I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the regular meeting
of the Walnut 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 Walnut 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 decor 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.
All 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 nine if you're calling during
the item in which you would like to comment on being heard right thank you
and City Clerk Judy Martinez can you call the roll please? Councilmember Darling
I'm here. Councilmember Davini? Here. Councilmember 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 the community,
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. How 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? All right, next. It's a
very exciting recognition of Odyssey the Mine 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 is 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, and longstanding collaboration
are truly inspiring. So why don't you all come up here and love to hear a little bit
about what that was. You can come up here, sure. That trophy looks as big as you are.
Mayor Wilk and council members. We are Teo, Karen, Elle, Nathan, Rocco, Jacob, and Owen.
We just finished fifth grade 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.
As 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 of 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.
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 going to be going to WCI.
My name is Teo.
And next year, I'm going to be going to WCI.
My name is Owen, and I'm going to go to WCI next year.
My name is Rocco, and I'm going to go to WCI next year.
My name is Jacob, and I'm also going to WCI next year.
My name's Kieran, and I'm also going to WCI.
Well, this championship team is staying together.
All right.
Well, why don't we all take a picture together?
Thank you so much.
Was it one problem or more than multiple problems?
Well, congratulations.
Congratulations.
Now we know you'd all love to stay for the consent calendar, everything else that's going for you.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
Four weeks, right? That's it.
And our donations really took off after we came here.
Oh, good.
Okay, that is definitely going to be the highlight of our meeting.
So, next we do have the consent calendar.
and does any member 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 actually I will pull an item which is item G to G just to discuss
I'll pull item H okay well 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 in 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 you call the roll please?
Council Member Darling.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Council Member 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.
On the assignments from December.
All right.
So I'm the voting delegate.
Okay.
I guess I'll make that motion.
I'll second that.
Okay.
We have a motion and a second.
Mayor Wolk?
Aye.
Councilmember Darlin?
Aye.
Councilmember Davini?
Aye.
Councilmember Silva?
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Francois?
Aye.
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
to, but I will say that not only does Concord often have representation from their council
members, but our Congressman Mark Desolnier has made it a point to always go there, and
this is the reason why there have been the pardons that happened in Washington do directly
to Congressman Mark Desolnier's efforts on that.
So I'm happy to second that, and I'll get a scroll, please.
Councilmember Darling?
Aye.
Mayor Will?
Aye.
Councilmember Davini?
I was very 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, next 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
refer the item to staff. Consistent with section 9.5 of the City Council Handbook,
30 minutes will be allocated at this time for public communications for items
not on the agenda. Additional time for public communications for items not on
the agenda will be provided at the end of the meeting if necessary. Written
comments submitted have been posted 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 and
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 nine 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 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
Councilmember 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 do not have an update this evening mayor
All right then we have City Councilmember reports on AB 1234 activities councilmember assignments and various activities and upcoming events and
Why don't we start with councilmember Davini?
Just a few things to report
see mayor pro tem Francois and I attended the
finance committee meeting on June 23rd
things are
Looking. I certainly 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 to Pergolas to a member of the rotary Club who had been very
active in our community for a long time that's Don Willoughby. So you know
remembering him and 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
this is how I want to sort of apologize to the city of Walnut Creek we
disappointed a little bit this year on the cornhole tournament. We we we
We attended an East Bay Division Cal Cities cornhole tournament 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 you know, it 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 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 it renew measure J
That's all I have
Thank you. I'm gonna mayor pro tem Francois. Thank you mayor a few updates as well as councilmember Davini mentioned
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
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 and Dan
and buckshy so it was a great turnout and really fun activity to attend okay
and there will be a formal are you gonna reformal ribbon cutting on July 30th at
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 Councilmember 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
serve 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
councilmember 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 sheriff's
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 Councilmember 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 Burroughs, 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 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. We are, there's information on 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 of transition, for those of you who haven't been following Marin County
politics, the Marin County civil grand 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 we're 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 the 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 Sierra Nevada 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 council
members Silva thank you Councilmember darling maybe at some point you could
explain what the value of short-term contracts are versus long-term contracts
how many hours you 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 is 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 great bring that back thank you
thank you very much mayor thank you for my colleagues I have 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 Rohnert 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
we come 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 was denied the ability to extend and align the work permit with the license,
so six drivers were gone.
Unfortunately, they lost their jobs.
But fortunately, they replaced the drivers 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.
