and city
clerk sudi martinis can you call the roll please
Council Member Darling. I'm here. Council Member Davini. Here. Council Member Silva. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Francois. Here. Mayor Wilk. Here.
All right. Our first item is a proclamation for Park and Recreation Month. And I invite Chris Faro and the Arts and Recreation Director and anybody else you'd like to bring forward to for the proclamation.
And I'll read a little bit of this here that Parks and Rec is an integral part of communication throughout this country, including Walnut Creek, California,
and whereas park and recreation promotes time spent in nature which positively impacts mental
health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being and by alleviating illnesses like
depression, attention deficit disorder and Alzheimer's and whereas park and recreation
programming and education activities such as out of school time programming, youth sports and
Edinburgh community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature
and recreate outdoors and the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as park and
Recreation Month and Walnut Creek recognizes the benefits derived from park and recreation sources
resources and therefore I Kevin Wilk mayor of the city of Walnut Creek on behalf of the
Walnut Creek City Council do hereby recognize July as Parks and Recreation Month. Thank you.
Thank you Mayor and City Council on behalf of Public Works and our Arts and Rec Departments
we appreciate Council's recognition of July as Parks and Rec Month. This recognition is especially
meaningful to me personally because parks and recreation shaped my life from the very beginning.
Growing up in the Oakland Hills, the Montclair Park and Recreation Center served as my second
home. Countless hours were spending camps and classes and on courts and fields. Looking back,
I realized those experiences built my confidence, fostered my independence and creativity, many
others who show up every day because they believe in creating meaningful spaces and enriching
opportunities for our community. So on behalf of both of our teams, Rich is on vacation, otherwise
he'd be here. We want to thank you for recognizing the work, for supporting
parks and recreation, and investing in places where memories are made,
communities are built, and lives are changed. We are proud to serve the city
of Walnut Creek. Why don't we take a picture up here? Alright, next a very
exciting recognition of Odyssey the Mind by the Buena Vista Elementary School
team, and I invite the fifth grade team from Buena Vista Elementary School
forward to accept this certificate of recognition. This team has shown exceptional creativity
and teamwork, having worked together since first grade. This year, they earned first
place regionals and second place at the state championship. It's really impressive. They
proudly represented California at the Odyssey of the Mind World Championships at Iowa State
University in May, where they placed second in their division. Their dedication, imagination,
long-standing collaboration are truly inspiring. So why don't y'all come up
here and love to hear a little bit about what what that was. You can come up here
sure. That trophy looks as big as you are. Hello Mayor Wilkin Council members we
are Tayo, Karen, Elle, Nathan, Rocco, Jacob and Owen. We just finished fifth grade in
in Buena Vista Elementary school in Walnut Creek.
For the past five years,
we have been competing in Odyssey of the Mind,
a program where teams from around the world
find creative ways to solve problems.
Our team has been together since first grade.
This past May, we came to the city council
to share that we had qualified
to represent Northern California
at the Odyssey of the Mind World Championship,
held at Iowa State University.
Many people donated to our cause
to help us pay for our trip to the World Championships.
Thank you so much to everyone who donated.
We are grateful to the people at Walnut Creek
who donated to our school district and principal
who helped us raise funds and especially to our coaches.
We are so proud that we won second place in our division
out of 51 teams from across the country
and even across the world.
We competed against kids from the United States,
South Korea, Poland, Hong Kong, China, and Mexico.
Wow.
Thank you so much for your time and recognition.
We are proud to have gotten to represent Walnut Creek
at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals.
We are so proud of our kids and the hard work
they put in this year.
Thank you so much to everyone who donated
and supported us this year.
If you would indulge me one favor,
could each of the boys come up and just tell us who you are?
just briefly what's your name who you are and maybe what school you're going
to this next year. My name is Nathan and next year I'm gonna be going to WCI. My
name is Theo and next year I'm gonna be going to WCI. My name is Owen and I'm
gonna go to WCI next year. My name is Raku and I'm gonna go to Wuhan. My name is
Jake and I'm also going to WCI next year. My name's Kieran and I'm also going to WCI.
this championship team is staying together all right well why do we all
take a picture together
was it one problem
Okay, that is definitely going to be the highlight of our meeting.
So next we do have the consent calendar and does any member, sorry, my in order here,
does any council member wish to pull an item for discussion or any member of the staff
wish to pull an item for discussion?
Actually, I will pull an item, which is item G, 2G, just to discuss.
I'll pull item H.
Okay.
All right.
We have item G and H. Does any member of the public wish to provide public comment on the
consent calendar?
And if you were in person, please come forward.
Do we have anybody online?
Nobody's online either.
All right.
just to let people know that we since we do have zoom if you would wish to
provide a comment on any item be sure to call in and raise your hand feature on
that item so we have no speakers do we have a motion and a second for the
remainder of the consent calendar I'll move to approve a through f second we
have a motion to second Susie could call the roll please
Councilmember Darling? Aye. Councilmember Silva? Aye. Councilmember Davini? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Mayor Wilk? Aye. Motion carries.
Okay, since I pulled G, I'll just take on G. I had thought that we had voted previously on a voting delegate for Cal Cities several months ago, and I couldn't remember that. Is this the first time that we've...
I went back and looked, and you appointed a representative to the East Bay Division, but not to Cal Cities as a voting delegate.
Okay
So I'm the voting delegate, okay, I guess I'll make that motion
I'll second that okay. We have motion in a second
Mayor Wolk, aye
Hi, de Vinnie. All right. Maybe we're still the mayor pro tempore as well
All right, and then on port Chicago. I just wanted to say thank you to
mayor and others for putting this on the calendar and
Recognizing it because it is something that was overlooked in history and so impactful in the area. And I know that the
children of the people that were
Affected by that really appreciate the ongoing recognition for and so I will move to approve and I'll second that
I'll second that and actually this is the first year out of the last three or four that I didn't go in person
to it
I just wasn't able to but I will say that
Not only does Concord often have representation from their council members, but our congressman Mark D'Saulnier has made it a point to always go there
and this is the reason why there have been the pardons of
That that happens in Washington do directly to Congress Mark D'Saulnier's efforts on that
So I'm happy to second that and get a girl, please sir
Councilmember Darling. Aye. Mayor Whelk. Aye. Councilmember Divinity. Yes, very enthusiastically also was very
I'm happy to see this on the agenda and the awareness that's raised about July 17th, 1944.
Council member Silva?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
Motion carried.
Okay.
The next one on the agenda is public communications.
This portion of the meeting is 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.
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. Written
comments submitted have been posted to the City's website for public review and are included
in the meeting record but will not be separately read into the record. At this time I'll note
that the time is 6.18 and we'll take public comments on items not on the agenda until
approximately 648 and then the remainder of any such comments at the end of open
session portion of the meeting. If anybody is online please use your raise
hand feature or press star 9 if you're calling in if you'd like to provide a
remote public comment. And at this time we'll take in-person comments and we'll
then ask the City Clerk afterwards if we have any members of the public who would
like to provide remote comments. So if you have if you are a member of the
public to comment on something not on the agenda please come forward now.
okay nobody do we have anybody online we have no members of the public online this
is a first okay so we will move on to council member and staff announcements
reports on activities or requests do we have any closed session announcements
no mayor there are no no closed session announcements and city manager reports I
I do not have an update this evening there all right then we have City Councilmember reports on a B 1 2 3 4 activities councilmember assignments and
Various activities and upcoming events and why don't we start with councilmember Davini?
Just a few things to report
Let's see mayor pro tem Francois and I attended the
Finance committee meeting on June 23rd
where things are looking actually fiscally healthy
and we'll be discussing our fee study later tonight
and we spent a fair amount of time discussing that
and happy to see the way that's moved forward.
Also on that day, I was fortunate enough
to attend a dedication at Sugarloaf Open Space,
the Rotary Club.
They built and dedicated two perglas
to a member of the Rotary Club
who had been very active in our community for a long time.
That's Don Willoughby.
So remembering him and so it was a special event to be there.
And those pergolas will hopefully
be there for years for us to enjoy.
We want to sort of apologize to the city of Walnut Creek.
We disappointed a little bit this year
on the cornhole tournament.
We attended East Bay Division, Cal City's cornhole
tournaments, and competed against the other cities.
And I really thought we had it.
We were doing very well, and we lost in the semifinals.
So we had one the year before, and I
hope that we will come back and get them again next year.
Apology noted.
Yes.
We just got a little trophies, but oh well.
That was a fun event.
Locust Street Festival was on July 8th.
That was a great event.
I was fortunate to be able to stop by for a short period
and just witness the attendance, music, food, wine, arts,
activities.
It was a great event.
And we're looking forward to the next one.
We had a trans-pac meeting.
We spent a good portion of the transportation time
discussing the transportation expenditure plan
process for measure J to renew measure J and we're looking at what's most
important for both us here in Walnut Creek as well as looking taking a bird's
eye view of what's best for the region and so that will be part of a public
outreach process that I've discussed before as our representative to transpac
but look for opportunities to give feedback as to what the most important
issues are for you as far as transportation goes both locally and
regionally so we'll be looking to move that that process forward and hopefully
come up with an expenditure plan that's very pleasing to the city and the
community so that we can renew but renew measure J that's all I have I'm gonna
mayor pro tem Francois thank you mayor a few updates as well as councilmember
Da Vinny mentioned we attended the finance committee meeting in late June
where we primarily talked about the master fee study and the policies that
are on our agenda tonight so I won't belabor that because we'll be talking
about that shortly also the pleasure of attending an unveiling of the city's
mural grant program so this is money that the city has put forward to promote
public art downtown and it was at zebra tattoo several of the murals are
wrapping around that building and then another one on Main Street near Main
Street kitchen and it's really remarkable to see how it's not it's not
simple or easy to make these creations but how it transforms kind of a space
uses buildings as a canvas and I think it was really well received adds
vibrancy to the downtown and excitement and people are interested in kind of
their urban environment we got a lot of great feedback and I want to thank
Elizabeth Orcutt for preparing wonderful remarks for me she was here
somewhere recently and then we had arts commissioners Sarah Baltazar was in
attendance and former arts commissioner Yismani Clauber my colleague Cindy
Silva was there as well and Dan Buckshi so it was a great turnout and really fun
activity to attend. There will be a formal ribbon cutting on July 30th.
About four o'clock. Four o'clock at, I'm a ventrilo- he's my ventriloquist at Zebra.
Yes. Zebra Tattoo. July 30th, four o'clock, Zebra Tattoo. Really really great program.
That was it. I wasn't able to make our last Recycle Smart meeting, so I will let my colleague,
Council Member Silva, give an update on that. I just want to remark on how nice it is to see
the level of activity downtown with the Locust Street Festival uncorked, but just with all the
activity that was happening in and around the World Cup, too. We didn't have like what San Jose
had with watching parties or things like that, but several of our local bars kind of served that
function and restaurants and it was great to see that level of activity
downtown really fun that's my update great thank you let's go on to council
member darling thank you and I had a great time I'm Kevin Wilk mayor Kevin
Wilk and I attended the academy graduation sponsored by the sheriffs
for their Academy and that was where we had four new police officers graduate
from Academy, and they are now stepping into the FTO program.
Exciting.
And then the next one is Council Member Silva and I
came and welcomed our new dispatcher.
I think the joy that I see on the faces of our captains
when they report out that they are milliseconds away
from being absolutely fully staffed is just really good.
The amount of great job they've done bringing in new recruits,
laterals, filling the support positions like dispatcher. It's been really good to see.
And speaking of filling positions, Katie Burrows, I went to the chamber board meeting the other day
and we got to meet the new CEO for the chamber. I'm assuming you're here for the, we'll hear you
from you later, but so I won't, I won't do the whole two-year horn hair thing now, but
Charles Ching and I went to the chamber, got to meet the new CEO. We're glad to see the chamber
moving forward and we're happy to continue to work in partnership.
And now on to MCE as I've been reporting over the last couple months there have
been a number of things going with on within MCE.
As for those of you who don't know it's the marine it was formerly marine clean
energy. It is now MCE and it represents
electricity accounts in Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, and Marin County.
Amongst those accounts, more than 50% of them are here in Contra Costa County, and we have
a broad group of city council and county representatives on the MCE board.
The MCE CEO, Dawn Weiss, who is the original creator of the agency, her last day was Wednesday,
June 17th and the board is now appointed an ad hoc committee to begin the recruitment for a new CEO.
There's information on the the process coming out from MCE
and in the meantime, Vikin Kasagian, who has been MCO's Chief Operating Officer since 2018,
will continue to serve as Acting CEO. MCE is committed to its mission and all of our
Contra Costa reps are working hard to make sure that we succeed in our mission
to reduce electricity related greenhouse gas emissions, provide equitable
community benefits, and cost competitive clean energy services to the customers
throughout the area including those here in Contra Costa. We are confident in the
agency's ability to continue operations during this transition. And then speaking
transition. For those of you who haven't been following Marin County politics the
Marin County civil jury did release a report that included a number of
findings about MCE operations. The MCE board has appointed a ad hoc committee
to begin to prepare the response that is required by MCE in mid-September. I am on
that ad hoc committee and I am confident we are going to continue to work
together. Many of the questions raised by the civil grand jury were already well
aware of within MCE and we're working to make sure that we work through the
issues that were raised. One of the bigger issues within MCE has been the
relative value of short-term power contracts and how much they cost versus
the impacts of the reduced greenhouse gases. MCE gets 50% of our power that we
serve to all of you from long-term contracts, 30-40 year contracts with the
different energy projects throughout the state. We get another 20% from existing
PG&E clean energy resources including their large hydro assets in the Sierra
Nevada's and other projects like that we do get 30% of our power that we supply
from a variety of other sources and we are we have held two technical workshops
and we are going to be working cooperatively to come back to a workshop
in the end of August to say what are the policy issues that come to rise about
these short-term contracts and their benefits and their costs to try to answer
some of the ongoing discussions that we've been having with a couple of the
folks up in Marin County who are concerned about those. As those of you
who might recall in 2024, those short-term energy resources, the cost, I
forget if it's doubled or tripled for one year and then went right back down.
And so MCE had to ride that out and we're still working through the lessons
learned from that. So that's the MCE report. The good thing is that every four
years we have to report to the CPUC as all other load-serving entities in
California do, and we have to prepare an integrated resources plan. We adopted
that at our meeting well in advance of the deadline to submit it to CPUC, and it
shows that we are in a good position. We have the resources to serve us. I think
we go through 2045 in that planning document so that you know amidst
everything going on with MCE that was a good a good thing to get through and our
staff is doing a yeoman's job at keeping things running in the meantime so that
is my report thank you councilmember Silva thank you um councilmember darling
maybe at some point you could explain what the value of short-term contracts
versus long-term contracts. How many hours you have? Well that's why I didn't
ask you I didn't ask you the question now I just thought maybe somebody might
be interested in what that response is because there's a value of managing your
portfolio. There yeah it's an incredibly complicated risk management issue but I
can I'll bring the after the workshop at the end of August we'll bring that back.
Thank you. Thank you very much mayor thank you for my colleagues. I have a
a lot to report since our last meeting,
because everybody decided to meet in the summer
that I participate with.
First will be that the annual meeting of the ABAG General
Assembly was at the end of June.
And I attended and voted both as a city council member
on behalf of Walnut Creek and as an executive board member.
Two things to note, we approved and adopted the 2026-27 budget.
And there's a, what I would call,
a minor CPI-related cost increase in our dues.
The second was we elected Susan Adams, who's
a council member of Ronert Park in Marin County,
as president, and Wanda Williams,
who is a Solano County member of the Board of Supervisors,
as vice president for the coming year.
And they will both serve for a year.
Moving on to Recycle Smart, at the June board meeting,
we received a presentation from representatives
from Recology's Blossom Valley Organics Processing Center.
So this, beginning next March, when
become new franchise agreements, Recology will be processing our organics, which is
everything in our green bin will go to a site, a processing site outside of Tracy.
And I was able to visit it also in late June and it is an amazing facility and boy is it
challenging because they pour everything into these moving conveyor belts and people are
So aspirational about what is organic, you get tennis shoes in there.
So please remember people, organics is growing in your yard and it's not dog waste either.
The other thing at the meeting in June for Recycle Smart was we received a report from
the executive director and Republic Services on the status of their drivers.
It takes to cover our six agency area in this district.
It takes 202 drivers with three trucks each.
So we get three trucks that are picking up
in front of our homes, most of us, and then the businesses.
And it takes 202 drivers.
Well, they lost six of them in March.
They had to let them go, because under the federal government
rules, they wouldn't allow them to have driver's licenses
anymore because they were allowed to work in this country and they had work permits
but the licenses were lasting longer than the work permit and so the DMV just was denied
the ability to extend and align the work permit with the license so six drivers were gone.
Fortunately, I mean unfortunately they lost their jobs but fortunately they replaced the
drivers in within a month and we were back to full status and our missed
routes. We had more missed routes in March than we were supposed to and
they're now back to normal but it was an unfortunate situation. Councilmember
Davini mentioned the Cornhole Tournament I just want to elaborate just a bit it's
it's a way to enjoy a network with our colleagues from the cities in the East
Bay, Alameda, and Contra Costa, but it's also a fund-raiser for what's called Citi
Pack, which is the political action committee of the League of California Cities.
The League of California Cities does advocacy in Sacramento and in the federal government
on behalf of cities, but at times we have to advocate at the ballot box, and so we have
to raise money separately from taxpayer dollars to fund those advocacy efforts at the ballot
box and that was what we were doing and those activities and those fundraisers occur all
over California and there will be another one when we are in Anaheim in September.
So that was the reason for the fun times but I also mention this because last week was
our summer board meeting for the League of California Cities and we had a six hour board
meeting over two days and a third of that time was spent on three ballot
measures that are going to be hitting the ballot in November at across the
state. Now our board of directors has 57 members representing all parts of the
state and all different types of people that work for cities so and our policy
requires that a two-thirds supermajority vote to take any position whether it's
support or oppose on a ballot measure.
So that's why it takes a lot of time to talk about these.
The first one we voted on was to oppose Proposition 43, which
will change the voter approval requirements for citizen
initiative local special taxes.
And it was going to change it from a simple majority
to a two-thirds supermajority.
So we voted to oppose that measure.
We took no position on Proposition 45,
which is an initiative sponsored by the California
Chamber of Commerce and other business interests
that would create an alternative environmental review
process for what are called essential projects.
There were many positives.
There were many negatives.
And we couldn't get a 2-thirds vote
on to oppose, to support, or even to remain neutral,
so we'd have no position whatsoever on it.
However, I come home to the headline in the East Bay Times
that it's polling a very high percentage.
So we are likely to have to be prepared to address the issue.
And finally, we took a vote to support Proposition 1, which
is the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026.
If approved by the voters, it will create an $11.2 billion
dollars in funding for affordable housing developments and it can be accessed by resources
for community development and other local housing affordability providers and they will
be able to tap into these funds.
Speaking of housing, I also attended the National League of Cities summer leadership meeting
in Louisville, Kentucky two weeks ago and there was much to discuss regarding the 21st
century road to housing act. This bill was a national league of cities was
actively in the mix on that bill for over a year, very highly approved by both
houses of Congress, very bipartisan. It was enacted. It became law without the
president's signature on Friday July 10th. He just decided not to sign it and it
automatically became.
Some of the things to note, there's 60 elements to this bill.
It's not more funding.
It's basically the first time in decades that this federal government has taken any action
on housing whatsoever.
But for example, currently, when the rules read for community development block grant
funds, we are only able to use the funds to maintain and repair affordable housing, but
We can't use it for new construction.
