September 17, 2019 Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

Video

Transcript

[00:00:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And we will start with the pledge of allegiance. If you will join me. Next is roll call.

[00:01:20] City Clerk: All council members are present.

[00:01:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the consent calendar, and these items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council or audience wishes to remove the item for discussion. The reading of the full text of ordinances and resolutions will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. Are there any items that a council member wishes to push? Pull. Excuse me, Mary, did you want to proceed with the presentation before the consent calendar? I apologize if it was... If it was not on here, I apologize.

[00:01:58] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Sorry. Of course we do. Sorry, Bruce. Make you wait. It wasn't on the page, she's a paper. But please join me here, Bruce. So we thought we would take this time to recognize Bruce Humphrey, who has been with the chamber for many years. And most recently, as the president and CEO, and, um, we've worked so well with him and closely with him that as he goes on to his next adventure, uh, we thought it was fitting that we should recognize him here tonight.

[00:02:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Send that to you. But I will also read it. So, whereas Bruce Humphrey has served as Mountain View Chamber of Commerce for over two and a half years, most recently as the president's CEO and head of government affairs, and whereas Bruce has developed strong relationships with many Mountain View businesses and government leaders, and has been instrumental in the success of the leadership Mountain View program. And the annual Arden Wine Festival. And whereas Bruce has served as a chamber ambassador for 2 years, meeting with new members and promoting the chamber, and was named Ambassador of the Year for 2016. And whereas Bruce has been instrumental in identifying key issues of interest to Mountain View businesses. And whereas Bruce has been an excellent partner to the city to understand the issues Mountain View businesses are facing, and how we might work together to address them. And whereas Bruce has facilitated business visits for the mayor and council members to check in with Mountain View businesses, which have been awesome, by the way. And whereas Bruce is a skilled and energetic professional who effectively builds relationships and understands the mountain view community. Now, therefore, I, Lisa Matachek, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby express gratitude and appreciation to Bruce Humphrey for his contributions to the city of Mountain View. We extend our best wishes to Bruce in his future endeavors. Signed and sealed the 17th day of September.

[00:04:44] Bruce Humphrey: Well, thank you, Honorable Mayor. This truly is an honor to be recognized by the city council, and I'd also like to make sure that I recognize the rest of the council, the vice mayor, and the rest of the council, and thank you for your leadership every day. I know that you make very tough decisions, and I appreciate your service to the community, and the support that you've given the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. I'd also like to extend my gratitude to Dan Rich, the city manager, who we've had a great relationship, and I just appreciate Dan taking all my phone calls. And the city, and also the council members taking my phone calls. Um, and I'd also like to thank the city staff, in particular, uh, economic development, and because I think that we've developed a true, um, relationship over this time, and, uh, Mountain View businesses in general. But as we all know, no one succeeds on their own. So, um, I'd like to also thank the board of directors in our board chair, Kathy Thibodeau is here today. So thank you for your support and the board support. But mostly I want to thank the staff. Well, most of them are here tonight, too. And we all know that no one succeeds on their own, and you guys have made my job easy, so thank you very much. Thank you so much.

[00:06:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, now back to that consent calendar. Is there any member of the counselor that wishes to pull an item? Council member, Hicks.

[00:06:37] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I don't want to pull an item, but I just want to speak to one of the items, because there were, um, some questions from the public, and I think, from a number of written questions from council members. Item?

[00:06:49] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So that is item 4.4, the resolution to join California Community Housing Agency.

[00:06:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That was also when I was going to pull. Council member McAllister.

[00:07:00] Councilmember John McAlister: 4.3.

[00:07:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: 4.3? Comment.

[00:07:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Just a comment.

[00:07:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Do you want to make a comment?

[00:07:05] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah.

[00:07:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Actually, are there any other items that council members want to pull? Okay. Go ahead.

[00:07:14] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, so. This thing about our independent auditor was always... I always find it challenging, because it's an in house unindependent auditor, which, I think, is sometimes difficult to see the difference between the two. And when I was looking at the work plan, I noticed that a lot of the work plan had to do with money coming in. But not a lot about how money was going out or how contracts were procured, and I would, that's, to me, was sometimes a bigger item of concern that when I see a few dollars here, or every dollar, well, every dollar is important, that hell contracts are awarded, should always be reviewed too, to make sure that we're following proper procedures, and that we're getting the biggest bang for the buck on our... purchase when we bring in these contractors or contacts. And so I don't know if that's in the potential privy of the independent auditor, but I would think everything's available to the independent auditor. So, I will be voting some support of it, but I think we need to take a better look at the role and how, and make sure that there's complete transparency to the residents of the Mountain View, and that, uh, we document everything fairly well. Thank you.

[00:08:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, Allison, did you want to make a comment on 4.4? Why don't you go first? Because mine, my questions were answered. Yours may be, uh,

[00:08:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: so I just had the question of, um, if a property is might be purchased in the city of Mountain View for rehabilitation or land purchased for building a complex, um, it says there that the city manager has the authority to sign that agreement. Since there would be no expenditure of city funds for this, Would that come to council before it would go to the city manager or his designate before The agreement was signed.

[00:09:26] City Manager Dan Rich: Wayne, Wayne can fill us in on the details, but I believe the way it's structured that it would not go to council. would be the city manager's discretion.

[00:09:37] Wayne Chen, Community Development: But evening, Wayne Chen, community development. Yes, the city manager is correct, the way that the JPA membership would work would be the joining of the JPA by jurisdictions with the approval for the city manager or designated them, henceforth be the primary person that is reviewing and then signing off on the purchase option and approval of a potential acquisition deal. as well as property that might be purchased, that to build a complex. For development, a brand new development. A brand new development would then come through the standard entitlement process, but for an acquisition, the notion is that, yes.

[00:10:22] City Manager Dan Rich: Okay. And just clarify, that's the way it's structured now, council at its discretion, could always adopt a council policy that, you know, would require something to come to you, but the way it's structured now, for those purposes, the city manager would have that discretion.

[00:10:41] Councilmember Alison Hicks: If we were to do that, would that be tonight, or would that be at a later date, that we would have a council policy? And it would go, like, to the CPPC, and then come to council?

[00:10:50] City Manager Dan Rich: I think that if that's your desire, I would suggest you refer to the CPPC to discuss and come up with a recommendation.

[00:10:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So before we, did you have a comment? I'm sorry.

[00:11:02] Unknown Speaker: Well, yeah, I Yes, I think we should have a council policy.

[00:11:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So, before we vote on this, are there any items that a member of the public wants to pull? 4.3 auditor. Did you want to provide us with your comments?

[00:11:24] Gary Wesley: Sure. So, some 20 years ago, when the City Mountain View Gary Wesley from Mountain View, speaking. When the city got a new city attorney, a man by the name of Michael Martello, we had a provision for an independent auditor in the city charter. But the practice had been that that auditor wasn't at all independent because he worked for the city manager. And he doubled as the head of the finance department. Uh, and G. How could the finance director audit himself? And so in the early days, when there was talk, of the insufficiency of the auditor, in Mountain View, Mr. Martello proposed at the city council, a charter amendment, to eliminate any question as to whether or not this farce of having a financed audit him or herself might be challenged in court. And voters, unfortunately, did approve that change, and were left without an independent auditor at all. And so no wonder, there's a question now about the scope of work for the auditor. It's all just a farce. There is no independent auditor in this city, but you could change that by action of the city council. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[00:12:54] City Manager Dan Rich: So just to be clear for the council and members of the public, the city is required by law to hire an independent contractor. independent auditor every year who does an entire review of our finances, including expenditures and contracts and things done by the finance department. So that notion is not entirely correct. Number one, number two, when the city auditor acts in the name of the audit or role, he or she is not reporting to the city manager. I do not approve his reports, they go straight to you, and he takes his direction directly from you in those instances. Thank you.

[00:13:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, uh, no other items from the public to pull? Okay, then emotion is in order. Counselor Clarke?

[00:13:52] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I'll move the consent calendar, which includes item 4.4, which is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city to become an additional member of the California Community Housing Agency, supporting the California Community Housing Agency's issuance of tax exempt bonds for the production preservation, and protection of middle income rental housing, and authorizing the city manager, his designee, to enter into purchase option agreements with the California Community Housing Agency for middle income rental housing created within the city limits, to be read title only for the reading wave.

[00:14:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we have a motion by Council Mayor Clark. I seconded it, but I'd like to see if we could add, um, an amendment to that to say that we would refer to the CPPC, um, to create a policy that these projects would come to the council, uh, before the city manager signs them. Is the, are you okay with that, Chris?

[00:14:46] Councilmember Chris Clark: Right. Yes. I mean, was the, was the intent to streamline it, or, or, I mean, are you okay with bringing it all to council before? I just don't know if there were specific reasons for, like, if the timing was such that it wouldn't have time to come to council, but if these are things that will have time to cycle through things, then that's a different story.

[00:15:06] Wayne Chen, Community Development: Yes, just to provide some input on that. The operations of the JPA is to allow the agency and its partner catalyst to be able to identify potential acquisition opportunities and move quickly with the market that was the one of the key goals for the structure of the JPA, JPA as it is.

[00:15:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: I'm happy to do the CPPC referral, but I'll just be honest, like property happens, as we know happens, moves pretty quickly, so I'd be if you can all find a way to bring it to the council exceedingly quickly, then that's fine, but I'm not sure I would end up supporting it, but I'm happy to do the CPPC referral and see what comes out of it.

[00:15:53] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister.

[00:15:55] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just want to make a comment on this motion, which I find encouraging, because I've been working on this thought for about 6.5 years, and I'll just read one part of this staff report says, Cal CHE is authorized to issue revenue bonds and to undertake various activities, to meet its objective, including acquisition, rehabilitation of existing units, operations, and maintenance. And I'm glad to see that the city manager is behind this 100%. And so I think this is a great solution to a issue we have in Mountain View.

[00:16:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks. Did you have a comment?

[00:16:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I mean, there, um, you know, there are pros and cons, but I would like to add the amendment that the mayor is suggesting because both the public and council had a number of questions, including whether the, um, additional units would, uh, pay taxes for schools and a number of other rather important line items, and I just, uh, apparently we can withdraw from the JPA pretty easily if we don't like the way it's going. So most of staff's questions clarified. My questions. Thank you, but if possible, I would like to add that amendment.

[00:17:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I'm including the referral to CPPC.

[00:17:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so we have a motion by council member Clark, and I seconded the motion. Any other comments? Okay, we'll call the question. So the consent calendar passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda. is oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section, and state law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the council on an item not on the agenda? Be sure to also fill out a blue card either before or after you speak and leave it with our city clerk. Thank you.

[00:18:06] Gary Wesley: Sure, thanks. Gary Wesley of Mountain View. So I won't address the outside auditor, which is different from the independent auditor. Although I could, and that's by contract with the city, the scope of which is defined by the city. And if you actually go and read those, you'll find a big disclaimer that proper auditing practices haven't been followed. At least this was true in the past, maybe not under the current city manager. In any event, I want to talk tonight a little bit about rent control. Not measure V. That's later on your agenda. But about rent controlled at a different level. You might know that there is a state lawmaker. From San Francisco who's been pushing housing legislation. He's a 49 year old Harvard Law graduate, which partly describes 2 legislators from San Francisco, state senator Scott Wiener, and state assemblyman David Chu. Assemblyman Chu is a lead author of Assembly Bill 1482 which he describes as an anti-rent gouging bill. Governor Newsom is expected to sign the bill into law shortly. It can for a short period be challenged by opponents in a referendum petition, but if that doesn't happen, it will become law next year. This state rent control would be for residential housing, it is 5% plus inflation, and it contains something we've had by state law mandated since 1995, which is vacancy decontrol. That is, that there is no limitation on how much rent could be charged to a tenant upon a lawful turnover of a unit. That's true under measure V. And if you wanted to know whether landlords were getting a fair rate of return, you'd have to survey to see what the turnover is in Mountain View, and how much rent surcharged for all of the units to get an idea of whether rent control is making much of a dent in the profit of those landlords. But as far as I know, the city hasn't undertaken to do those things. The state rent control law will not apply to mobile home parks. And so the city remains free, I think, to adopt a mobile home park resident ordinance. I looked online and I found that there are 101 cities and counties in the state with mobile home park restrictions on rent, and you ought to join them. Thanks so much.

[00:21:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[00:21:13] Chris Moore: Hello, my name is Chris Moore. Mount B resident. It's the first time I've ever been moved to, speaking in front of you guys, so I hope that bears some weight. I'm also not one for precan speeches, and 3 minutes seems frightfully short, so the cool story that I had in my head. I'm going to skip, just to get to the point, I want to speak about short-term rentals. I think the intent of it is fantastic. I understand you don't want corporations buying up entire neighborhoods and, you know, destroying the makeup of a good community. I also understand why, you know, you don't want speculators and doing all sorts of things, like they're listed of excessive trash and all those kind of things that you mentioned and the purpose of whatever it is, section 44. However, IPO, I am kind of the person that you're supposed to be helping with affordable housing. So for years, I struggled to make rent. I lived far away, saving up, working tons overtime. I finally was able to live close enough where after working a 14 hour graveyard shift for neighboring municipality and public service, and almost crashing and killing people. I knew I needed to live close, right? So I decided that I had to do something to live close to where I worked. And I couldn't afford a single family home. However, I was able to discover that with good financing, I was able to buy a duplex and have that front unit supplement my income. So I was able to afford the mortgage. Recently, I got a letter in the mail that said, doing a short-term rental, I'm now going to owe the city 10% of the gross. I don't think that's fair because it doesn't take into account the time, effort, and money I put into making that furnished and rentable, as well as, I don't understand, it seems to be arbitrary to me like the 30 day cutoff, right? So if I do 31 days and rent it out to Google and sort some corporate rental, no one gets taxed. There's no change in actual practical application of the neighborhood demographics or anything like that. But if I do 29 days or below, The city gets 10% of my gross. And to me, that's just very frustrating. I don't understand it. It hurts me personally. So my incentive is to just go off like a corporate rental, right? So, um, if I know you guys can't really explain our answers on these, but, um, Since I have 10 more seconds, so I add that I was a major in economics in college. rent control in theory and practice doesn't work. I think the way to incentivize affordable housing, which is absolutely needed, is developer incentives, I like tax credit for landlords. As we know, there's been some antenna consequences for the rent control that's already been acted. Thank you very much.

[00:23:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please. And remember, these are items not on the agenda.

[00:23:54] Guadalupe Rosas: Good evening, council mayor and council members. Um, I just took the opportunity, because I don't see a lot of people waiting, and I'm here to bring to your attention, council member Clark, that I have sent you a few invitations in regards to meeting with us. It's just a friendly reminder Hopefully you'll go through your whole bunch of emails that you receive and you look for Guadalupe Rosas and then hopefully you'll respond. Thank you. You have a good evening.

[00:24:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the council on item not on the agenda? Okay, then we will close this portion of the meeting. And, uh, there has been, um, a little bit of a discussion about potentially changing the order of items on the agenda tonight. And, um, we, I want to see how the council feels about potentially moving items 7.one to after item 8.1. If you want to provide, do you want to provide reason?

[00:25:02] Unknown Speaker: And the reason being there, 2 of us are going to have to recuse ourselves on 7.1 due to conflict of interest, and therefore, we'd like to expedite the efficiency of our council, and for the community here is more likely to want to hear 7.2 versus 7.1. And therefore, I think we would be, um, two, the 2 council members would like to be involved as much as possible. And second, that the community would be like to be heard sooner than later.

[00:25:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez?

[00:25:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So I have no preference, and whatever is more convenient for the body is, I'd be comfortable with.

[00:25:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any comments?

[00:25:51] Unknown Speaker: So, um, I'm actually okay just leaving it, I think, um, that some expectations were set. that I just learned about today, right before the meeting. Um, and, um, I feel like I just leave it like it is. So I'll move that we just leave it like it is, all those in favor, just nod your head, or...?

[00:26:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Raising hair is broadly. Okay. Sorry, we are going to leave it, as is tonight. So we will move on to items 7.1. And did you want to... Before we start, did you two want to announce Council member Ramirez?

[00:26:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Mayor. So I will be recusing myself from this item because I have a leasehold interest in an apartment that is in close proximity to the project site.

[00:26:48] Unknown Speaker: And I'm recusing myself because I do business with the Los Altos school district, and to avoid any conflict of interest or intended conflict of interest, I will be recusing myself.

[00:26:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So start tonight with a staff presentation.