Council member Davini mentioned the Cornhole Tournament.
I just want to elaborate just a bit.
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 fundraiser for what's called CITIPAC,
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
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.
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 2-3 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 came 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 City's 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, the National League of Cities was
actively in the mix on that bill for over a year. They're 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
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'll 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 it will lower
the cost of construction so there are many good aspects to that bill.
Three things I will finally I will mention in 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 Penniman House and that is available for
for rent, weddings, receptions, family barbecues, et cetera.
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 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
We heard about the Locust Street Festival that was on July, was it the 8th, I mean there
were thousands, I think I heard there were 4,000 to 5,000 people that were there, I'm
getting nods from the Chamber of Commerce so I'm happy I got that number right, and
with dozens of booths, 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
month right now on the mayor's minute. So I filmed it at the Locust Reef
festivals. 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 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 Councilmember Silva, with summer sounds being on the Lesher Center Plaza,
the Rodney 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 happened 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.
that's a relay walker's going across America.
I wasn't sure I was going to 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 Council Member Darling
about the Police Academy graduation, which was terrific.
But I also want to mention the reason that we're able
hire these people full-time is because 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 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
more 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 wanna 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
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 to present it to 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 a 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.
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 I 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. We 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 Pro Tem Francois? Aye. Mayor Wolk?
Aye. Motion carries. All right moving right along. Next is item six the 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
26 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 percent.
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 council 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 benefits city services provide.
Include a resident discount as part of the fee schedule for those fees where it's applicable.
a 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.
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.
Essentially, 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
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 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 non voluntary
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
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
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.
That'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 percent to more than 100 percent.
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
to know more than the actual cost of providing that service.
So those cannot exceed 100% 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.
These 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.
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,
the 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.
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, Kerstin. It's a mouthful. It is. Do we have any
question in the policy framework? Councilmember Silva. 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 for 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.
I have a question on the resident versus non-resident.
It's one thing to be able to discern where somebody lives.
It's another to be 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 this for zip codes or we really want to discriminate between?
Can we have that conversation?
This is proposed or certainly can take that.
That's up to us.
Well, sometimes people say we've heard no before.
I agree. I think it's a good discussion. Any other questions from council?
Otherwise, well it's it's related to councilmember 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
rate is that if you apply for a program online, essentially a swimming class or some of the
other things that you could do online, it'll tell you the rate if 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, 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 even an online catalog? They will be posted, this is
it, so get out your reading glasses. Wait, you mean I sign up for a class
without being able to see the price? I don't think so. Prices are also indicated
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 you were a non-resident, the system would already know that.
I think the only time that it might jump out to you
is the first time you were 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 council'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
are required 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.
Yes.
We'll solve the conversation.
Of course.
Thank you.
All right, looks like that's the questions
that we have from here, so I guess 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's valuation-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
are 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.
Approximately 21% of the new fee line 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.
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 citywide 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% of the fee adjustments are tied to either market-based services or cost recovery
services, where the framework generally expects 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.
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 first sorry 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.
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.
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
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, and 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 sign program reviews.
The final community development division is housing. And this is, as I've mentioned previously,
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
rewording 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
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,
could be phased in gradually. Recommendations seek to balance affordability, compliance and
cost recovery. Updates are proposed for tree permit, arborist and open space related fees.
Police services continue to be primarily funded through general tax revenues because 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. And some examples include massage
establishment and technician permits, public entertainment permits, 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 2016, 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.
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
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.
Let's hold off on the residents that are in the unincorporated area for the commenting
afterwards and when we have after any public input as well and we'll have that part of
the conversation.
Let's have other questions that relate to this right now.
Council Member 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 way you displayed it.
It has made it easy to look at.
My question is more, for those, I
know we have been working very hard on 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
in how we're issuing the permit,
and now we are aligning the cost
with that more efficient process.
Is that correct?
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
of 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 that,
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.
Mayoraiten Francois.
I had one that 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 question is very timely.
I just met 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?
I don't know the percentage off the top of my head,
but it is in the fee schedule that comes forward.
We do include that as a separate price
in the published fee schedule.
Can I build on one more question of this arena?
What do you do about social clubs?
There are some longstanding 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 and wean them off of this habit?
So we encourage them to get a social club 501, which
I believe is a C7.
But 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've 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 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.
It wasn't meant to be.
But it reminds me of some.