And this changes that allowance and we will now be able to use it for new construction.
Another good element of it is that it basically is going to align.
If we have a project here that also requires funds from the federal government, we have
to not only take a project through CEQA, we have to take it through NEPA, which is the
National Environmental Protection Act.
It will now streamline this so that the NEPA aligns with the local.
And that probably would have helped with HOPE solutions in those six units because they
were having a problem with a drainage ditch that was a creek.
And also the bill directs HUD to establish federal guidelines for ways to reduce the
cost to build housing.
For example, looking at building codes that are used across the country that if they can
be simplified for example single staircase for apartment buildings and
will lower the cost of construction so there are many good aspects to that bill.
Three things I will finally I will mention a finality Walnut Creek
Historical Society celebrated their annual membership event last evening and
this is a reminder for everyone this event was in the beautiful backyard at
the Pennemann House and that is available for rent, weddings, receptions,
family barbecues, etc. and so just look it up on the Walnut Creek historical
society website. The Bedford Gallery's new exhibition opened on July 11th. It's a
juried expedition, the exhibition that celebrates the vibrant environment of
our state and it's called Cal Idoscope and it runs through September 13th. And
last but not least, the third of the Summer Sounds concert series will be
Thursday the 30th of July at 5 30 p.m. on the Plaza in front of the Lesher
Center Center for the Arts and it will be the Alpha Rhythm King Band and so you
can go to the ribbon cutting for the mural program and then go to the Alpha
Rhythm Kings and then the newsmakers has a speaker that night as well so lots to
do on July 30th, thank you very much. And there's a lot to do in Walla Creek, so
I'll wrap this up a few things here. We heard from some of my colleagues. There
is a lot happening downtown, and I hear from council members, mayors, and staff
members of other cities around the region. They talk about how Walla Creek
is just killing it when it comes to the events happening in the summer. So we
I heard about the Locust Street Festival that was on July,
was it 8th or 8th?
And I mean, there were thousands.
I think I heard there were 4,000 to 5,000 people that
were there.
There, I'm getting nods from the Chamber of Commerce,
so I'm happy I got that number right.
And with dozens of booze, entertainment, dining,
there was a petting zoo, for crying out loud.
And for those of you who watched the mayor's minutes,
inevitably you have 100,000 views a month right now
in the mayor's minutes.
So I filmed it at the Locust Re festival.
As you can see the vibe itself.
It was also the launch
of our new entertainment zone district,
which not only came off without a hitch,
it was talked about in the media.
It's just a great, it was just a great event.
And you have not missed out if you didn't go there
because on August 5th, we're doing it again.
It's the first Wednesday of August.
So coming out starts at 5.30,
goes for about three hours and you'll see it for yourself,
the weather is terrific at it.
As we heard from Council Member Silva,
with summer sounds being on the Lesher Center Plaza,
the Rudney Plaza on this past Thursday night,
and again on Thursday night in a couple of weeks,
the Thursdays after that,
we've got the Broadway Plaza music programs
and events on their plaza that happen in August,
culminating with an ABBA tribute band on August 20th.
So the music continues, the entertainment continues.
Kids are back in school early, August 6th,
though parents definitely haven't operated to come out,
but everything is great for families.
There's so much going on.
One thing that also happened is that
with our 250th anniversary as a country,
America Discovery 250 Relay took place here on July 7th.
It's a relay walker's going across America.
I wasn't sure I was gonna be incredibly impressed
when the kickoff happened, but we were at Heather Farm
and there were people that were walking from Heather Farm
up and over Mount Diablo, ending up in Pittsburgh in one day.
So this was just our portion of the relay, amazing.
We heard from Councilmember Darling
about the Police Academy graduation, which was terrific,
but I also wanna mention the reason
that we're able to hire these people full-time
is because of the decisions the council made
with our budget, with ARPA funds and with Measure O funds
that go toward paying for additional police officers.
And we are continuing to staff up.
It's constant recruiting because police officers
can get injured, they can retire.
Their police officers that for some reason
may transfer out of Walnut Creek.
I don't know why they would, but it does happen.
So as our police chief would say,
we are doing well in the staffing department
And this is because of the budgets that we have decided upon at council to ensure that
public safety as one of our top priorities continues to be so.
And lastly, I'll mention that as a county connection liaison, we have had youth ride
free for the last, it's been about a month and a half now, it started on June 1st.
The latest youth ride free numbers are 11,600 since the beginning of June, which is 3,000
than the beginning of June in 2025.
And as we talked about earlier,
looking at the general plan update
and what do we need to do, transportation came up.
And as we continue to get used to riding on public transit,
the hope is that they are familiar with that
and continue to ride public transit
even after they have a driver's license.
So again, getting cars off the road.
We did end up having some cutbacks
in our budget and county connection,
but the cutbacks are coming in the administration area,
not in service.
So again, continue to take the bus, take BART,
take public transit and help our roadways.
With that, let's move on.
We will move on to our next item.
And our next item is a public hearing.
It's consideration of the adoption of a resolution
levying annual assessments
for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District
for fiscal year 2027.
I want to take a moment to explain the process
for public hearing item number 5A.
In an order for the city to levy assessments
for the Tourism Business Improvement District, or the TBID,
the city council must first conduct a public hearing
at which it must hear and consider all protests
against the levy of the assessments.
If written protests are received from the owners of businesses
in the proposed area, which will pay 50% or more
of the assessment proposed to be levied,
no further proceedings to levy the assessment
shall be taken for a period of one year
from the date of the finding of a majority protest
by the city council.
If there is no majority protest,
then the council may adopt the resolution
confirming the assessment report submitted.
Written protests must be received by the city clerk
at or before the term time fixed for the public hearing.
And at this time, we will now open the public hearing
for item number 5A for the Tourism Business Improvement
District.
And I invite anyone with an undelivered written protest
presented the city clerk immediately and no further written protests will be
accepted and now I'll invite Mike Nieman to introduce and provide a brief
presentation. Thank You mayor and good evening council members of the public
I'm Mike Nieman your economic development manager and as mentioned
this is the public hearing portion of the TBID assessment we were in front of
you on June 16th where TBID has provided its annual report update and has
noticed the public on the continuation to levy assessments. So this is the second phase
where you would adopt the resolution levying annual assessments for the tourism business
improvement district for the fiscal year 26-27. And to date, we have not received any protests.
And this concludes my presentation. Thank you.
Okay. Great. Thank you. So do we have any questions from council? Seeing no questions,
Do we have anybody from the public that has a comment
they would like to make?
And you'll come up and have two minutes to speak.
I don't see anybody in person.
Do we have anybody online?
No one online.
And nobody online.
Okay, I will move to adopt the resolution
levying the Walnut Creek T-BID annual assessment
for FY 2027.
Second.
You have a motion and a second.
Susie, could you call the roll please?
Council Member Darling.
Aye.
Council Member Davini.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Wilk?
Moving right along.
Next is item 6, consideration item, title provide input and direction on the proposed
user fee cost recovery policy and proposed FY27 master fee schedule updates.
And I invite administrative director Kirsten LaCasse forward to provide the presentation.
Good evening, Mayor Wilk, members of council, Kirsten LaCasse administrative services director,
And this evening, I'm going to walk you through our proposed user fee cost recovery policy
and fiscal year 27 master fee schedule updates.
We also have our consultants from Matrix who have joined us remotely and they'll be available
to help answer any questions you have.
So tonight, I'm going to start off with some background information and then walk you through
the key components of the proposed user fee cost recovery policy, as well as the updates
to the proposed master fee schedule and then we will talk about next steps.
So what we're asking of you today is to review the draft user fee cost recovery policy and
the proposed master fee schedule and provide input and direction to staff.
So back on June 2nd, staff brought forward the city-wide comprehensive user fee study
results and recommendations.
As a reminder, this is the first city-wide fee study since 2010 and included fee-based
services across all departments.
In fiscal year 2026, fee-based services cost approximately $33 million to provide.
Current user fees recover about $21 million of those costs, resulting in an overall cost
recovery rate of about 65%.
The remaining 12 million is subsidized through other general fund revenues.
Over time, fee adjustments have generally not kept pace with inflation contributing
to a growing gap between the cost of providing services and the revenue generated from those
services.
It's important to note, however, that full cost recovery is not always the goal.
Many services provide broader community benefits and may warrant some level of ongoing subsidy.
The City's fiscal year 26 general fund revenue budget is approximately $105 million.
User fees account for about 20% of total general fund revenues, while general revenues comprise
the largest share at approximately 71%.
As a reminder, general revenues are derived primarily from taxes, including property tax,
sales tax and transient occupancy tax, and are used to support a wide range of City services.
The remaining 9% represents other department revenues that are not generated through user
fees.
These revenues include sources such as business license tax, development impact fees, lease
revenue, and reimbursements for damages to city property.
As I mentioned on June 2nd, staff brought forward the results and recommendations from
the fee study to counsel for feedback and input.
The direction we received regarding a proposed policy was to adopt a citywide cost recovery
framework based on the level of benefit city services provide. Include a resident discount
as part of the fee schedule for those fees where it's applicable. Include phased implementation
of significant fee increases. And your council was supportive of annual fee adjustments to
keep pace with service delivery costs and continue market-based pricing where appropriate.
And lastly, evaluating housing division related service fees separately from impact fees and
other development services fees around housing.
So next I will go through some of the major components of our proposed user fee cost recovery
policy.
So this slide shows the key policy areas which incorporate direction council provided on
June 2nd.
The framework starts with the legal requirements that govern how cities can establish fees,
the cost of service philosophy and methodology, cost recovery framework, fee setting considerations,
subsidy policy, market-based pricing, resident discount, fee review adjustments and implementation.
So I'll walk through these in more detail on the next few slides.
So the legal framework is the foundation for all fee decisions, establishing the rules
and limitations that govern cost recovery and fee setting.
Three key authorities guide this process, Proposition 26, and Government Code Sections
50076 and 65104.
government fees must be cost-based and can only recover the reasonable cost of providing
a service or activity.
Cities can recover staff time, overhead, consultant costs, and other service-related expenses.
Cities cannot recover costs unrelated to the services or amounts that exceed actual costs,
so generally a city cannot make a profit on its services it provides.
However, there is an exception for voluntary market-based services.
These are charges for a service that is provided only to those who choose to use it and can
be based on market rates rather than cost recovery.
One of the key concepts in the policy is that not all services should recover the same proportion
of their costs.
The appropriate level of cost recovery depends on who benefits from the service, affordability
considerations and council policy objectives.
So in general, services that primarily benefit a specific individual or user group have higher
higher levels of cost recovery, conversely services that provide broad community benefit
may warrant a greater level of public subsidy.
As you may recall, the comprehensive fee study methodology of calculating the full cost of
providing a service included estimating the staff time required to perform the work and
then applying a fully burdened hourly rate, and that provided us with the full cost of
the fee.
The policy framework then helps determine what portion of that cost should actually
be recovered through fees and what portion, if any, should be subsidized.
When we brought forward the fee study, again on June 2nd, we discussed three levels of
benefit that city services provide.
Since then, staff has refined the framework to provide more clarity around services that
primarily benefit individuals or user groups.
So we are now distinguishing between voluntary and nonvoluntary services within that category.
So for community benefit services they provide a broad public benefit and support the health
safety and welfare of the community.
Community and individual benefit services provide a direct benefit to a user or participant
but they also create a broader benefit for the community.
Some examples include recreation programs, arts and cultural activities, community events,
and some housing related services.
Individual or group benefit on voluntary services primarily benefit a specific individual or
or user group as the name implies, the participation is voluntary.
So for this reason, market conditions and customer demand are important considerations
when setting fees.
Examples would include facility rentals, private swim lessons, camps, and picnic area rentals.
Individual or group benefit that are non-voluntary also provide benefit to a specific individual
or group, but the service is required.
So examples in that category include permits and other regulatory review activities.
So essentially the distinction between the last two categories is really whether the
customer is choosing to use the service or whether the service is required as part of
the regulatory process.
The cost recovery framework outlined in the policy establishes typical cost recovery ranges
for different types of services.
So these ranges are intended to provide guidance and are not specific rules.
It's important because not every service fits neatly into a single category and in many
cases that is by design.
You'll notice that the recovery ranges in these groups do overlap and this is intentional
because many city services provide both a community benefit and an individual benefit.
The framework is designed to offer flexibility allowing the city to determine an appropriate
level of cost recovery based on the specific circumstances of each service.
For community benefit services, the typical cost recovery range is 0-50%.
For services that provide a community and individual benefit, the typical range is 40-80%.
For individual benefit services that are voluntary or market-based, the typical recovery range
is 70% to more than 100%.
And again, there are limited circumstances where state law allows the city to set fees
based on market rates and demand rather than solely the cost of the service, and those
would fall into that category.
And finally, for individual benefit services that are non-voluntary, the typical recovery
range is 80 to 100 percent.
Because these are general regulatory services, state law does limit the cost recovery to
no more than the actual cost of providing that service.
So those cannot exceed 100 percent of the city's costs.
And these ranges are based on industry standards, as well as other cities, and then general
best practices where those services exist.
And typically they're modified or tailored towards a city or an individual jurisdiction
based on the specific goals and targets that are set so they can be modified.
But again, these are typical recovery ranges that we are setting in the policy, in the
proposed policy.
So when staff evaluates fees, cost recovery is just one part of the analysis.
There are several important factors that must be considered when developing or adjusting
fees.
include the balance between community and individual benefit as we just
discussed council policy objectives equity and accessibility demand
utilization and market conditions and finally fiscal sustainability fiscal
sustainability is especially important because fee revenues help fund services
the city provides as we evaluate fees we must consider not only affordability and
community benefit but also whether fee revenues are keeping pace with the cost
of the services that we provide over time and maintaining that balance is important
to continue providing those high quality services while minimizing the need to subsidize individual
services with general fund resources.
So when determining the appropriate level of general fund subsidy, it's important to
consider the purpose of the service and the city's policy objectives.
The policy identifies several reasons a subsidy may be appropriate, including promoting affordability
and community participation, supporting priority populations, such as youth seniors, advancing
arts, culture, recreation, and education and community events.
For some regulatory services, a subsidy may also be appropriate if it encourages compliance
with health, safety, or environmental requirements, resulting in benefits to the community as
a whole.
Another component of the policy is continuing to use market-based pricing where appropriate.
For voluntary services such as facility rentals, recreation programs and arts activities, fees
should not only reflect the cost of providing the service, but also market conditions.
Staff also considers market demand, utilization levels, comparable agency pricing and customer
expectations when making recommendations.
These fees should be reviewed periodically to make sure they continue to align with market
conditions and city objectives.
One of the topics Council discussed on June 2nd was the importance of keeping fees aligned
with the cost of providing services and avoiding situations where fees fall significantly behind
over time.
So to address this, the policy includes provisions for annual inflationary adjustments.
We also discussed that different types of fees are driven by different cost factors,
so a single adjustment methodology may not be appropriate for every fee.
For example, labor-intensive services such as permits, inspections, and plan reviews
may more appropriately be adjusted based on labor cost increases.
While recreation programs, facility rentals, and services with significant operating costs
may be adjusted using a CPI.
This approach provides flexibility to use the methodology that best reflects the cost
of providing the service.
The policy also supports annual fee reviews to help keep fees aligned with current costs
and avoid the need for larger increases in the future.
As part of our existing biennial budget process,
staff reviews fees midway through the two year cycle
and brings forward any recommended adjustments
for council consideration.
Finally, the policy recommends conducting
comprehensive fee studies every five to seven years,
including this guidance in the policy
helps ensure fees remain aligned
with actual service costs, council priorities,
and the city's overall cost recovery objectives over time.
So before we move into the master fee schedule,
I'd like to revisit a couple of areas
where staff refined the policy
based on the discussion that we had on June 2nd.
The first is a cost recovery framework.
So council generally supported the framework concept,
but we've refined the category since that discussion.
Originally, the framework included three categories,
but based on feedback and further analysis,
staff separated the individual benefit category
into the two distinct categories I mentioned,
voluntary market-based services and the non-voluntary regulatory services.
So that provides better guidance for distinguishing between things like
facility rentals, for example, and permit review services.
The recovery ranges shown in the policy are intended to be targets and not prescriptive.
They help inform decisions, but staff recognizes that not every fee will fit
neatly within those ranges. The second item is a resident discount.
Council expressed support for continuing to recognize the contribution Walnut Creek
residents make through local taxes. Staff is recommending a 10% resident discount for
applicable programs and services. In the proposed fee schedule, you'll see both a resident fee
and a standard fee. So staff is proposing that the resident fee apply to all residents
in the incorporated areas of Walnut Creek, while the standard fee would apply to all
non-residents, including those who live in the unincorporated areas of Walnut Creek.
So before we move into more of the details on the fee schedule and those recommendations,
I'd like to pause here and see if you have any feedback or questions on the policy framework,
the recovery categories, or the proposed resident discount approach.
Thank you, Kerisim.
It's a mouthful.
It is.
Do we have any questions on the policy framework, Council Member Silva?
Oh.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, right. Whatever is the pleasure of the council or we can wait until the end
I mean if there's any questions at this point. I was thinking and then we go from there
No, I have a question
how
Will it considering people are often signing up for things online?
How are we going to know where the system will know if somebody is in the unincorporated area of Walnut Creek?
And I would ask Chris Faro to come up and address that please
Chris Faro arts and recreation director. Thanks for asking our current software actually we can
Lay a GIS map into the program so it will know when the person's address is entered where they
Whether they're in County or not
We're moving to a new provider as well and we did verify with the new software provider that they will be able to do the same
and
The other question I have then is, thank you, which proposed fee changes will have the greatest
impact on residents and businesses of these categories?
Did you have areas that you felt would be most impactful?
We actually have some additional slides further on in the presentation, and then we could
start that.
Great.
So I have a question on the resident versus non-resident.
It's one thing to be able to discern where somebody lives.
another to base telling them,
oh, you don't live in the city.
You have to pay a higher price because you
live one house over from the city.
I mean, these lines are not
as clean as one might think.
Can we actually have a policy discussion
when the time is appropriate tonight as to whether it
should be just all the four zip codes
or we really want to discriminate between?
Can we have that conversation?
This is proposed or certainly can take that's up to us. Right? Well, no, sometimes people say we've
I've heard no before. No, I agree. I think it's a good discussion
Any other questions from council
well, it's it's related to council member Silva's point and
At the finance committee and I guess I'll ask it in the form of a question
but maybe if staff can confirm that this is appropriate or correct that
The difference between the city rate the resident rate and the non-resident rate is that if it's if you apply for a program
online
Essentially a swimming class or some some of the other things that you could do online
It'll tell you the rate if you're the software will figure out whether you're a resident or not and say okay
It's $11 if you're a non-resident if you sign up as a resident it comes up as $10. I don't think the general
Public well that it's here and it's public in terms of what the different rates are but they won't know that
Their neighbor that's in the city is paying a dollar less for the class because they're a city resident
Don't we post prices someplace in a cat and they even an online catalog?
There they will be posted. This is it so get out your reading glasses and
Wait you mean I I sign up for a class without being able to see the price. I don't think so
Prices are also indicated in the activity guide, but I'll defer to Chris.
So there are actually state laws about price transparency. So the prices will be
a good thing. Whether you're online, whether you are doing it in person, whether
you're doing it over the phone, you will be told the full price and it will list
both the resident well the discount and the standard rate both will be evident
to Mayor Pro Tem's point if you were to go in you already have an account
established it knows you're a let's just say resident in this case and you click
through the price that you would see would be the resident because the system
knows to charge you that so I think that's what your point was if the you
you are a non-resident, the system would already know that.