[00:27:17] Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro: Good evening, Mayor, and the remaining council members. I'm Rebecca Shapiro, Deputy Zang Administrator with the Community Development Department. And the item I am presenting to tonight is a request for gatekeeper authorization of an application to develop an approximately 230,000 square foot office building with ground floor retail and incorporating up to 150,000 square feet of development rights from the city's transfer of development rights or TDR program, which supports the Los Altos school district's efforts to build a new school in the San Antonio precise plan area. In tonight's presentation, I will briefly provide some background on the TDR program as well as the TDR gatekeeper request and also touch on additional information on a key policy topic on which council input is requested by staff tonight. In January of last year, council provided final direction and approval for the TDR program, which was memorialized in an MOU between the city and LSD. The TDR program created and allowed for the transfer of up to 610,000 square feet of development rights from the proposed LSD school site, where the square footage is not needed to actually develop the school. Although the program was originally established for a different property or set of properties in the precise plan area, LSD is currently under contract for an approximately 11.65 acre property, currently owned by federal realty in San Antonio Center. And that property includes a separate 2 acre parcel that the city would be able to acquire for a public park site. Last year, council also agreed to provide funding of up to $23 million for the joint use open space that would be developed on the school site itself, authorized 7 gatekeeper requests for development proposals utilizing TDR square footage, and allowed one prospective TDR purchaser to defer their gatekeeper application for up to 5 years, which falls within the 10-year horizon of the TDR program. All of the available TDR square footage is currently subscribed to the best of staff's knowledge through the 8 projects that the city council has already reviewed, which are shown on the screen and include this project. And tonight's Gatekeeper request was originally authorized last year in the 1st round of TDR Gatekeeper projects reviewed by council in January, but expired after one year per city's code on Gatekeeper projects because the development application was not submitted in time. The gatekeeper request has also changed in 2 ways, which I'll touch on since the original authorization. The current request by Merlin Geyer is to develop an 8 story office building on a nearly one acre site on the southeast corner of San Antonio Road and California Street, immediately next to the phase 2 development, which is completed construction. As noted earlier, the proposal includes a request to use 150,000 square feet of TDR square footage, and the request also includes a request for FAR flexibility under the San Antonio Precise Plan, which I'll discuss shortly. Unlike the original Gatekeeper request, the current proposal now includes ground full retail space. It also has added 2 parcels resulting in full buildout opportunity at this corner. The design itself features ground level pedestrian arcades and rooftop decks. The project has 3 levels of underground parking, which would be accessed and connected to access from and connected to the underground parking for the existing office buildings in the phase 2 development, which are visible in the background of the rendering. Some elements of this proposal can potentially be approved through existing provisions of the San Antonio precise plan that includes the proposed 8 story height, which the precise plan has provisions for allowing on a case by case basis. However, the project will require some modifications to the precise plan and likely exceptions from development standards, which is something that we've seen in other TDR gatekeeper projects that are under review, and was identified by Merlin Geyer in their request letter. The San Antonio precise plan allows up to 2.35 FAR on this site, of which up to 0.75 FAR can be commercial area. Well, it's a detailed analysis of this proposal will come with more detailed plans, if council authorizes the gatekeeper request, however, based on the currently available information, the proposed project proposes commercial development up to approximately 5.35 FAR, which exceeds the allowed FAR under the precise plan, which is shown in red, on this graphic, in two ways, and we've presented this information graphically as well as narratively on this slide. First, the LSD square footage in orange would allow for a substantial increase in the amount of commercial floor area that can be developed in this project. In addition, Merlo and Geyer is requesting to transfer unused commercial square footage from the phase one and 2 developments under the flexible FAR provisions of the San Antonio precise plan, which is specifically identified as something that's up to council discretion in the precise plan. There were questions ahead of this meeting about the intent to explain a little bit more about the intent of that FAR flexibility and to respond to that. The intent was specifically to allow FAR to be calculated, to be explicit about allowing FAR to be calculated cumulatively across multiple parcels within a project, a major redevelopment or master plan, rather than sort of allowing any question as to if the FAR limitations or regulations in the precise plan would have to be applied on a parcel by parcel basis. The provision was intended to be a proactive planning and urban design tool to allow flexibility to concentrate in place the appropriate amount of land uses on different parcels within a larger project. and had not been intended as a bank that could be drawn from later with subsequent redevelopment or as a de facto TDR program between projects, you know, now and later. While that was not the original intent of this FAR flexibility, nor is it staff's recommendation that it be applied as such, it is entirely within council's discretion to do so in this case. But we did want to also take a moment to highlight that there could be other reasons that, you know, one or more council members would not wish to do so in this case. One such reason is as shown on the screen. that the LASD square footage would itself make for a much larger project and adding additional square footage through this FAR transfer on top of that would further increase the scale of the building. and potentially the exceptions from the intended development envisioned under the precise plan. In conclusion, staff is recommending that city council authorize assignment of staff resources for the proposed gatekeeper project as it would advance policy objectives from the precise plan for achieving a school site in the San Antonio area and keeping some of that available TDR within the precise plan area. While another office building was not specifically envisioned in this master plan area, the project would be generally consistent with the overall office development cap in a square footage basis. And the location is proximal to major transit services, and the project would also provide ground level activating retail uses at a key corner in the precise planet area. Alternatives are highlighted in the staff report for council consideration as well. And I did just, in closing, want to note that the applicant does have some prepared remarks, and we're all available for questions, should the council have any, and that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you. So did the applicant have presentation?

[00:35:42] Executive Managing Director Scott McPherson: Good evening, mayor and council members. My name's Scott McPherson. I'm executive managing director of Merlon Geyer. And thank you for hosting us tonight. I don't really have a presentation. I did want to make a few real brief comments about the reauthorization request of this gatekeeper letter. The 1st is that we are we are the largest participant in the TDR program. So we have agreed to acquire more TDR square footage than any other participant, and we're very excited about the prospect of having the school and the joint use park adjacent to us. And we think that it'll be a great addition to our neighborhood. I also think it's important to remind everyone that this is a reauthorization, in essence, we have not changed the submittal. Last time we didn't own 2 of the 4 parcels, which we call block 3 on this corner. We were in discussions for both of them, but we did not own them. And this body approved that request for the same square footage you seated today, the same number of floors. Today, on a positive note, or here, we do own and control all 4 parcels. So we're able to come to you with certainty. And that's why we resubmitted, and that's why we worked so hard on fine tuning this elevation in the meantime. We have another speaker here that would like to speak on behalf of a project, and we remain available to answer any questions, and thank you for your support.

[00:37:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, um, is it somebody else from Marlon Geier? Or your architect or?

[00:37:34] Executive Managing Director Scott McPherson: Um, so wouldn't that just be public input?

[00:37:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, sorry. Okay, so are there any questions from the council? I think you're going for it. Are you? Vice mayor Abi Koga?

[00:37:53] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I had a question regarding the TDR sales, um, if you can remind me, 'cause it's been a while, but, um, were there, uh, was it open-ended, so any developer could purchase as much square footage as TDR square footage as they wanted, or were there certain guidelines?

[00:38:12] Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro: There are no specific guidelines that are outlined in the MOU, and it's ultimately in LASD's hands to work with negotiate fine potential purchasers. It is ultimately in city council's hands to review proposals to utilize the TDR square footage through the gatekeeper process.

[00:38:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And then, um, there is mention of, originally, the property owner owning just 2 parcels, now the four. So, in the original gatekeeper, was it 230,000 square feet on the size of 2 parcels, how could that be the same as this one? I don't remember that.

[00:38:56] City Staff: I'll admit to not having been part of the original round of gatekeeper reviews, but I do, you know, per the applicant's remarks, believe that the envision square footage was the same, and that staff's support for it was contingent on the ability to acquire the additional parcels for a cohesive site, which they were able to do, just not in the original time frame of the initial authorization.

[00:39:22] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So the original gatekeeper was for the same square footage, and our approval was based on them acquiring the other two parcels.

[00:39:33] City Staff: I believe so, or at least the understanding is that it was only really feasible to develop as a project were those additional parcels to be acquired.

[00:39:43] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That's my question because I don't remember. It would have to be higher than 8 stories, I think, right? If it was on 2 parcels instead of four, and I don't remember something that tall.

[00:39:53] City Staff: All right, thank you.

[00:39:55] Deputy Zoning Administrator Rebecca Shapiro: Perhaps the applicant can answer that.

[00:39:57] Executive Managing Director Scott McPherson: But my recollection was it was the same basic project. assuming all 4 sites, but they didn't control all 4 at the time, and therefore it didn't make sense to proceed.

[00:40:07] City Manager Dan Rich: But it wasn't the same square footage on smaller sites, nor was it, anything different?

[00:40:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions?

[00:40:21] Unknown Speaker: So the only one I have is, um, purchasers of TDRs have the ability to resell TDRs.

[00:40:29] City Staff: Correct. Once they complete a transaction with LSD to purchase them.

[00:40:32] Unknown Speaker: Okay, and their transaction is completed?

[00:40:35] City Staff: I don't believe so, but I would need them to confirm.

[00:40:45] Applicant: Have assigned LOI to purchase the TDRs, as I believe all of the other participants do. The agreement doesn't require us to close on those TDRs until we have our approvals to build.

[00:41:00] Unknown Speaker: The project is approved as opposed to the gatekeeper approval. Correct?

[00:41:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. Okay, uh, no other council questions, we will open this up for public comment. So if there's anyone who wishes to address the council on this item, please be sure to fill out a blue card and leave it with our city clerk and come on up to the microphone. Why don't we have you go first?

[00:41:29] Superintendent Jeff Behr: Pardon?

[00:41:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: afterwards.

[00:41:31] Superintendent Jeff Behr: Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Good evening. Mayor and council, I'm Jeff Behr, superintendent of Los Altos school district. I'll keep my remarks brief. First, we want to thank you again and appreciate the incredibly hard work from both staff and council in moving this partnership forward. It has been a long road. And, um, But we are making fantastic progress and looking to acquire the property in um, escrow closing in um, October and closing the sale in November. So it's right around the corner. We're excited about that. This is, as was mentioned, they are our largest purchaser of TDRs. This is the same project that was approved originally. And this is, um, the, uh, the only TDR staying within San Antonio Precise Plan area. So we really think it's an important acquisition as well. And part of that wish of the council that we tried to adhere to as much as we can of keeping as many as much of the transfer in the San Antonio precise plan area as possible. Uncertainty creates complications for us as purchasers. We are looking for certainty in order to have the confidence to close our sales. So this is an important piece to us. And, um, I just ask you for your consideration in that. because we have appreciated thus far the work and we're excited to bring a school and a park to that neighborhood. Thank you.

[00:43:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[00:43:24] Matt Roschke: Good evening, Council member, Mayor. Uh, my name is Matt Roschke. I'm a local resident of the area of this project. I'm in the crossings. I'm also a member of the Greater San Antonio Community Association. And I like to start out by saying that I fully support the staff position that adding the square footage from phases one and phase 2 is not what I'd like to see. I think this is a very large proposal for this site. coming to tonight with mixed emotions. I'm very happy that the Los Altos school district is able to get this transaction, um, kind of configured and move forward with a school for the area, but, uh, where the greater San Antonio Association is very disappointed in the loss of the milk pail. were very sad that that left and then to be presented with this giant box of architecture, to replace it all is quite a shock. So I think it's great that the lot would be redeveloped, but I'd like to see a much more thoughtful architecture, a lower building. I work for the city of Palo Alto. I'm senior engineer, and it's an 8 story building, and if you want to know what that's like, on even a day that's not very windy, walk into the front door of Palo Alto City Hall and feel the breeze. It's, it's, you know, when you get above the tree line, uh, the wind gets captured and funneled down, and, um, even with pedestrian arcades propose, I think it's, it's not going to be a very pedestrian friendly area for the, for the ground floor retail. So you know, I'd like to see it kind of stepped back. I mean, I wouldn't actually mind if it actually went higher in stepping back. But, you know, right now, I don't understand their proposal in that it blocks the theater that we fought hard for. You know, it's gonna completely block the marquee of the icon theater, and it blocks the actual, um, village of San Antonio, um, monument sign behind it. You can see it in the rendering. So, you know, I'd like to kind of shrink the square footage and rethink the architecture there, make it more pedestrian, especially at the corner, maybe put a plaza there, try to encourage the pedestrian usage of that site so that the ground floor retail is successful because right now we're waiting for a whole lot of retail. It's just empty storefronts everywhere there. So, you know, we got, you know, we lost a lot of, you know, there's no more shoe store there. Uh, the, the sporting goods. you know, we just like to see some retail come in and and, and actually get some payback for what we what we've encountered. Thanks.

[00:46:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next place.

[00:46:32] Natalia Weinstein: Hello, my name is Natalia Weinstein, and I live on the border of Mountain View, and Palo Alto, my respect to the city manager, and all of the members and your mayor. I wrote a letter to the council through email, expressing my Definite opposition to building this huge building on this particular corner. I've been a resident of this area for 20 years, and I'm already deeply saddened by the design of the facades of business buildings, looking onto San Antonio Road, because it used to be a, of course, the progress should be progressed, and Unfortunately, we, as residents, don't have enough information of the park and the schools, it sounds like addressing human needs. But this building will actually kill the humane and human atmosphere that use this area used to have, I'm also, uh, impressed by the inner space that the developers managed to design, so the residents or the visitors of this area could have something. Besides those. I'm sorry, but that was quite primitive urban buildings. And they will look at the, uh, attempt to build business buildings in other citizens of Bay Area. We can look at the buildings build a long material. Matilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, for example. And even though they are, 4 or 5 stories. They don't look, that unfriendly, for the pedestrians, for the residents altogether. If you approach this corner, from the direction of alchemine real, it starts with something very acceptable, but if you move just a couple of 100s feet forward as a pedestrian or as a driver, you don't feel any welcoming vibes going from the building. This one will just destroy the least part of the atmosphere and culture that used to be welcoming on this corner. Thank you. I am against this.

[00:49:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Others? Is there anyone else who wishes to address the council on this item? Okay, we'll close the public input portion. And bring it back to council if there's any further questions or discussion. Council member Kameh?

[00:50:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, I just, uh, the public comment, um, uh, sparks some questions, um, uh, that I have for the applicant, if I could ask you. So one of the things that was discussed in the staff report and brought up in public comment is the retail component. And now that the hotel is completed, Can you please share with us in the public the efforts that are going to be made in terms of retail and activation in the area?

[00:50:32] Applicant: Surrounding phases and not the proposed block three?

[00:50:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:50:35] Applicant: Yes, as you're aware, we experienced some delays in opening the hotel. We are not the owners or the developers of the hotel, but the hotel was more than a year, almost a year and a half behind schedule. And that made it difficult combined with our office tenant uncertainty. You'll probably recall early on, we had a lease signed, and then that company sold to another company and they decided not to open. So we experienced dual delays there that created a level of uncertainty that just made it difficult for us to lease. But on the positive front now that those office buildings are occupied, and the 2nd one just recently, we're seeing an uptake in leasing, and with the hotel opening, it's even more pronounced. So we're actively in negotiation with multiple tenants right now, some of which I think have already approached the city for conversations, on permits, building permits, and others. So we have leasing momentum at this point.

[00:51:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. And then just one more question. This one will be for staff. Thank you. Um, so, um, it was mentioned that there would be exceptions for some of the development standards. You talked about it in your presentation. I was trying to look back to the staff report. Can you share with us what some of those exemptions might be? or is it too?

[00:51:58] City Staff: It is a little too early. I would note that the Merlin guy letter specifically called out setback exceptions, but the level of detail in the plans doesn't allow staff to do a thorough review at this stage. But setback exceptions would not be unexpected, and possibly something like an open area or open space might also be challenging to address. Those have been some of the issues that we've seen on other projects.

[00:52:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you.

[00:52:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark.

[00:52:30] Councilmember Chris Clark: So, um, just, um, I didn't have any further questions, or just to get into the questions, I think, um, I, um, you know, I, I continue to support the authorization, uh, or the reauthorization of the, of the TDR gatekeeper requests, um, similar to what we did a year ago, um, you know, I think as has been pointed out, I think, um, this is one of the key components to making the, hopefully the school work in this area. And but I agree with staff that I'm not sure it's wise to transfer the unutilized. It's, you know, roughly 40,000 square feet, and I think that may allow us to work with, you know, break down some of the massing that's proposed and get a little bit more creative. So I think it makes sense for us to sort of honor the commitment to, um, um, move forward with the gatekeeper application, certainly not an approval of the project by any means tonight, but at least get things started. And then, you know, I would expect of something of this nature to, um, you know, be highway sustainable, sort of on the, you know, if not, we'd platinum very close to it. Um, I just think that, you know, this is this is a really important corner, and I think it sort of caps off the phase 2 of everything, and I would just hope that we would look for ways to, um, to ensure that it is sort of the cornerstone of that, in that sense where we could, that we can point to and say, you know, it's a, It's, you know, a highway sustainable structure. We worked really hard on the on the architecture to make it. You really draw people in and make it a solid example of finalizing phase 2 there. So those are my initial comments.

[00:54:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor Abi Koga?

[00:54:27] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, when this came to us originally with the two parcels and the TDR request, um, I actually was voted against, uh, I know I don't know if it was a real wood or a strava, but I was against the, the, um, the granting of the gatekeeper, and, um, when I now see, uh, more of the design. I have even more concerns. When we did the precise plan for San Antonio, we did, you know, want to allow for higher densities and heights. But I recall, and, you know, I know my memory is not completely spot on, but I do recall that when we talked about higher heights, It was actually pulling it away from the neighborhoods over onto the El Camino side. And so this goes completely against that in my mind. Um, I think 6 story, what we have there, um, is, you know, frankly, it is a rather large and um, boxy and monolithic. And I understand it's a movie theater. And that's fine because, you know, originally the whole intent was that this area was to be a retail shopping destination. So, you know, I supported the movie theater and that worked. Um, The office buildings are, um, big. And I think, you know, we talked about this about design and how design is really important and sometimes with design, you can hide density. I just don't think it worked. And so to put another large box on the corner. Um, to me, just is it doesn't fit in. with what we have there. Um, you know, I could maybe support a lower, lower, a lower, square footage project. But I don't think this is the right project. Um, So I will not be supporting this, uh, the, yeah, I will not be supporting this project. You know, I would note that we, when we did the TDRs, the hope was that we would have more housing development projects. Um, We had we had one, I believe. Um, you know, that was an, or 2 maybe, that could be an option, um, if it were, I might reconsider, um, in terms of the TDRs. I know that we are allowing a secondary market. So this is not the end of it. And so I think that there are other opportunities and other options. As mentioned, you know, better design would be includes step backs, better transitions, and I just don't think that would work with the style and going higher than what's already built in the area.

[00:57:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[00:57:33] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I have no questions, and I'll go directly to answering the questions. First, whether we support the TDR gatekeeper request, I'm I was I'm leaning towards hesitantly supporting it. I have the concerns that the vice mayor has expressed and also that the the, uh, residents have expressed, but, um, as the staff report says authorization of a gate keeper request in no way presumes staff or council supports the project. So I, I, um, am leaning towards voting yes, but saying that the, the, when we look at it further, the project has to incorporate architectures, architecture and transitions that reduce the bulk of the building, um, more engaging design elements, appropriate setbacks, uh, and uh, circulation to ensure compatibility with phase 2 development. I do appreciate some of the pedestrian oriented design, like the pedestrian corridors, I wish the rest of the San Antonio Sander had that as well, and the Clair story so that you can look into the retail on the ground floor. But to me, there's a ways to go still at this point with more intensive treescaping, planting strips, and other greening, and more pedestrian oriented architecture, and breaking down of the bulk. And I have to say, I'm so on the, I'm hesitant enough that if other council people still have the opportunity to persuade me that if there's another way to get the school. Then the 2nd question, discount support staff's position to exclude the proposal to transfer, the additional FAR from phase one and two. Yes, I agree that transfer doesn't appear consistent.