Oh, I tried 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 what Little League is gonna 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 it.
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-
Sure. 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 daughter's
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.
Okay, thank you, you're welcome.
Chris, I just had one more.
And this was from a resident who is 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 of 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 logic when 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 sand
block 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're happy 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 to answer it, yes.
The fee schedule should basically cross-reference the two.
And they should be able to be compared.
One side is listing it large down to many.
And the other side is listing it small to large.
Work in progress, but we are heading in that direction.
OK.
Councilmember Davini.
And I think am I the last one with questions?
Yes.
Because mine might start blurring into comments, so.
Well, let's focus on question.
Then we'll go to public comment.
Oh, OK.
Then we'll go to comments.
Then we'll go to public comment.
OK.
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?
There 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 $1.7 million below target or below estimation?
It's actually below what our estimated revenue budget was, and so we're 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 million.
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 can be a combination of other revenues or higher or we have savings
on the expenditure side.
Okay that'll be it for my question then.
Great, alright then.
Thank you.
A couple of other questions.
Okay. Okay. Go ahead.
So this is one to the housing division.
Um, 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.
Without having heartburners,
there are a way to change the nomenclature slightly,
so it's clear that we're really talking about affordable services.
Hello. Erica Vandenbrandt, again, Community Development Director.
And the answer to that is yes.
We can be clear with how we describe it and arose as.
Because our housing division isn't dealing with market rate
housing proposals.
Generally not, so that they're dealing
with market rate developers who are
required to provide inclusionary housing
and below market rate housing.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
And I noticed in the policies and in the phrasing,
both the term discount and preferential pricing
has been used, did we, 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 maybe related
to the nonprofit and military rates
may be a preferred pricing versus discount,
but we can certainly make that consistent
within the policy.
And maybe we can talk about which term
think is the better term okay thank you okay so now why don't we open it up for
public comment and if we have anybody from the public that'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 9 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 going to 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 come 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
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
the question on that do we have any analysis of the 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 it do we have an
idea of a ballpark figure that we're even discussing here is it a thousand
dollars or is it fifty thousand dollars? 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 Kreekers,
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 Kreekers.
So what would you, now we'll go to Council Member Darling,
What would you propose as the way to then unravel it so that all Walnut Creek city,
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 details of 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 the, half of Glenhaven is in the city and half is in unincorporated and they don't know
where the line is.
Right.
Okay.
Council Member Darley.
Yeah, I too live about 10 feet from the boundary and our elementary school population is split
and you know I, 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 the in the 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 requests, 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
post office periodically they changed a bunch of people that were Walnut Creek
unincorporated into Alamo. In my mind, the hard and fast thing that we
control is who pays property tax that help us with our general fund. 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.
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, you know, 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 I 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.
And 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 residence.
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 it's written right now.
I guess for me and then we'll go to other comments beyond this
For me, um, 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 the streets off of Walnut Boulevard or Homestead suddenly there's like Marshall is 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 Wallingree 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
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 council member Davini on this one?
Okay
Yeah, first I want to thank Kirsten and administrative services the finance division and 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.
We were subsidizing at approximately $11 million a year,
I think, from the general fund to support services,
so recovering approximately two 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 would like to see us have some sort of goal as to our
philosophy as a city.
It could be in section 3 where it says cost recovery
philosophy.
What is our philosophy like?
Are we intending to subsidize approximately 1 third,
or 60 to 65% or 65 to 70?
Or 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, percentages 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 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
or subsidizing from the general fund.
So let people know that's the way the key 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 a public narrative
and messaging.
Because so often we hear things like, oh, well, you just
want to put in more parking meters
so you can make much money for the city.
Or there's this concept that fees are just like the profit
center.
And if we could plainly sort of point to actually know,
our philosophy is to subsidize these services by 30%.
And this is how we did that.
I think it would help with those conversations as well.
Just I'm curious, Council Member Davini,
can you gave a couple of different ways
of how we could accomplish that.
But do you have a specific proposal in terms
of what the policy would be?
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 know about what that percentage wound up being?
So initially, prior to the fee study,
we were at about 65% citywide.
And so now we're closer to between 70% and 72%.
And again, that's kind of comparing it to fiscal year 26
information that we have.
So we'd be going up about 5% to 7% based on the proposed fees.
So we'd be subsidizing a 28% of looking forward,
finance question is, like, do we anticipate
that percentage going up 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 a set percentage.