I think the only time that you might really,
it might jump out to you is the first time
you're setting up your account.
You might not see that screen till the end, perhaps,
and the new software, I'm not quite so sure.
But for transparency, if you were just scrolling
through the list of programs available to you,
you would see both price points.
So you're not selecting it,
the computer's selecting it for you,
but both price points would be visible on the screen
when you are viewing that course.
So it's appropriate for us to have this conversation.
It's counsel's pleasure to have that conversation.
Chris, while you're there, too, that in terms of,
so the distinction is that essentially
for classes that require basically online registration
where the software can easily distinguish between a city
resident and a non-resident, those programs
were the ones that staffs recommending, some of them,
not all of them, a differential,
a discount for city residents.
Right, so there were some operational examples
where we wouldn't be able to apply the discount
because we don't know people's address.
So for example, if you were to go to the pool,
you're not taking a lesson or taking a class,
you're just there to do recreation and swimming,
we do a point of sale transaction when you enter.
So we're not entering your personal information,
your address and things like that.
So operationally, we can't discern
who is a resident and a non-resident.
So to answer your question, we are applying it
where it is operationally available to us to apply it.
Okay, thank you.
Mm-hmm.
We could still have the conversation.
We'll solve the conversation.
Of course.
All right, looks like that's the questions
that we have from here, so we'll continue.
Thank you.
So next, I will go through the proposed master fee schedule
updates for fiscal year 27.
So our master fee schedule contains over 700 fees.
However, the fees that were included
as part of the comprehensive fee study
were just over 600 fee line items.
And so of those fees, the fee amount
is going to be unchanged for about 257.
And to further clarify that, the 164 have no change at all,
and the other 93 are administrative or wording changes.
285 are proposed to be adjusted and there are 74 new fee line items.
So I'm going to go into these last two categories in more detail in the next few slides.
So for the proposed fee adjustments, the most significant fee increases really are generally
concentrated in the lower volume specialty services and complex regulatory applications.
And so examples of those include building valuation schedules, complex planning applications,
specialty administrative fees and premium rentals, so based in some market-based services.
So that's where you'll see the significant fee increases.
The fees most commonly paid by residents, such as recreation programs, aquatics, common
residential permits and community services generally reflect more incremental adjustments.
The largest dollar value adjustments occur within the community development evaluation
based building permit schedule, and the largest percentage increases generally occur on lower
dollar administrative or specialty fees where the proposed fees move closer to the cost
of providing the service.
And some examples of those are return check fees, arrest record reviews, record ceilings,
so there are some administrative fees like that within the departments.
So for our new fee line items, of those 74, approximately 68% are associated with the
Affordable Housing Agreement Administration and Compliance Activities within the Housing
Division.
Although these activities are now being identified separately in the fee schedule, staff is recommending
they continue to be fully subsidized, resulting in no charge to customers at this time.
As a reminder, these costs are unrelated to impact fees or other housing-related development
fees.
Currently 21% of the new feline items are associated with arts and recreation services.
Many of these are related to recreation service categories that are being more clearly defined
and separated within the fee schedule rather than representing entirely new programs or
services.
Examples include pool rentals, picnic area rentals, private swim lessons, arts programming,
and public art activities.
The remaining new feline items are largely administrative, regulatory, and support services.
It's also important to note that some of these entries are a result of reorganizing the fee
schedule for clarity and consistency.
In some cases, fees were moved into the city-wide section from other areas and then consolidated
there.
So this slide categorizes the fees proposed for adjustment by theme and benefit category.
So about 73 percent of the fee adjustments are tied to either market-based services or
cost recovery services, where the framework generally accepts users to pay a larger share
of the cost.
The remaining 27% are in areas where affordability, participation, and community services remain
important considerations.
In those cases, staff is recommending continued subsidies to help balance cost recovery with
the broader community goals.
So when we look at all of the proposed fee recommendations through the lens of the policy
framework, about 77% of the fees fall within the proposed recovery ranges.
So the majority of the fee schedule is generally aligned with the framework.
About 18% of the fees fall below the framework ranges.
These are primarily arts and recreation, cultural programs, recreation services and other community
serving activities where the subsidy is intentional.
In those cases, affordability, participation and community access are important policy
objectives.
The remaining 5% of the fees fall above the framework ranges.
These are largely existing market-based fees, such as certain facility rentals and other
services where pricing is influenced by market demand.
In some cases, reducing those fees would result in a loss of revenue and could affect fiscal
sustainability, so staff is not recommending reductions of those fees at this time.
The proposed fee changes are driven by four primary factors.
The first category is cost recovery alignment.
So these are generally permit, review, inspection, and other regulatory fees where the cost of
providing the service has increased over time and fee revenues have not kept pace.
So staff is recommending adjustments to move those fees closer to cost recovery.
Example include many building permit fees, planning application fees, and other regulatory
services.
The second category is inflationary adjustments.
So these are generally more modest increases intended to maintain current recovery levels
as labor operating and service delivery costs increase over time.
The goal is not necessarily to increase cost recovery but to avoid falling further behind.
Examples include recreation programs, camps, swim lessons and other services where the
city is maintaining an intentional subsidy but adjusting fees to reflect rising costs.
The third category is market-based adjustments.
These are voluntary services where pricing is influenced not only by cost recovery but
also demand utilization and comparable agency pricing.
Examples include facility rentals, theater rentals and other services that operate in
a competitive market environment.
The final category is right sizing adjustments.
These occur where existing fees no longer align with the service being provided or where
the fee structure itself needs refinement.
In some cases, that means increasing fees, and others decreasing fees, and then some
creating more transparent fee categories.
Examples include separating facility and rental components, creating more specific
rental classifications, restructuring certain recreation fee categories, and reducing fees
where the study found existing fees exceeded the intended recovery level.
So the next few slides provide a general overview of the changes in each of the functional areas
that we've talked about and the first one is arts and recreation. Essentially the proposed
changes are balancing affordability, access participation and cost recovery. Recommendations
include selective fee increases, a resident discount of 10% for applicable fees and continued
market-based pricing where appropriate. Some facility rentals and programs may remain above
cost recovery ranges where market demand supports pricing and revenues help offset subsidies
for community-serving programs.
Fees that are changing examples would be swim lessons, camps, pool rentals, and facility
rentals.
Next we have the planning division in the community development department.
In general the adjustments are addressing significant cost recovery gaps.
Planning fee adjustments are primarily focused on improving cost recovery for applicant-driven
services with fee increases in key application types.
Planning services currently recover substantially less than the cost of providing the service,
so proposed changes better align the fees with those service costs.
Adjustments affect entitlement, discretionary review, and development application fees.
These adjustments will reduce the subsidy for applicant-driven services.
Some of the changes include permit, plan check, and valuation-based fees.
In the community development department building division, in general, fees are being right-sized
to better reflect the cost of service. Building fees contain some of the largest proposed
adjustments in the fee schedule. Increases are concentrated in higher value and more
complex projects that require greater staff time and technical review. Some fees are reduced
where existing fees exceeded intended cost recovery levels as I mentioned earlier. Overall
adjustments improve cost recovery while aligning fees more closely with actual service costs.
Some of those changes include general plan amendments, conditional use permits and signed
program reviews.
The final community development division is housing.
As I've mentioned previously, it's a new section in the master fee schedule.
These services are primarily related to the affordable housing administration, housing
assistance and compliance monitoring.
And as I mentioned earlier, they're evaluated separately from private development related
services.
And so although the fee study did identify the cost of providing these services, staff
is recommending they continue to be subsidized because they support broader housing affordability
and housing production objectives.
So as a result, no fees are proposed to be charged at this time.
Engineering is one of the areas with the fewest recommended changes because many existing
fees are already relatively well aligned with the cost of providing service.
The recommendations focus on targeted updates and administrative refinements, which is essentially
rewarding names to make things more clear.
Where that was needed, engineering will also continue to rely on actual cost and deposit
based billing for more complex projects where a level of effort can vary from project to
project.
A few examples include encroachment permits, site development and subdivision review activities,
traffic and transportation reviews, and engineering inspections.
In open space within public works, the fee adjustments essentially improved cost recovery
while encouraging compliance.
Many fees increased moderately rather than moving immediately to full-cost recovery which
could be phased in gradually.
Recommendations seek to balance affordability, compliance, and cost recovery.
Updates are proposed for a tree permit, arborist, and open space-related fees.
Police services continue to be primarily funded through general tax revenues because public
Public safety provides a broad community benefit.
The proposed fee adjustments are limited to licensing, permitting, regulatory and administrative
services that directly benefit individual applicants.
Some increases are moderated below full cost recovery to reduce customer impacts.
Recover more of the cost of applicant specific services.
Some examples include massage establishment and technician permits, public entertainment
estimates, citation sign-off, and record review requests.
So this slide talks about the revenue impact considerations.
So the proposed fee adjustments are intended to better align fees with the cost of providing
services and improved cost recovery.
If service demand remained consistent with fiscal year 26, the updated fees would generate
additional revenue.
However, as reported with the third quarter revenue projections in May, fee revenues were
projected to finish approximately 1.7 million below budget due to declining activity.
As a result, the proposed fee updates are expected to primarily offset those revenue
declines and maintain current cost recovery levels rather than generate a significant
net increase in fiscal year 27 revenue.
As part of the fee study, we also compared the city's fees with those charged by comparable
jurisdictions.
Overall, the proposed fees across all departments are better aligned with neighboring jurisdictions.
Most regulatory fees fall within the range charged by comparable agencies.
Building and planning fees generally remain at or below market while improving cost recovery.
Arts and Recreation reflects market-based pricing for premium facilities and programs.
After we receive your input direction this evening, we will return to your Council on
on August 18th for the adoption of the fiscal year 27 master fee schedule and user fee cost
recovery policy.
Additionally, we will bring forward fiscal year 27 budget adjustments related to sales
tax projections and vacancy rate adjustments as needed to balance the general fund budget.
Staff is recommending that adjustments to the fee schedule take effect on January 1st
of 2027 in order to allow time to communicate with stakeholders and account for any necessary
implementation changes.
So our recommended action this evening is to review the draft user fee cost recovery
policy and the proposed fiscal year 27 master fee schedule updates and provide input and
direction to staff.
And with that, we have the consultants as well as staff to answer any additional questions
that you may have.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kirsten.
That's a lot to go through.
So let's start with or any further questions here.
hold off on the residents that are in the unincorporated area for the
commenting afterwards and when we have after Eddie and any public input as well
and we'll have that part of the conversation but so let's have other
questions that relate to this right now councilmember darling you are ready to
go I'm ready to go thank you Kirsten and that's a lot it's a lot and I really
appreciate the the way you displayed it it has made it easy to look at my
questions more for those I know we have been working very hard on our how we
process building permit applications engineering and stuff like that so when
it comes to the adjustments to those we've not only made sure we're being as
efficient as possible and how we're issuing the permit and now we are
aligning the cost with that more efficient process is that correct that
that is correct and I would ask if Erica could come up,
one of our members of the Development Services team
and help answer that question around the efficiencies.
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, council members.
I'm Erica Van Embran, Community Development Director.
In answer to your question, yes,
there have actually been three different initiatives
since the original fee study
for the current fees were done.
So in 27 and 2018, there was the first version
blueprint for success. And so that made changes. And then
whenever during COVID, there were additional changes, which
were made to create efficiencies to put more permitting
activities online and make it easier to customers. And then
we're now currently, as you had noted, going through a process
of lean process improvements. And so that is still relatively
new. So we haven't been able to fully capture the benefits of
But we will be able to do so in the future. Okay. Thank you
And I think that hopefully that will reassure people that we're working to make this as efficient as possible
mayor pretend for us. I had one
that I didn't didn't occur to me until after the Finance Committee on
Nonprofits do we have a policy? I've noticed there's a nonprofit discount for certain facility rentals
But I'm not sure I saw something in the user fee
cost recovery policy
indicating what that discount is
So we don't have anything specific in the policy. We could certainly add that we do have
Some indication of what qualifies as a nonprofit but in the sports and camps area
But I would ask if Chris could come up and help address that question
Your questions very timely adjustment with staff to discuss this today
So currently we don't have a set policy, but we do
By practice allow anyone with a 501 status so that could be a c3 could be a c7
All of them qualify currently, but that's again not written. So we will be codifying that
And is the numeric discount 10% or is there a standard another percentage off the top of my head?
But it is in the fee schedule that comes forward. Okay, we do include that as a
separate price in the published fee schedule.
Can I build on one more question in this arena?
What do you do about social clubs?
There are some long-standing clubs in
the community that never filed a charter bylaws.
They don't really have a bank account.
Somebody is taking money from their members and putting it
in their personal checking account and paying the bills.
They don't have a tax ID number.
How do we categorize those?
wean them off of this habit. So we encourage them to get a social club
501 which I believe is a C7 but we do have a we're working on a process for
all of our grandfathered organizations and I'd say there's probably five six of
them who have been renting from us for let's say 20 years and they have paid a
discounted rate which was loosely based on our nonprofit rate over the years so
we are developing a phased-in approach we're looking at a probably a five-year
plan to get them up to the appropriate fee structure so we'll be working on
that in the next few weeks so our goal is to get everyone caught up maybe some
of those clubs will decide to get a 501c7 and then they would qualify for
the nonprofit and those that don't they will have a phased-in approach to get
them caught up to the fee schedule. There's also the option, this is not so
much for social clubs, but just to more broadly answer the question. There are
some folks who, I just lost my train of thought, it's not social clubs. I used
that term loosely, but it reminds me of someone. Oh, I try not to talk about MOUs.
So we do have some organizations who have MOUs with us and that's usually a
little bit of a give-and-take relationship. So for example our Little
League in Walnut Creek does not pay the standard published rate but we have a
signed MOU with them and that is because they are also giving us something in
return. So for Little League specifically they're doing a lot of the field
maintenance where they're playing, they're doing the field prep, so they're
doing some of the work. So we then go and we codify that in an MOU to say here's
is what Little League is going to contribute,
and then the city is going to give you a price
break because of that.
So that's where we would like to sit moving forward,
is to get out of some of these grandfathered relationships
and get us into official MOUs that are on record,
and then to get everyone else to the published approved fee
schedule.
So maybe you can help me understand.
And I don't know which page I'm supposed to be on.
I saw it, and then I lost it.
But there seems to be a resident and a standard rate
being proposed for groups.
So how do you tell if a group is a, let's take a service club,
one of the animal clubs.
And how do you know if it's a Walnut Creek?
How do you know if it's local or whether it's.
So there's a couple ways to do that.
So it's ultimately a council decision.
What staff are recommending is that it
would be based on the percentage of residents that
were either members or on rosters, et cetera.
So it would be 51% or more Walnut Creek residents,
again, whether that's a member or a team player, et cetera,
then they would qualify for the resident discount.
So you're going to have to have rosters
because you're not able to, you're
going to have to trust the roster.
Correct.
By the way, the post office moved half of my daughters
third grade soccer team to Alamo, but never actually moved them.
They just changed postal addresses.
So then the US Postal Service seems
to reign supreme sometimes.
OK.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Chris, I just had one more.
And this was from a resident who was a recreational swimmer.
And it asked about kind of the rate,
our rates for swimming compared to other cities.
And just if you did the market research on that
and can let us know where we stand.
Sure.
So there's a couple different ways
to come across which cities you use for comparable studies.
And that philosophy changes depending
on which rate you are studying.
So for example, if you are looking at a facility
rate for somewhere like our new Heather Farms,
you're going to have a wedding there.
Well, people aren't necessarily looking for a wedding venue
that's within 10 minutes of their house, right?
They're just looking for a beautifully,
aesthetic pleasing place that meets their budget.
They might be willing to look 50 miles away.
So you use comp cities for that specific purpose
knowing where people are willing to drive.
Somewhere like a pool,
you're gonna tighten that distance a little bit.
We're not competing with people on the peninsula,
for example.
Are there some exceptions?
Sure, people who commute or whatnot.
But for the most part, for those types of classes,
we're gonna comp against people
that are probably a 15 minute drive from us,
our neighboring cities, so that is what we did.
We looked at Concord, Pleasant Hill, San Ramon, Danville,
I think we went as far as Dublin, Pleasanton,
moving in that direction, and then Antioch,
and Brentwood moving east from us,
so that was the areas that we looked at.
So in that, we are right in where we should be,
we're not the highest and we're not the lowest,
looking at aquatics specifically.
Passes are a little bit harder to compare
because you don't see any consistency
with how cities do passes.
So some cities might bundle them in groups of 10.
Some might say it's unlimited for the month.
Some might say if you only use it on the weekend.
So it was really hard to find comparable pricing for passes.
So we stuck with looking at comps
for the gate and individuals,
and then just applied kind of logic
using the gate fee multiplying it out to get past numbers. Thank you, I appreciate
you doing that investigation. Absolutely. Mayor, come on. One of the fee areas
that I mentioned in our June meeting was that we have picnic areas in the Arts
and Recreation Department and we have picnic areas in the open space. That is
not user-friendly because people go in looking for a picnic area and they may
land in one or the other but not be able to save the full offering. Is it
feasible, and I'm asking you to play nice in the sandbark with Mike Vickers, is it
feasible to, I understand that Public Works is running the open space and
you're running the recreation park ones, is it feasible to offer them for
service that you buy them and you can see and compare what you're paying for
and what your options are as if they were in one city. We've already met so
Rich and I had a conversation and actually just earlier today Mike and I
had a conversation so you'll have to know that we're actually already using
the same software platform so we're going to look at a way to display that
information that is more user-friendly but the conversations have begun. So that
means the fee schedule should basically cross-reference the two and they should
be able to be compared one side is listing at large down to many and the
other side is listing it small to large okay work in progress but we are a
great thank you okay councilmember Davini and I think am I the last one with
questions yes because mine might start blurring into comments so but let's
Let's focus on question, then we'll go to public comment.
Okay.
Okay.
You know, on the second, I think it was like the second to last slide, there was maintaining
current service delivery was mentioned as a goal, and there was like a 1.7 million dollar
deficit.
Did I interpret that correctly?
It was when we came in May to report on the projections for fiscal year 26, we were projecting
close to a $1.7 million deficit on the revenue stream from related to fees.
And the deficit is benchmarked against the current, like, service delivery, what we're
currently delivering, the cost of delivering that, and what we're expecting to reimburse
with fees came in 100 I'm well 1.7 million below target or below it's
actually below what our estimated revenue budget was and so we really just
comparing to what the budget was for those fees and then where we're
projecting to end the year and that difference was about 1.7 okay and that is
subsidized by the general fund correct and in the case of the third quarter
report it's also subsidized it's subsidized by the general fund but it
It can be a combination of other revenues or higher or we have savings on the expenditure
side.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
That'll be it for my question then.
Great.
All right then.
Thank you.
A couple other questions.
Okay.
Okay.
Go ahead.
So this is one to the Housing Division.
Every time I see the Housing Division fees, I'm afraid the public may be confused that
we're talking all housing and not affordable housing.
having heartburners there a way to change the nomenclature slightly so it's
clear that we're really talking about affordable services. Hello, Erika Vandenbrandt
again community development director and the answer to that is yes we can be
clear with how we describe it and arose because our housing division isn't
dealing with market rate housing to the proposals. Generally not so that they're
They're dealing with market rate developers who are required to provide inclusionary housing
and below market rate housing.
Right.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I noticed in the policies and in the phrasing, both the term discount and preferential pricing
has been used.