[00:59:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I'm gonna jump in here. So I will disclose that I met with Merlin Geyer prior to the meeting tonight. And the last time we talked about this, I had serious concerns about this project, and I also voted no on authorizing the gatekeeper at that time. And, uh, the vice mayor said exactly what I was going to say, which was, uh, now that we're here, I have even more concerns about it. When you look at this, the in comparison to the San Antonio precise plan, the San Antonio precise plan allows an FAR of 2.35, and this is 5.35. That is just way too much of an exception. from my perspective. And, um, we didn't want to have all of the office in one location in the precise plan, and yet that's pretty much what would happen with this. And I just feel like I'm not willing to make all those changes to the those 2 major changes to the precise plan to accommodate this. Also, I feel like this sort of fundamentally is not the direction I thought the city was going. And what we have been trying to do is add housing. And instead, this is a large office building. So, I did ask the developer if they would do housing at this location. And I'll be very candid. We went round and round around in circles. And ultimately, they said that ownership housing is just not their business model, because I thought stacked flat condos would be good in this location. Um, There's a parcel of a similar size where a developer is proposing, um, Affordable housing, at a high density, and so it is feasible. It's only about an acre, but it is feasible to have relatively high density housing in a location like this. So, um, I was suggesting to other developers that they contact Merlon Geyer and see if they're willing to sell the property and the TDRs or at least some of the TDRs so that we could have housing there. Um, I just, I feel very uh, firmly that I don't want to add this much more office in this location. I also feel just as firmly that I think others in the San Antonio Precise Plan area should step up and buy the TDRs because I'd like to keep a large chunk of the TDRs in the San Antonio Precise Plan area. So they do have the option to resell the TDRs. And I think that's the way to go. And so I can't support this is a gatekeeper tonight. Council member Komei.

[01:02:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Um, so whenever we talk about anything in the San Antonio precise plan, I have flashbacks to all our long EPC phase 2 discussions, uh, when we were trying to grapple with what we're discussing on the days tonight, um, which is, you know, how do we make this, a community oriented project. And so I think I'm going to try to touch on some comments and hopefully that'll encapsulate answering the 2 questions before us. So one of the interesting things since joining council is that there are many projects that the prior council has given direction on, that we come to midstream. And so I don't have prior experience with the gatekeeper, as some of my colleagues might have. But one of the things that I do have mixed emotion about, and it was stated in the staff report, is council, the prior council, also had mixed emotions and reservations about this project. And ultimately, the preference to move forward was prioritizing the local school strategy and the park in open space. And so for me, I'm trying to also prioritize that. versus just thinking of it as office. And the concern I have is, should we not continue on and see what could come of the gatekeeper, is that that would hold up, a much needed school site, that we do have a neighborhood preference for, that I would like to go forward. Um, and it, I do feel mixed, and I understand the concerns of my colleagues in terms of, um, the massing and the density of it. So, I do agree and support staff's position to exclude the transfer of the nearly 40,000 square feet. I think there is a lot of FAR on the site to be used. And I think also, the project will have housing near it. It's near the Grey Star Housing Project, and the Prometheus project that are going forward. Do we need more housing? Yes, of course. Um, but, Council put forward in good faith, the TDR program, and, um, you know, spent a lot of time going back and forth setting that up. Um, and with the idea that the East Wizman precise plan, which we've been working on for years, wouldn't get all the, um, wouldn't absorb all of the office. And I do think it is important to spread the office allocation around. Um, So do I necessarily think it needs to be aid stories? No. Could we have maybe discussion about that? I'm open to it. Um, but I do feel that it, given all the discussion. I want to be committed to the area, getting that open space, getting that park, and getting the school, um, with obviously a pedestrian and cyclist friendly atmosphere. So, um, that's kind of how I I feel, um, I also really want as much as possible a commitment for the retail activation. I think the community in the city deserves that retail activation that was promised. And, um, you know, have it truly be community serving.

[01:06:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayoralbei Koka? Actually, I had a question for Mr. Bayer from the school district. If you wouldn't mind coming up. I don't know if it was in the staff report, but approximately, can I ask how much these TDRs are worth monetary value?

[01:06:31] School District Representative Bayer: Yes. Thank you. About $19.5 million.

[01:06:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Which is a significant portion of our purchase. of the school site. I know you passed the bond measure. Uh, could you give us a rough estimate of how much of those funds are going to this project of the new school.

[01:06:58] School District Representative Bayer: So with the acquisition of land and construction of a school, about $100 million, our more or more.

[01:07:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Is from the bond measure? And then how much for the TDRs? Is it about 80 million?

[01:07:13] School District Representative Bayer: The TDRs? Are about 79.3 million, right?

[01:07:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Right. Thank you. Okay. So, I do appreciate Council member May's comments about the school. I think we are all pretty committed to making this happen. But I do think there are ways to still make it happen, um, and not necessarily, um, say this is what we want to do. So there's a secondary market for TDRs. And they actually haven't paid for them yet. So, I'm guessing there are other developers out there who might be interested in some of those. Vice mayor, Picoga.

[01:07:57] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, so I do agree with Councilman Recome that, um, you know, there, I believe there was a commitment to, um, activating the retail, the whole, you know, the The genesis of the site is a shopping center. And when we talked about allowing for office, um, it was, you know, on the basis that, yes, some office might be necessary to support the retail there. My concern is that it's becoming more of an office park than a shopping center. And, um, you know, there's other parts of the San Antonio shopping center site. I think it's, you know, important. I think we should spread it around. And also, yes, with the, you know, the high interest in housing. We should be looking at other housing opportunities. I appreciate. You know, I was on the committee for the LAST committee to talk about, um, you know, what should go there and so forth. And, um, I believe that we as a council have been, you know, committed um, to trying to assist in the having a school site there. You know, I have supported that. But There has to be a balance and I think that we have, to frankly, gone above and beyond, frankly, to try to make this school site happen. But it really needs to be balanced with our community and our residents' interests. That's why we did allow for the secondary market. You know, I asked about the bond measure of revenue and I it is a significant amount, but perhaps, you know, if they need to front the money, they can sell the TDRs and recoup it. I think there are other alternatives. And I guess what I'm looking for is that this should be a partnership. And, you know, I think that we as a city have gone above and beyond, you know, we've done something, the other cities and that would should be involved, haven't done anything. And so I think there just needs to be some give and some compromise here and us, you know, just balancing our city's needs as well. So, I think there's room for opportunity to make it all happen. Um, I, you know, I could maybe look at a smaller building. I don't know what that would mean. So maybe we deny this tonight, and then they can come back with another project that's smaller. I would be open to that. But I just don't think this one fits there.

[01:11:06] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, I guess I will make a motion to deny the authorization authorization of the MGPTDR gatekeeper request.

[01:11:17] Unknown Speaker: And I'll second that.

[01:11:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any further discussion?

[01:11:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry. Cats in a big way. Great. So, you know, I don't know if this is a question for staff. Um, but... should we go forward with this with the staff recommendation, and we authorize, or if we authorized the project, but we excluded the proposed transfer, would we still be looking at the same project, or would it be substantially different, or, again, apologies for asking this, but I think I'm just trying to see if there's any further opportunity for augmentation to the gatekeeper or not. Because I know that there's been discussion about excluding the 40 cave square footage, and there's been a discussion about perhaps being interested in it coming down, you know, I don't know if that is...

[01:12:32] Unknown Speaker: Are you asking whether the approval could be for a lesser amount of TDR square footage in addition to the question about excluding the transfer from phases one and two? I'm not certain I get what you're after.

[01:12:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I'm trying to find a path, I guess, forward.

[01:12:46] City Manager Dan Rich: If I can chime in, my math may be wrong, but I believe the total request is about 230,000, including the 39,000, is that correct? Correct.

[01:12:56] City Manager Dan Rich: So if you divide that by 8 stories, that would make each story about 28,750. So if you take out 39,000, you're essentially eliminating more than one story of the building, is that accurate?

[01:13:09] Unknown Speaker: That's correct. I think the typical floor plate that's not the 1st floor, the 7th and 8th floor is around 22, 23,000 square feet. So yeah, removing 40,000 square feet would substantially change the envelope of the building.

[01:13:27] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. Thank you for helping me find a way to articulate it better, Mr. Rich.

[01:13:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark.

[01:13:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I think, and I'll defer to staff on whether what they most helpful, but I think what might be of interest would be, you know, it was hard for us to picture, I think, before tonight, what the removal, that 40,000 square, what that might mean. And so if what that means is it gives us more flexibility on the corner to sort of break down the massing, perhaps it brings the building down significantly there. But, you know, as others have said, I'm, I don't really mind if it goes higher toward the toward the core. That's what we originally envisioned, is what the vice mayor said. So if removing that 40,000 will give us, and, you know, I like sort of what they've done with the, you know, a roof element like that allows, you know, some breakdown of Massey, I'm sure there's a lot, as have been done with some of the other buildings in terms of architecture to help break things down to, and the removal that 40,000 square feet will probably have a reasonable impact. And, you know, I, it's just my opinion, but I would feel comfortable seeing, at least a proposal for a project based on that square footage to see how, um, how creative they can get in sort of honoring the importance of that corner. I think the other thing I just want to make sure we're pointing out is we aren't adding office square footage, the Sanzo, you know, precise plan. You know, this is all within the precise plan, and frankly, this would get us pretty close to the, I think, the cap, and so we wouldn't have to worry about office coming in. in other proposals and other parts. without a gatekeater authorization. But my colleagues are absolutely right. I think originally we'd envision, or we'd given ourselves the flexibility to move it around based on what we thought at the time, or sort of what proposals came in at the time. So, um, at least for my part, I think when you, you know, I'm not just looking at the project itself, I'm thinking of, um, having all of most of the other gatekeeper TDR gatekeepers in motion, um, I think if, if, if we can break this building down, um, a bit with the, with the 40,000 being cut out, and provide a little bit of certainty in terms of projects moving forward, not that we have to approve this ultimate. But it allows it to move forward, and it doesn't introduce the additional uncertainty of this, these TRs having to be sold again, and then us having to authorize another gatekeeper, and it's sort of, you know, as we've seen, has taken a year to get to this process. So, um, I'm just not sure what that does to the timeline. And honestly, whether we were on council or not at the time, I think the, um, I think everyone moved forward in good faith, um, hoping that this would be the recipient side of those TDRs, it doesn't mean that we have to approve a project of this bulk and mass. But I think it does, um, it does behoove us to not sort of, you basically start from scratch on that.

[01:16:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, Abi Koga.

[01:16:55] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, my sense, like, you know, we talk about not trying to make policy or on the dais, but, you know, I just honestly don't know what a 40, if you remove 40,000 square feet from this, it's what it's gonna look like. So I just feel much more comfortable if we deny it and then just have them come back with a new project and remove it could be removing 40,000. You know, I would defer to staff as to, in terms of design, um, what really needs to happen to make. fit better in this corner. So, I think the cleanest way is just to deny it and then, you know, have them come back. And I don't really see how it would change the timeline that differently because they're gonna have to redesign a project, regardless.

[01:17:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Hey, Council member McAllister is often saying that, um, he's interested in true mixed use, office and residential. And so, um, I still believe this is a good place for residential, um, but I would entertain a mixed use office and residential, um, but a much smaller building. But the point about the TDRs, you know, I, I'm sorry, the office space, I think the San Antonio precise plan envisioned it spread throughout the area. And so this uses up everything that was in the precise plan. And we have received. We received an email today saying that another property owner in the San Antonio precise plan is interested in office. And so now that would force them into a gatekeeper situation, because if all of the office space is used in this project, They would have to, um, do a gatekeeper and we've kind of deferred those for a while. So, you know, I think, to be fair, to all the property owners in the San Antonio precise plan, I feel like the expectation we set with them was that it would be spread. So I'd like to honor that expectation.

[01:18:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So any other comments?

[01:18:58] Unknown Speaker: I guess from staff's perspective, it's been a while since we've done one of these gatekeepers, given what you've heard tonight, and I think some of the concerns expressed, at least, about the design and massing, I mean, is it cleaner for you to sort of take our comments tonight? And, you know, obviously the applicants listening to and sort of proceed with the gatekeeper based on that? Or is it cleaner for you to say, you know, actually, we'd prefer you bring us another proposal in Q1 or however long it takes them to put together? Because they haven't even, I don't even think they've done formal design yet. I think they've just sort of said this is sort of roughly what this square footage might look like.

[01:19:43] City Staff: Yeah, I can only speak to what I received, which was attached to the staff report. I think many times that's driven by additional design work that's just not part of the initial submittal because we're not at that point. Honestly, I have a hard time sort of making a recommendation on what might be a cleaner path. I think there are sort of 2 potential paths, if council does want to see something substantially different, and sort of one could be what's been discussed already, another could be, you know, authorization with an expectation of an early study session, returning to council with the revised design, to see if they you know, are able to come up with something that passes the smell test. And I think some of the input on what would be cleaner may depend on some of the negotiations also between LASD and the applicant that the city is not part of. So I couldn't comment on that part.

[01:20:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Kameh.

[01:20:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. So, Given staff's comments. I think for myself, what I would be supportive of is, um, movie moving ahead with that applicant so that things can be finalized with the school district and the applicant, um, with the change in square footage, um, not including the, the 39,000, um, and having the study session and some of the expectations that have been, um, stated by all of us. I, you know, I, I think that moving, both parties as well as the city went forward with, um, certain expectations and trying to, uh, trying to go forward with, you know, the, the intent of, of bringing the, the school site there. And I feel like if I don't want to do anything further to slow down the acquisition in the finalization, so that things can get going, because with the housing, we are creating, we're going to need further capacity and need another school. So that's just my level of comfort and my viewpoint. So for the motion before. I won't be supporting that one. Thanks.

[01:22:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[01:22:13] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Gosh, I was gonna say I'd heard just the opposite, so maybe I heard wrong. Um, uh, I thought that staff had said that, um, going forward and expecting, with the extra TDRs gone, that it would be significantly different, or denying it, and going forward, wouldn't, there's not, they're not strikingly different in terms of the timeline, is what I thought I heard. Am I that you couldn't really tell, which was... would not be substantially different between those potentially.

[01:22:45] City Staff: There would still be a similar design work, and I, yeah, and then I, I did indicate that I couldn't make a strong recommendation, either way, on what would be cleaner, and I think part of that input on, you know, it being clean does come from the certainty that the applicant, or LASD, would or would not have with either other action, which is not something that I would be comfortable commenting on. I think if it is, if there are council members who are very concerned that removing 40,000 square feet would not be enough, then that does introduce uncertainty, and perhaps the laying that decision would be less clean as a result. But it's, I think, ultimately, each council member has a sense for what they're going to be as to whether they think the design can be adequately addressed by the removal of 40,000 square feet, because that's sort of the hinge point, I think, right now.

[01:23:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, I'll be cooking.

[01:23:56] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, just to clarify, with the TDRs, if we don't approve the final project, um, potentially the 150,000 square feet, or it could be partial that or whatever is, you used or, or if we deny the project all outright, then does that 150,000...

[01:24:22] City Staff: The project is denied outright, then the 150,000 square feet would not have been used, and so would be available to repurpose by Merlin and Gaia or another developer.

[01:24:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, well, I think then, in a sense, you have a clearer path if we have them come back with a project that we can feel comfortable with moving forward on, rather than sending them on this path. And then, at the end, you know, find out, wait, this isn't what we wanted. So, you know, I hear reservations for the 40,000, and I guess that's my, my issue is, I just don't know if that's enough or not. And it sounds like, I mean, there is no guarantee, at the end of the day, that whatever project comes to us, we're gonna vote for anyway. So I don't see it being a delay. I actually think it might be faster if we have them come back in with a new redesign project that is better to our liking at this point in time.

[01:25:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Did you have covid?

[01:25:29] City Manager Dan Rich: You may want to ask the superintendent to come back up, just to remind you what he said. Absolutely, there's no guarantee that, even if you approve a gatekeeper, that you will approve the project, so there's always going to be uncertainty for both the district and the developer, having said that, they do have some key deadlines coming up in terms of closing on the project. And I think the school district would probably want some clarity on whether or not a gatekeeper is at least moving forward. But perhaps Superintendent Bear can answer that.

[01:26:10] Superintendent Bear: Sorry, Dan, can you recap the question?

[01:26:14] City Manager Dan Rich: Well, I think the question is, with your deadline's coming up. Does it create more uncertainty or less uncertainty given the council discussion and concerns with the size of the project and the bulk of it right now, would it be better for your timeline and your process to get the gatekeeper knowing there's still a lot of outstanding questions with it, or to ask the developer to come back with a new application and a new design based on less square footage.

[01:26:48] Superintendent Bear: Okay. So we are looking to spend a significant amount of money on by early November. Board's going to have to make a decision on the purchase of this parcel of land, and all the complexities that come with it. And the certainty that comes with the approval of this TDR is significant. But to be clear, there is, I mean, this is a gatekeeper, so there's still not certainty, but there is... Using the gate TDRs? There's a level of certainty that comes with the approval of TDRs. That's why we've moved forward to this point, right? Initially, was that we had the 610,000 square feet of TDRs approved.

[01:27:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: No. Just answer to. We never approved the TDRs. We approved the gatekeepers to them, but we still reserve the right to approve or deny the final projects.

[01:27:45] Superintendent Bear: Absolutely.

[01:27:46] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: My understanding is you don't actually get the funds until the project is approved. So that's why, I guess, right now, I just don't see the difference. And I understand your, you know, timelines, and that's where I, you know, I'm not into the financing or whatnot, but perhaps there are other ways to meet your timelines, because, you know, eventually you have the time to sell all the TDRs, you know, in some way to make up for that. difference is my suggestion, I guess, to you if we don't, because there's just no, if you, the best guarantee is that is, I would say, you have the funds, you know, use it when you need it. And then you sell off the TDRs when you can, because frankly, all of the gatekeepers at this point, there's nothing that's been... Nothing's been approved. So you have no funds from TDRs before you close.

[01:28:39] Superintendent Bear: And we absolutely understand that, right? But it gives the board. The confidence in spending, the $150 million, the entirety of $150000000 bond on this land acquisition.

[01:28:57] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Is there, there's no time limit on when you can sell the TTRs. Was it 10 years?

[01:29:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Council member, Clark.

[01:29:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think I'll just state what I'm comfortable and not comfortable with. So I think... I would be... I would be comfortable tonight. The gatekeeper authorized, you know, basically, like, we would normally authorize a gatekeeper. So, basically, authorizing staff resources to review an application of the, of up to, however, many thousands square feet, the 4.35 4.23 FAR comes out too. So not the transfer, but the FAR that would come from this TDR. So basically authorized staff to review an application of up to whatever that square footage amount is with ground for retail commercial, um, including the the, the 150,000, um, transfer development rights. It doesn't necessarily have to all be in office building. It could be a mix of uses. It could be something completely other than office. But, um, I think for the sake of moving the ball forward. I think I'd be interested in sort of at least seeing what product can come out of that FAR on those parcels. And so that uncomfortable voting to authorize staff resources for tonight. Um, and, um, how soon you think that we need to see it again, to have a check in and make sure that we aren't wasting everyone's time and money, um, is I'll leave that to staff, but I think for tonight, I'm at least comfortable authorizing um, the staff resources to at least review, do an initial review of a project of that scale, not with the request, or not with the additional sort of transfer, but at least with, um, just the LASD, um, TDR FAR. And if the applicant after the discussion tonight feels like there's just not a way to make it work, then they can, you know, figure out other other ways to do it. But I think, I think in terms of at least moving the ball ahead a little bit more, at least authorizing staff resources to review that would be would be helpful.