Because we 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 an indicator of how much we're
subsidizing the services provided by the fee schedule?
Or does it make more sense to look at a percentage?
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 allow us
to the ultimate revenue impacts would be changing depending
on that percentage versus a set dollar amount.
OK.
Then I guess maybe 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, oh, we're not
in that range anymore.
Are we outside of a range that we want to be in?
I appreciate that and I think it's a good conversation that, you know, I remember asking
the city manager about this 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 should subsidize, we're open to subsidizing more not that
we will but we'll have that conversation maybe and then also asking and hearing
that you know 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 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 yeah so what you hear
is Walnut Creek is different we offer more services and what that number of
sixty-five percent 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 if if we wanted to set a standard I think we have to
consider what business that would be in and find our parallel partners in that
and do it that way as opposed to thinking about Concord that doesn't have
Alesha Center for the Arts doesn't have as robust of these things.
Councilman Redarling, 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 policy for the next meeting. Thank you. 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 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 us to the leisure compared to something in Concord, but they're
looking at swim lessons in Concord, swim lessons in Walnut Creek. So we could
include a narrative description that says we strive to be comparable and
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,
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 up on one of the margins that we were talking about.
Just to be clear, I am talking about the totality of all the fees, not individual fees, like
I don't want to get into the weeds and start, you know, policy-ing individual fees.
There's a lot of thought that goes into those.
But just the idea of having some sort of range that we'd like to be in that is part of our
policies 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 council would like to have an overall cost
recovery target as a percentage of the budget effectively and then really a
two-part question that 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
could 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 grounds up approach and 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.
It 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 more of a top down
with having an overall recovery target as a budget policy?
Let me try this one because I think Councilmember Dafny 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 yeah yeah I mean I like that I think I 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% 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 were 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 what you're really look, okay, I've been through the
budget process ten times in the 20 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
Leisure Center in order to improve your cost recovery in the police department.
That's kind of smacks of being against state law. And so you have 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
I mean what what I hear and I think it's a valid concern too is that ongoing you
know budget crises but kind of challenges and recognizing that this
area is one where you know 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 there are 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 in these 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 magical. So if this is agreeable to the full council we can
continue 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's, you know, it makes this difficult to an extent as this is completely discretionary.
You can set fees at 0 percent or to a full 100 percent cost recovery and as noted even
and some fees higher than that if they're market-based.
So there isn't 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 grouping of services
that are available that we're setting those targets with.
It's basically in those four buckets
that we outlined currently.
But we could continue to study that if that's amenable
to the group and come back within this next budget year.
Sure. I think that makes sense.
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 belongs.
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.
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 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 oh 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
going to outweigh the risks but council member 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 their 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 gonna have to pay the standard rate that's my preference but
I will live with it either way all right because and the same and the we'll all
say the same thing we live with it either way all right so I'm gonna 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 well more welcomed and not feel like the to use a
bad phrase the red-headed stepchild so yeah I 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? Yes, we can clear. Red flat. 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 are 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 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
like a 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? Yes. Okay, let's take a 10
minute break until 825. Thank you. All right, 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 arises 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 Pacific plan,
the zoning code, so various land use documents
the city has, they went out, collected signatures,
and as it turns out, they 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 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 gonna hear the election code,
section 9212 report tonight.
You're gonna 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.
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.
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.
Number one is to receive 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 9212 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, Mayor, 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 clerk recorder
certifies the initiative petition, so we're here tonight within that timeframe 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 the North California Boulevard and Ignacio Valley Road. It does several things.
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 changing the office designation for the property
to mixed-use residential emphasis and with third update the zoning code by
creating a new mixed-use residential senior commercial district MU RSC as
it's called in the ordinance and would which would also in by extension amend
the mixed-use our district to allow for a 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 and or a senior mixed-use residential project
which 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
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'll need to be a lot line adjustment if and when this property ever does develop
well as demolition of 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 9212 of the Elections Code.
The basic requirements of the election code contents can include, don't always include,
it really depends on 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, communities' ability to attract businesses, attract and retain businesses
and 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 future senior residential and commercial development at the property,
as outlined in the initiative, address whether the initiative precludes 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 sixth round and
current housing element and whether potential senior residential units count towards the
city's current cycle, Reno cycle. In addition, the council asked that the report identify
the inclusionary requirements and analyze 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, a future senior project development
on that site. Address the impacts of Measure A which has height limits that the city has
on code and whether those height limits would be consistent or inconsistent with the North
Town 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 anytime you look at those things,
you have to understand what are the typical, what are the,
what's the presumed development that's anticipated.