Were we meeting something different?
And I can't precisely say what page it was on, but it was in the narrative of the policy.
Or do we actually just interchangeably use the term discount?
The only difference may be related to the nonprofit and military rates, maybe a preferred
pricing versus discount, but we can certainly make that consistent within the policy.
And maybe we can talk about which term we think is the better term?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
So now, why don't we open it up for public comment, and if we have anybody from the public
If it's here in the chamber, please come up to the dais
and you'll have two minutes to speak.
And if there's any member for the public
that would wish to make comments remotely,
then please raise your hand or press star nine
and we'll put you in the queue for that.
So let's first come to the chamber here.
Do we have anybody that's gonna be speaking
in public comment on this item?
I see none.
Do we have anybody online?
We have nobody online.
So we'll close public comment,
back to the council for comments and we can have the discussion on residents of Walnut Creek
versus residents of the unincorporated area of Walnut Creek as well. And actually councilmember
Silva why don't we kick it off with you since that was your topic. So my gut tells me that we
shouldn't be treating people who by virtue of where they bought a house or where they decided
to rent an apartment different from our regular residents who are in the
incorporated area. Our unincorporated residents pay as much sales tax as
our city's residents because the stores are where the stores are. What they
don't pay is property tax and that's it. And so I just feel like if we're going
to be inclusive with our group it's easier just to keep track of it that way
and it's a preferred pricing for Walnut Creek residents. It's as simple as that.
So I have a question on that. Do we have any analysis of what are we,
what our revenues are from unincorporated Walnut Creek residents and
what the cost, do we actually have a number, I guess that's what I'm looking
for, is do we have an idea of a ballpark figure that we're even discussing your
is it $1,000 or is it $50,000?
We don't actually have the data at that level of detail.
So when we look at, for example, our sales tax data,
it really is based on Walnut Creek.
Can I also point out that if you ask for the creakers,
they're going to apply as a Walnut Creek group
to use the ball fields, but they're
not going to be able to tell you that Mike Howard lives
in unincorporated on Timuron and Joe Blow lives.
I mean, that is just getting down to the level of detail
where the bulk users are coming in as Walnut Creekers.
So what would you, and then we'll
go to Council Member Darling, what would you
propose as the way to then unravel it so that all Walnut
Creek city, or I'm sorry, all people that have Walnut Creek
as an address then would qualify for the discount.
Would it just be purely on zip codes?
That's all it takes is to do four zip codes,
but I don't know if the software supports that.
I'm assuming it would support zip codes
if it supports detailed addresses,
but okay, I'm getting a nod.
I mean, there are people that live,
I live on Glenhaven and there are people that live in,
half of Glenhaven is in the city
and half is in unincorporated
and they don't know where the line is.
Okay, Council Member Darley.
Yeah, I too live about 10 feet from the boundary
And our elementary school population is split.
And so after we had this big discussion the last time,
I went through and asked different folks,
do you know if you are the city or the county?
And they know.
There are people here in our unincorporated areas
who might not know,
but the first time they call for law enforcement,
the first time they have any other kind of service request.
They know, so my research within our community
is that not everybody, but a lot of people do understand.
If your street sign is not green, you are in the county.
And if we start saying, well, if you live in the county
but you have a Walnut Creek address,
then the situation you were in with your daughter's sports team, the same thing could happen. The
the post office periodically, they changed a bunch of people that were Walnut Creek,
unincorporated into Alamo. And so in my mind, the hard and fast thing that we control
is who pays property tax that help us with our general fund.
And if you are somebody that pays property tax that
benefits the general fund, you can
have a discount on these fees because your property tax is
coming to us.
So that's my thought on it.
I know it's complicated, and I know it's going to be,
I recognize that the staff implementing it
are going to have challenges with groups.
It will be an automatic if somebody is reserving a room
and it costs less for a city resident, they will,
but the same thing has always happened.
The people that wanted to go to our elementary school
found a grandmother who lived in this service.
And so there's, we recognize it's not clean cut,
but I think which city you're in
as an official resident paying property tax to
is a concrete thing that doesn't change
without a lot of process.
Yeah, I had initially kind of wrestled with this issue
as well, given my neighborhood as well.
I was a lot of city and county residents.
And just from an administrative ease of implementation,
and then also 62% of our city residents supported Measure O.
And in my mind, this is a way, a small way,
of saying, thank you for that.
here's another benefit you get from supporting Measure O
is that you get a city discount.
I recognize the sales tax burden is shared
by more than just city residents,
but the property tax burden is in it.
So I would be inclined to just leave it at city residents.
I don't think it affects, I could be wrong,
I don't think it affects that many fees
at that huge of a level,
other than maybe some facility rentals,
but that's kind of the conclusion I reached on it.
I would leave it at the discount for city residents.
Council member, do you have any thoughts on this one?
Yeah, I think I'm still where I was last time,
which is giving the discount to the folks
that are paying property taxes at Walnut Creek.
I understand the argument to expand
it to all of Walnut Creek.
I understand the sales tax.
I think last time my counter was,
yeah, but other folks in neighboring cities
also come here and buy things and pay sales tax and so you know how is that
much different. So I would continue to support it the way that's written right
now. I guess for me and then we'll go to other comments beyond this. For me I'm
weighing slightly on the side of if they have Walnut Creek as an address and the
reason is because I think that in many cases whether people live down one of
streets off of Walnut Boulevard or Homestead, suddenly there's, like Marshall, it's suddenly
a unincorporated area street.
There's actually one in Rancho Paraiso, that just one street is unincorporated.
And I think there's enough feeling sometimes of disenfranchisement, which is why I was
looking to see what are we talking about in terms of dollars here.
It just seems that the risk reward here is we get a lot more reward for people feeling
like, hey I live in Walnut Creek even though I'm not in the incorporated area,
Walnut Creek recognizes me and really what is it going to end up costing us a
few thousand dollars but all of Walnut Creek is included and welcomed in this
versus people feeding again a bit disenfranchised and boy Walnut Creek
doesn't even value value me I'm gonna go shop somewhere else or whatever else
they do so it just seems to me that the the reward here is out outpaces what the
risk potential would be on the downside I mean I could live with either I guess
that's how I'm leaning though on that one so that's my my feelings on that
before we go to any kind of a vote on this let's talk about any other comments
that we have in any other areas of the presentation so why don't we start with
with council member Dibini on this one.
Okay, yeah, first I wanna thank Kirsten
and administrative services, the finance division,
all the departments that participated
in evaluating their fees and the fee study
because it certainly looks like it was a lot of work.
So thank you for that.
I appreciate the adjustments
that were made from the last time we talked,
creating the four categories.
I think that that reads very logically to me.
I like the breakdowns.
I agree with the rough numbers as far as trying
to fall within a certain category of subsidization.
I continue, though, to have the, I
feel that we should still have something in this policy that
really is looking at it from an even higher level of what is,
So that's why I was asking about our goal.
You know, we were subsidizing at approximately $11 million
a year, I think, from the general fund to support services.
So recovering approximately 2 thirds of that
through the fee model.
And we could have done this study.
And perhaps at the end of that, arrived at like 40%
Subsidization or 10% and I I would like to see us have
Some sort of goal as to as our philosophy as a city it could be in section three
Where it says cost recovery philosophy
What is our philosophy like are we?
Are we?
Intending to subsidize approximately one-third or 60 to 65 percent or 70 for 65 and 70 or what?
What is our philosophy as far as overarching?
So maybe it would creep outside of that goal,
and then we might have to start looking at how to keep it
more in line with our goals.
And one way we could do that is through a percentage.
The other way we could look at that
is through this is the amount we want to subsidize
from the general fund could fall within a certain number.
Now, I originally looked at that thinking
that's sort of challenging because they're not necessarily direct costs,
percentage of an employee's time, things that might be hard to measure, but then
when I heard at the end the goal of maintaining the service delivery model
and we had a 1.7 million dollar deficit and the general fund was referenced, I
don't know maybe that's the area to to target as far as having that language. I
think the percentage would be a little bit easier. I think it also supports
what's written in the policy statement in, you know, purposes and policy
objectives. 1.1, the third line is maintain transparency regarding the use
of general funds or other non-fee subsidies. So we're being very
transparent as to like this is what we're subsidizing from the general fund.
So let people know like that's that's the way the fee structure works. Not only
do I think it's good from a transparency standpoint and just sort of a policy
standpoint but I also think it helps with public you know like a public
narrative and messaging because so often we hear things like oh well yeah
you just want to put in more parking meters so you can make much money for the city or there's this
concept that that fees are sort of just like this profit center and if we could
plainly sort of point to actually know our philosophy is to subsidize these
services by 30% and and this is how we did that I think it would help with
those conversations as well. Just I'm curious Councilmember Davini can you you
gave a couple of different ways of how we could accomplish that but do you have
a like a specific proposal in terms of what policy would be? Well I'm curious where it
falls right now as far as percentages I know you said it aligns better with
other cities and what they're doing do we do we know about what that percentage
wound up being? So initially, prior to the fee study we were at about 65% city-wide
and so now we're closer to between 70 and 72 percent and again that's kind of
comparing it to fiscal year 26 information that we have but so would be
going up about five to seven percent based on the proposed fees. So we'd be
subsidizing about 28% of looking forward you know finance question is like do
anticipate that percentage going up or or down? I think that partly depends on
kind of what happens in the economy and how our costs change over time but I
think it's certainly something we could evaluate during the upcoming two-year
budget process and really look at what the effect would be of having you know a
set percentage because we won't need to keep in mind that each of the fees have
different cost recovery levels and so really looking at what the effect of that
would be but we can certainly look at that during the budget cycle and does it
make sense from the way you follow the fees and calculate the budget to look at
a subsidy from the general fund as a as an indicator of how much we're
subsidizing the fee the services provided by the fee schedule or does it
make more sense to look at a percentage since I since that last goal kind of
spoke to the general fund and looking at subsidizing through the general fund so
just my initial thoughts on that as part of this conversation would probably be
looking at a percentage just because that would be something that would be
would allow us to you know the ultimate revenue impacts would be changing
depending on that percentage versus a set dollar amount okay then I guess maybe
be between we want to subsidize between 25 and 35% of fees and then now we've
got some sort of boundaries beyond which if we start to stray we have to look
and go hmm we're not not in that range anymore is that are we outside of a
range that we want to be in I know I appreciate that and I think it's a good
conversation but you know I remember asking the city manager about this and
and hearing that there's really not a set metric and that makes it difficult, I think,
for me to go, okay, that's what we're shooting for.
That's to quantify it, right, because there's qualitative standards here that say, if it's
an individual that's benefiting more, we should recover more.
And if it's a community that's benefiting more, we're open to subsidizing more.
Not that we will, but we'll have that conversation, maybe.
And then also asking and hearing that even that 65%, I think we did look at our comparable
cities and found that we weren't an outlier, that we were in the middle, but some sort
of an examination as part of the, I think you do this anyway, I don't know if we need
to codify it, but if we feel we need to, to work into the cost recovery philosophy, that
we will consult with and examine kind of our neighboring jurisdictions to make sure that
we're within no more than a five to ten percent deviation from what their cost
recovery percentages are or something like that. So can I chime in here when
you're done also? Yeah I mean I welcome kind of other input on it but I that's
where I struggled with kind of setting a standard because there really isn't one
is what I was told. So what you hear is Walnut Creek is different. We offer more
services. And what that number of 65% includes the police department and the
building and planning departments and the housing division which are more
standardized city services. So the only way I could I could imagine us doing a
cost recovery comparison is to isolate the arts, the community services that are
truly arts and recreation and public open space and figuring out what that
cost recovery is and comparing it to like the Pleasant Hill recreation it's
not a department it's a it's a district and the Hayward district where you're
really looking apples to apples not apples to bread because when you take a
full service city many of those those services that we have in the police
department aren't supposed to expect to get recovery percentages and they're
pulling our percentage down so it's if we wanted to set a standard I think we
have to consider what business that would be and find our parallel partners
in that and do it that way as opposed to thinking about Concord which doesn't
have a leisure center for the arts doesn't have his robust of these things
Council member darling any further comments and by the way so you're not
looking for any kind of a vote this is just direction tonight but obviously we
still have to come probably have to have an internal vote on direction for
president versus non-resident fees but other than that you're just getting some
indication and direction from us in general. And then we would incorporate
that into the the policy for the next meeting. Okay thank you and so I've
thought a lot about the consistency and I agree that it is always better to
have something that's clearly articulated and yet then I start trying
to lump and split and and it becomes more difficult so I think including a
narrative goal that our goal is to make to ensure that we are within the mid
range of our adjacent cities and a cost comparison for and I'm assuming the
staff is not looking at you know take it still lesser compared to something in
Concord but they're looking at swim lessons in Concord swim lessons of Walnut
Creek so we could include a narrative description that says we strive to be
comparable and competitive with our neighboring jurisdictions and then on the
cost recovery because there's some valuations implicit in it that are
difficult to put numbers on like yes is it teaching a child to swim and saving
their life worth 33% subsidy compared to you know so I agree with you that
finding a way to be more consistent is good I struggle with whether or not we
can do it right now but having that out there is something that over time we're
going to be working at better articulating this and if we get to the
point where we feel comfortable putting ranges in there I think you're right
that'll help us identify when we need to go back and revisit something because
we'll have gotten so far afield from what we said we were trying to do. And I
would agree with that at least it gives us leeway there we don't have to come
back every single time we come come in behind one of the margins that we were
talking about just to be clear I am talking about the totality of all the
fees not not individual fees like I don't want to get into the weeds and
start you know policy individual fees there's a lot of thought but just the
idea of having some sort of yes range that we'd like to be in that is part of
our policy so we can like speak to our policy of what we intend to subsidize
and so forth we say language like oh we're just trying to be like other
cities and fiscally responsible and it just doesn't kind of come across the
same way. Right so do you need more clarification on that portion? I do
think it'd be helpful if your counsel would like to have an overall cost
recovery target as a percentage of the budget effectively and then really a
two-part question if you would whether you're looking to have that
incorporated now or allow for more time for research to incorporate as part of the next
fee update when we come back as part of the budget a year from now, we can go either way
on that.
You know, and just a couple additional thoughts.
I mean, it really depends on how you want to go.
The way that fees have been crafted and proposed at this point is more of a ground-up approach
in looking at what the market is, looking at it by segment, by different type of service
that is provided, what the comparables are, where there are comparables, what the market's
like where there is a market and trying to be at a reasonable level point.
And that's how we came up to roughly being in the 70 to 72 percent.
I also do understand the point that Councilmember Davini is making in terms of overall budget
management.
Do we want to set a target for how much we're going to recover from fees as more of a budget
policy?
If we go that approach, we'll likely have to do some reconciliation in the future because
in order to receive to achieve a certain target we may have to adjust some
categories and some fees in order to get there and obviously depends what that
target is whether it's higher or lower than we're at currently that's
obviously manageable just a consideration so it is really more of do
you want to continue with more of a grounds up approach in terms of setting
the fees or have more of a top-down with having an overall recovery target is as
as a budget policy.
Let me try this one because I think Councilmember Difini has a good point but I think we're
at a point where we're not, I do support using the ground up because it gets into the granularity
that is important to understand but I also understand having an overall goal and so maybe
what we do this time around is say this has got us to this percentage of overall cost
recovery and the council feels comfortable that that is appropriate we
are going to be working to clarify policy on that as we go through the
budget process in time so the next fee study we can decide whether or not we
have some other metric use the ground up method but then just checking just
double checking the ground up to make sure we've gotten to where we want to be
but I think I'm hearing from staff that doing that right now would be difficult.
It's a worthy goal not quite there yet. Yeah I mean I like that I think I don't
think we want to say we aim for a hundred percent cost recovery except as
specified below we're at 70 to 72 percent now or we're at 60 something
percent now and we're going to 70 to 72 percent so it's going in the right
direction. Maybe we just want to embed that we want to be cognizant of what
that percentage is and see it move more that way than that way. I mean it's
right it we're we could also ask staff for options when you know this comes
back to us if that's not creating a big burden to investigate. So I question
And what you're really looking, okay, I've been through the budget process ten times
in the twenty years I've been on the council.
And I've seen budgets where by department you look at cost recovery.
And you have to start from that perspective because you don't collect, you cannot charge
more for the Lesher Center in order to improve your cost recovery in the police department.
It's kind of smacks of being against state law.
And so you're running different businesses here.
It's almost like being in a shopping center
and a shopping center with different stores,
each doing in a different type of work,
and they're going to have a different cost recovery
and margins and markups and all of that.
So I don't caution this,
but I think we're trying to think of it too simplistically.
And so maybe staff can come back to us,
because I'm not sure what you're trying to do in achieving
this a subsidization percentage or a cost recovery percentage,
because you cannot charge more for parking tickets, which
will only go into the parking fund anyway and go to the courts.
So.
Well, I mean, what I hear, and I think it's a valid concern too,
is that ongoing budget, not crises, but kind of challenges
and recognizing that this area is one where theoretically,
for some fees, we could charge 400%
of what the cost of it is to us
and making sure that we're cognizant of it
and recognizing that there is a subsidy that's happening.
they're a fairly sizable one, and that we're
seeing it and touching it and feeling it every time
that we're changing these fees and recognizing we're
making that policy decision to allocate budget funds
towards these fees, that we're aware of it.
We're not just blindly adopting it
and that we have something codified that says,
are we measuring up to that standard or not?
I think we have to look at it by department
and ask for them just to take a look at it that way
because we haven't looked at it that way in a long time.
And it is an eye opener.
So let me try again.
So it would be useful for all of us
to know the percentage cost recovery in this one
and how much of our general fund dollars
we're putting towards bringing these fees forward.
And then have as a worthy goal to come forward
with a more new, continue to use the bottom-up mode,
but then say we want to have near full, you know,
by different areas something, something magical.
So if this is agreeable to the full council,
we can continue as we are, as we are as proposed, and come back
if it's suitable during this next budget cycle
with more information about a cost recovery target, whether it's part of a fee policy
or part of an overall budget balancing policy, to look at how that may function.
I mean, it makes this difficult to an extent, is this is completely discretionary.
You can set fees at 0% or to a full 100% cost recovery, and as noted, even in some fees
higher than that, if they're market-based.
So there is a lot of subjectivity here in setting these, even though we're trying to
create suitable guidelines for charging and the way it's structured currently
it's at the service level it's not even at the department level it's at the
program or the or the grouping of services that are available that we're
setting those targets the way it's basically in those four buckets that we
outline currently but we could continue to study that if that's amenable to the
group and come back within this next budget year I do too and I think it's
consistent with what we do like the capital budget has a specified percentage
that got said before I was on council I'm not sure what it relates to I know
some like two percent are but I think it belong it lives in the overall budget as
opposed to maybe this policy and that we address it kind of holistically that way
yeah I think that works for me it gets us broader recognition that as we put
our budget together here's how we are allocating our general fund we are
subsidizing things at about this level but that's I think that is where it
belongs okay all right before we finish up this side and then I'm going to give
councilmember Silva the floor to discuss the the final piece of this which is do
we want to include unincorporated Walnut Creek residents into the discount.