[01:31:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so we have a motion on the floor, which is to deny the gatekeeper request by Vice Mayor Abi Kogo, and I seconded that. So let's call the question.

[01:31:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And... I thought that disappeared so fast. That passes, um, three to two, with two abstensions.

[01:32:10] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, I think this, um, this gives the opportunity, it gives a strong message that we want something much better, and that they can come back with, with some of the direction that we've given for better interface with the community. I think we're all committed to getting the school and the park going, and I heard from staff that either one could be done on more or less the same timeline, and I wanted to send a strong message that we need to see some significant changes.

[01:32:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark?

[01:32:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Well, I think, since we normally don't hear gatekeepers, if you want to see another gatekeeper, you should... we should vote to say that, and let, or, because otherwise, I think the default is to not see this again. So I think we should decide what the next steps are.

[01:32:59] Unknown Speaker: Well, if they're using LASD, TDRs, aren't those gatekeepers, ones that we said have, we will process?

[01:33:08] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think we did. If an applicant is using LASD, TDRs, that those gatekeepers, We will process. We will hear.

[01:33:19] City Staff: Yeah, that was that was a previous direction that they can come back prior to kind of the delay of other gatekeepers. Okay. So the action tonight, staff understands that they can, they can bring another, just basically we can do again what we did tonight with a different application, as exciting and fun as it will be.

[01:33:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. That closes that item. And we will move on to item 7.2. Which is potential 2020 Community Stabilization and FairRact, FairRent Act Amendments.

[01:35:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we will start this one with a staff presentation.

[01:35:29] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So, good evening. My name is Tim Wong. Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager for the city, and tonight before you is council consideration of potential CSFRA, I should say potential community stabilization and Fair Rent Act, otherwise known as the CSFRA Amendments for 2020. All right, excuse me, technical difficulties. So before you tonight, staff is requesting that the council review input from the CSFRA and the public regarding potential CSFRA amendments, also to provide direction on specific CSFRA program components that you would like to see amended. And lastly, to provide direction on whether the amendment should be on the March 2020 or the November 2020 ballot. So this is the subcommittee's process to date, as you can see, we're almost halfway through the process, and the subcommittee has met a few times, along with the RHC in discussing potential amendments. And up to this date, the subcommittee has has discussed many different items, but as the meetings progressed, 2 items kind of rose to the top, which were relationship with this RHC in the city. And in addition, a separate petition process. There have been other discussions, including discussions about mobile homes, and another discussion about use of flat rate versus CPI when it comes to annual rent increases. So to begin, one of the items was the relationship between the RHC and the city or the city council. And the subcommittee through its discussions determined or decided that they would like to have canceled to have limited oversight over RHC decisions that affected units, people, potential use of city general funds, if there was a decision about a separate petition process, and the pass-throughs involved with that, separate petition process, and any decision that would suspend the CSFRA. In addition to those discussions, the subcommittee discussed having the RHC treated as more of an advisory body. Part of part of the discussion involved how to potentially remove members of the RHC or that advisory body. In addition, there were discussions about considering potentially non-mountain view residents being able to serve on the RHC and lastly, looking at assigning work items. For example, if the council were to pass a mobile home ordinance, potentially the council could assign the RHC, the duties of administer implementing that program. And to point out if this is something that the council is interested in pursuing, the existing CSFRA language specifically states that the RHC is integral but independent of the city, so if the direction is to either pursue some limited oversight or treating the RHC as an advisory body, then certainly at a minimum, this portion of the CSI would need to be amended. So staff's 1st question to counsel is should counsel have limited oversight in those specific areas with the RHC, and also should the council treat the RHC as an advisory body, similar to the policies that govern other advisory bodies. So that is the 1st question. In addition, the subcommittee spoke or discussed about a separate petition process, and how that petition process could include certain capital improvements that also related to environmental sustainability, and those that extend the life of the structure. Currently, under the CSFRA, capital improvements that are needed to meet or maintain health and safety code are eligible for the petition process. Staff uses the word non-mandatory, maybe some of those environmentally sustainable capital improvements or other capital improvements that may extend the life of the structure. They could fall under health and safety, but if they don't, this is another process that a housing provider could recoup some of those expenses. And just to point out, in regards to a separate petition process, other jurisdictions in staff's review have, um, in terms of a specific, a separate petition process have clearly identified what those specific items may be, those improvements that may be eligible for a separate petition process, and with that process, they are allowed to recoup the expenses outside of the MNOI or which is the city's current process in petition process. This would allow them to recoup some of those costs outside of the current city process. In addition with the separate petition process, the subcommittee talked about what eligible improvements could be included in the separate petition process. Again, capital improvements that are needed to meet or maintain health and safety code, environmentally environmental sustainability items, such as potentially solar panels or EB stations, and those improvements that, again, extend the useful life of the buildings. Some potential subcommittee guidelines in evaluating whether these improvements are eligible or not could include, does the tenant benefit more from these improvements more so than the housing provider or does this improvement bring the building up to code? And lastly, one of the things they had mentioned was this was not to do excessive improvements, so no luxury items would be eligible for as an improvement through the separate petition process. Also, to drill down a little bit more about those eligible, useful life improvements, in a review of jurisdictions, and as part of the discussion, the subcommittee said, some potential guidelines could include that these improvements must material add materially add value to the property, that they would prolong the useful life of the structure for... for a certain amount of time. And again, it primarily benefits the tenants. So those are some of the guidelines that the subcommittee discussed as part of eligible capital improvements. So staff has provided a number of other clarifying questions. I won't read through them all unless the council would like me to, but these are some clarifying questions that staff would like the council to respond to receive greater directions so that we may start drafting amendments based on council's direction. In addition, there were some additional questions, one about mobile home rent stabilization. This was vetted by both the RHC and the subcommittee in whether to do or include mobile home in the CSFRA amendments, or would it be better, if you will, in an ordinance, and both the RHC and the subcommittee were both in agreement that it would be better, that mobile home run civilization would be better in an ordinance rather than as a amendment to the CSFRA. So along those lines, another staff question, does the council feel that it's appropriate to have mobile homes in an ordinance versus in as a amendment to the CSF array? Another discussion that the subcommittee had was the use of either a flat rate for an annual increase, a flat rate such as 5%, or the continued use of the consumer price index. Currently in the CSFRA, the CPI is used for the annual increase. And so just as a matter of reference, most jurisdictions that do have rent control use the CPI while there are some local jurisdictions, San Jose being one of them that do employ a flat rate of 5%. So based on this discussion, another question for council is, does the council have a preference for keeping either using the CPI or to move up to a 5% a maximum of a 5% annual rent increase? And in addition, for those households who may not be able to afford that delta. Currently, CPI is about 3.5% annually, and with a 5% annual flat rate, for those households who may not be able to afford that delta of the one. 5% approximately, is their support to establish a short-term rental assistance program for some of those households. And, um, so, and lastly, kind of going back, does the council prefer to have the ballot measure go on the March 2020 or the November 2020 ballot? And so that concludes staff's presentation in regards to questions, just to point out that we have Karen Tiedeman and Justin Bigelow with Goldfarb and Lippman, they are helping the city, craft any potential amendment language, and they are also here for any questions that the council may have. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry, one last slide. Last night, we did take some of these questions to, or to the RHC to get there, to get their feedback, and after a lengthy discussion, what the RHC had recommended was in regards to some of these subcommittee proposals. They recommended that the subcommittee or the council provide flexibility for the RHC to be able to clean up some unclear ambiguous language regarding exemptions. We had a discussion about duplexes in single family homes and ADUs, and there is a slight quirk, if you will, in the CSFR language. And so this was one of the things that the RHC wanted to have to be able to, um, to do some of these administrative cleanups. Separately, they recommended adopting a separate petition process solely for seismic retrofits, and then for them to have the ability to design a separate petition process for other capital improvements at their discretion. And lastly, they recommended that the council adopt a resolution, or an ordinance to address rent civilization for mobile homes as soon as feasible in that regard. They also had some non-recommendations, if you will, when it came to potential areas of council oversight. And lastly, they did not recommend any changes to the current AGA to keep it at a to continue using the CPI versus a flat rate. So those are, this is a quick summary of the RHC recommendations from the last evening. And so now that concludes staff's presentation. Apologize. Thank you.

[01:49:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And I think at this point, we wanted to have our vice mayor, who's the chair of the subcommittee, share some thoughts. Thank you.

[01:50:05] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, I want to, 1st of all, thank staff for the presentation and the thorough staff report, um, I think of my colleagues from reading it. Um, you're hopefully able to get a sense of, um, where we started and to where we are today in quite detail. So, I appreciate staff, being very inclusive of all the discussions that we've had. But tonight, my hope was that we could get some clear direction from this council, and very specific questions, and some of them are listed. I was hoping, actually, maybe try to distill the questions even further. And based on what, I believe, our committee consensus was. And I will ask my committee colleagues, council member Clark, and council member Ramirez, to chime in if I say anything that's not correct, or please, you know, feel free to jump in and correct me. But, we did reach, I would say, consensus on most of these items. Um, there's a few that we could not reach consensus on, and so we were tossing it up to the entire council this evening. But 1st I just wanted to state the purpose of establishing the subcommittee and looking at a CSFRA reform measure. Firstly, after about 3 years of implementation of the CSFRA. We've definitely been able to see how it works. And there's been some areas that needed better clarification. And in particular, the one issue that really popped up was when we were doing seismic retrofits and the issue of pass throughs and re getting reimbursed for capital improvements. And the challenges that the current CSFRA, as written, could create in either a mandated, improvement, like a seismic retrofit, or, frankly, as we last night, our subcommittee on sustainability, spoke about sustainability measures, and whether they're EV chargers in the garage or water heater pumps, or, um, water heater pumps, or, um, even double, you know, dual paint windows, how can we encourage all of those improvements to be made that will be environmentally sound? Um, And, um, you know, be able to guarantee the land, the property owners a fair return on those investments. The other issues, as much as, and that ties into, you know, as much as keeping rents low is, you know, definitely a useful purpose of CSFRA. We've also seen that, you know, we've heard of cases where it's actually, um, motivated certain landowners to potentially redevelop their properties. You know, there's been, you know, discussion about, well, housing, um, it has to be worthwhile for the land owners to stay in the business, um, for them to stay. So, and so we wanted to look at what reforms we could potentially do with CSFRA to prevent displacement. And finally, the other issue has been that, unfortunately, the, I guess the, the discussion, the debate continues on, and, um, you know, my personal, sincere interest has been to see if we could have a conversation with, you know, both sides, all sides involved, to see if there's some common ground that we could reach, um, to come to compromise, and hopefully put this issue to rest, so that the council can move on to other issues of high importance for the city. So in light of that. I'm just gonna go down, I think, I'm gonna follow with the staff report, but the first, so we, I would say, one, two, three, four, we had 5 areas that we discussed. The 1st one was the RHC council relationship, and Steph mentioned how we did talk about, you know, how much oversight the council should have over the RHC. And I would say that we landed, the committee landed on having limited oversight. Our main concerns were areas such as clarifying the appointment and the removal process of RHC members. Part of the appointment piece was, you know, whether we should be looking at being more flexible and with the residency requirement, particularly of landlords, we didn't have any Mountain View residing landlords applying to the RHC. How would we fill that spot? Should we open it up to non-mountain view resident landlords who have property in the city? Um, you know, I personally thought about whether we should have a cause, um, requiring some kind of technical expertise because this is a very technical issue that's being discussed. And then the others, I did read the RHC letter just briefly when it came, I caught here. It's on the dais. I guess they do sign a code of conduct. So that is probably mute now, but that was the other issue that they follow similarly with our advisory board, other advisory board members in terms of conduct and so forth. I think when we talked about work plans, the only thing that came up was if we were to do a mobile home park ordinance that we could refer that perhaps to the RHC to administer. In reading the staff report in AB 1482. I see that could be a potential area that, you know, the RHC. The council might want the RHC to administer. So those were sort of the topics that we discussed in terms of, you know, giving RHC more other tasks to work on other than just this CSFRA.

[01:56:42] Unknown Speaker: Did you have it? Oh, where you going?

[01:56:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, I was wondering, should we now discuss this and vote on this before we go to? Okay. Because I know you have a lot of other information to share with others and we might forget what you said about this one. By the time we go through all the questions.

[01:57:03] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Do we do you want to do public comment first?

[01:57:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah. So, um, Yeah, we'll take public comment and it would be on any of the items that, you know, we're going to take sort of piecemeal here. But yes, let's bin this up to public comment. Can I see a show of hands of how many folks want to address the council tonight? Okay, so each speaker will have one. 5 minutes. And if you can be sure to fill out a blue card either before or after you speak and leave it with our city clerk, I would appreciate it. So, um, Folks, line up and the 1st person. Matt Grenwald, chair of the RHC.

[01:57:55] Matt Grenwald: I just wanted to say quickly that I'm here to make myself available for any clarification of the slide that you saw with our recommendations from last night's meeting. And again, the RC appreciates that the subcommittee and council has solicited our feedback and look forward to working with you on these issues. So, when you have time for questions. I here. Thank you.

[01:58:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, if you have questions of the speakers, yes. Did you have one for Mr. Greenwell? Okay.

[01:58:25] Unknown Speaker: So thank you, Matt, for being here.

[01:58:27] Matt Grenwald: Sure.

[01:58:28] Unknown Speaker: I did have a couple of questions. I wasn't able to attend this the meeting you had last night. So I just wanted to first convey, I'm a little surprised by the clarity and strength of the recommendations given the diversity of perspectives represented on the RHC. So this is really helpful to sort of convey your thought process. But I was particularly interested in the last one about mobile homes. It doesn't, at least I don't feel that doesn't seem to suggest whether we should explicitly include or exclude mobile homes from the CSFRA. But you do say the RHC is interested in participating in the crafting of an ordinance, regulating mobile homes. So what do you imagine? What does the RHC imagine as sort of the role of the RHC in administering regulations for mobile homes if you're not explicitly including it in the CSF array?

[01:59:26] Matt Grenwald: Sure. So first, regarding the comments and the focus that we really were trying to, we only put, included the comments in here that were where we were all able to unanimously agree, which, as you said, is difficult. We have diverse opinions on the RHC. This, the mobile home issue is the one that probably had the most discussion, and it was, you know, we have different members on the committee now. The decision that was made not to include mobile homes was made for, I think, various reasons for the members at the time. But where we could unanimously agree, was that we did feel as though they deserve similar protections. but that the economics of space rent versus tenants. Again, I'm kind of channeling the previous, the prior decision and some of the things I heard last night, uh, that mobile home residency law does provide some just cause, not all the just cause of, or is that exactly the same way as the CSF array does. There are other in some ways, the CSF array is, I'd use this term, kind of a blunt instrument. It fits for tenant landlord relationships, but when you get into the details of a space rent park owner and mobile home structure owner situation. The economics are different underneath. So, the ask, I think, was that this council would have full control of an ordinance, more flexibility than we have within the CSR parade and the structure of the CSRA as it stands today. And current committee, I think it'd be more than willing to figure out a way it for when it comes to administration and fee collection and petitions. you know, lend you all the resources of our staff to try to figure out the best way to leverage the staff and systems that we already have in place to do those same things. But again, that we are somewhat hamstrung by the Siesta parade as it is today. The other option that was kind of thrown out there was, um, trying to create space within the CS parade, have more flexibility for mobile homes in particular, but in the time frame, I think, especially in the March time frame, it would take, I think, a long time to, um, sort out what that could look like and what the options were. Does that answer your question?

[02:02:01] Unknown Speaker: I'll have, I guess, some ideas or questions for the rest of the council, but yes, it does. Thank you.

[02:02:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, great. Council member McAllister has a question for you.

[02:02:08] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, just like to follow up on this. Were you guys on the... Code of conduct, whereas the REC already voluntarily adapted the code of con... So how do you define voluntarily? So that does it mean that if the council wants to remove someone, you will honor that?

[02:02:30] Rental Housing Committee Chair Grenwald: So I think we had specifically asked staff for details on removal. Again, I don't think any one of us in particular foresees a situation where we would put ourselves in a situation to be removed, but the code of conduct that was adopted was an agenda item and I think, you know, anything that was put ahead of us in front of us for that agenda item. We took staff's recommendation for what to accept. I don't, when we asked staff last night about adding removal to our own code of conduct, staff's recommendation was that that seemed not, perhaps Karen, I think, could comment on how good of a fit it would be to put a removal statement in our own code of conduct, whereas I think, you know, you had the power to remove. I'll let Karen speak.

[02:03:24] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Good evening, guaranteed him in Goldfarb and Lippman. So, as Chair Grenwald indicated, we had this discussion last night, you, as the council, appoint the members of the RHC. So we would not interpret the ECSFRA to give the RHC the ability to remove any members. I think only the council would have that ability, because you are the appointing entity. But it is a point that causes some confusion within the CSFRA because of the language, about the independence of the RHC. So you do appoint them, we think, probably under, uh, case law, you could remove them, even though that's not clear, and the CSFRA, it could be potentially an amendment that would clarify it. But we do not think the RHC could remove their own members.

[02:04:13] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, I understand that, but I was just trying to get clarity, because it says voluntarily. And the council could make a decision, and they could just, you know, not adopt it or ignore it. And that's where the ambiguity comes along, and as a, have they signed anything to say, Well, we accept your code of conduct. But if it's disciplinary, we're not going to abide by it. And so, can they do something where they can make a formal amendment or, so they say, they will accept us 100%, or does that have to be, as you say, amended through a charter amendment to make sure?

[02:04:50] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Well, because in the language about their independence, I think at the time that we put the code of conduct in front of them, we indicated to them that, unlike some of your advisory commissions where you can impose it on them, it was up to the RHC to adopt it.

[02:05:05] Councilmember John McAlister: So, presumably, then they could amend it and change it.

[02:05:08] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): The RHC?

[02:05:09] Councilmember John McAlister: The RHC. Could say that we accepted, and that we abide by the council's decisions if we need to remove a particular person.