The initiative does not require future development
on the property, first and foremost.
it or detail some any specific development plans. So in communication
with the developers of the property owners attorney we developed some
assumptions which involved a what we call a lower impact assumption basically
lower impact just simply based on the number of units that entails 225 senior
units and no commercial space on the project.
And a second scenario, which we called higher impact, which has 280 units 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, be, 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 discussions with staff, based upon the staff's cost rate of about $250 an hour,
uh the the amount of staff that would be required to do the various
activities um to implement the uh 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 you know let's say several months or a year
however long it takes to get those activities done
next is um the ongoing fiscal impacts of the potential future development
if the project were to, 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
on to the tax roll based upon construction costs for a senior project, a market rate
senior project.
We estimate that would be anywhere from about $123.8 million to $187 million depending on
the size and scale of the project.
share of the 1% tax levy is about 9.4% and so the city gets 9.4% of that amount
and what 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 all 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
has 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, new consumers into a market
and so we looked and did an analysis at 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 going to necessarily
shop within the city we want everyone to shop within the city to be clear so shout out to to
your economic development director but we assume some portion of the activity will not actually
occur within the city limits. And so 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 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
property 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 the new commercial space that's getting built, the 60,000 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
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 not just election code reports but for development projects as well.
We typically always see an impact to studies
through 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 arson
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 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 they're they're not a wholesale change on land use
throughout the city multi-family housing development certainly supports the
city's progress towards meeting 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 which 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 property is 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 that may be
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 U-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 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 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.
There may be the potential that,
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 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 it could result in a concession in exchange for providing affordable units
on site whereby that 89 height limit could be exceeded.
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 project 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
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 between to be between
6.4 and 7.7 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.
And that's approximately $27 per square foot today.
As was mentioned earlier, the downtown, 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 proposing an 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 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?
So, Council Member Sebel.
Thank you very much,
and it was much easier following your presentation.
Can I have your slides as 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 necessarily 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 their
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 market rate apartments, so there's income
restricted for seniors, but those seniors could be making, even if they have fixed retirement
incomes, they're not on, when I say fixed income, I'm talking about social security
and government subsidy, period, my mom.
So there may be folks that are making quite a bit of money still or have resources or
have accounts and things of 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.
That's what I'm doing.
And you might not be the person to ask this, but on the density bonus and that it could
be used on this. Is there a difference in how the density bonus could be used
with 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 of that.
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.
OK, good.
That makes sense to me.
Thank you.
Just thought is that factored into your higher density scenario the 20th at the stacking?
No, we did not factor that in. We alluded to it in the report, but we did not yeah address that
Quantified
So to the city attorney on the stacking
20% is the base without providing any affordable. What what could it go? What's the maximum? It depends on what percentage
so after the 20% then you look at the the tables for density bonus lawn
depending on what percentage of either very low or low or whatever they would
be entitled to additional density bonus associated with if if they're providing
on site affordable if they're providing less at 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 under 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 going to 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 have 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
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 that 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 in. Sure, so in the in the 9212 report they effectively take that
amount and they provide the I believe is 200, sorry 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 acre. So it's it's is it
similar than to the MUR density? Okay. Yes. 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
areas 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. Okay 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 to 4.5 base and
4.5 maximum FAR. That's right. And then the commercial is point in the typical MU it's
point three and in this one it's point six on the commercial then the let's see
the other question I had was about a Rena 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 figure 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 that the new land
and use designation, MURSC, 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 a 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 MURSC, and when I was reading through 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.
language in the initiative that creates certain exemptions that are specific to
this 2.4 acre lot. So the MUR zone is mainly 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 it's, I don't believe
there are legal requirements for the property lines to match the zoning district.
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 there are – it wouldn't necessarily require a parcel map either.
You could do a lotline adjustment, so if you have a commonality of ownership and whatnot,
you could do lotline 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, even – frankly, even this property right now has – part
Part of its measure a high limit is 89, and part of it is 35, a very short question.