We're just going to be taking the straw vote on this one. Right now it seems
like it's we're split on this so again I'm leaning I'm leaning toward Walnut
Creek residents I'm sorry Walnut Creek unincorporated residents as well just
because I don't think the cost is going to be that great but the benefit is going
to outweigh the risks but councilmember Silva. So my preference is to do all
Walnut Creek residents in all four zip codes because these are individual
services when you get to the groups the soccer club the rotary club it's going
to be assumed that they're Walnut Creek they're not going to be asking for
rosters and if it's conquered rotary they're not going to get the local
discount. They're going to have to pay the standard rate. That's my preference,
but I will live with it either way. We'll all say the same
thing, we'll live with it either way. I'm going to agree on this. I think that we
should just keep Walnut Creek presidents, whether they're unincorporated or
incorporated, together on this for discount. It makes it easier, people are
going to feel more welcomed and not feel
like the, to use a bad phrase, the redheaded stepchild.
So yeah, I am going to continue to look for people
that live in Incorporated Walnut Creek getting the discount
because the same challenge will happen with an Alamo soccer
Club that has 11 of the 20 kids are actually Walnut Creek residents and they
say wait a second just because our address is not Walnut Creek we have
Walnut Creek kids so I and I can live with whatever but I my preference is I
like incorporated incorporated incorporated all right incorporated
Craig all right that's it unincorporated residents we tried can I can we finish a
couple of comments. Sure. In the policy it lists consistently under the police
department a series of business licenses and then it says bike licenses.
Can we not list bike licenses as if they're similar to a massage permit,
red flag. Within the building department when I was looking at the
schedule there's something doesn't look internal consistency of how it's being
looked at but the housing affordable housing discount I think we should
consider pressure preferential pricing as opposed to resident discount but
it's just a nicer way to say it and I think we need to be sure that we're by
equity we're also including treating like-kind residents or like-kind users
or like-kind groups the same that our best friend whose club has had a discount
for 20 years doesn't get continue to get the discount I mean we have to treat our
customers equally. I want to go back to what you just said you said preferential
pricing versus resident discount. Resident preferential pricing versus
resident discount. It's just it was it both terms or phrases were used I think
preferential pricing may be a nicer way of saying it. Then wouldn't we have a
problem of people that are not residents of the city of incorporated city of
Walnut Creek saying why don't I get preferential pricing? Does that just lend
more questions? It could. It could. It's used both ways. I prefer I would prefer
discount just because all right it's just it makes it clean you get a
discount your resident since we're already going in that direction okay
then we have to clean up wherever it says preferential pricing make sure it's
consistent thank you okay any more input needed on this one anybody need a break
yeah okay let's take a 10-minute break shall a 25 alright next on the agenda is
a consideration titled receive the Election Code 9212 report regarding the Walnut Creek
Senior Housing Transit Village Initiative and consider two alternative resolutions to
either place the initiative measure on the November general election ballot or adopt
the initiative measure as proposed.
And before we turn it over to our Assistant City Manager, I'd like to ask our City Attorney
Steve Mattis just to give a quick overview of exactly what it is that we're looking at
here.
Thank you mayor the the item before the City Council this evening
Rises from the fact that the proponents of this initiative measure went out. They drafted a measure which involves
Amendments to the general plan the North Downtown specific plan the zoning code
So various land use documents the city has
They went out collected signatures and as it turns out they collect collected the required number of signatures
And so when that happens under California law, the council has two choices that are
available to them, and one permutation of that.
But the two choices are the council can either adopt the measure as it is drafted, so you
cannot change it.
You simply adopt it as it's drafted.
Or alternatively, you can place the measure before the voters.
And then the voters will determine whether it's approved or not, and that requires a
a simple majority vote. The slight differentiation to this issue is that those elections code
provisions also provide for what's called an elections code section 9212 report, which
is part of your agenda tonight, and that's a report that the council can and did ask
for, which talks about the measure and how it may impact a series of fiscal and land
use planning issues, that's what state law requires, and the council also asked for some
additional information.
So in a larger sense, the council's going to hear the election code, Section 9212 report
tonight.
You're going to then decide whether or not you wish to adopt the measure or place the
measure on the ballot, and that's the overall scheme of what will happen tonight.
There are, if you do place the measure on the ballot, there are a number of issues that
are associated with that, that will be present in Charles' presentation, and that we can
talk to the council about as we go through.
Okay.
Thank you.
And with that, we invite Assistant City Manager Charles Ching forward to provide the presentation.
Thank you, Mayor and good evening, Mayor, Member City Council, Charles Ching, Assistant
City Manager, and the City Attorney pretty much summed up the actions that are in front
of City Council tonight.
So all of it is in relation to the Walnut Creek Transit Village Initiative that was
submitted to the city in March of this year.
So the two actions that City Council will be doing tonight are two things.
One is they received the Elections Code 9212 report regarding the initiative which was
authorized by City Council back in April.
And the second would be to consider two alternative resolutions like the city attorney mentioned.
Either to put the measure on the November general election or to adopt the initiative
measure as proposed.
So to do the presentation for the 92-12 report, I want to bring up Jim Simon.
Jim is the president of RSG solutions who is a consultant that the city hired to provide
the report. Good evening members of the City Council, Jim Simon with RSG. It's
a pleasure to be with you this evening. Just to kind of a little bit of
background I'll just try to touch briefly because some of this has been
mentioned already by two people now so I'll just touch on it just again but the
elections code report has a window of time that it needs to be prepared within
and we are within that window of time. It's a 30-day window from when the
recorder certifies the initiative petition. So we're here tonight within
that time frame to receive and discuss that report. As was mentioned, the
initiative involves a couple of properties or well two addresses but
about two, what amounts to about 2.4 acres or so on the northeast corner of
of North California Boulevard and Ignacio Valley Road.
It does several things.
It changes the general plan designation
for that property from office
to mixed-use residential emphasis.
The initiative would also amend
the North downtown specific plan
by changing the office designation for the property
to mixed-use residential emphasis.
And with a third update, the zoning code
by creating a new mixed-use residential
senior commercial district, MURSC,
as it's called in the ordinance.
And which would also, by extension,
amend the mixed-use R-district to allow for 0.6 FAR
for kermosh uses on the site.
The land use changes that are all underneath this would facilitate the allowance of a senior
residential project that's been proposed in the ballot measure, or a senior mixed use
residential project which would include a commercial component.
And these would both be by right with the passage of the ordinance either by the council
or if passed by the voters.
So as I mentioned, the property in question
is located here across from the BART station.
We mentioned where it's located already.
The current use of the site is a two-story office building,
which is adjacent to other office buildings.
There's also a portion of a parking structure.
There will need to be a lot line adjustment if and when
this property ever does develop, as well as demolition
those improvements to facilitate the construction. As for the Elections Code
report, as was mentioned, City Council on April 21st directed staff to proceed
with the preparation of this report and include additional information as
permitted by section 92-12 of the Elections Code. The basic requirements
of Election Code contents can include, don't always include, it really depends
and the circumstances, the fiscal impact of the initiative,
the internal consistency of the initiative
with city plans and policies,
use of land and housing, funding for infrastructure,
community's ability to attract businesses,
attract and retain businesses in employment,
impact of vacant parcels and developed areas
designated for revitalization.
Some of the additional areas that the council
had directed staff to include in the report, include numerous ones which are
contained in the draft that you have in front of you in the council packet. Those
include providing high-level environmental analysis, impacts of land
use change focusing on traffic and view corridor impacts, address which
discretionary or ministerial approvals would be required for a future senior
residential and commercial development at the property,
as I was outlined in the initiative,
address whether the initiative precludes a property,
a project at the property from going through
the city's normal entitlement process,
address whether the initiative precludes
a project from using
the community benefits provisions that are contained within
the North Downtown specific plan.
identify how the proposed north downtown specific plan and zoning element
zoning code changes impact the city's available housing sites as identified in
the city's 6th round and current housing element and whether potential senior
residential units count towards the city's current cycle, Reno cycle. In
In addition, the council asked that the report identify the inclusionary requirements and
analyze the inclusionary housing requirements, that is, and analyze whether such units would
be required to be constructed on site or whether a potential development off site could be
used to satisfy the requirement if the applicant or developer, I should say, were to pay in
lieu fees and build only make market rate units. Identify any CEQA exemptions
that could apply to a senior future senior project development on that site.
Address the impacts of Measure A which has has height limits that the city has
on code and whether those height limits would be consistent or inconsistent with
with the Northtown Town Specific Plan and Zoning Code, and analyze the potential demand
for senior housing on the property, and finally, identify whether initiative allows the applicant
to develop 100% residential project with no commercial use on that property.
So that is the scope of what's contained in the report.
Let's talk a little bit about some of the assumptions that we used when we developed
the report because this report looks primarily at fiscal impacts and some of these secondary
issues and any time you look at those things you have to understand what are the presumed
development that's anticipated.
The initiative does not require future development on the property first and foremost.
Or detail some, any specific development plans.
So in communication with the developers of the property owner's attorney, we developed
some assumptions which involved a what we called a lower impact assumption, basically
lower impact, just simply based upon the number of units.
That entails 225 senior units and no commercial space on the project.
second scenario which we called higher impact which has 280 units on and an
additional 60,000 square feet of presumably ground floor commercial
space just to summarize the findings of the report which we'll get into and
elaborate on one by one throughout the presentation tonight the initiative would
obviously change the site's land use designation and the general plan of
North downtown specific plan and the zoning code for the property. There would
be a one-time cost to the city of approximately $250,000 to implement the
ordinance if adopted by the council or passed by the voters. We'll talk about
what that means in a moment. There would be the initiative would also obviously potentially
facilitate housing development on the site, which could advance the city's progress towards
arena goals, most likely in a future arena cycle. I mean, it's not going to get built in time for
the current arena cycle. And also add affordable housing units, if those housing units were built
on site as part of an inclusionary component of the project or by payment of the in lieu
fee which could by extension be used to build such units off site.
In terms of the fiscal impacts, future development may increase the city's annual tax revenues
depending on the scenario from anywhere from approximately $257,000 annually to $552,000
annually.
That gap is primarily driven by the commercial component of the project that is included
in a high impact scenario, as we called it.
Future development may cost the city in terms of service costs anywhere from approximately
66,000 to 83,000, again, depending on the size of the project and annual operating costs.
So overall, it would be a net positive fiscal impact to the city on an ongoing recurring
basis.
The project would also, by virtue of the fact that it becomes a residential project, would
have available, and staff will certainly elaborate on this later, access to the California Density
bonus law as any residential project would which allows for standard
development waivers in exchange for a developer agreeing to build affordable
housing in the project. All right let's get into the details. So first and
foremost those one-time fiscal impacts. This slide generally describes the types
of impacts that we've discussed with staff and legal counsel. They've been
itemized here on the slide so I won't read them to you but in in discussions
with staff based upon the staff's cost rate of about two hundred fifty dollars
an hour the the amount of staff that would be required to do the various
activities to implement the implement it plus any legal fees and potentially
consulting costs the city would be looking at approximately a one-time cost
of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that would realize you know over
the course of several months or a year, however long it takes to get those activities done.
Next is the ongoing fiscal impacts of the potential future development if a project
were to develop on the site after the initiative is either approved or passed by the voters.
And so I'll just go through each one of these.
So all of the assumptions you see here are assuming these are in 2026 dollars.
We obviously don't know when development may take place.
So if the development takes place in three years, you can presume those figures would
be higher.
If it's 30 years, it would be even higher.
But these are in 2026 dollars just so you have kind of a relative understanding of how
much it is relative to your current budget.
So under the property tax, the office building, there is an office building, as I mentioned,
on the current property.
It is about 13% of the total office space that's on the larger parcel that this 2.4
acres lies.
And so we made some analysis to determine that what portion of that assessed value that
would come off the tax roll, the bland improvements for that portion of that building, and then
the new improvements would be going onto the tax roll based upon construction costs for
a senior project, a market rate senior project. And we estimate that would be anywhere from
about 123.8 million to 187 million, depending on the size and scale of project. The city's
share of the 1% tax levy is about 9.4%. And so the city gets 9.4% of that amount. And
we're showing here is the net increase over the current assessed value of the
property in other words the net new dollars here similarly the city gets I
love this one property tax in lieu of motor vehicle license fees we love
California how we move money around in the state so this one goes this is
essentially another form of property taxes I will not bore you with the
detail I could bore you with the details but I won't bore you with the
details on how that's calculated but suffice to say for the last 20 years or
so the city's been getting some additional property tax through a scheme
that was engineered by the legislature some years ago in lieu of getting VLF.
Yes, yes we just can't keep things simple in California. Sales tax so we've looked
at sales tax a couple of different ways here. First obviously when you bring new
residents in that's bringing new demand for consumer a new consumers into a
market and so we looked and did an analysis that following some typical
practices that we have on how we do those those analyses that's containing
our report we took into account you know what we expect to be the nature of the
housing the fact that people don't necessarily the economic development
directors over here so pardon me here not everybody's gonna necessarily shop
within the city, we want everyone to shop within the city to be clear, so shout out
to your economic development director, but we assume some portion of the activity
will not actually occur within the city limits, and so the majority, which we
assumed to about 70%, would be captured within the city, and then basically
did an extrapolation based upon their household income and what they would
have, disposable income, to be spending on goods and services. So that's how we
we did the residential spending component. There is one, I think it's a bakery that's on site
today on the property, so that bakery would obviously with the demolition of the prod pretty
and redevelopment would be obviously you would lose that revenue and in its place you would get
anywhere between zero and an additional amount which we've shown here on the
slide for for the new commercial space that's getting built the the sixty
thousand square feet of commercial space. We also have shown in brackets the
service costs that I mentioned earlier. Those service costs primarily are
associated with line items in the city's service in the budget which are most
prominently affected by you know incremental changes and small
incremental changes in population. This is obviously not a large change in
population we're talking about 200 or 200 and 300 units is not a huge change
but we still you know our practice and we do lots of these types of studies for
for not just election code reports, but for development projects as well.
We typically always see an impact associated with law enforcement, calls for service, and
things of that sort.
We've also applied incremental change to some of the costs associated with the city's departments
of arts and recreation as well.
And you see that impact illustrated on the slide here.
The next few slides kind of go through some of the other impacts that were brought up
by council and and I'll just kind of run through these we see the land use and
availability obviously this is the impact on land use and housing that is
obviously this is a single parcel change that we're making so that what would be
made so there there are not a wholesale change on land use throughout the city
multifamily housing development certainly supports the city's progress
towards being in this arena obligations. The funding for infrastructure there's
no impact obviously with the just passage of the initiative in and of
itself but if a development does take place there would be increased property
tax and other revenues tax revenues that may assist in the funding of
infrastructure and ongoing service costs such as maintenance and those types of
things the city again the passage of the initiative doesn't change the business
the city's ability to attract or retain businesses the building is actually not
especially well occupied right now and I think we've addressed in the report so
the tendency is rather low at the moment and but the mixed-use development
obviously could bring in the opportunity to bring back some employment and
business activity within the property. Vacant parcels, obviously the properties
not vacant so there's really nothing to address on that. And then utilities and
infrastructure, the potential increase in demand for public services and
utilities and other infrastructure, you know, was noted in our report. Air quality
as is customary through any kind of construction activity, there will be temporary air quality
impacts from the demolition and retrofitting of the parking garage, which has been potentially
anticipated, and just general construction activity that may be taking place in the site.
The same certainly would be true with noise.
The transportation and circulation, obviously residential land uses generally reduce overall
traffic volume as compared to commercial uses. So there was anticipation of the overall
reduction in vehicle miles traveled as a result of this project. The use shed and staff can
certainly elaborate on this further. But the visual character of the property may change
obviously with the form from going from an office to a, you know, anywhere from 220 to
280 unit apartment building
but the existing urban character of the area is expected to remain generally the same as it's envisioned through the design guidelines of the
General plan and the like
Even with the amendments that are proposed
Okay consistency with the city's
Plans obviously the the measure is not consistent with the plans, but it does address
and itemize several changes that we've made to the general plan specific plan and the like
The
There there there may be the potential that as as we will talk about a little bit later
that the
Project could be entitled to receiving that density bonus and so some of those some of those changes would be carried over there as well
And then for the Measure A is the city's limit
on building height, which maxes out at six stories
and 89 feet, and it's applicable citywide.
The initiative does not amend or change that cap
on this property, but of course, a density bonus
could be used by any residential applicant
and potentially could result in a concession
in exchange for providing affordable units on site,
whereby that 89 height limit could be exceeded.
We've illustrated the potential inclusionary units
that could be provided based upon the city's
inclusionary housing ordinance,
depending on whether or not it's 225 or 280 unit projects.
And you see the numbers of units there.
We haven't speculated on whether or not it's rental or ownership.
We're presuming it's going to be a rental project, however.
And if for some reason the developer opted not to build units on site,
they would be obligated to pay the in lieu fee, which is estimated to be between 6.4
and seven point seven million dollars which would go to the city's in lieu
housing fund which could then be used for building or subsidizing affordable
housing elsewhere in the city that's approximately twenty seven dollars per
square foot today as was mentioned earlier the downtowns of the north
downtown specific plan provides a community benefits program whereby
applicants can increase the development intensity in exchange for providing
community benefits. Generally, and I do a lot of community benefits work myself,
but generally that those types of things work in commercial areas and not so well
in residential areas because the density bonus law effectively is the community
benefits program when it comes to doing that. So it's likely that a applicant, and
this is true in other places we've seen this, will likely look at the density
bonus law and the more favorable concessions that they can get there versus what they can
get out of the community benefits program that is embedded in the specific plan.
In terms of project entitlement and CEQA, the future development will depend on the
specific details of the project.
If it's consistent with the land use and zoning standards and, you know, as a proposing initiative,
the entitlement process may be very streamlined.
However, of course, there's no specific project that's been outlined in the initiative.
So there may be some elements of it that are going to be subject to CEQA review, but there's
also the ability, given the nature of the project and location, for multiple CEQA exemptions
that could allow a ministerial review process without even a CEQA study being conducted.
And finally, there was the question about the demand for senior housing.
we evaluated the current inventory of housing
that is income restricted within the market
and within a two mile radius of the site
that may include properties outside the city limits.
And you see that about 3% of the total housing stock
is presently restricted for households ages 55 and older.
And however, there's a fair number of units
that are in construction.
So that would increase to about 5%.
So there is a disproportionate increase going in
in housing for towards seniors.
Although I think more broadly,
I think it's generally known
that the lack of incentives for senior housing
and other factors that have come into play
have really created a huge demand for senior housing.
That's not just a local issue.
It's something that the whole nation is facing.
That concludes my presentation on the report.
I know there's other elements of this
that staff was going to address,
but I'm happy to answer any questions
about the report itself that you may have.
All right, any questions on the report?
No.
Council Member Silva.
Thank you very much.
And it was much easier following your presentation.
Can I have your slides?
well as the written report. I would take you to your table of the summary of the
fiscal impacts, and I had two questions. It may only be one, but two questions.
Since this is proposed to be senior housing, did your assumption of $44,500
per person in retail sales, or is that per household?
per household
Did that factor in that seniors spend less than?
My daughter does yeah
This is a market rate project. So the presumption is that seniors will be paying market rate rent
These are not income necessary any fixed income or income restricted units
Yes, but senior households have lower fixed incomes then yes, so they have less
But they're not buying a lot of clothing for work
They're not spending the discretionary spending is lower. I agree with you on that. Yes, does there does this
44,500 factor that in for these households since they
Well again, I mean these are not these are a market rate apartments
So there's income restricted for seniors, but those seniors could be making
Even even if they have fixed retirement incomes they're not on on I say fixed income
I'm talking about Social Security and government subsidy period my mom so you know there there may be
Folks that are making quite a bit of money still or have
Resources or have accounts and things like that sort and they're able to make that kind of spending
So you're comfortable with what you've presented? Yes. All right. Thank you. Yeah
And you might not be the person to ask this but on the density bonus and
The that it could be used on this. Is there a difference in how the density bonus could be used?
with the the designation of senior housing compared to
The current land use designation on the property
I can let staff trust that question.