[02:05:18] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Well, with respect to removal, removal is not specifically called out in the code of conduct, if I remember correctly, but they did agree to abide by the code of conduct that all of your other commissions abide by, with regard to conflicts and behavior and meeting conduct and representation of the city.

[02:05:36] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, I could understand that, but I'm Let's go specifically to removal. Okay. What would it take for the council to be able to remove a particular person from the RHC?

[02:05:50] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Well, we believe, based on some limited research, that you could remove them the same way that you concurrently remove other commissioners, because you appoint them? You are the appointing entity, and therefore, you should have the ability to remove those that you appoint. But there is nothing explicit in the CSFRA that allows for removal. It allows for appointment. And this is the ambiguity that we have in the CSFRA. So, in your other commissions, you clearly have the right...

[02:06:18] Councilmember John McAlister: No, I understand. Right. Would you be able to, with the RHC, you can voluntarily also write into one of their bylaws, or guidelines, or what procedures, that they will respect the decision of the council, to eliminate that ambiguity?

[02:06:34] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Yes, I think that they could do that, but also because they would adopt it by resolution, they could also change that resolution at any time, with a majority vote of the RHC.

[02:06:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. So then this really is all at the discretion of them at any point in time.

[02:06:50] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): Well, I want to be clear. I'm not sure that it really is out there discretion. I do think you have the authority to remove them.

[02:06:56] Councilmember John McAlister: But you're not sure.

[02:06:57] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): I couldn't say it definitively.

[02:06:59] Councilmember John McAlister: But it's still...

[02:07:01] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): No, it's, you know, there's limited case law on this subject.

[02:07:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so there's any way you can get certainty into procedure or guidelines or written document? Without an amendment of the CSFRA?

[02:07:13] Karen (Goldfarb & Lipman): I am not sure that we can.

[02:07:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I have one question for you. Um, so this meeting was last night. So I appreciate getting this. I wish I had had more time to digest it, but this happened last night. Were all of the members there at the RHC?

[02:07:33] Rental Housing Committee Chair Grenwald: Committee member, Honey, was not. So our, um, our alternate, uh, Nicole, uh, Haines Lipsey was, uh, filling in. So she filled in and voted.

[02:07:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Um, okay. Okay. That's all I have any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Next, please. Be sure to speak into the microphone, it can come down.

[02:08:04] Abe Bender: Mayor, council members, My name is Abe Bender. I live in Mountain View. The perspective rollback of renter protections by this council are ill advised, from rational, public policy perspective, as a long time voter, and as a renter, And like many, many others in Mountain View, we will be watching with intense interest, and remembering your actions here tonight. Thank you.

[02:08:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:08:50] Jackie Cash: Okay. We have a slide we'll be putting up. We hope. And we have a, we've turned in six speaker cards, so we request nine minutes. Is that the right math?

[02:09:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So actually, um, the policy is that, uh, if there's 5 or more, you get some extra time. But we were, the purpose of that was to sort of cut down on the time. So.

[02:09:40] Jackie Cash: We won't use more than we need. will come in under 9 minutes. So I think you and I went by email, and it was 7.5 . We'll manage with seven and a half.

[02:09:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Perfect, thank you.

[02:09:55] Jackie Cash: Hi, my name is Jackie Cash, and I'm a member of the Mountain View Housing Justice Coalition. More importantly, I am a Mountain View renter, at least for now. As I and other renters have listened to the CSFRA, subcommittee meetings, many of the proposed policies have a common theme. Charging higher rents to renters in order to benefit landlords. Landlords are already seeing their profits go up each year when old tenants leave and new tenants move into apartments that have been renovated and are now being rented at market rents. As you know, I've been actively looking for a new apartment. And I am seeing how much Margaret rates have gone up since the last time I had to do this a few years, well, almost 18 years ago. Um, I am seeing one bedrooms apartments, uh, which is what I have right now. They're starting, if you're lucky, around $2,200, and they go well up into the 3000s, if you're looking at one of the higher end department buildings. Studios start at $1,800, and I've seen them go up as high as $2,500, just depending upon where you're looking and things like that. There's also not a whole lot of availability out there, but there is some. There have been many successful landlord petitions for rent increases and especially for landlords whose rents were truly below market when measure V passed. Landlords may not like the MNOI fair return calculation, but they have succeeded in using it to obtain farewell documented and rent increases.

[02:11:38] Edie Keating: Hello. My name is Edie Keating, and I am one of the many volunteers who, together, knocked on 1000s of renter doors in 2016 to secure the passage of measure V. It was difficult. Measure V passed with 53.8% of the vote. We were fighting against significant fake news from landlord mailers and online ads, especially the message that measure V would steal money from the city general fund from parks and schools. Today, there are 3 years of city staff reports that verify measure V is efficiently run and fully self funded. We have also heard that no campaigns are easier to win than vote yes campaigns. Measure W failed at 48%, and that was with many renters voting, yes, on W, as a backup to measure V. No renter will vote for an initiative with poison pills. As you can see, we've posted a list up there in the slide. And we do want to make a point. This has come up before that. Please notice that this list does not necessarily consider a pass-through of something like size of converto fit costs. or EV chargers to be a poison pill. It's just going to depend upon the details of how such charges would be passed through to renters. A pass-through program could be reasonable, or it could be a Schmorgas board of more additional benefits to landlords. But the details won't matter if you are including items such as a 5% rate increase or the consul ability to modify measure V. Renters and other community members will fight hard to keep control of measure V with the voters and to maintain maintain 100% of CPI as the limit on rent increases.

[02:13:34] Public Speaker: Well, San Francisco, as an example allows many costs to be passed through. Also note that their allowed annual rent increase is much lower than the CPI inflation rate. San Francisco rent increases are limited to 60% of the consumer price index. That's 40% lower than Mountain Views rate, which is 100% of the CPI. Or if you truly prefer a fixed rate, why not 2%, which is the cap on property tax increase that benefits all homeowners?

[02:14:11] Public Speaker: A hardship program that would be funded by landlord contributions and distributed to lower income tenants, would eventually, and probably not to eventually, deter landlords from renting to lower income tenants. I also heard in the staff presentation the word temporary applied to a hardship program, and the hardship of an increase of 5% rather than 3.5 would not be temporary. Have an extra minute.

[02:14:47] Alex: Uh, hi, my name is Alex. Uh, yeah, so, uh, measure V has, as you guys have heard, helped a lot of people, uh, remain in the community, uh, and, uh, you may be aware, may not be aware, uh, even the current uh, 3 point, whatever percent that uh, is allowed in the AJ is actually pretty substantial for a lot of people. So the proposed 5%, to be honest, is going to be even more burdensome is pretty straightforward. To that point to vice mayor, Abikoga's point on displacement, you know, unfortunately, the thing that causes more displacement than a steady trickle of redevelopment proposals, which are unfortunate and definitely need to be addressed, is the rent. increasing even that one. 14, one point, whatever percent increase, is going to displace a lot more people than what's going on with the redevelopment. And in addition to that, the avenue for addressing displacement is actually not this discussion. That is why we, well, all of you guys, thank you so much. Unanimously decided that displacement is a top priority. And the avenue to do that is by assessing our redevelopment policy and really doing it there. So rent control, separate stream, redevelopment, separate stream. Just want to make sure I addressed that displacement point that the vice mayor brought up. So yeah, you know, please don't go against the will of the people, the people banded together, the people came together in their own collective wisdom to pass this law. As you can see, there's a very beautiful slide right behind your shoulder, indicating all the things that will trigger a response from the community to defend the hard-earned protections that we all fought for in 2016 and are ready to fight for again. So please just reconsider the course of action. We don't want to do this either. We could be doing really good things like fighting gun violence, Margaret, vice mayor Margaret, put something on the agenda for later. We'd be happy to support something like that with our time and money and effort. So just, you know, please reconsider. Thank you.

[02:17:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Thank you. Next please.

[02:17:22] Miriam Glaser: Hi, my name is Miriam Glaser, and I'm from the Santiago Villa Mobile Park. And I kind of wanted to follow on to what they were saying about the CPI versus the flat rate. And as a senior on a fixed income, even 3.5-ish, which is where the CPI is right now, is even too high, because what we get as far as our pensions and our social security, our increases every year, do not keep up with that. Cost of living does not keep up with that. So if we were to have a flat rate of 5%, that would just be untenable because our mobile home park would raise us 5% a year if they could. They will raise us as high as they can every year. And if you have 5% every year, year after year, that's going to just, That's going to force us out. So, I like what you were saying about, instead of 100% of the CPI, do a lesser version of that, maybe, you know, 80% even or something of that nature. I really don't feel that rent increases should be more than 3% max and even 3.5 is too high at this point. So, That's all I have to say. When you're when you're about to do the mobile home ordinance or whatever we're going to do, just to keep that in mind. Thank you.

[02:18:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Thanks, please.

[02:18:53] Larios Aldivar: Ah, soy, Larios Aldivar?

[02:18:55] Interpreter: Good evening. My name is Larios. Uh, Bengo... We're here to ask you to please leave measure Biaziz. Measure V has allowed us to live peacefully as citizens of Mountain View. Before Measur V, we saw a lot of people leave Mountain View. They were displaced. They live mountain view, the city that they loved.

[02:19:50] Larios Aldivar: Yeah, hola, que sabemos, que que que que que, que, que, que?

[02:20:02] Interpreter: So, now that there's talks about measure V being removed, people have started coming, being, um, coming and telling us that they're feeling, um, nervous and afraid of leaving their city again, they're feeling anxious, and they're feeling the same things that they were feeling before measure became about.

[02:20:32] Larios Aldivar: Yes, tamos aquí, but nemos aluchar, talbel de jamos algo, nas tras casasas, porque tenemos uncarino, por nuestra ciudad.

[02:20:40] Interpreter: So, we are here because, um, we really love Mountain View. We really care and cherish the city, and we're here. We're not at home right now. We're here fighting so that you can decide not to remove Measure B. So put yourselves in our place, just like you have loved and continued to love mountain views, so do we. We love this city. We want to stay in Mountain View is our home.

[02:21:26] Larios Aldivar: Y gracias, portodo, lo cangato, por nosotros, nos mantien, tranquilos, pormedo de bomberos, uh, polecillas, muchas, cuosas, que nostien tranquilo, que gracias a su trabajo de ustedes?

[02:21:39] Interpreter: So we really want to also thank you because because of your decisions that you've made. You have a police force, a fire force that has allowed us to live very peaceful here in Mountain View. So for that, we do. For that, for that we thank you.

[02:21:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:22:06] Serge Bond: Good evening, my name is Serge Bond, Mountain View resident. I also happened to be a landlord, but probably not the kind you would assign to via Chelsea, because I supported Major V. First, I wanted a quick comment on the CPI. There is some irony that you think that CPI is not enough for landlords. While some of you thought it was too much for minimum wage earners. There is a bit of a, you know, disconnect. The thing that I think is missing here is, you know, whether that measure has any support and whether it would fare better than measure W at the ballot. I don't think it will. The main thing in Major W, that objected too, was to kind of give you the keys to be able to do any changes to this. What, you know, the long list of questions doesn't provide any certainty as to what you want to change. I think really what you're trying to do is to get a big box of sharpies so that you can change anything you want, you know, down the road. Next year, I plan to do on my best to get rid of a current president and his bulk of shop is. If you put anything like this on the ballot, I'll make sure the shoppies don't get to you. Thank you.

[02:23:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next place.

[02:23:26] Public Speaker: All right, be handsome in Santiago Villa. While you folks were busy not protecting us for the last 3 or 4 years, the largest park owner in the city has been taking advantage of the delay by acquiring as many homes as possible and renting them out at market rates. In Santiago Villa, we estimate that he already has acquired about a 3rd of the homes. If we as homeowners end up in the minority, maybe in 2020, without your providing vacancy control, very important, as well as rent stabilization, we are on the risk of becoming Mountain View's version of Plaza Del Rey in Sunnyvale. The residents of that park, the seniors in that park are already, probably unable to cover their rent, over $800, $1,800 now, with their social security checks. I don't know what they're doing. Uh, plus, uh, they have been forced to accept, um, a pass through, um, for capital improvements to their park. So I just don't want you to let this happen to us. Please move quickly, as the rental housing committee has said, soon. Thank you.

[02:24:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next, please.

[02:25:01] Ace and NDI: I Mayor Manachek, Vice Mayor, Abbot Coda, I members of the council. My name is Ace and NDI. I'm with Working Partnerships USA. I also here representing Silicon Valley Rising. I just want to say, obviously we all believe that everyone deserves to live in a safe and stable home, free from harassment, and from unjust rent increases and from unjust evictions, and Measure V has done a lot to be able to bring that kind of stability to residents and tenants here in Mountain View. Unfortunately, obviously some special interests, using deceptive means are trying to repeal some of those protections from residents here in Mountain View. And so we're faced here with a lot of questions about what the council can do to help address some of the concerns that some people have brought up. And so, you know, I just want to hear, come here and bring the message down. You know, if there are some administrative issues that need to be fixed, by all means, go ahead and go ahead and fix them, but there are the core, the core parts of measure V, that is protecting tenants from unaffordable rent increases, protecting tenants from unjust evictions, making sure that we're expanding the universe of people who are protected by including folks who live in mobile homes and also making sure that we are not taking back the powers that the RC has in order to be able to address things like renovictions. That's the process through which a lot of landlords will come up with renovations in order to be able to kick out a tenant. So we really, really hope, again, that you just really, really help support the core core issues and measure V. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:26:45] Alex Brown: Alex Brown, Santeca Villa, North Bay Shore, Mountain View. I had fun last night, listening to 49 minutes of the RHD discussing mobile homes. Again, it's my favorite thing ever. I want to say I respect staff's constraints with time when it comes to both the city attorney's office and city staff dealing with having to draft complicated things in a short period of time to be able to get it on the ballot. It's complicated. We have been waiting years. almost 2 decades now for some kind of mobile home protections in Mountain View. But I think we're getting close. It's great. I want it. Please. Something. There were a lot of options provided last night, and the sentiment is great to hear. Everyone hears us, respects us, wants to do something, and that's good. Yay. But time is short. I've got neighbors who are being forced out, who are having to find places to live out of state because they can't afford to live here anymore. And in the process, they are being preyed upon, when trying to sell their home, and it hurts. This is something that needs to be addressed as soon as possible to try to help as many people as we can because we're being gutted. And yeah, thank you.

[02:28:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Before you leave, cancel my book May has a question.

[02:28:08] Alex Brown: I love questions.

[02:28:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I just wanted to clarify. So are you saying that you would support the kind of a compromise where, um, you would be included in the CSF area until the ordinance was done, or are you just superior to support that that's actually separate, and that we should just go forward with the ordinance? Could you just clarify?

[02:28:31] Alex Brown: Oh, yeah, no, I've got strong opinions on this. I like the idea of a 2 track process where we are both included on the CSFRA productions now and a more comprehensive ordinance can be drafted to cover the nuances and difficulties in the mobile home space. And I would love to have the RPC administer and use their resources to help us. They have experience in the space. I think it would be a great fit. I think it would save staff time because you would already be able to leverage the existing expertise. So I think that having them administer it as opposed to having the city do it themselves would be great. In the short term, being able, the RC could vote to include mobile homes as covered rental units under the ordinance as it is now, and we could iron out the nuances later through an ordinance or a ballot nature process that is given more time to actually figure it out. I do see that it would be difficult to manage with the timeline that we have, needing to get the language done for this ballad initiative by December, to have everything worked out in detail. Uh, I think that I can't see that being easy. It's possible. I mean, anything's possible, but that would be a crunch.

[02:29:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Right. So one of the things that the RHC noted in their letter to us is that they'd like to be involved in, the drafting of the ordinance, but they didn't make mention of getting included in the CSFRA. And I don't know if that happened last night.

[02:30:05] Alex Brown: Yeah, they talked about last night. Part of their issue was budgetary. They wanted to make sure that if they were given items to manage, that they would be able to manage the budgetary constraints associated with those items through fees and allocation of those fees, they didn't want to have it set up as an advisory body where they're given more work, but they're not given more funding, and they can't get the funding themselves because it's not under their purview. So that's why they wanted to be involved in the drafting.

[02:30:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Got it. Thank you.

[02:30:34] Alex Brown: Yeah. Thanks.

[02:30:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: you. Next, please.

[02:30:42] Lenny Siegel: Lenny Siegel, Mountain Vee resident since 1972. I started working for rent control. We called a rent relief after the passage of Prop 13 in 1978. The landlords basically refused to pass along their property tax savings to tenants. So we tried to come up with a way to do that. We didn't get it passed. But it's a reminder that the CPI, the regular increase in expenses that were used for the minimum wage, actually is pretty ample for landlords because in most cases, their mortgages are fixed. Their property tax increase is fixed at 2% a year. And so some getting 3.5% a year actually allows them to accumulate money to make many of the improvements that we'd like them to make. Now, as I said last year, I would be willing to look at ways of streamlining the process for something like earthquake retrofits, maybe for sustainability as well. But as long as there's a proposal on the table to increase the annual allowable increase to 5% or anything above the CPI. I will work with the tenants, the Mountain View Housing Justice Coalition to defeat the measure. Again, it's fair to landlords now. It's creating stability for our community. Let's keep it. Thank you.

[02:32:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks, please.

[02:32:14] Joan McDonald: Joan McDonald, homeowner since 1960. I have 2 points I want to make, one, the current cifra, allows 2% to 5% annual growth or increase in rents. That means that if we had a recession, landlords could still increase rinse by 2%. With a flat rate, it seems as if landlords are guaranteed 5%, no matter what the economic situation is, which means in a recession, they could still raise the rents by 5%. Now, maybe market would tell them that's not going to happen because people will leave, but they will leave the city, if there is no vacancy for them that they can afford. That's number one. Number two, I think this whole issue needs to be broadened in that it affects the economy of the entire city, not just renters. It affects business people who can't maintain their businesses, because they can't keep employees, because the employees give up long commutes. Thank you.

[02:33:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks, please.

[02:33:52] Fred Kiani: Fred Kiani Mountain View. I come here to give you some suggestions. One is that to leave mobile homes and duplexes and single homes with attach units or detach units alone. Don't bring it into rain control. We have enough problems. We have two governments in this city. We are fighting each other. Don't do any more bad things to the city. It's not worth it. Let me tell you something else about what happens. If you push too much, the business people in this city, The business people go some other cities because businesses are just like a, if I'm employed. I'm looking for money to live on. And businesses, they're looking for money to live on. And if they don't get the money that's that covers their cost. They cannot stay in that place. They have to move on. If it wasn't for Costa Hawkins bill that I passed with Senator Costa in 1995, We would have 20% of our rental units boarded up, just like an East Palo Alto, because of rent control. That brought it by the same people, Stafford University, was a different professor in East Palo, on University Avenue, and Donahue Street, that broader and controlled in East Palo. The same people bring their politics outsiders break their politics in this town. That's sad. Please keep those 3 place things out. Thank you.