Yeah, I've seen parcels where some, one part A, one and 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 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.
the 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 it you could
still do this okay I'm looking at page 13 of the initiative and there's a pair
there's a sentence beneath the diagrams and I think this was what you might have
looking at as well. It says that we're readopting, that this initiative is
readopting 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 very specific in the initiative
about what is specifically being adopted as part of this versus what is included
in it simply for information purposes and not being readopted. So for instance
that 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 so they're very specific in the measure about it the you know the
Proponents Council can also speak to this issue but the wording is very
specific in the 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
figure three dot one okay so that's where they're referring to the phrase in
Right and it's not it's not just diagrams I mean the zoning rights that
are 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 it is
to be clear, it is tying the hands of future councils for the things that they
are in fact adopting here. So if we were to decide in ten 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 part of the whole block it's it's the it's the
initial characterization so the only thing that is protected is the 2.4 acre
not 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 up zoning is probably okay. I would defer to the app. All right
thank you thank you. Okay yeah that's okay it's 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
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,
And 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, so I would
say...
Oh, so we don't know which one is which.
...to be determined.
Yes.
Okay.
And then the same thing with the step back that comes out of the north downtown, they
are saying this, the development sentence 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 realistic assumptions. I mean, 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 not a, it's a realistic assumption in terms of that. So the the 280, which
with scenario 2 is a little higher than the 20% density bonus if I calculated it correctly.
I'd have to go to the report.
There's a reference to how we arrived at the 280 that we addressed in there and I have
to point to where that is in the report.
So if you go to page 6 and 7 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 applicant's attorney had drafted so
that was a nominal difference but otherwise that's where it comes from.
Okay, thank you. 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 it are you able to determine
exactly where the boundary lines are I won't call them parcel lines but their
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
addressed 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
would 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 mm-hmm 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 kind of 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 is written but you know I 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 no restrictions what would be the process required if this initiative
passes so we don't have an application before us but if if you take the
hypothetical that they have invoke the senior housing the senior housing
designation for purposes of density bonus,
then there would be deed restrictions on the property
that would associate with that to implement the,
to give them the benefit of the density bonus provisions.
So that would be, 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,
they, 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-ages.
They couldn't just voluntarily change it.
If they voluntarily change 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.
No go ahead. No go ahead. 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 MUS 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 at the time
comes in and makes a voluntary request to change the zoning to just MUR 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 MUR there but if the
if a city council in the future wanted to change it on its own position you
cannot do that okay that's what I thought okay great thank you then in
regards I should be clear that cannot be done without voter approval yeah 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
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 mainly 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. 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 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 all 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 are 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 you can point to that.
It's the 425 square feet is the one residential unit per net developable area as that's this
square footage.
I think the total square footage of the building area can be very different, however, so you
have different things going on.
say you have under, for example, a density bonus,
you could have the 280 units,
350,000 square foot building allowed.
So we've assumed a 350,000 square foot building
that's 280 units in it.
So that's how we develop the analysis based upon that.
And that includes hallways and public areas.
And public areas and things of that sort.
So whether the actual units are as small as 425 square feet,
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. So I have one last
series of questions. The North Downtown specific plan which former council
member Luella Haskio 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 now
this is two critical areas, North California and Ignacio Valley Road that
have actual diagrams that specify the the setbacks etc. 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 the
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 5.6 B
in the specific plan and 5.10 B which is the Ignacio Valley Road. Yes. So this 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 I wish oh 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 five foot to
fifteen 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 5 foot to 15 foot setback and then the secondary frontage is still a minimum of 5 feet. There is
is no maximum, however, with the proposed initiative language.
So what happens to Ignacio Valley Road in North California?
Yes.
No, wonderful.
Sorry, I wanted to lay a little base there.
I mean, there were many, many discussions on these diagrams.
Sure thing.
So again, assuming a future development
is still maintaining that 5 to 15 foot setback,
the building setback is still the same.
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
kind of 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 you know engineering the streets sometimes those
amounts do change right is three feet really gonna be enough when we put pen
to paper you know I couldn't fully commit to that I mean 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-of-way 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 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, specifying procedures and processes related to ballot arguments
opposing the measure, which will entail designating two city councils to do so.
Or 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 the information 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.
This 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.
Is it?
Yeah, this is the same one.
Okay.
Thank you.
And 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.
Because this is a citizen initiated measure, City Council is limited to arguments opposing
the measure.
the event the 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 7th is the deadline for Council to adopt a resolution and submit the
ballot measure to the county. Shortly thereafter, August 19th, 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 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.
Instead, 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.