I can answer a lot.
Under the density bonus law, senior housing projects
themselves are entitled to a density bonus of 20%
without providing any affordable housing.
If you layer on the city's inclusionary housing ordinance,
and if they were to provide affordable units,
they could actually stack density bonus on top of that,
so you can get above 20%.
So by the fact that it is senior housing,
they can have some density bonus.
Just senior housing, all market rate,
they're entitled to 20% density bonus.
Okay, good, that makes sense to me.
Thank you.
Just, is that factored into your higher density scenario?
The 20, the stacking?
No, we did not factor that in.
We alluded to it in the report,
but we did not address that, you know, quantify it, okay?
So to the city attorney on the stacking,
it's 20% is the base without providing any affordable.
What could it go, what's the maximum?
It depends on what percentage.
So after the 20%, then you look at the tables
for density bonus law, depending on what percentage
of either very low or low or whatever,
they would be entitled to additional density bonus
associated with that.
If they're providing onsite affordable.
If they're providing onsite affordable.
Plus the senior, thank you, okay.
And then I'm not sure who's the correct one for this.
I'm trying to,
I've looked through the initiative measure a little bit,
but trying to understand what this new zoning code district,
what the development regulations are
in terms of density, FAR and height.
I think that's, I'm gonna defer to Amelia on this one.
Hello everyone, Maley Sheehan.
I'm the assistant director for community development,
And I apologize.
I'm going to request that you ask for more time.
Thank you.
Nice to meet you.
Welcome.
Just trying to get an understanding of this new zoning
code, because it doesn't currently exist,
and what the development regulations
would be for this property under this code
in terms of density, height, and FAR.
Sure thing.
So yes, in the actual initiative itself,
it does propose development standards.
And so just one moment.
I apologize, I left all my papers behind me.
If I got to you, same page.
So the development standards in the initiative
start on the initiatives page 59.
And so under that, the density proposed
is one dwelling unit per 425 square feet of net lot area.
And then it goes on to provide a height regulation
matches with the downtown north downtown specific plan which is 89 feet in height.
And then of course as mentioned in the report and in the presentation should a
project come forward requesting a density bonus then there are waivers and
concessions that could exceed the measure a height limitation. And the 1
to 425 helping because I'm more used to seeing it and expressed in terms of
dwelling units per acre, what does that translate into? Sure, so in the 9212
report, they effectively take that amount and they provide the, I believe it's 200,
we'll get it exactly here, 225 to 235 units without a density bonus for the 2.4
acres. Okay, not per acre then for the entire 2.4? That's for the 2.4, my apologies, I
don't have it per acreage. So it's it's is it similar then to the MUR density?
Okay and if I may it is they do they do define net lot area differently in the
initiative measure and so it's a more expansive depth definition of what
counts as net lot area. I see. Yeah and I can expand on that slightly so the
initiative does propose revisions to the definition of net lot area specific to
this new zoning designation where the public right-of-ways so future streets
or any shared you know bike ped paths and private easements or any easements
necessary for the property would not be counted towards that acreage.
And let's see the other one was FAR is that staying the same as under the
current MUC. So for the FAR, again, the revisions come in the North Downtown
specific plan. Let me see where the proposed plan is at 3.5 base and
4.5 maximum FAR. That's right and then the commercial is point in the typical
MU it's 0.3 and in this one it's 0.6 on the commercial. Then the let's see the
other question I had was about arena counting the units for arena purposes
and with just wanting confirmation that these senior units would be treated as
multifamily units for our housing element? That is correct upon construction. So because this property
is not site identified in our housing element, just the zoning alone would not count towards
our arena figures. But should a project come forward, be permitted and constructed, then those
units would count towards our total arena figures. Upon building permit issuance essentially? Correct.
Okay. Wait, a permit or construction? Upon permit. I think that's all I had for now.
Since you're up there. The new land use designation, M-U-R-S-C, is only applicable
on this particular parcel, correct? The initiative only makes it applicable for
the 2.4 acres of the initiative area. However, should the initiative pass, then
that zoning district does exist citywide. It wouldn't be applied to any parcels
unless an applicant or property owner came forward requesting to make
amendments to that zoning. So if somebody else said, oh I've got a parcel and I
want to build senior housing and applies for a zoning change to MU RSC and when I
was reading through the the development standards are those written in a way
that it would be simple to apply it to another or and this has nothing to do
with you guys' project, I'm just trying to envision what's going to happen in the future.
It seems like it would be a little complicated to figure out how those standards apply to
another area.
The development standards would work on any property if it had that zoning assigned to
it where, you know, just overall land planning or development planning could be challenging
is whether those development standards are compatible with the surrounding area.
Okay.
Okay.
also a language in the initiative that creates certain exemptions that are
specific to this 2.4 acre lot. So the MUR zone is mainly is indicating
the zone itself could be picked up and put somewhere else but there are
exceptions written into this initiative that apply just to this 2.4 acre
initiative property. Yeah and I guess I'll add to that as well. There are
There are several aspects of this initiative that are revising the North Downtown specific
plan and of course, you know, any properties outside of the specific plan boundaries when,
you know, those revisions wouldn't apply.
Okay.
So a couple other quick questions.
One is the 2.41 acres are not all one parcel and are not 100% of each of the parcels from
what I can tell looking at the map.
So in order for this zoning to take effect,
they're going to have to apply for a change to their parcel
map?
Ideally, the property lines would align with the zoning
designation.
And Steve, please correct me if I'm wrong.
But I don't believe there are legal requirements
for the property lines to match the zoning.
So you can have a parcel that has 50 feet on the west side
of it zoned one way and the other?
I believe that is correct.
You can.
And it wouldn't necessarily require a parcel map either.
You could do a lot line adjustments.
So if you have a commonality of ownership and whatnot,
you could do lot line adjustments
to create new boundaries.
But ultimately, when this develops,
it would be optimal that the parcels that are developed
all be set parcels within that zoning district.
We do have other properties.
Frankly, even this property right now has part of its measure.
high limit is 89 and part of it is 35. Yeah I've seen parcels where it's some
some one part A1 some the other but this is the first time I thought oh that's
really weird. So then because this is now changing the specific plan if we were
to amend the specific plan in the future for this parcel we couldn't amend that
specific plan without going back to the voters correct? I believe you wouldn't be
able to amend the portions of the specific plan that this initiative would
be revising without the voters. Yeah, I would supplement that, that they've
written into the initiative that if if the property owner asks for an amendment
that could be processed and changed but that would require the property owner to
be asking for it or alternatively voter approval for the portions of this that
are set forth in this initiative. But the converse is also true that if we
needed to change the specific plan for other parcels other than the subject of
this vote, we could still do that. You could still do that. Correct, yes. I'm looking at page
13 of the initiative and there's a sentence beneath the diagrams and I
think this is what you might have been looking at as well. It says that we're
re-adopting that this initiative is re-adopting what this is in the diagram
and therefore is subject to the initiative and I read that I would
interpret that that somebody's going to argue that we have to go to the voters
to amend the North Downtown specific plan these two diagrams they are they are
very specific in the initiative about what is specifically being adopted as
as part of this versus what is included in it
simply for information purposes and not being readopted.
So for instance, the diagrams that show
the actual 2.4 acres are being adopted.
But to the extent that they show areas
outside of the 2.4 acres,
those are not being adopted at this time.
They're only in the initiative measure
for illustrative purposes.
They're very specific in the measure about it.
The proponents council can also speak to this issue, but the wording is very specific in
the measure, and it's very focused.
So why are they using the word re- the base, the max FAR and max height for the initiative
amendment in figures 3.1?
Okay, so that's where they're referring to the phrase in the-
Right.
It's not just diagrams, I mean, the zoning rights that are created for this district
on the 2.4 acre site are actually being adopted.
And so those would require either a request from the property owner for a change that
the council could then approve or voter approval.
So it is, to be clear, it is tying the hands of future councils for the things that they
they are in fact adopting here.
So if we were to decide in 10 years, nothing had happened.
And we were to decide to change the max far and the max height,
the base FAR and base height, for all of the parcels
in the North Downtown specific plan.
Would we be precluded only from change?
The 2.4 acres would have to stay where they are today.
and we could just draw new ones around it,
or would we have a problem with the whole block?
It's the initial characterization.
So the only thing that is protected is the 2.4 acre,
not the north downtown specific plan.
And even with the 2.4 acre, again,
I would just remind the council that there is a provision
that says that if the property owner requests it,
so if you were, for instance,
hypothetically doing an update
to the North Downtown specific plan of the property owner,
whoever owned it at the time, supported the change,
then you could go forward without it going back
to the voters.
So upzoning is probably okay.
I would defer to the opponents on that issue.
All right, thank you, thank you.
Okay, that's okay, it's kind of a complex elephant,
we're trying to make sure we understand it all.
So looking at the development standards,
It appears that this idea of a primary and secondary
frontage is, and the fact that the setback is different
on primary versus secondary is one of the bigger changes
to the development standards.
For the setbacks, yes.
So in the North Downtown specific plan,
there is language regarding front setbacks,
and the initiative proposes that additional language is
effectively added that defines primary and secondary frontages with different
regulations for each. Okay and then the secondary frontage is California the
primary is Ignacio? I believe it's defined as the primary frontage is where
the building entrance is. Oh so we don't know which one is which. Yes. Okay and then the same
thing with the step back that comes out of the North downtown they are saying
this the development standards for this don't have a step back requirement
correct okay all right I'm good thanks sorry I thought of another one too so
obviously this is the initiative it's not an application we don't have
elevations or a site plan or anything like that but kind of are the scenarios
that were run are they realistic development scenarios under the
development regulations that we discussed or are there any deviations? No
they're they're realistic assumptions I mean I it's you know in that 80 to 100
DU per acre so that that's kind of a common prototype that's getting built
today so it's it's not an it's a realistic assumption in terms of that. So
the the 280 which was scenario two is a little higher than the 20% density bonus
So, if I calculated it correctly.
I'd have to go to the report that there's a reference
to how we arrived at the 280 that we addressed in there,
and I actually just point to where that is in the report.
Let me find that.
So, if you go to page six and seven of the report,
that's how we get into the analysis on the units,
and you get up to 282 units with a 20% density of bonus.
We used 280 because I think that was consistent with what the applicants attorney had drafted,
so that was a nominal difference, but otherwise that's where it comes from.
Okay.
Thank you.
Please have a good mic.
I'm not sure who's going to answer the question.
So the 2.4 acres doesn't seem like it was precisely located, but are you able to determine
exactly where the boundary lines are?
I won't call them parcel lines, but they're boundary lines of what will be applicable to the 2.4 acres and what will be outside the 2.4 acres
Well, there are not there's not a specific you're correct there is not specific
Boundaries set we were provided information
you know through the
Through the initiative proponents about what they believe that to be but it's not a site plan
So we had to make some assumptions around what we understand it to generally be
and tell me how big these units are that you're assuming at 80 to 100 per acre.
How big the units are in terms of square footage you mean or? Yes. I mean is it the
size of my kitchen or is it? No no the I think we address that in the report too
I want to point you to where that is. I think we were saying it was I want to
say 290,000 to 350,000 square feet of gross building area,
depending on the two scenarios that we were looking at.
So I'd have to do the math in my head
to how many average square footage on each unit.
But those are not small units, so those are not micro units.
So they're not all dorm rooms?
No, no.
So what section of the initiative?
Where in the initiative does it say
that this is limited to senior housing.
There's a lot of language about will allow for,
will encourage, will facilitate,
but are they limited to senior housing
if this initiative passes?
Sure, so again, in the initiative,
looking at the proposed development regulations,
or excuse me, the land use regulations table.
Let's see here.
It is page 40.
It begins on page, sorry, 47.
So the land use table identifies that multifamily
residential, residential care homes, supportive housing,
and transitional housing, and congregate living facility,
and group residential.
So those are all the different residential classifications
that would be permitted by right.
If you look at the second column that's
next to all those land uses, there is a use regulation.
There's an item called L22.
When you go to L22 on page 56, it
states that uses that allow persons to reside in the use,
so residential uses, I think is an easier way to state that,
are limited to those serving primarily
as persons 55 years of age or older.
So I would, I mean, to me personally,
I don't think that's only 55 years of age or older
since the word primarily persons there is written,
but I'm sure we could address that
with the proponent as well.
So what happens, what would be the process,
this might be a lawyer question,
If 10 years from now, it doesn't look like senior housing
is going to be marketable.
And they decide they just want to make it regular housing,
no age restrictions.
What would be the process required
if this initiative passes?
We don't have an application before us.
But if you take the hypothetical that they have invoke
the senior housing designation for purposes
of density bonus, then there would
be deed restrictions on the property that
would associate with that to give them
the benefit of the density bonus provisions.
So that would likely be the mechanism
that we would use to enforce that.
And if in 10 years it wasn't working as a senior housing
development, we would still be able to enforce that,
or they would have to come back in and try
to amend that senior housing deed restriction that they
would have on the property.
So what if it happens before building?
Can they come in and ask us to change our minds?
What's the process?
Well, if they don't seek any density bonus at all,
Then the zoning controls that it needs to be senior housing.
That's the approved use.
That's the district that it's in.
But to be clear, the changes to the North Downtown specific plan
and the general plan don't specifically
say only senior housing.
It's the zoning that says that.
So what if they came in and they said
they wanted a zoning change to allow them to not
build senior housing?
Well, right now, that would require an amendment
to the zoning for this property.
So they would have to come back to the council
for a discretionary amendment.
The initiative allows them to make those kinds of requests,
but they wouldn't have that right.
It would require discretionary action by the council.
Does that mean the council at that time would also,
if that was to be asked, would they
have the right to change the development standards
as part of that discussion?
Because the building isn't there, I'm saying that's.
Yeah, that would be harder because the initiative is locking in a number of the other requirements.
And so if they're voluntarily asking for it and the council is voluntarily agreeing to
it, yes, they could make those changes.
But if the council just wanted to impose it upon them, then the council would be bound
to the initiative provisions that were previously adopted.
So for instance if you wanted to change the FAR or something like that and the applicant
didn't agree with it, then you would be more restricted.
You would be restricted, actually.
But they would be restricted from changing to non-ageous?
They couldn't just voluntarily change it.
If they voluntarily changed the development standards, assuming they don't go through
another initiative measure, they would have to come back to the City Council for that.
Come back to the planning process ultimately to the City Council because it would be a legislative
action. So let me make sure I've got this because I think this really helps
with one. Sorry. So the way the development standards are written in the
initiative, they appear to me to go with the MURSC designation. If they came in to
the city in the future and said we want to switch to MUR or MUC without the SC
on there we would have an opportunity as the city to say or whoever is on
Council say yes we agree or yes we disagree and then if they switch that to
a different designation those development standards in the initiative
would they still apply because they're associated with that zoning designation
the if if the council if they came in whoever the property owners of the time
comes in and makes a voluntary request to change the zoning to just MR if you
will and the council agrees to it then then you would change it and the and the
senior district would no longer apply you would have just him you are there
but if the if a city council in the future wanted to change it on its own
religion you cannot do that okay that's what I thought okay great thank you in
regards I should be clear that cannot be done without voter approval it can be
done with voter approval in regards to the 55 we just talked about primarily
that word but what does that mean does that mean greater than 50% what does it
I mean if you don't invoke a density bonus law that deed restricts, is it
really that? So it would it would track essentially you would follow the wording
of the ordinance itself and what is put up on the screen right now so you would
apply that from its reasonable interpretation of what primarily means
more than 50%. You would think of it, from my experience, what you've seen in senior
housing complexes before, is sometimes you have, you know, the primary residents in the
units are seniors or people over 55, but they may have caretakers and whatnot who are under
55 who live with them on a permanent basis. And so if the primary residents, the primary
Residents in the in the facility are over 55 years. That would be that would be what would be the standard
I would say also if they do invoke density bonus, then you'll have tighter language than what's here because you'll have a deed restriction
On the property which would set out exactly what that means and we would probably follow that
You know the state density bonus law standards and definitions for what that means
Okay, and then we've talked a bit about the changes to the North downtown specific plan
But just to clarify there only changes to allow this new
Designation, we're not changing
Anything that applies to the rest of the North downtown, right? That is correct. So the
Proposed revisions to the specific plan are specific to this property
However, you know
again, if
For some reason another property within the specific plan also got this designation
Then those revised changes would apply to that property as well
Okay, and then earlier and we were talking about the size of the units potentially and I heard two different things
So I heard one of there would be approximately
One unit per 425 feet which sounds fairly small to me, but then I heard you say also that
That they wouldn't be that small and so were you using the same calculations?
the two of you when you were discussing the size of the units? Let's see, when I
get to the part of the report where we address that, so we can point you to that.
The 425 square feet is the one residential unit per net
developable area, that's this square footage. I think the total square
footage of the building area can be very different, however, so you you have
different things going on so you have under for example a density bonus you
could have the 280 units 350,000 square foot building loud so we've assumed you
know a 350,000 square foot building that's this 280 units in it so that's
how we develop the analysis based upon that and that includes public areas and
public areas and things of that sort so whether the actual units are as small as
425 square feet. I think would be probably a bit of a stretch but because
the amenities are probably not taking up half or more of the building. So I have
one last series of questions. The North Downtown specific plan which former
council member Luella Haski and I were the two council representatives on that
committee and of course planning commissioners Darling and Francois were
also privy to this. A big focus was actually mobility and there was a large
tranche of money that came from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission
in the form of a grant to improve mobility and there was a lot of
discussion about setbacks in order to allow for the bike
ped access.
And this is two critical areas, North California and
Ignatia Valley Road that have actual diagrams that specify
the setbacks, et cetera.
Is this being impacted by that?
I can't tell because they didn't change the drawings.
They just put the drawings in the initiative, and they said
nothing changes, but yet there is language that makes me
think it might be changing.
So can you clarify what's happening with the proposed
North California cross section, which is 5.6B in the specific
plan, and 5.10B, which is the Ignacio Valley Road?
Yes.
So this is not quite the figures that you just mentioned,
but just very quickly, this comes out
of the North Downtown specific plan where the green lines are
identifying and I'm sorry that's exciting for me so that's the project
site or the initiative site I should say no project and so that lighter green and
this is really teeny tiny so I did blow it up is showing as moderate 5 foot to
15 foot setbacks so that is in the specific plan now and there is no
proposals to change those dimensions however on the right hand side there is
new language to one of the design standard guidelines where as we
discussed earlier we are identifying the front setback in a different way or the
initiative is identifying the front setback in a different way they're
identifying it based off of a primary frontage and a secondary frontage but
again even here you'll see that the primary frontage whichever one that might
be with the building entrance is still a five foot to 15 foot setback and then
the secondary frontage is still a minimum of five feet there is no maximum
however with the proposed initiative language so what happens to Ignacio
Valley Road in North California no wonderful sorry I want to lay a little
base there I just I mean there were many many discussions on these diagrams sure
things so again assuming a future development is still maintaining that
five to fifteen foot setback the building setback is still the same on
On the screen now is out of the specific plan,
the future proposed cross-section for
North California where we are hoping to add shared use paths,
so adding a ped and bike path.
That's identified in the blue and between the trees there.