[02:35:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:35:30] Joshua Howard: Good evening, Joshua Howard, the California Apartment Association. There's been a lot of question about why 7000 residents signed a petition last year to put amendments to measure fee on the ballot. overwhelmingly, they were concerned about displacement, concerned about the displacement and the consequences measure V was having on the community. When measure V was adopted, housing providers had 2 choices. Get out while they could, or live with it. As a result, those that got out while they could, we saw a quick exodus now of over a 100, or actually say 100s of units because owners who wanted to make investments, wanted to make improvements, wanted to extend the useful life of their buildings, found it very difficult and expensive to do so. The new rules were too restrictive. And as housing ages, it needs upgrades, investment, to stay competitive, roofs, windows, electrical systems. I could go on and on. But the current law makes landlords feel unsure, unsecure and basically unclear as to what can be done. They feel subjected to a litany of paperwork, attorney's fees, complex calculations, and public hearings, and red tape, just to get a modest rent increase, to make the improvements that they want to make for their tenants, and to do right by their tenants, and to provide the safe, clean, enjoyable housing that measure V was intended to preserve. It's encouraging to see now that you're developing options for the voters to decide on. And without fixing measure V, We're going to see more units taken off the market and potentially more displacement. Thank you.

[02:37:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:37:08] Public Speaker: Good evening, Madam Mayor and city council members. I just want to clarify the point about, yes, the, uh, in, um, in 2017, there was a ballot measure that was, uh, that you got 7000 voters, 7000 voters that were misled. These people were coming in and basically forcing our residence to sign a petition that they didn't know what they were signing. They were telling them that it was to fix measure V. No, it was a sneaky reappeal, and that is what that, this measure did. That's one of the misconceptions that the gentleman before me just told you. The other thing is that in 2016, there was a true ballot measure they got passed by the voters of Mountain View. And what I see now is that we're trying to circumvent the will of the voter of Mountain View. And now they're talking about the landlords want to fix the apartments. Well, this is news to me, because my understanding is that if a renter needed something to be fixed, one of the things that the landlords would say is like, fix it, because I'm gonna charge you more money. So please, do not be fooled by the 7 sneaky, 7000 sneaky, reappeal, uh, votes, signatures that that got put on the ballot. These were people who were lied to. Don't allow this to happen anymore. you. Please, Margaret Avikoga. Thank you. I understand your laugh is me. But I'm looking at you.

[02:38:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: The time is up. Thank you.

[02:38:50] Public Speaker: The city council is being disrespectful.

[02:38:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member. Is there anyone else who wishes to provide the council with input on this topic? Okay, we'll close the public input portion. And, um, we'll go back to the questions that I would say if you have questions about the questions about the question. Let's ask them as we go through, or if you want to make any general statements, I think it would be good to do that before we dive into the questions for the 1st one.

[02:39:28] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, they're general questions, tip.

[02:39:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister.

[02:39:35] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, thank you. So I had a the relationship between the RHC in the city. There was that one consideration of non Mountain View residents as members. And the vice mayor brought up the idea of property owners. Now, there's a precedent for doing that on the downtown committee. Was there where we have property owners involved in that. What kind of concerns were raised by the committee to do that, or was it there was a consensus, and was there any comets from the REC on that particular item?

[02:40:13] Unknown Speaker: If I recall last night, there wasn't really any feedback from the RHC, maybe that the chair was here, but there wasn't any, yeah, comment from the RHC.

[02:40:26] Councilmember John McAlister: And speaking about the RC meeting last night, Was it unanimous on also on all of the items or was there like a 31 or so?

[02:40:35] Unknown Speaker: Or all items on the letter were unanimous votes from the RHC.

[02:40:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. And... But that was to my question earlier about was everybody there? And... But that's just... So there was an alternate, yeah. I'm concerned how that... And then on the...

[02:40:59] Councilmember John McAlister: There was a question about under separate petition process. What, and there was concern about capital improvements to meet or meter maintain code. Was there any discussion about if there was a joint agreement between the tenant and the landlord to try to improve the property, or upgrade it to the tenants' wishes, that they could voluntarily do a rent increase beyond what was allowed? Is that something that was considered, N, or is that something that could be allowed?

[02:41:28] Unknown Speaker: To answer the 1st part of the question that was not a consideration or a discussion that took place. And in regards to the latter part, I think that could be something considered to be considered.

[02:41:44] Councilmember John McAlister: considered, but it would it be illegal, or as the CSFR is, so define that if there is a mutual agreement between the two parties, that they can't do that, or do they still have to go by what the CSFR say?

[02:41:57] Unknown Speaker: Um, I'll let Onke, our program manager, respond to that in regards to CSFR.

[02:42:03] Program Manager Onke: So, in the petition process, currently, we also have a mediation component and facilitation components where tenants and landlords together can come to an agreement about certain rent increases.

[02:42:17] Councilmember John McAlister: So would it have to go through the petition process if both agreed to it? and sign some kind of a statement?

[02:42:22] Program Manager Onke: It gives a process for them to come together and come to an agreement.

[02:42:27] Councilmember John McAlister: And how long would that, if there is mutual agreement, how long would that process then take?

[02:42:33] Program Manager Onke: As soon as someone files a petition, it will take a couple of weeks to schedule a hearing or a mediation in this case.

[02:42:42] Councilmember John McAlister: A couple of weeks. Is that standard? I mean, is all processed? I'm going a little bit on my question. So, these mediation processes, there, Luxunis is a couple of weeks and the longest, what's the longest been scheduled out?

[02:42:54] Program Manager Onke: Well, when a mediation is not chosen by either the party, then it goes into a formal hearing process.

[02:43:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Is there any other way to, if two mutually parties agreed to something? Usually it's the tenant would go to the landlord, say, Hey, can I like to fix this up? Is there a process right now, or is there a potential one where they can just say, here's a form. Thank you very much, and submit it to the RC, and they could approve it.

[02:43:23] Program Manager Onke: Actually, a landlord can come to such agreement. because the CSFA is a complaint based procedure, if a tenant agrees with a landlord to do certain things, or pay a certain amount, and he then agrees with a landlord, and we never even hear about that private agreement. Unless there's complaint.

[02:43:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, that's... So it's a complaint based. So if there's anything good about anything, then you have to keep it quiet, and there's no, okay, that's comments. Thank you.

[02:43:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor, I'll be Koga.

[02:43:56] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, I was gonna say, you, you stole my Thunder Council member, my Callister, when we got to, uh, when we got to the 2nd item on Pastor's, that was something that did come up and that we wanted to get some input on.

[02:44:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[02:44:13] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I want some clarification on how we're proceeding. Are we, we're asking questions. Is this time for questions and general comments, or just time for questions at this point?

[02:44:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, I had originally said it was a time for general comments and questions specifically, I would say, about question number one, and then you can ask questions about all the others as we go through them. Um, but, uh... Not everyone's talking. But your open process. In general, general comments. Absolutely.

[02:44:46] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay. Because I have to say, I just wanted to state that I have some pretty grave reservations about the road we're going down right now, that what I see in the staff report doesn't show significant improvements over the CSFRA as it currently stands. I think the major items we might improve in the CSFRA, like adding mobile home protections, and ways to ensure fast and fair soft story retrofit improvements can be done in more efficiently and cost effectively without putting a whole new rent control initiative on the ballot. So I just wanted to state off the bat that I'm in favor of, at the end of the staff report, as alternative one, take no action, and do not pursue a city sponsored amendment to the CSFRA. Um, during the last election, I didn't hear voters demanding a major change in our rent control, and I feel like they've had the opportunity. Well, they will have the opportunity to vote on the landlord initiative, and they had measure V, and measure W. And I think that staff time and counsel time would be better served, and the money that we're spending on this would be better put to other uses. I feel like we're kind of churning this over and over again. So, I'll go through each one of these, I think we could put our time and money towards better priorities. But as we go through each of these questions, I will chime in anyway, but that's my general comment.

[02:46:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Any other general comments or questions about the 1st question? So I guess, um, I'll take a turn. Um, I... I appreciate that, um, this was brought up at a council meeting, and we're talking about this. And I do think what we're trying to do, as the vice mayor said, you know, we have heard concerns from different parties. And I think what we're trying to do is find a way to address those. And also, kind of stop the division that is in the community over rank control. Um, I mean, we are not talking about anything on that list that was shown earlier about um, changing anything about, um, the evictions or other things. I feel like what we're talking about is fairly minor tweaks to this, to address things that have cropped up over the years that we've that would be good to address. But we're not talking about as one person said. Um, you know, repealing measure V. That's not what we're doing here tonight. It's far from it. So, what I'm trying to do is find a way to make some, you know, minor adjustments to this, to address the concerns of the different parties. Um, so in terms of, um, Actually, I think I had, uh, Actually, my question is about a different one. So are there any other general comments?

[02:48:06] Unknown Speaker: Not yet. Not yet.

[02:48:09] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Do anybody have any questions about question one? Or other comments? Okay, so let's dive into question one. I think, um, the vice mayor was, did you have additional comments? Oh, but... Oh, Council member Clerk.

[02:48:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: I was just going to summarize this. I think some of the wording that's been used. I don't want to misguide anyone. The thought behind this wasn't, um, isn't to have oversight over the RHC, like any other advisory body, the thought or what we had discussed in the committee was to basically say, one, respect their independence as sort of the folks who make decisions related to this, and we don't have this particular topic. Counsel doesn't have, or frankly, want oversight over most of those things. I think what we were trying to address here was just to make it clear that, while the RHC is unique within the city structure and it's independent, it isn't, it isn't exempt from our standard sort of code of conduct appointment or removal processes. And I know those have come up in the past, and while we've sort of resolved them along the way, I think if we're updating the measure, one of the key things that we can do as part of that is clarify that, clarify the appointment authority, and perhaps add the ability to do, to add non-residents and certain things, if we need to, if we feel like that, will help expand the pool. And then the others just clear the a clear ability to remove someone from his conduct or all the standard things that the council could remove someone for and that they would be subject to the standard code of conduct. So this, this, I think overall is, is hopefully pretty benign, like we're not trying to remove the independence of the RHC in any way. It's mostly just to clarify that they're subject to the same rules and regulations as any other committee.

[02:50:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez.

[02:50:16] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. So, I agree with Vice Mayor Abi Koka, and council member Clark, regarding sort of the intention of the parameter we're seeking to modify, one of the ideas that we, we didn't, I'm not sure if there was a particular concrete idea that we are recommending to the council, but among the ideas that were discussed, for instance, was simply subjecting the rental housing committee to the article that includes regulations for other, for the other point of bodies defined in the charter. which include things like a removal process, prohibition against compensation, and that kind of thing. So making it clear that they are akin to the other a point of bodies that are explicitly defined in the charter. And then I think the more important question is question too, where I think it's important for us to state, you know, in areas where the council has some measure of authority in the regulations of that are included in CSFRA. We need to be very explicit about what those might be. So just thinking of a metaphor or analogy, maybe, I'm kind of thinking of the rental housing committee as akin to a planning commission in most other cities, where planning commissions, unlike in Mountain View, have the authority, for instance, to approve a CUP. Our planning commission is entirely advisory in nature. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm not suggesting, and I'm not sure the committee is recommending that the rental housing committee be advisory, but rather it have final authority on many things. It be subject to the same regulations as other appointed bodies, and that in certain very clearly defined instances, the council would be the final authority. which gets to question two. So I'll conclude there.

[02:52:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister.

[02:52:21] Councilmember John McAlister: If you notice from the questions I asked, they were, there was no definitive answer that I was, they couldn't say yes or no. And so my intent when this came up was to try to get concrete answers for issues that come up. You know, we're talking about displacement. And I would like to in the Rock Street. I don't want another Rock Street situation. But until we get to a fair balance, and people may not like between the tenants and the landlords to get a fair rate of return, there's no incentive for those landlords to keep the property at the current state, unless we come back along and then say, well, you have to mandate that you got to do this and this, which I personally don't think is right. So, if we're able to go through this process to find out that we can give a landlord a fair rate of return, whatever it can be, so that he doesn't have that incentive, to knock down his fourplex, 6 plex, 8 plex, 20 units, to get a maximum return. That's my goal as we go through this. My goal, again, is to try to make sure that every question I had, the lawyer for the city, well, she couldn't say yes or no, the question about the process, well, it's a complaint base. So what about if we're trying to bring these 2 parties together and make an agreement? We don't know. So let's try to get these questions. And hopefully as we go through this process, we come up with abilities that are that people have to abide by and yet are fair to both sides. So, you know, I've been always pushing for, let's make sure we buy some properties or whatever. Maybe we put something in there that the properties are available, affordable units, current affordable units, are placed to the city, 1st Friday refusal. Maybe that comes in or maybe not. But I agree with a lot of the people on the board. I don't want to do the RC job. I just want to make sure there's clarity and legal clarity, so that both sides are fairly treated, and they can go forward with the process with, well, do we have to go to law here or this or that? So if it takes the council to come along and do something great. And as we get into mobile home parks, Has anybody ever thought of taking a mobile home pad and considering, like, commercial property, instead of going a one year lease, make it a five-year lease, and with built-in incremental increases, or a 10 year 5 year with a 10 year lease? They're not like a regular tenant that they're going to move away. Their house situated there. So those are the type of things I'd like to see discussed. I don't know if the artsy RC has the ability to do something like that to say, these mobile home oilers, they're a unique hybrid. Let's give them a long-term lease. And so, can they do that? So that's, again, those are the things I like to bring up. So, again, I'm looking for the best way to get fairness and to get certainty on items here. Those are my general comments.

[02:55:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, I'll be coca.

[02:55:23] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, yes, that's really what we're trying to do here is to get some clarity on some ambiguous language, and to respond to council member Hicks, in terms of seismic retrofits. There's actually only one process stated in CSFRA, and that process is the way it's structured, doesn't allow for a streamlining, enough of a guarantee that folks could get reimbursed for their seismic retrofits. And so that's why we're here. So in light of that, because we have to make that change. We thought it was worthwhile to go through the entire see a safari and see what else needed to be clarified. And so that's where we go to. We start with number one. So the question is, well, I guess I would say the committee recommends limited scope and oversight. The areas were...

[02:56:22] Unknown Speaker: And would the committee define those in the next meeting?

[02:56:25] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. So, and so on the areas we discussed was budgetary in the sense of legal lawsuits against RHC because of the potential for the city to maybe having to support, to back up those lawsuits. Again, the appointment and the removal of members. Um, And then the only other area would be going into pass-throughs that we'll talk next. So focusing just on question one. So yes, so those are the limited areas. Although, you know, I think we should add this issue of mobile home parks, like anything else, having to do with rent down the road. AB 1482 does, I think, pose an interesting situation. You know, as Steph said, if that passes, we don't have a way of administering that right now. So I think that should be something that we could consider RHC administering. And yeah, I don't mean to limit in any way your the budget, they should be able to pass the budget that covers their costs, but the one challenge of big liability that could be incurred or include the city is legal. lawsuits. So that's an area that we would recommend this council having some say in.

[02:57:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, Kumay.

[02:57:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Um, so, I appreciate the subcommittee. clarifying the intent on the prior conversation. I think it, um, it's illuminating to kind of to hear the thought process and where we're trying to go. Um, particularly for question one, you know, wanting to make sure that there is the independence and the uniqueness that the RHC has. Um, but to also encompass that code of conduct and have a little bit more formalized process, I think, um, in what I've been hearing. I'm comfortable with the subcommittee continuing going down that path and exploring that further. So.

[02:58:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I'm interested in having the subcommittee continue on with this and the items that are not necessarily listed here that have been discussed. Um, I think it would be useful to consider having RHC members who own apartment complexes subject to the CSFRA, um, that are in Mountain View, um, but the owner might not live in Mountain View to have them be eligible to apply. It's not necessarily that they get appointed, but to apply to the RHC. And I also would be interested in having the council have the ability to, um, ask the RHC, to, um, provide input on topics, and also, um, potentially ask them to do additional items, such as if there's a mobile home park, regulation that's an ordinance, to also demeanor that, administer that. And then if the state law, um, adds complexity to this to also do that. So, um, that would be, so that would be what I would like to see, um, a show of hands on unless, uh, somebody had a, a tweet to that they want to make before we say, yes, we want them to, because I think we want to take a formal show of hands on these. Yeah. The only thing that I would add is just, so no one is to work, like, we wouldn't, if we were to ask for advice or give anything like mobile home park administration mobile home park. we would, clearly we would fund those things. They wouldn't be unfunded.

[03:00:14] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh yeah. I think the questions about budget and everything was, you know, they're welcome just as they can today to raise fees and set their own budget and everything, I think, where we were mostly worried was, um, anything where they they might get into a situation where they would need to start exposing the city to significant costs. So significant long term litigation, or something like that.

[03:00:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments?

[03:00:43] Unknown Speaker: So was that just on one?

[03:00:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That's just on one, Council member Hicks.

[03:00:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So the question you're asking on one is just, um, should, uh, should the subcommittee be able to continue to talk about and, uh, further define, uh, counsel oversight of the RHC, including removal of people and possible other discrete items, it's just, should they be able to continue talking, is basically the question?

[03:01:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, I think it's a little bit more defined than that, because the subcommittee has talked about it. So, um, they had a couple of specific ideas that I responded to about, should we look at having, um, housing providers who own complexes in Mountain View, but they might not live here, be eligible to apply to the RHC. And I think the subcommittee should continue to discuss that.

[03:01:45] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sure, I'm fine with them continuing to discuss it. Thanks.

[03:01:48] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, could I do a follow up question on?. On the property owners, just to clarify, does the CFR, I specifically say Mountain View residence only? Okay, so this would be amendment. Okay, thank you.

[03:02:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That would be, yes. Council member Ramirez?

[03:02:05] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So, um, just for my benefit. So we're, because question two, I feel like question one and question two, are very closely related. But so question one pertains to, you had a list of things, and I don't think I captured all of them, but it sounded more along the lines of, so like, potential, so eligibility for participation on the RHC and sort of more administrative components. And then question 2 would be in the operations of the law, what would require council approval? Is that the level of distinction that we're making? Is that a helpful distinction to make?