Right 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 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 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 two of the resolution
if the council wanted to consider this issue further.
And this wasn't referenced 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.
I have a question then, so what is the range of cost to the city if this were to go on
to 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 $30,000 to $35,000, but I don't think they were taking
into account the 65 pages translated into also Spanish and Chinese.
That would be more than, okay.
And just what you were talking about then, Charles, can local citizens file a ballot
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
out of the resolution assuming you're gonna 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
than individuals so there there there's a priority listing that the city clerk
has to follow when she's selecting the ballot arguments. So I had 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 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. So 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
and authorize some proofing 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 on to 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
to 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.
OK, so there's no summary of it.
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?
Yeah, and I'm not clear, I'm not quite clear yet, but.
There isn't.
So if I may, pardon me if 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 of four
are against and whether or not you include the full measure.
Okay, and then is mailing it to you the only option
or is it posted on a website that people have access to?
There's nothing stopping the city from posting
it on a website and making it available that way.
but 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 the proponents can do more outreach, too.
Are we allowed to have you summarize further than 500 words
in what is not in the ballot book?
The council is allowed to direct me to write anything
you want me to write, but what can be published
is limited to 500 words.
But not published.
I mean, can that be attached to the 65 pages navigational tool?
No.
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, are we in with that portion?
Yeah, so that concludes my presentation,
but I want to bring back this 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,
I was waiting for these two options to come up.
Well, those options are Mount Diablo or downtown.
No, I understand, but okay.
All right, so now let's open it up to public comment,
if there's anybody from the,
that'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?
No, so, all right, the floor is yours.
I'm Mayor Wilk and Mayor Pro Tem Francois
on 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 and 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. Uh, 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 that
open 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 and 1.5 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 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 Barts 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,
oh, 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 you think there are technical things
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 just let them.
No, go ahead.
Give us the answers.
What do you think?
That's fine, that's fine.
We don't even need to have that on the clock.
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and council members and staff.
My name is Cecily Barclay and I am the land use attorney
and also the landowner but also representative
of the campaign committee here this evening.
And I don't wanna over,
I actually, I appreciated 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 the 20% affordable housing.
We get the 20% because it's senior housing.
But I think as time went on, it was clear
that 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. Mattis explained aptly
that under state law, there are certain protections
for senior housing under the density bonus law.
senior housing is to find 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
added 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 thing being added
on those pages are language that says,
And this applies to the MURC zone.
So I don't know if I actually have a 400.
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,
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 100,000 square feet for 2.4 acres.
So if you have, well, I'm going to take that comment out
for a second and just say, if you've got 100,000 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 was 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
and 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, you know,
the ALTA detailed surveys out there.
Can I jump in and ask you a quick question?
Yes, of course.
I just want to make sure I've got this.
So when you're talking about the 425,
that's of the lot itself.
Yeah, so that.
The units, however, are bigger.
They could be as big as you.
Because they're all-
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.
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 where we don't 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.
It's a healthy size unit.
Thank you.
I didn't mean to interrupt.
I just wanted to...
We were 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 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
And the reality is, as we do our market analysis,
we're going to have a lot of different size units.
There'll be a unit mix that will target
different parts of the market.
So 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 answer the question of the difference between the unit
count and what the one per 425 means?
Feel good about that.
OK.
thank you all right but we're here for any other questions that you might have
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
and mr. Simon and Steve Mattis to answer the questions thank you for the
presentation thank you for all the work that went into this so Councilmember
Silva asked this question earlier 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
readopted for the initiative amendment area and and it's the proponents 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 that is exactly the intent okay thank
you yeah you do and I'm the attorney for the campaign committee and the
proponents and it's my question is for councilmember Silva did did that answer
your question about the bike sidewalk area that you expressed concern because
you went through that process so you know it well you were concerned that it
would compromise that that walkability the bike ability that had been planned
for did that answer your question about preserving that because I know we had
frontage and and then side area is this something that we've clarified okay so
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. It was a range of like 5 to 15 and so it made me think, 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
gonna ask Mr. Davis to answer one question, but 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 M-U-R-S-C. 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 I'm going to now, I'm going to let Chuck either tell me,
because you're 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 off hand.
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 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 going to
honor them. Let me before he walks away and you can come back up and I
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.
the same thing would be true on Ignacio Valley Road. And that if you look at the
general plan and the North Ten 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
and I saw staff sort of, do you have something to add?