With this initiative, there is a revision to
propose a three-foot public right-of-way dedication,
essentially maximum, if you will, for those improvements. Oh, I'm sorry, I
thought I had one more slide. And then if you read a little farther, it's bold, but
it's not colored, and it would be eight foot on Ignacio Valley Road. So the
proposal from the initiative identifies that this is still consistent with the
plans proposed in the North Downtown specific plan. It's effectively stating
that there wouldn't be any impacts.
I would just add that as cities get closer to actually
designing and constructing and engineering the streets,
sometimes those amounts do change.
Is three feet really going to be enough
when we put pen to paper?
I couldn't fully commit to that.
I'd probably want to defer to a civil engineer.
But the language is hoping to stay within the figures proposed
not impact the mobility plan within this specific plan. So where the diagram says
five to fifteen foot setback that hatched pink they're saying it would be
three. So they're still going to meet the five to fifteen foot setback but they
would only be dedicating three feet of right away to the city for future build
out. At least along North California eight feet along Ignacio Valley Road.
All right thank you. Are more presentation coming onto the next chapter.
All right now so on to so the next portion of this item which is where
council decides on two options regarding the proposed initiative. The first option
would be to place the initiative measure on the November ballot and if desired
specified procedures and processes related to valid arguments opposing the
measure which will entail designating to city councils to do so or alternatively
alternatively the City Council may decide to just adopt the measure as
proposed without alteration so before Council decides I wanted to share some
information and updates on a proposed measure so you know the the information
And on the signature counts, on May 4th, the proponents filed the petitions with the city
clerk shortly thereafter the city clerk completed its initial review of the petitions and sent
the petitions to the county to conduct their verification process.
And on June 26th, the county did conclude that there were 5,000 valid signatures, which
was more than the 4,987 that was required to put a measure on the ballot.
In the event of a measure, what you see on screen right now is what the ballot language
will look like.
I will not read the whole thing, but this is what the voters will see on the ballots
come November.
is different than what this was updated from what we had in the agenda packet.
I'm looking at Steve. It should be I think it's drawn directly from the same
one. Yeah this is the same. Okay thank you. And then in terms of ballot arguments this is
something that is not required but if City Council desires City Council may
authorize council members to submit ballot arguments opposing the measure
measure. Because this is a citizen initiated measure, City Council is limited to arguments
opposing the measure. In the event that City Council does decide to put an opposition,
the arguments will be printed in the voter information guide.
So timeline for placing the initiative on the ballot, August 7 is the deadline for council
to adopt a resolution and submit the ballot measure to the county.
Shortly thereafter, August 19, the city clerk will file preliminary arguments with the county.
In the same day, the city attorney will prepare and submit an impartial analysis directed
by the city council.
August 24th is when rebuttal arguments must be filed and then November 3rd will
be election day. And before I bring it back to City Council for City Council
action I want to hand it back to the City Attorney to to talk about some
details around the item. Yeah mayor and council I wanted to bring one item to
the council's attention that relates to this measure. The Elections Code section
9280 provides that with a ballot measure, as we're all familiar with when we read ballots,
you typically have the voter pamphlet, for instance, it has the full text of a measure.
The city is not required to include the full text of the measure in the ballot itself.
said, under Elections Code Section 9280, the city can direct that it's not going to
do that, choose, if you will, elect.
And then the city attorney's impartial analysis has to have very specific wording that includes
a statement that a copy of the measure is available to be sent to people just simply
upon request of the city clerk.
And we wanted to raise that issue.
Now the resolution that is before you assumes that we would print the full ballot measure,
which is all 60 plus pages of it.
The council should be aware that when the election costs are calculated and identified
to the city, they're really broken into two parts, and I would ask the city clerk to supplement
this if there's anything that I leave out.
But there is a basic per-voter charge that all cities are imposed for elections.
And then there are direct costs associated with an election that are costs that are charged
to the city itself.
And so, for instance, if you're thinking about the publication costs of this very long ballot
measure as well as the translation costs, because the measure will have to be translated
into another, at least one other language.
Those are costs that the city would incur, and the elections code allows a process where
if that full measure is not included in the ballot pamphlet, the sample ballot, if you
will, the ballot measure, then there can be a statement in the city attorney's impartial
analysis that tells a voter how to get a copy of it, and they can be provided, they'll provide
a copy at no charge.
And so we just wanted to bring that to the Council's attention because the resolution
that's before you tonight assumes that the full ballot measure, the full initiative measure
will be included in the ballot materials.
We do have some alternative language that could amend Section 2 of the resolution if
the Council wanted to consider this issue further.
And that wasn't reference, this wasn't reference in your staff report, but we wanted to bring
it to your attention because there are cost implications associated with which direction
you go assuming you place it on the ballot. So I have a question then. So what
is the range of cost to the city if this were to go onto the ballot? Low to high.
I don't think we have a specific estimate right now do we Sissy? No I mean
the county had estimated 30 to 35 thousand dollars but I don't think they
were taking into account the 65 pages translated into also Spanish and Chinese.
which would be more than, okay.
And just what you were talking about then, Charles,
can local citizens file a battle argument?
I would defer to Steve on that.
Yes, the elections code allow
a number of individuals, entities, if you will,
associations to file them,
and then the elections code sets a priority,
and as Charles was indicating,
on a citizen-sponsored initiative,
if the proponents file a ballot argument in favor,
they're the likely entity that would do that,
their ballot argument gets first priority
for the argument in favor.
Similarly, if the council files a ballot argument against
and then some other groups file a ballot argument against,
the council's ballot argument would be the one
that would be included as the ballot argument against it.
And I want to be very clear,
Charles was very clear about this,
The council is under no obligation to file a ballot argument under either way.
This is within your discretion.
If you wish to do it, you can.
If you don't want to be involved in the ballot argument process, you can simply tell us that
and we'll pull that language out of the resolution assuming you're going to place this measure
on the ballot.
But then if we do not file a ballot argument, then a citizen still could.
A citizen.
And again, there's a priority.
I think there are associations first and then individuals.
there there's a priority listing that the city clerk has to follow when she's
selecting the ballot arguments. So I have a quick question on ballot arguments
for and against and I'll preface this by saying you know this is a very complex
measure that you guys have put together and so could the city elect to file an
argument it would have to be an argument against the measure but really just to
to really crystallize what this does compared to the normal process.
I'm going to answer that and then expand a little bit.
So if the council were to write a ballot argument that's a ballot argument against, they can
write really anything that they want to about the measure.
So you can formulate what you want to say in whatever manner you think best communicates
to the citizens, there will be an impartial analysis.
The council's likely going to direct that if you place
the measure on the ballot.
The impartial analysis has to be just that.
It has to be an impartial analysis.
It's 500 words.
And it's written by the city attorney.
It has to impartially describe the measure.
And that will be in the ballot packet,
regardless of whether the full measure is in the ballot.
So what you would be thinking about is the ballot packet
includes the arguments in favor, arguments
against if there are any of either one of those,
the rebuttals to both of those, the impartial analysis,
and then the last thing is the measure itself,
if you choose to put the measure in so that the voters get
the entire measure in their voter pamphlet.
So I have a question to add on to.
So let's say the council chooses not to write an argument
against.
Does that preclude any of the five of us
deciding to be part of somebody else's argument against?
It does not.
The difference is that if the council does not
designate that they're going to, doesn't authorize
some grouping of the council to write the ballot argument
against, then that wouldn't be given the priority.
So it's not simply that a council member has signed
onto the ballot argument.
It's if the council authorizes a ballot argument.
but no council member would be prohibited.
If the council elects not to do anything,
then it would just council member could sign
if they wanted to.
The initiative, you know, the 60 page initiative
and there's discussion of whether we would distribute that
with the voting material.
He said, if we don't, then we would distribute language
that tells the voter how to obtain the initiative
if they want it.
I know there's the 500 word impartial analysis,
so that's there, but if we were to opt not to send out
the entire initiative, is there a summary version of that,
or is there something besides the full 60 pages?
And I'm thinking this isn't the first time
there's been an initiative that's so long
it's beyond the common person's consumption,
so how is something like that?
Correct, so the state law that allows this option
not include the full measure specifically requires that the city
attorney's impartial analysis say that the above statement so the impartial
analysis is an impartial analysis of ordinance or measure X whatever it is if
you desire a copy of the ordinance or measure please call the elections
official at and we put the city clerk's telephone number in there and a copy
will be mailed to you at no cost to you. Okay so there's no summary of it. There
There isn't a summary, but from a practical standpoint, the impartial analysis is a summary.
So let me, can I add on to your question?
And I'm not clear, I'm not quite clear yet, but there isn't, there isn't, so if you're,
if I may, pardon me, it's a member for interrupting.
There's not a separate summary that is written in the ballot materials.
So the only thing that would be in the ballot materials are the impartial analysis, the
arguments and for or against and whether or not you include the full measure okay
so everything and then is mailing it to you the only option or is it posted on a
website that people have access to now there's nothing stopping the city from
posting it on a website making it available that way but that the
elections code was written that it would be mailed to them but the city can do
more outreach than that if they want to and then the proponents can do more
outreach to are we allowed to have you summarize further than 500 words in what
What is not in the ballot book?
Well, the council's allowed to direct me to write anything you want me to write, but what
can be published is limited to 500 books.
But not published, I mean, and cannot be attached to the 65 pages navigational tool.
No.
Oh, you're supposed to present the measure as it's written to the voters.
the council can't change that in any way and the other things that I've talked
about the impartial analysis and the ballot arguments. The ballot arguments
even though they're even more limited in words than the impartial analysis are
intended to allow the proponents on both sides to make their arguments about what
it means and what the impact is however they wish to characterize those.
Are you with that portion? Yeah so that concludes my presentation but I want to
bring back the slide up to show City Council the two options that's available
to you. Do you want to open up public comment? Yeah I do but I was waiting for
these two options come up. No I understand but okay all right so now
let's open it up to public comment if there's anybody from the it's here in
the chamber that would like to speak come on up you've got well I guess
actually in the developers instance you have 10 minutes I believe on this one
since you're representing that if we've got anybody else they will get two
minutes do we have anybody online nope so all right the floor is yours I'm air
Wilk and Mayor Pro Tem Francois and City Council I'm Mark Hall I'm here tonight
in my capacity as the chairman of the campaign committee that has been pushing
this initiative forward, and I'm also the principal owner of the Ignacio Center site
here in Walnut Creek, which is, I think most people are aware it's the largest single office
complex in the city of Walnut Creek just across the street from the Walnut Creek Bart Station.
I just have a few comments, and then there's a lot of technical questions here that are
great.
You're digging into the detail.
And we have our land use lawyer here, Cecily Barclay, with Perkins Cooley, who was instrumental
in drafting this and frankly understands this, I think, probably better than anybody with
the possible exception of Steve.
And so she's available to answer those technical type
of questions.
Before I make my comments, I just
want to also thank Steve and Susie for their assistance
over the last few months in helping us navigate this process.
This is a first time for me, for our company,
in running an entitlement of this type.
California's an interesting place, always changing.
And it has opened various avenues
to proceed differently on a project approval
than we have typically done in years past.
And as a property owner, we've just
simply been evaluating and looking at our alternatives
and trying to figure out what makes the most sense
from a cost, from a timing standpoint
to move our objectives forward.
I'd like to just make a simple comment here.
There's been a lot of discussion around the impacts.
And I would say that those impacts are very, very narrowly
analyzed on this little 2.4-acre parcel of a larger 6.8-acre block
in total, the block of which has three significant office
complexes that total about 550,000 square feet.
I don't think it's any surprise to anybody
that the office market in Walnut Creek coming out
The pandemic has suffered a major debilitating blow.
We purchased this property just over a year ago,
and we bought it from a partnership of perhaps
the largest and most prestigious office building
owner in the country, together with one of the top three
investment funds on the entire planet that own this property.
And we bought it for roughly $0.40 on the dollar of their cost.
And this is not inconsistent with any major building
sales that are changing hands right now.
So property taxes are dropping under reassessments
across the board right now in a significant way.
And I would just point out that our project is not just
a senior project.
It's a way for us to figure out how do we benefit our entire
block.
And in so doing, I believe, benefit the entire north
downtown specific plan area of Walnut Creek,
particularly around the barts station, all
of these office complexes.
The plaza and grower square located on the south side of town,
closer to the retail district, closer to the pedestrian retail
area, commands rents that are about $1.50
a square foot per month higher than the properties that are up
at the Walnut Creek BART station.
And these properties that are closer
into the southern side of town are virtually full,
whereas the entire Walnut Creek BART area
is about 30% vacant across the board.
Now, that dollar and a half is a gross rent.
By the time you subtract the operating expenses,
it translates into about 40% net rent
that is going to support the value of the building less
at the BART station.
And this is a location that is a primary transit oriented
district that has access to BART, that has better access
to the freeways.
But yet, it commands rents at roughly $0.60 on the dollar net
compared to what is the market generates in the south side
of town where there's amenities, where there is a place
to walk to have lunch, to shop a little bit.
And we don't have that in the north downtown area.
We've never really had that.
And the Waymark Project has made an effort.
But the truth is, in my opinion, and I'm
a guy that's developed a lot of shopping centers
over the years, that's not really very good retail space.
That's similar to what the county did up at the Pleasant
Hill Bar station.
There is no good surface convenience parking
for that retail that attracts the best retailers there.
We have a 750 stall parking garage on this block
that is five stories tall.
And what I'm trying to do is figure out
how do I feasibly push that underground?
How do I get that underground?
If I can get that parking garage underground,
I improve the marketability of a whole lot of office space
in that complex that looks directly
into a five-story concrete parking garage
on roughly half of the floor plate
of the office buildings there
on the interior side of the block.
I also open up the middle of that block
and allow a large area that can be used for an internal street
through the block and a lot of surface parking in that area
to help support retail and commercial space.
Sounds like I'm developing a retail project as opposed
to a senior housing.
Well, no, it's senior housing.
That's the economics that drive this whole thing that
make this all possible.
But if we can get a mixed use project here
that works really well.
This is going to be really important for the whole north
downtown area to support values for all of those office
buildings that are right across the street for amenities
for the office space to make it a little bit more
like the south side of Walnut Creek.
Bring those values back.
Get those property tax revenues up.
That hasn't been analyzed in this impact analysis
as to what this does to the entire local economy
if we can get this project going forward.
So tonight is a first step.
Either way you go, whether you put it on the ballot
or whether you adopt it, I don't know if that's even
got a discussion, probably not.
But it's a first step, and we're hopeful that eventually we'll
get there.
So anyway, that's the extent of my comments.
If you have technical questions, we heard a lot of things.
We were over here listening and thinking,
that's a little off.
That's not quite right.
And we could comment on some of that if you want.
But it's up to you.
And as I say, Cecily's here to make comments.
OK, so we just want to make sure we
don't have any other public comment here.
Nobody else is online.
So we will then bring it back to council.
we can ask any questions of staff, any questions of the initiative group and
make comments. Mayor I think it would be appropriate to have the proponents
correct whatever they think give them another 10 minutes to answer the
questions that they don't think we have the technical answers. I agree that was
going to be my question if there you think there are technical things that
that we didn't get right or didn't interpret correctly that you think are
important to share those with us. But let's not ask the questions again let's
let's just let them go go ahead give us the answers. What do you think? That's fine
that's fine. Yeah we don't even need to have that on the clock. Good evening Mayor
Mayor Pro Tem and council members and staff. My name is Cecily Barclay and I
am the land use attorney and also a rep of the landowner but also representative
of the campaign committee here this evening.
And I don't wanna over,
I actually, I appreciate Mark's comment when he said,
well with the exception of Steve,
there might not be anybody else in the room
who does this initiative as well as Steve does.
Because I think as the conversations continued,
even though we were doing a little bit of,
oh, what about this, what about that?
More information came out as you guys discussed it.
So I don't think we have a lot to correct.
I actually think we were able to get to the bottom of it.
There were little things like at some point Mr. Simon said you get, you know, the 20%
affordable housing, we don't, we get the 20% because it's senior housing.
But I think as time went on it was clear that we don't have affordable, we don't have to
have affordable housing to get the 20% density bonus.
The zoning, I mean, I do agree as it all came out
that we basically took the MUR zone
and incorporated those to the property here,
but we've restricted it in the L22 note to seniors only,
and primarily seniors.
Again, I think Mr. Matys explained aptly
that under state law, there are certain protections
for senior housing under the density bonus law.
Senior housing is defined a certain way.
And there are these words like primary.
I actually think that there are places in the code
that talk about 80%.
I think it depends how it would get applied
to their specific site.
But primarily, seniors means it's a senior community,
but there may be a caretaker or a surviving spouse
who may be able to live there.
But those should be the exceptions to dot the rule.
And again, I think that with the bike plan,
we're not trying to modify the bike plan,
or some of those street sections.
They're in there, and then the only thing out is to say,
and they apply to the zoning code.
So sometimes we're just taking what
was already in the specific plan,
but making it clear that those specific plan diagrams,
just as the city wrote them, the only
being added on those pages or language that says, and this applies to the MURC
zone. So I don't I don't know if I actually have oh just okay just get
correct. Thank you. So I just to help be really clear about this. So the way the
city's MUR zone works even without us just right now it there's actually one
unit per 425 net square feet that's of the land so you take a 2.4 acre parcel
which has 43,560 I think it's about a hundred thousand square feet for 2.4
acres so if you have well I'm not going to do I'm going to take that comment out
for a second and just say if you've got a hundred hundred thousand square feet
you get one unit per 425.
That's not going to work for me.
Divide it by 425, you're going to get about 280 units.
Excuse me, 230, sorry.
But what I wanted to say is it's the net number, though.
That's why you're seeing some of these ranges.
Is it 225 or is it 235?
Because we have to take out any of the public easements
or frontages that can't be calculated in the net number.
So that's why you saw in Jim Simon's presentation,
the low was between 225 and 235,
because you were not really sure,
but he used the low of the 225.
And then the high is actually 235 plus 20%.
So what RSG was doing is kind of taking the lowest
of the low and the highest of the high
and using the 225 to the 280.
But if you actually took 225 and you added 20%,
that wouldn't get you to 280.
because we're having to also use some variation
in what the net developable area is,
which we won't actually know until a project comes forward
and we work with the city on exactly where the set marks are
and the street lines and get the ALTA detailed surveys
out there.
Can I jump in and ask you a quick question on that?
I just wanna make sure I've got this.
So when you're talking about the 425,
that's of the lot itself.
Yes, so that units, the units, however, are bigger.
They could be as big as you could actually want them.
There's no limit on how big a unit can be.
And so the density that we're at is about how many?
Well, you start with the square footage
that gets you one unit for every 425 square feet.
And that happens to be 235 units.
Yeah.
You also have a floor area ratio that limits how much gross density you can put on there.
And then you've also got height limits.
Now if we do a density bonus, we're going to have the height limits, and you might not
have as much of an FAR unit.
You could end up with really big units.
This assumption that has been done in this analysis assumes about 1,000 square feet,
as I more or less, those are kind of the units, which are not small units, by the way.
healthy size unit so thank you I didn't mean to interrupt I just wanted to we're
at a moment yeah so so so as a practical matter we don't know that until we yeah
our market analysis until we design the project the 425 is the is what you
divide into the land square footage to get the number of units to apply the
density bonus to yeah and then the FAR ultimately governs the scale of the
building. But that's basically an envelope within which you've got room
to size your units and the reality is as we do our market analysis we're gonna
have a lot of different size units. There'll be a unit mix that will target
different parts of the market so that's that's coming down the road. Yeah.