[03:02:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I did find these questions, sort of overlapping, when I went through this. And so, I was thinking question one was pretty much what it's limited to in the staff report, and that I had a hard time separating out two, three, four. And so I was going to suggest we take actually two, three, 4, and 5 together, because they are very related. There's a lot of, and that's, that's why I'm, I'm,

[03:03:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah. I think we can separate out number one. And I think we can also separate out the additional questions that were added today. Would you mind listing the input you've heard from the council for question one one more time?

[03:03:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, so, um, what I just, um, wanted to propose is that the subcommittee continue to discuss the specific areas of limited oversight, and we've heard that those primarily are around um, legal uh, action, uh, where we have concerns in the budget for that. And then, um, having the, uh, apartment complex owners who are subject to the CSFRA who might not live here, be eligible to apply to the RHC, and then having the ability for the council to, um, ask the RHC, to provide us with their input on specific topics, and also for the council to potentially, um, assign additional duties to the RHC. But if we did that, it would come along with the resources to be able to do that in terms of funding, that things that might be synergistic to their existing duties.

[03:04:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, with that, well, I guess, if the question is just, or if the direction is to have the subcommittee explore these ideas and flesh them out more, then I'm comfortable with that. But that last one, I think, means a lot more detail.

[03:04:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I feel like we don't have as much detail at this point. on those. Okay, thank you. I think our city manager had a comment.

[03:05:03] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, so I think it's helpful for you to summarize and get a straw motion or something to clarify the intent. And sometimes, it could simply be for the subcommittee to continue working on this issue generically, and sometimes, it might be helpful to be very specific on the direction you want, doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other for each of them. But on this first one, I just want to double check one thing I heard was discussion of the removal process, and our outside council has said, She believes we have the authority, you have the authority now, but it's not clear, if you want that explicit. Is that something that you would want in this bucket of changes?

[03:05:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, yes, I would add that, then, to the others that I listed, that they're subject to the same rules as the other advisory bodies when it comes to appointments and removals, and code of conduct. I would add that. Council member McAllister.

[03:05:59] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, you know, what's interesting is that when Tom Means was on the RHC, other people that were concerned because of his background or whatever potassity took on that they wanted him removed, and they were, and it was interesting that they were coming to the council, you have to, you need to remove them for a conflict of interest or whatever. And yet we never had true authority to be able to do that. So this will be an opportunity. There's one example early on to say, counsel, you have the ability to do that legally and follow through on it, whereas in the past, it was likely or so forth, but so there's an example of clarity would really be helpful for both sides.

[03:06:42] Unknown Speaker: If staff could provide some thoughts behind why the questions impart or asked the way they were.

[03:06:50] Staff Member: And there is some overlap among them. A lot of what staff is thinking about is how this would be drafted into actual language. And there is a lot of specificity and nuance that could be part of it. So in an effort to try to maximize clarity and be responsive to the subcommittees and the council's input, as we're thinking through what the drafting language could look like, some questions might come up during the drafting process. So for example, if the council seeks oversight over the separate petition process, then the question is, was the council's intent that all decisions related to the separate position process might float up to the council? If so, that would be something that would be helpful for us to know. If not, then it would be helpful to understand what the thresholds might be or what the parameters might be, or are there certain buckets? Or maybe that is, for example, very general language, and then specific language is truly resolved through the RHC. Those are sort of the questions that, as staff is thinking about drafting it, to craft the language that is accurately reflective and not draft something that wasn't stated. And so some of these questions we're trying to get at those things. And so, um, if there are sort of overlap, they they do sort of fit together and, um, we're trying to get at a point where we can get amendment language, if that's what the council wants us to get to, to be mindful of how this would work in terms of mechanics and where the language would go. So just to provide some thoughts behind that. Thank you.

[03:08:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um... Can I see a show of hands on who is in agreement with what I suggested? Do I need to repeat it all? For question number one? So that's unanimous. Okay, so question, um, so if there's any council questions regarding, um, two, three, four, and five, because I do think it's okay to take these together. Vice Mayor Abby Kogi, did you want to provide context first?

[03:09:05] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you. So, um, I was, I appreciate staff's, um, thought process, and I was just trying to, I guess I'm more, I don't know, linear thinking. So that was when we've dispense with the two, which I think ties to two, two, three, four, and 5 is around this, I, the pass-throughs, the reimbursement for capital improvement costs. And as mentioned, currently, there is a process that's stated in CSFRA. Um, the MNOI, I think that's the right acronym. And what we were looking for was a more streamlined process, you know, a process that isn't as much paperwork that would guarantee, certain improvements could be reimbursed, such as seismic retrofits, bringing buildings up to code or maintaining code, environmental sustainability measures, and then extending the useful life of a building. And with that, we would include an amortization timeline, as well as a cap on the annual increase allowed. And that would be combined with the other question about the, what the, I forget the, is it A, the adjustment, the annual adjustment. So that plus capital improvement reimbursements, there'd be an overall cap to that. So the question here is, do you, counsel, agree, um, that there should be a streamlined process for these types of capital improvements? Do you agree with the types of capital improvements that we've listed, or mention the areas, and then subject to the RHC defining more clearly what those are? Would you like, or would you like the council to list out exactly what those improvements should be as other cities, the chart shows other cities have. So, I guess it's many questions, but it's all around the capital improvement, pass through.

[03:11:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, any questions or comments on this? So it's two, three, four, and five. as summarized.

[03:11:30] Unknown Speaker: Well, no, then we added some more questions today that are not on that slide. So one of the questions I sent in was, um... the streamline petition process. You know, we keep on saying, Oh, it's a streamlined process, um, for pass through, but, uh, I guess I wanted to make sure it was clear and not just assumed, as the answer came back. that that means it isn't subject to the MNNOI. That doesn't roll off my tongue yet. process that it's separate from that.

[03:12:11] Staff Member: Yes, if that's the council's wish, it can be designed outside of the M&OI or fair rate of return process. as other jurisdictions have done.

[03:12:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Council member McAllister.

[03:12:26] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, so will they look at other alternatives to the MOI? M N O I. Cal. Okay.

[03:12:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, that particular ways of determining it. Yes, so that's what we were, what we would like to do is to allow for another process to be created that would streamline these types of capital improvements. And I will also add what you mentioned earlier. There was a suggestion about if there's a mutually agreed upon improvement by landlord and tenant, if they came together and agreed on an improvement, that should be allowed to be passed through and through this streamlined process, reimbursed.

[03:13:12] Councilmember John McAlister: Question for, has the REC... I mean, they looked at our questions and said, you know, we recommended. Can they initiate any kind of amendment to the... Or would they have to, could they do that, or would they have to write up a petition to the council to put something on the ballot? I mean, because we're writing up a lot of our ideas to make things smoother, because we hear what's going on, but RC, have you had the thought that, hey, let's have a brainstorming, say, here's issues that we liked clarity on, and the amendment process would be a great way to do it. Instead of going through legal challenges or legal, so forth,

[03:13:52] Unknown Speaker: Could, yeah, could you take that for me, please?

[03:13:55] Rental Housing Committee Member: Thank you. We did have a study session. on the, uh, what flexibility we have to create a petition process outside of the MNOI for return. And, uh, our staff, said that really we can make it more streamlined, but that calculation has to be included. So you have to have all of the buildings financials as part of anything that you're going to put forward. Um, because the CS4A does mention specifically capital improvements and prevents um, a separate um, separate process. So yeah,

[03:14:32] Councilmember John McAlister: I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. So that, but had youth said, hey, let's get our ideas and if the council is going to bring something forward, Let's incorporate some of our ideas that we see that might be common sense approach.

[03:14:46] Rental Housing Committee Member: So, I mean, our recommendation. in addition to what we think is essential, or the unanimous recommendation was, that we're actually afraid that if seismic retrofit, we're established without some sort of streamlined process. Our budget could suffer significantly, because right now, if it does have to go through MNOI, dozens of pages, sometimes 100s of pages of documentation go into that, and then we pay every hearing officer to hear those petitions. And right now we only get about a dozen per year of petitions, maybe 2 dozen. And in a scenario where all, you know, that becomes hundreds, that would severely impact our budget. So, in last night's recommendation, sorry, to summarize, we were saying definitely essential. We feel like seismic retrofit, we really need something to deal with that, and that would be essential and definitely something that rises to the level of putting on a ballot measure. In addition to that, I think the 2nd part of our recommendation was um, we would like the flexibility to create other, um, other petitions, you know, based on what comes up. So we've heard some of the energy efficiency, upgrades, and we didn't actually recommend the council or the committee didn't recommend putting, there were several limitations that were suggested, that we actually thought our recommendation was, you know, we could, if you gave us the flexibility to institute or implement those streamlined petition processes, that you could trust us to. to do that.

[03:16:30] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, so when you say we give you the ability, I thought you were independent and you could do it without coming to us, so...

[03:16:36] Rental Housing Committee Member: Sorry, not outside the M&OI. It would all have to, um, include the MNOI calculation, which is, um, it's our, it's, we've, our staff is streamlined that as much as they can. So, to your point, I think if a landlord is going to make a decision about a seismic retrofit that's going to cost $100,000, you wouldn't necessarily have an amortization schedule for that specific capital improvement or have the guarantee that you'd get be able to pass any of that onto tenants. You'd have to go through all the financials of the business and it would depend on the M&OI that you are receiving.

[03:17:13] Councilmember John McAlister: Do you have the ability to streamline it yourself? Or do you have to follow us a very strict criteria?

[03:17:21] Rental Housing Committee Member: It's about as lean as it could be. And sorry, they're perhaps...

[03:17:26] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, sir, God. Yeah, I just want to clarify, because what the CSFRA requires is that for any upward adjustment, it has to be tied to fair return. It does not require the MNOI standard. That's part of the regulations that the RHC adopted. But it does have to be tied to a fair return. So, we have talked with the RHC about potentially doing a petition process that would be more streamlined. We do have to tie it to fair return. We can't just do a capital improvement pass through under the current language. But there are options for a different petition process for capital improvements. There are some limits, because the CSFRA often limits what type of capital improvements are eligible for contemplation of an upward adjustment. So we have constraints. We looked specifically at the seismic retrofit issue. We thought we could come up with something, in response to the council looking at the mandatory seismic retrofit. But obviously, the RHC has been waiting to see how this process comes out, but we could design a process and adopt it as part of our regulations. REC adopted the M.O. M N O I. M N O I. M I. Yeah. So they had options to look at other methods of fair return. Yes, yes, they're obligated to ensure that landlords achieve a fair return, and that's what the individual petition process is designed to ensure. So that's the basic standard in the CSFRA. There are some limitations as to what can be considered in those determinations, but it was up to the RHC to determine the methodology, and that was the maintenance of net operating income, which is the most common methodology for rent control jurisdictions.

[03:19:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Council member Clark.

[03:19:38] Councilmember Chris Clark: I was just gonna say, so one of the things that would be, I think, extra helpful to the committee would be, um, there are sort of three. We were just talking about, take a separate petition process for seismic retrofit, for example. There's three different ways to approach that. So you can either write a separate process into the CSFRA. You could say there shall be a separate process for mandatory things, and sort of define it sort of like it is today. It would just be a separate process. You can say, um, there should be separate processes for mandatory, or there can be separate petition processes for various categories, like mandatory, and the RHC has the authority to set that, just like they did with MNOI for basic capital improvements. So that would give them the flexibility just to create that process and implement it just like they did with MNOI. Or you could say, you have the ability to create additional processes. But if we're going to give you the ability to create all of these, you know, potentially several additional processes. One of the questions that we had was, with the council want to, like, basically approve those or have input onto that, in that, so that, you know, in the worst case scenario, it gets out of control or in, you know, a normal scenario, we have a dialogue and talk about it. But, you know, do you want to proval authority over that? Do you, are you comfortable just letting them sort of in consultation with us, setting that and they, they're the open authority? So getting the sense of counsel of how much input they want over some of these key questions and they're identified in number two, which is, you know, if there's a separate petition process for mandatory or for, you know, things that extend the useful life of the building or sustained earth, like special, um, I think not necessarily mandates, but like, um, you know, special initiatives by the council, like sustainability, um, you know, those sorts of things, do you want input over those things? Are you comfortable just giving that to the RHC to create those processes and run with them? We had thrown out, like, if they make any changes that might cover a significant number of new units. You know, would you want any anything that might greatly impact the community at large, like, you know, expanding the footprint of CSFRA or contracting it or, um, you know, proposing access to city or, you know, needing to use city funds? Would you want a vote on that? And then the other key thing would be, um, one thing that was pros. I think it was actually me that proposed it, would, you know, a big sort of community impacting that might be, like, the CSFRA suspension, right? And so would you, are you comfortable just as measure V is written today, just letting this, the RHC do that? Or would you want them? Would you want counsel to have a check on that? Where like anything that's that community impacting would come to us? And maybe we don't want to get involved there, but that was one of the things, sort of, I think, more tenet friendly things that I was thinking, um, It just struck me as somewhat strange in in measure V that if you hit a vacancy rate, and granted, it's hard to hit, but if you get a certain vacancy rate, a group of 5 people can just suspend the whole thing without, or, you know, 3 or 5 people can suspend the whole thing citywide without us having. any sort of say over that. I thought that was sort of unique. But anyway, just having your general sense of, are we comfortable with RHC on these things? Do we want separate processes, or do we want to give them the authority to do these things? Do we want, you know, to have approval authority over A, or are we just comfortable sort of letting them run with it as they sort of can today? I think is are the key things that we'd like to get a sense of. Or do you want to clearly define what would be allowed as the paths through?

[03:23:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Some nice easy questions there. Um... Council member, Ramirez.

[03:24:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So I agree with the question as posed by the other members of the committee, for my part. I have a strong preference for clearly defining those aspects of the CSF array, that either the rental housing committee or the council would have additional flexibility or some degree of discretion over, I think more flexibility that's left undefined invites stronger attack against the measure. And so as described in the rental housing committee letter, and as we've talked about as a committee, we do want to keep the viability of the measure in mind because it's, you know, my my concern is that I'm not hearing a lot of strong support for him. At some level, we need people to run a campaign. So I think if we're very clear in any new categories of capital improvements and the degree of flexibility or discretion that the rental housing committee and or the council may have in those, I think we do a good job of defending the measure against attacks in a campaign.

[03:25:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[03:25:12] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I generally liked what the letter from the RHC said about supporting an amendment, it's .6, supporting an amendment to create a separate petition process for seismic retrofit costs, as well as an amendment that gives the RHC the authority to determine further categories of capital improvements. That level of, I mean, I would be comfortable with giving them the RHC that level of discretion. I think it should come back to the council if there were any general suspension, as people were talking about earlier.

[03:25:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Well, so if you have any questions on 2 through 5, um, or any comments based upon what's previously been said, um, on these 4 questions? Did you go ahead and cancel on McAllister?

[03:26:11] Councilmember John McAlister: So, the more I hear what's going on here in the debate. It's, it's discerning for me that the HRC has, RHC, has more ability to adopt and define processes that we're talking about, but either for limited staff or whatever reason, you're not taking, you're not proactive in trying to resolve issues that have been occurring in the past. I mean, if I saw REC was doing a lot of this stuff, a lot of the things that we're trying to move forward, we really would need a amendment, they would be able to do it themselves if I'm hearing correctly.

[03:26:58] Unknown Speaker: So I think there's a subtlety there that maybe got missed. And that is the RHC can develop a different process and use something other than MNOI. But everything is still subject to the fair rate of return test, so to speak. So, if we ask the RHC to develop a process to address the cost of seismic retrofits, it could be different, it could be more streamlined. Well, no, it actually couldn't. It could be a little bit more streamlined, but eventually you're going to hit that, is the housing provider earning a fair rate of return or not, and that would then dictate whether or not seismic retrofit costs could be passed through.

[03:27:46] Councilmember John McAlister: But isn't that something that the RHC has staff and is required should be doing without having direction from counsel?

[03:27:55] Unknown Speaker: Well, I think my concern was, when we were talking about seismic retrofit, I wanted to find a way to help the housing providers be able to recover some of the cost. And they might be able to, and they might not be able to, because in the end, the fair rate of return is going to drive them.

[03:28:15] Councilmember John McAlister: So it's the CFR, yeah. It's not the REC, it's the CFR. CSFRA. It's the ones that are causing that.

[03:28:21] Unknown Speaker: That is correct. I think the RHC has done a lot of work within the bounds of the CSF array, but in this instance, for example, a separate petition process for certain capital improvements, which they could maybe go through and receive a return outside of their fair rate of return. That is, I think, what the subcommittee is trying to achieve with the separate petition process.

[03:28:53] Councilmember John McAlister: So regardless if we bring it forward or the RHC, still would need an amendment.

[03:28:59] Unknown Speaker: That is correct. The RHC is working within the bounds of the CSFRA, and with this amendment, it would let them design a petition process outside of those bounds.

[03:29:11] Councilmember John McAlister: I'm for everything, but I'd sure like to see the REC have this kind of discussion that the subcommittee is doing it. Maybe you have done it already. But I sure like to see you guys doing bring stuff to us to say, hey, you're the ones that can put it on a ballot. These are what we needed, make the process move along a little quicker. So you can counter.

[03:29:32] Rental Housing Committee Member: I can just quickly say that we're open to that. I asked our council about the conversation we had. Other jurisdictions do have a pass through, which is something that we're not, we don't have leeway to do right now, but there were other options that our staff had put together for us that would be more streamlined, but not as efficient as a pass through. So, uh, to your question, we definitely want to have those conversations, I think we're kind of waiting to see how this nets out before, um, we see what options we have on that side.

[03:30:02] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, I would like to see you be proactive. I mean, you got people in the audience here, under this law. You should be trying to figure out the best way to interpret it, and that's your, that's your mission. That's your responsibility is to interpret this to see how we can improve it and move it. And so forth. So, I would like to RC to step up and start being a little more proactive, or find the way if we need more resources, please do it, because these are very important questions. And if it hasn't changed in 3 years, And the whole point of us is trying to work fair with every, you know, the landlord and the tenant working together, We're missing the boat on some of this stuff. So please.

[03:30:37] Rental Housing Committee Member: Sure, my last comment on that, I think, would just be that. So far, we haven't received because of the way that the measure was laid out. We haven't received those petitions for capital improvement specifically. We have handled a lot of petitions overall. I think it's more the lack of clarity on what would happen if the seismic retrofit goes through because that is a very specific piece. So we're trying to juggle what are our options, what's council going to pass on that. But we'll definitely work open to working together on that and solving these problems together. So, yeah.

[03:31:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayer, Abbe Koga.