Yeah, okay.
Of course, 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,
It's 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 Ignacia 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.
So the only thing I would put out there is, you know,
the intent is to meet this 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
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, then.
Correct.
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 five to 15 foot
setback, depending on whether it's a primary or secondary
frontage.
OK.
But I thought they gave us another three feet
and then started the property line.
Is that what I heard?
No.
Yes.
That would that there's the 52 feet plus three.
No.
No.
now the width is 49 feet and so we need three more feet to get to the 52 so let
let me ask a question is the planning department so assuming one of two things
either we adopt 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 it's not just like it's being built in our planning
department it's not involved. That's great. Are you talking about for our future
development? Or our future development? Yes, correct. Okay. 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, 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, we're not
voting on a project, but the part that's most exciting to me is the potential for a commercial,
fixed-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, you know.
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
to actually have enough space to do a commercial center?
What is the likelihood that that will come to pass?
I think that's critical.
I mean, 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 there is a hole in the market.
We've studied this just from Sprouts and Lanardies 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 now have Weimar 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 Silver 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 multifamily 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.
OK.
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 of a million dollars to basically integrate
all aspects of this into our general plan, the North Downtown specific plan, all of the
zoning code, all the maps, et cetera.
That correct is an estimate, right?
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 money.
Who pays for that?
Well the
Normally the city would pay for that
But there's nothing preventing from the applicant wants to pay for that the applicant can pay for that, too
And 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 now says obviously 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
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 option
door a door B 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 go 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
Further comments?
You know, I tend to agree with that.
I think that that essentially is a path that we've been going down, is putting it before
the voters.
There had been the option of a ballot argument in opposition.
I don't think that's appropriate here because I have, 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 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 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, Council Member Silva raised a question again about the costs, 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 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
council member Francois that I or mayor pro tem sorry that just stay silent on it and allow the
process to run its course council member Davini any further word yeah I mean I I agree with the
the previous reasoning, it does seem like a process that 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. There's
I think there's a vision here that sounds exciting that it can make that
area an interesting area. I mean right now there's the Target, I mean going to
the store targets the clothes. 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 from 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 or barely passes or frankly doesn't pass but I also agree I
I don't think that it makes sense to have a battle argument against it.
We'll say silent.
You'll have your marketing, and we'll see what the voters say on this.
So, yeah, let's say so how this looks for a future development.
You can put that slide back.
And, Mayor, 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 applet.
Well, I'll speak about 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 and
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 a 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 as a
The initiative understood so understood now. This is an opportunity to
Because we talked about this so there's 500 words and I suppose you
Would come up with a complete analysis in 500 words, but is there if we're going to put it on the website would we 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
Well, this measure isn't written by the council.
It's written by the proponents.
And so I think 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 the council is not the proponent of this measure.
So if the council wants me to write a broader, a longer analysis, I can do that, but we're
not actually the proponents of the measure.
Yeah.
What I didn't mean as far as being a proponent, 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 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 it 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 that because that's that's what we 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
I that is the initiative process and so it's okay. 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 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 it has lots of opportunity to answer the questions that come up.
What's a step back?
What's a step back?
Why are those different?
So I'm comfortable sticking with the 500 word impartial summary, the full text of the initiative.
On the website.
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're just 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 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'll make mayor if I
because we need to edit the resolution a little bit so if the council is okay
I'll just read some changes into the record and Susie I am going to ask you
to display that one change but we'll do this so first we're going to recommend
that section 8 that is in the resolution right 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 of section 2, so
it's just before the ballot question and 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 2, 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
only counsel if you wish to put it in here you could we could add a sentence
it probably would make more sense to do that later on we could have a replacement
section 8 which just directs us the 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 doing that, giving staff to do that in the future. No, we can take
that direction from you tonight. That can be part of your motion. I don't think we need to address it.
It does. It's just, it's, a city can always provide public information,
on advocacy, public information, educational information about a ballot measure, 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 2 as was shown on
the screen and the removal of section 8. So moved. Did you second? We have a move
did you second? Oh I was I was thinking it was sections I was confused between
7 and 8. I will second. Okay we have a motion in a second. If you could call the
roll Susie. Councilmember Silva. Aye. Councilmember Darling. Aye. Councilmember Daveny. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem
Francois. Hi. And Mayor Will. Hi. 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 adjourned this meeting
in her honor as 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.