Coming attractions? Is that what you're, yeah. So my important question to you is now
does that make does that answer the question of the difference between the
unit count and the what the one per 425 means feel good about that okay thank
you all right but we're here for any other questions that you might have this
and I just want to echo Mark Hall's comments that we really appreciate the
technical detail that you have all looked at and staff's ability both Miley
Mr. Simon and Steve Matus to answer the questions. Yeah, thank you for the
presentation. Thank you for all the work that went into this. So Councilmember
Silva asked this question earlier. I just want confirmation in terms of intent on
the initiative language on page 23 then where we're dealing with the FAR table.
You're recreating it from the north downtown specific plan and saying it's
It's re-adopted for the initiative amendment area, and it's the proponent's intent that
that applies to the initiative amendment area, meaning it can't be amended as to the initiative
amendment area without the vote of the people, but we can change that as to other areas that
are not in the initiative amendment area without a vote of the people.
That is exactly the intent.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
You do.
I'm the attorney for the campaign committee and the proponents and it's like my question is for councilmember Silva did did that
answer your question about the
The bike sidewalk area that you expressed concern because you went through that process
So, you know, well you were concerned that it would compromise
that
That walk ability the bike ability that had been planned for did that answer your question about preserving that because I know we had
frontage, and then side area.
Is this something that we've clarified?
OK, so then that's my question.
That was brought up.
There's the diagrams that we saw that
showed proposed sidewalk, proposed mixed travel area bike.
And I think there was intention in the North Downtown
specific plan to have the ability
to develop those areas, and is the proposed project
potentially compromising that area based
on where the frontage or the side area is?
I guess they're different.
There was a range of like 5 to 15,
and so it made me think, oh, well,
it could be as narrow as 5, or it could be as wide as 15.
So we're a team here.
And I'm going to ask Mr. Davis to answer one question.
before we get there, on page 27 of the initiative,
there's the proposed North California Boulevard
cross-section.
And you'll note that we illustrate the picture,
but then underneath it we say it's
amended to add the following text at the bottom of the figure.
This figure applies to land zoned MURSC.
So we're taking the exact cross-section that's
in the specific plan on North California
and applying it to our zone.
On the next page, we do the exact same thing
for Ignacio Valley Road.
We make it clear that this also applies
to the MURSC zoning code.
So then there was a question about,
well, why is the dedication then only limited to three feet?
And that had to do with the amount of land
that would be needed to create the minimum setback.
And now I'm going to let Chuck either tell me,
because you were whispering to me,
and you'll remember this better than I did,
about on North California, what the three foot limited
on the dedication was.
Because I don't remember where that text is in the initiative
right offhand.
Hi, for the record, Chuck Davis, Senior Vice President
Development for Hall Equities Group.
The cross section shows a half right away there.
There's a little bit of fuzziness in things.
We've got about 50 foot right now from the center line to the edge of the current right
away.
So we're identifying that we'll give the extra three feet to make sure that that cross section
can be built on North California.
And then from that point, you have your setback of five to the ultimate maximum, depending
on if it's a primary or secondary.
Same thing on Ignacio Valley Road.
There's up to eight feet.
That's the cross section that's in the North Downtown specific plan.
We're going to do that.
included in what we would do in the project and then it would be five foot
up to the maximum as a setback from that point. So we're just making it clear
because there were some exhibits and some of the things that that were let's
just say inconsistent and these cross sections were the one thing that was
that was tying down specific numbers and we want to make sure that you know we're
gonna honor them. Thank you for coming. Before he walks away. And you can come back up and
And I just wanted to clarify.
So you have just said that this diagram requires
three more feet in order for it to go from 49 to 52,
because that's, if you look at the current cross-section
and the proposed, and that that extra three feet will be given,
will be dedicated to this right of way necessary,
and then the setback would start from there.
That is accurate.
And the same thing would be true on Ignacio Valley Road.
And that if you look at the general plan and the North
N-Town specific plan, they actually
come forward and say on different streets
that those are the anticipated dedications required
by people who have properties there,
not just here, but throughout there.
We're just acknowledging that we recognize
that it's in there, we're baking it in,
and that would be nothing's changing.
Correct.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
and I saw staff sort of, did you have something to add?
Yeah, okay.
Of course, we'll share some space with you here.
Just to echo, you called it out perfectly
that the existing width right now is 49 feet,
and then I know it's a little blurry,
but on the screen it's, the proposed is 52 feet,
so that's where the three feet comes from.
Same thing when you're looking at Ignacio Valley Road,
of eight feet in order to get to the full proposal. So. To get to those widths where you actually have
people walking on the right of way and not on private property. Correct. They need three feet
on North California and eight feet on Ignacio Valley Road. That is correct. So the team here
has effectively done the math. They've proposed the language to say that no more than those exact
amounts will be dedicated. That's how I'm reading the language on the screen and so the only thing
I would put out there is, you know, the intent is to meet the specific plan, but being very
particular about the dimension of dedication, depending on what that future looks like.
Again, a lot of times when you put pen to paper, oh, it turns out it wasn't three feet,
it's really five feet, or it's, you know, it could vary in the future.
I am not a civil engineer, so take a big caveat there, but they are meeting the requirements
that are outlined in the North Downtown specific plan,
but having that very particular dimension
does reduce some flexibility in the future.
And assuming this diagram is perfect?
I will not speak to that.
The sidewalk ends at 52 feet, and then that
would be potentially requiring the building that
would be proposed has to have some kind of setback
from that edge of sidewalk that we're not.
Yeah, if the sidewalk is the property line,
let's say, where the sidewalk is touching the green strip
there, let's call that the property line,
then there would need to be anywhere from 5 to 15 foot
setback depending on whether it's
a primary or secondary front edge.
But I thought they'd give us another three feet
and then started the property line.
Is that what I heard?
No.
Yes.
There's the 52 feet plus 3.
No.
So right now, the width is 49 feet,
and so we need three more feet to get to the 52.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
So let me ask a question.
Is the planning department so assuming one of two things,
either we are adopting it or it goes to a vote
and let's say it passes on the ballot,
our planning department is still working
throughout the process, working with the developer
and making sure everything adheres to what the plan is.
And I mean, it's not just like it's being built
in our planning department, it's not involved.
That's correct.
Are you talking about for our future development?
For our future development.
Yes, correct.
Okay, all right.
So a future development would come back
through the city for review.
So, and it's also true that to the extent
that there are other amendments that have to be made
to conform to all of these changes.
That's what Mr. Simon's report was talking about,
the estimated cost of around 250,000 total,
because there will be other changes likely
that may need to be made
just to have internal consistency in the documents,
and so that would have to happen too.
So we've been here for an hour and a half now
hearing, asking questions,
and we literally have a decision
of either approving it as is without changes,
or putting it to the ballot, as is without changes.
That is our decision.
We're not a planning commission.
We're not going over all the details
of any kind of changes.
I agree with that, and I'm not trying to belabor it,
but, and I appreciate it when Mr. Hall said,
if I could ask you a question about your long-term vision,
because the part of this that,
we're not voting on a project,
but the part that's most exciting to me
is the potential for a commercial mixed-use activity
center on the north downtown.
So realistically, does that require, and we know you.
You've got a successful track record in town.
We know where you, not where you live,
but we know where your office is.
So she knows that.
But is it dependent on taking that five-story parking
structure and putting the parking underground
actually have enough space to do a commercial center what what is the
likelihood that that will come to pass? I think that's critical I mean that my
view is that has to happen to get the type of commercial that we would like to
plug in there you know I would remind you that the North Downtown specific
plan has an incentive as a community benefit to put a grocer up there and
And there is a hole in the market, we've studied this just in from sprouts and
lardies all the way down to Safeway and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. And if you
look at where a lot of the recent housing formation has been in the city
over the last 10 years or so, we've had quite a bit in the Ignacio corridor. We
We now have Weymark adding to that.
And we're getting to an inflection point where,
and I believe this project will be it,
if we can get this done correctly,
that we can, in fact, do a real true commercial project here,
as opposed to sort of ground floor storefront
that you see in what is basically an apartment
building, which is what the Weymark is doing.
And what has happened at Pleasant Hill Bart.
I don't know if I know Council Member Silva remembers this,
that when we developed the sprouts on the old co-op piece
years ago, that filled right away.
And we got very good rents, very successful project.
And at the same time, Pleasant Hill
Bart was building those multi-family buildings
with quite a bit of retail space.
And they sat there vacant for years until they filled.
And the rents were not that great.
And the tenant mix was not that great.
It just was a project that was designed at the Pleasant Hill
Bart with housing in mind and commercial was an afterthought.
And we've had a lot of experience in retail.
And to make retail work, we have to have
a certain critical mass of convenience parking,
Not in a garage.
Not like Andronico's tried to do, which didn't work.
We need to have convenience pull up parking.
And that means that garage has to go away.
And we have to figure out a way to pay for that.
That's expensive.
And that's where this senior housing component
is the part of the market right now that is working.
A lot of the market is not working product-wise.
Senior housing is.
This is where the demographics are penciling right now.
I'm looking at all of us.
I mean, is it fair to say then your interest and investment
in this property is long term and applies to the entire site,
not just the 2.4 acres?
Our investment is much bigger in the office buildings
than it is in the 2.4 acre piece.
So we're hoping to improve the value of the entire block
substantially with this project.
And I know that for the very same reasons
we believe that we can do that, that
will flow across the street.
What we're doing here will benefit our neighbors as well.
And it will make that BART station district
a much more desirable location for a company
to come locate and create jobs in Walnut Creek.
And that's an important factor.
Thank you.
All right, so in front of us is basically one decision.
Do we adopt as is, or do we put it
to the ballot, which is what was proposed
through the initiative process?
So you've said that it would take, well,
the independent report said an estimated quarter
million dollars to basically integrate all aspects of this into our general
plan, North downtown specific plan, all of them zoning code, all the maps, etc.
That correct is an estimate. We have to do that whether we adopt tonight or we
send it to the ballot and it's adopted by the voters. We have to spend that many.
Who pays for that?
Well, normally, the city would pay for that.
But there's nothing preventing from the applicant
who wants to pay for that.
The applicant can pay for that, too.
And I would say I would modify a little bit of what you said.
If it goes to the voters, you wouldn't start that process,
obviously, until after the election.
If the voters approve it or we approve it.
That's correct.
We have to do that action, which would have occurred
through a normal entitlement process, correct?
correct that would have normally been the normal entitlement process the
proponent pays the fees to cover the costs of that's correct okay given the
comments well so I think we have a simple one or options door a door B I
I think right now I am inclined to vote to put this to the voters. I think there
is enough here that's different from what we adopted in our specific plan
that I would feel more comfortable if I took it to our voters. Since we didn't
through the normal process. I want to make sure we don't lose the trust of our
voters. We didn't do something that they hadn't seen. For the comments? Yeah, you
know I tend to agree with that. I think that that essentially is the path that
we've been going down is putting it before the voters. I there had been the
option of a ballot argument in opposition. I don't think that's
appropriate here because I'm familiar with other ballot initiative
measures where an initiative proponent will say a developer for its own
purposes will want to amend the circulation element to eliminate
roadways that they have otherwise have to approve and create new ones to make
it benefit their development. There's a benefit to this property no
question but I don't like that would concern me that hey we had come up with
a very comprehensive circulation plan and an EIR that looked at how the traffic was
going to work and that's the type of measure that I would be inclined for the council to
weigh in and submit a ballot argument in opposition to.
I think this is just the natural outflow of an initiative process which is allowed by
our California Constitution.
So I think we don't have control over it.
We have those binary choices here and I think that's a result of it being an initiative
measure. You know I councilmember Silva raised a question again about the cost
and I think it would be nice for the proponents to if they're willing to
absorb those costs and not having the city absorb them but that's I know
that's not something that we can force you to do but it's something that I
think would be nice because it's something that we're incurring when
and we're not really, we would recover it
if it was going through the normal process.
And yeah, that's all I got.
All right, Council Member Silva.
I'm excited about what could be,
but I'm not excited about the process
that it's taken to get there.
And I have a feeling some members of the public
are going to feel that, wait,
why didn't we get to come talk about it
and really review it and experience it?
But I think so for those reasons I think we put it on the ballot
And I would agree with councilmember france saw that I or mayor pro tem. Sorry
that
Just stay silent on it and allow the process
To run its course
councilmember divinity any further word
yeah, I mean I
I agree with the the previous reasoning. It does seem like a process that was
was taken to the voters by initiative and that seems like the sort of natural organic end to it
is to allow the voters to weigh in on it. So that's how I would be inclined as well.
And I will say that, Mark, the way you put that out there, it sounds exciting. I think there's
a vision here that sounds exciting that it can make that area an interesting area. I mean,
And right now there's the Target, I mean,
going to the store, Target's the closest.
Like, it just seems kind of funny to think
that's the grocery store in the area that is Target.
Love Sprouts, hard to park there, but Love Sprouts.
I know you've heard that before,
I just thought I'd throw that out there.
And as Ms. Barkley said, the last time that you were here,
the reason you're doing the initiative is to,
it's the way to make sure that you've got support
the community to move ahead with the project. So the fact that we're sitting
here and talking about exactly that I think makes sense to continue that with
basically let's see if the community supports it. But I'm gonna take it a step
further than that. And I think that this will also help us based upon the vote
of the community to help us see the City Council to make decisions in the future
for similar projects. And I think it will help direct how we vote in the future on
some of these projects in that area, but also in other areas of the city, so based on the
vote for this initiative.
So I like the fact of even hearing what the voters have to say on that, and if this is
something that passes overwhelmingly or barely passes, or frankly doesn't pass, but I also
agree I don't think that it makes sense to have a battle argument against it.
We'll stay silent, you'll have your marketing, and, you know, we'll see what the voters say
on this.
Yeah, let's say so how this looks for future development.
Put that slide back up.
And here before you entertain a motion, one thing we would need direction on is whether
or not you want the full measure to be printed on the pamphlet.
Well, I'll speak about that.
I don't think we need to have the full measure printed.
I think that if we have it summarized and there's a link to where people can get the
full measure, I think that would be fine and probably cost-efficient for everyone.
We still have to get get it translated into the one or two additional languages and then make that available
I think the county's estimate of cost is so
Yeah, so council if
Any other further comments about whether you wanted the full measure it sounds like I
Thought I was hearing a majority of the council at least thing
Didn't want it included on there. Yeah, I think what I'm hearing from my fellow council members is
We want you to do this the impartial summary and we want the full measure to be available
On the website and by mail if somebody requests it and and to move to the ballot. Yeah
the initiative stood so understood this an opportunity to
because we talked about this, so there's 500 words and
Suppose you would come up with a complete analysis in 500 words, but is there if we're gonna put it on the website would be?
like
To give you the leeway to expand on that with some sort of summary statement on the website or just leave it at the 500 words
This this measure is in written. Yeah, this measure isn't written by the council. It's written by the proponents
And so I think if the council if the council wanted to promote what the measure says if you will
Just make sure the voters are aware of it. You could have on a website link
You could have the impartial analysis and you could have the full measure so that if people want to read it
They do it because it's not
The council is not the proponent of this measure
So I if the council wants me to write a broader impartial longer analysis
I can do that, but we're not actually the proponents of the measure
Yeah, what I didn't mean is as far as being a proponent. I I thought during the conversation earlier you were saying that
not on the ballot but if there's an opportunity like maybe you feel like
it's hard to fully summarize in 500 words I don't know would that be
something that we would want to put on the website some longer impartial
analysis but sounds like maybe that's no we we can we can do that I just would if
that's what the council would like us to do we'll do that and and we would make
that available on the website as well to have to be we just do have to be
careful that what we're saying is not advocacy one way or the other. Like we
cannot do that with public funds. The impartial analysis is not advocacy, but
if the council wants to say, you know, if the city attorney's office believes that
they need more words to describe the measure, then we could create a companion
document. It will be very impartial though because that's that's what we are
are required to do in terms of expenditure of public funds.
I'm inclined to stick with the normal process
with the impartial analysis and the full text on the website.
That is the initiative process, and so it's OK.
You're in our shoes now.
You get to read everything in the packet
and decide yes or no.
And I'm reluctant to stray beyond the normal process.
And I'm of the same mind because the boundary over to advocacy one way or the other is really,
we need to very much stay on the right side of that, and we will have an applicant who
has chosen this interesting path to go down and has lots of opportunity to answer the
questions that come up, what's a step back, what's a step back, why are those two?
I am comfortable sticking with the 500-word impartial summary,
the full text of the initiative on the website
and available to people if they want it with the translations.
While I could see the value in the other one,
I think we have to be so careful to stay
on the line of impartiality.
Yeah, actually, after having voiced it
as a point of discussion, I agree with you.
And I agree as well. Also it doesn't open the potential that we're accused of inadvertently causing it to fail
Right
So well, I will I will make mayor if mayor if I may because we need to edit the resolution a little bit
So if the council's okay, I'll just read some changes into the record and Susie
I am gonna ask you to display that one change that will do this
So first we're gonna recommend that section 8 that is in the resolution right now
Now this is Attachment 3, the Resolution to Place the Measure on the Ballot.
Section 8, which really relates to the ballot arguments, simply be removed from the measure
so there would be no authority.
We don't need to even correct it because the proponents can file their own ballot argument.
They'll have priority.
The second change we would suggest then is this is the first paragraph, as I recall,
section two, so it's just before the ballot question, and it's in the wording
that was in your agenda packet. It talked about there being the full text of the
measure in the ballot. This changes it to the process that we talked about earlier
under Elections Code section 9280, where we would create a summary of it. I'm
sorry, where the voters would be told how they could get a summary of it, and
this would be the recommended change we would make to that paragraph, and this is
again in section two just above the ballot question
and the resolution.
Is there any point of referencing the direction
I think I'm hearing from the council
to also ensure that it is on the city's website online?
We can take that as direction from the council.
If you wish to put it in here, we could add a sentence.
It probably would make more sense to do that later on.
We could have a replacement section eight,
which just directs us between the city manager
and city attorney are directed to place
the full text of the measure on the city's website
for public review.
And maybe the simplest way to deal with it,
as long as we don't include it in the resolution,
if you are confident we're not precluded
from giving staff to do that in the future.
No, we can take that direction from you tonight.
That can be part of your motion.
But I don't think we need to address it in there.
You just want to make sure.
It does.
It's just a city can always provide public information,
non-advocacy public information, educational information
about a ballot measure.
You'll remember we did that with Measure A,
and Measure O, sorry.
And so that is something that we can do
and providing a copy of the ballot measure is not advocacy.
So with that, the resolution is otherwise.
So the motion would be a motion to approve the resolution,
placing the measure on the ballot as set forth up there
with the amendment to section two as was shown on the screen
and the removal of section eight.
So moved.
Second.
Did you second?
We have a move.
Did you second?
Oh, I was thinking it was sections.
I was confused between seven and eight.
I will second.
OK, we have a motion and a second.
If you could call the roll, Susie.
Councilmember Silva aye Councilmember Darling aye Councilmember Devaney aye Mayor Pro Tem Francois aye
and Mayor Will aye. Motion carries. Right before we adjourn tonight's meeting I'd
like to take a moment to honor the extraordinary legacy of Sue Rainey. Sue
served our community for 13 years on the Walnut Creek City Council including
three terms as mayor. As a steadfast representative with a gift for making
constituents feel heard and welcome Sue is dedicated to the local political scene
and the causes that she was passionate about. She was our friend for everyone
that knew her and none of us will certainly forget her annual mayor and
council crab feeds at her house. Tonight we adjourn this meeting in her honor who
passed away last month and with deep gratitude for her vision, her service, and
her unwavering commitment to the people of Walnut Creek. And with that we're
adjourned.