[03:31:14] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you so going back to the question. I don't want you want to break it out, but 1st question is, do you agree to having a streamlined process for certain pass-throughs? Would be the 1st question, I think? And then the 2nd question would be, what would those capital improvements be? And, um, if you get attachment for, um, the others has other cities that list out, exact, what those improvements are that are allowed. And, you know, I'm fine for us to do that exercise, if that's how the council would like us to proceed, or if you're the other option would be for us to define the broader category, seismic retrofit, sustainability measures, useful life, life, useful life, building, and then have the RHC define what those exact improvements are. So I thought we could do these all at once, but maybe we can't. So maybe we just do question two. And do we want to, or actually, is a question too? Do we want a separate process for specific items?

[03:32:29] Unknown Speaker: That's a good question. How about that general question?

[03:32:36] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, I mean, but not, like, specific items, more like broad categories. So, like, yes, the RHC should be empowered to create separate processes for, um, specific categories or pastors or whatnot. Yes. Basically what they identified at number 6 in their letter. And, um, those processes would be outside of the um, fair rate of return uh, standard.

[03:33:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right.

[03:33:05] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, Mr. Coach.

[03:33:06] City Manager Dan Rich: Oh, in the interest of time. I think you could combine these things. And I think the vice mayor, the chair of the committee, or somebody could sort of make a straw combo, that something to the effect of, yes, you want a streamline process, it would cover A, B, and C, broad categories, and either the council or the RRC would have discretion to further define it. I think that's really all we need for tonight. And then the subcommittee can go back and fill in the details. I think we're getting a little too into the weeds. We just need that high level direction so that subcommittee can flush it out and define what the council would do and what the RHC would do. So I think it might be helpful to have a straw straw person to respond to instead of kind of we're going in circles here a bit.

[03:34:00] Wayne Chen: And if we could just add to what the city managers stated, the 2nd part of question two. For example, the areas in which the council does desire, oversight, those limited buckets, is there limitations within those buckets? So, for example, is the council supportive of the RC developing the program and running with it, without the council, for example, needing to review and approving it, or does the council wish to allow the RC to run with it, design it, but have a final approval by the council? That's another layer of limited, that staff is seeking input on to understand how to draft potential amendment language.

[03:34:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member commit.

[03:34:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. What a time to hit my button. So... So, um, I'll attempt to share my thoughts on the growing questions under two. Um, so, uh, yes. Should I just stop there? Stop right there. So, to answer Mr. Chen's question. I mean, I think... I would be comfortable if the subcommittee did something similar to attachment 4 where it listed out the different capital improvements and then got the feedback from the RHC, and then there was like some kind of, um, I don't know if agreement is the right word, but, you know, I think that the input from both bodies is important, um, because I think that from what we're hearing, there there has been some constr and some limitation, uh, particularly with the, um, possibility of, of the issue of pass through. So, um, you know, I don't particularly have, um, a preference for, you know, if who comes up with the different categories of capital improvements, but I would like the collaboration to happen between the 2 bodies, um, and be able to have that input and, um, maybe come up with some ideas. Is that all of two? Is there more there? today? I think that's... Do they go into other ones?

[03:36:30] Wayne Chen: I think that response is getting at the heart of those questions. Um, and, um, I had another thought, but I'm blanking here. But those are the types of input that we're feeling is helpful so that we understand, yeah, how to draft it up. If I remember my other thought, and I am able to share that thought in a moment.

[03:36:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um, I think the vice mayor is going to make a straw motion, uh, on these together. And then we can discuss it once it's out there.

[03:37:07] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so I will try. Um, so the motion would be to um, allow for a separate process for capital, reimbursement of capital improvements, uh, in the areas, and these are listed on, the slides don't have numbers, but, um, capital improvements to meet or maintain code, environmental sustainability, to extend the useful life of the building. And then the guidelines listed are tenet benefit reduction in cost, bringing the building up to code, no luxury improvements. And I would add to that, the mutually agreed upon improvements between landlord and tenant, and leave the task of coming up with the specific improvements, whether it's the roof, for the windows, to the RHC to decide. And... Do you want that back to us, or do we just, you want to leave it? All right, see. I don't...

[03:38:10] Wayne Chen: If I may ask a clarifying question, your point here is just jog my memory. So, for example, for no luxury improvements, would it be the desire of the council to allow the RDC to fully define what that means and determine it and implement it without having it go back to the council?

[03:38:26] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Correct.

[03:38:27] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Yes. And code would include seismic improvements?

[03:38:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. Because it would be mandatory. And if you want to just specifically state seismic retrofits? We can do that.

[03:38:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um, any discussion on that, or can we just do a show of hands?

[03:38:48] Wayne Chen: I think the only thing with environmental sustainability? So, the only question there would be, I want to add as an example of, like, a special initiative that might not necessarily, um, so, do you want to just say environmental sustainability or other special initiatives, or do you just want to keep it at environmental sustainability broadly for now.

[03:39:09] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I don't. Yeah, I don't know for lack of a better term that captures all this, but, you know, this list talks about water conservation, energy efficiency. So, I don't know how you capture all of that, but I would just put it under sustainability measures. I think extending the useful life provision also provides some flexibility.

[03:39:34] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and there was a sentence in there that said, or changes the use. And I thought, that doesn't make sense to me, but the response back from staff with the example did make sense to me. So if you had like a, um, a shed and you decided to add more washers and dryers into that shed and it's no longer used for tools or something like that. Okay, that makes sense to me because you're adding, um, more washers and dryers for the tenants, but the way it was worded just came across like, wait, we're going to change it from residential, you know, apartments to an office building. That didn't make sense. So it would need to be very clear on what that is meant by that.

[03:40:19] Unknown Speaker: And I'm sorry if I could add to the motion, the process, maybe it's understood, but the process should include an amortization timeline as well as a cap on the annual allowed increase.

[03:40:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um...

[03:40:38] Wayne Chen: May I ask one more clarifying question? I apologize.

[03:40:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah.

[03:40:42] Wayne Chen: In these areas where council has expressed desire for oversight, but to have the RHC develop and run with it, could council provide any more clarity about what oversight would mean in that in that circumstance?

[03:40:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: So, I didn't hear that they're looking for counsel oversight? I think they're simply saying, these are the categories council wants a process for, and we'll leave it up to the REC to define the details of that. But the expectation is that counsel would not have oversight once that's set up.

[03:41:17] Wayne Chen: That's helpful clarification. I'm just reflecting off of, for example, the second question, does the city council have any further input on the specific areas that council would like to have oversight of, and I think the separate petition process was one of those, and maybe it's no longer, but I just want to make sure.

[03:41:33] Unknown Speaker: It will give you one way of thinking about this, uh, to Council member Clark's point. I had to use the term unfunded mandate. So seismic retrofits or things that the council is imposing on property owners. So we have oversight in that sense, and that we are providing the direction about what additional categories of capital improvements may be subject to the, you know, well, so to a streamlined process, the regulations that the CSF array and then a streamlined process. So that's we get to decide what those are. You know, I'm not sure I'd use the term special initiatives, but, I mean, it's pretty clear in that we're the driving force and things like sustainability initiatives. seismic retrofit. So that's, I think that's where the council is really is really providing the VRHC is not deciding those things, right? That comes from council direction. Does that make is that clarifying?

[03:42:29] Wayne Chen: Could I repeat back to make sure that I heard counsel's providing directions on these buckets, for example, the direction goes potentially into the charter amendment language, so that there's clarity about the general categories? And then the term oversight, that's where it stops, and then the RHC develops and implements. Is that, is, are we understanding the term oversight correctly here?

[03:42:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: I didn't hear any strong desire from council members to have, for example, what we talked about at one of the committee meetings where, like, the council, they create a petition process, a new position process, and we approve it. I didn't hear anyone wanting to do that. So it sounds like they just, it sounds like the general consensus is to just define, in which areas they can create new processes and then just let them do it. So it sounds like a sort of a shift in the term oversight then.

[03:43:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay. Is everyone clear on that one? Because we want to see a show of hands. So, okay, that's unanimous.

[03:43:45] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, it is. Okay, so on to the ones that were added today. And the first one is, um, mobile homes. And whether or not, I guess the way it was described, should they be temporarily covered under the CSFRA until the council potentially creates a separate ordinance. So we sort of went down... We explored both paths, and I think, generally, it seemed, in the RHC, I think, sort of agreed with this, that the, just because of the complexities involved with state law here, that it probably, if the council desires to cover mobile homes, it should probably do through Soviet an ordinance that would be sort of timed to go with, or soon, or sort of mostly developed by the time the ballot measure, where to go before voters, so they have some, um, assurance that that's sort of the concept is generally part of this, even though it's not part of the amendments, right? Because it's probably going to be easier in the long run to maintain that alongside state law and deal with all those intricacies as a standalone ordinance. that perhaps the RHC could administer. But the general, I think our, the committee's consensus was, don't make it one of the CSFRA amendments to a separate ordinance and that sort of goes alongside everything. But we're open to your feedback too.

[03:45:22] Unknown Speaker: And just to be clear on the timing, I think staff has been pretty explicit that there's no way mobile home, rent control could be done and implemented before a March ballot. I think what we said, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that we could have some initial discussion, and counsel could, you know, provide some direction on what it would cover, so the community would have a sense of the direction council's going with a separate ordinance, but it would not be completed prior to March of 2020.

[03:45:57] Unknown Speaker: And if I could interject, we did have further staff discussions, and one potential option, because we understand the timing, the short time frame, is potentially discussing an urgency ordinance that might be able to, um, for the short term, kind of meet the purpose and intent of having the any CSFRA amendment cover while the city develops a more broad or robust ordinance. So that's a potential option that could be considered.

[03:46:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. Um, Any other comments?

[03:46:47] Unknown Speaker: One second. Could I could you repeat that again or clarify? So the emergency ordinance would basically state that mobile home units are covered under CSFRA temporarily?

[03:47:02] Unknown Speaker: Or not the under the CSFRA. It would just be an urgency ordinance that would still place rent stabilization. And our council can explain it a little further, but that's the basic gist of it. Another one they basically adopted.

[03:47:23] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: So as staff was discussing this today, we were trying to think about the timing options. And one thing that, um, some jurisdictions have done, recognizing that it does take some time to craft a mobile home, uh, rent control ordinances, to adopt a very bare bones, urgency ordinance that would essentially freeze rents at their current rate with a percentage increase allowed. It would have a limited duration until you could adopt a full rent control ordinance, but it would address some of the concerns that maybe you heard tonight that are coming from the mobile home residents. So that would be an option. It would still take some staff time and staff resources to do that. But it would give you some breathing room to fully adopt a mobile home rent control ordinance. Thank you.

[03:48:17] Unknown Speaker: Okay, so, um... As part of this, do we also need to think about clarifying in the CSFRA that it does not apply to mobile homes? as we head down the path of an ordinance.

[03:48:37] Unknown Speaker: That is an option if the council, one to be truly clear about the CSFRA and mobile homes, that relationship.

[03:48:47] Unknown Speaker: Okay. So, um, on mobile homes, um, I would say that, um, I guess, uh, I would make the motion that we, uh, do not include any changes in the CSFRA other than clarify other than to clarify, um, that the CSFRA does not cover mobile homes. And then, um, at the same time, we start talking about, well, what does a mobile home rent stabilization program look like that would be an ordinance, and that at that time, we could also consider an urgency ordinance?

[03:49:32] Unknown Speaker: So I guess that means that the subcommittee really wouldn't have to talk about this anymore. Because it wouldn't be part of...

[03:49:41] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, it would just need to, yeah.

[03:49:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yep. So, um, comments on that or are we okay to vote?

[03:49:50] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I did. I love it.. Or we'll start the past of an ordinance. We wouldn't. We would. We would. Yeah, but it's not part of the ballad initiative. It's separate. It's ordinance. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[03:50:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so have me a favor of that. Can we just clarify, um, I think you said, but I just want to be sure that you would put in the ballot measure of clarification, you basically put into the CSFRA, that it explicitly does not cover mobile homes.

[03:50:33] Unknown Speaker: That was part of what I said. That would be an amendment to the law. would be, but I don't think the subcommittee would have to do it.

[03:50:39] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right, I just want to make sure everyone's clear.

[03:50:41] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I did say that.

[03:50:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Sure. Great. Sorry. So I just clarifying questions. So I know that when counsel looked at our, did a goal setting. We talked about doing the mobile home ordinance at that time. Um, and so I'm not sure where we are when that will come back to council, but with the, should we go forward and not include mobile home parks in this amendment process. We would adopt an urgency ordinance until the mobile home park ordinance came back to us, or what would be, I just wanted to clarify.

[03:51:20] Unknown Speaker: Well, I don't I was not proposing that it be that specific. So I was saying, you know, in parallel with this, we would start talking about an ordinance for mobile homes and as part of that, we could talk about, do we do an urgency ordinance? I don't think I have enough information tonight to say.

[03:51:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right, okay. I just wanted to clarify that we're talking about all the different components.

[03:51:45] Unknown Speaker: But it would be part of the discussion toward the beginning of the process. Or should we do an urgency ordinance or not?

[03:51:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So I think for myself, if we, should we go down this path and keep them separate, I would want to look at an urgency ordinance, that would make me feel more comfortable supporting the going forward and keeping them separate. So I just wanted to clarify that before I did the straw vote.

[03:52:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Ramirez.

[03:52:15] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So just, um, question for staff. So, was staff planning to come to council for direction on the development of a mobile home regulation ordinance in January of next year or 11 realistically is sort of the soonest we could start talking about the scope of such an ordinance?

[03:52:37] City Staff: I don't remember if there's a specific timeline, my sense is it would be in Q1 of 2020. So we would have a study session or some preliminary discussion of it, get some framework and some direction from you so that we can go back and work on it.

[03:52:56] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so I agree with Council member Kameh. I think, you know, to the greatest extent possible, that meeting where we start talking about the scope may be an appropriate meeting also to deliberate whether in a narrowly scoped urgency ordinance, as was described, just focusing on rents. Um, you know, whether that's the appropriate time to to, um, enact something like that. But I feel like if we if we could time it early in the year. Um, you know, those 2 items, then I'm comfortable with the direction.

[03:53:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks?

[03:53:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, similarly, I just want to clarify that I think the timing for the thing, what the motion we're voting on now is important, and when do you think that we could visit an urgency ordinance?

[03:53:50] City Staff: I think based on what? The way the discussion's going, you could discuss the urgency ordinance when you have a preliminary discussion on how you want to address the issue so early next year.

[03:54:01] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So both at the same time, not... So, yeah, as long as the timing is rapid like that, then I can support this.

[03:54:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so I don't see anyone else in the queue. So, uh, can I ask for a show of hands? And that's unanimous. Okay, the next one is, uh, should there be a flat annual general increase, or, um, the current CPI? Did the subcommittee have any comments they wanted? Okay. Council member?

[03:54:41] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I wasn't sure if the chair of the committee had a presentation for this. The only concern I have is, it's really hard for me to pick a number or methodology for this, and any way of defining this feels arbitrary. And I think that's the inherent challenge I have with that is I'm not sure how I would justify it in the context of a campaign, why this number or that particular methodology. You know, the advantage of CPI is that's what the voters approved. So in thinking about it, I think it's a, it would be helpful to sort of justify why, a particular number over any other. But to answer the 2nd part of the question, I am interested in the vice mayor's idea to establish a short-term rent assistance program and maybe the details of that could be fleshed out by the subcommittee.

[03:55:39] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor, I'll be Coco.

[03:55:41] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So this was an item that we didn't have consensus on, as you could tell. And we wanted toss it up to the council. So, in regards to the 5%, um, the reasons for that were, um, just as, um, you know, tenants would like predictability of their increases, so would, um, landlords like to know what they could increase without having to wait for the CPI. And, you know, there's been debates about what the CPI should be based on and so forth. 5% was, and I chose 5% based on the other cities in our county that have a flat rate, which is San Jose and Los Gatos, they both have 5%. I know the staff provided a table. And yes, there are cities that are under, you know, percentage of CPI, but when I counted, I think there are 8 that were at a flat rate, or at 100% CPI, and then 6 that were under, um, under the full 100% CPI. So I think, you know, it's all across the board. Um, but, I understand that the difference between the current CPI of a 3.5 to 5% may be a hardship for some. But this is a challenge with rank, the rank control is that it's, you know, not based on income. And I know some folks has suggested means testing. That's actually something I've actually been interested in. But then I know we've had a lot of opposition. And so this was an attempt to try to, you know, find another way for, to me, I want to, you know, definitely the folks who are in need, the assistance, need the, um, you know, the help. Um, we, we could provide it, rent, measure, or CSFRA gives them that. But there are, you know, quite a few renters who are making above 120% media income, who can probably, you know, cover the increase. And this is the balance that we're trying to achieve. Now, you know, not all landlords are big companies that own 1000s of units. If you look at the seismic retrofit report. I think it was in that one that shows about half of the units are owned by, you know, owners that have 10 or less units. You know, we've had the couple that's on a fixed income, who bought the rental properties as their retirement. And so, to me, it's about China balance that a bit, and providing the predictability on both sides. So to make up for those who can't maybe manage that delta is where I brought up the idea of a short-term rental assistance program. We have one already for emergency assistance that covers, you know, a couple 2 months that CSA, CSA, um, administers, but I was really looking at more like, you know, 18 months or 24 months something more close to like our trail. Um, to give folks at least time to figure out, you know, what their next steps are, if that becomes a hardship. So, and that could be funded by one idea was the fees that we, the landlords are charged to administer, CSFRA, or the other thought I just recently had was the business license texts that we, uh, the voters passed, uh, last election, you know, 20% of that, I believe we are allowed to use for housing, um, that's not taxpayer money, so perhaps that could be looked at. So, um, the question would be, yes, I guess would you prefer to stick with the current CPI or look at a flat rate of 5%.

[03:59:24] Unknown Speaker: So I think it's 10% of the business license.

[03:59:28] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, the, well, the, uh, resolution council adopted, I believe, was 80% for transportation, 10 for housing and 10 for, for general purposes. That's not binding, counsel can always change that, but that's what it is as of today.

[03:59:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister.

[03:59:46] Councilmember John McAlister: Thank you. Yeah, on this one, goes back to one of my earlier statements about finding a compromise about taking the incentive away or disincentivizing, tearing down currently affordable housing. I'm not sure, 5%, or something, but I think this is going in that direction to try to find a balance where natural afford you may. They don't need to sell it off. Another, going on with a little bit with, so that's one thing I'm looking at. If we tweak it, that was always good. The also thing is the state is going to a 5% increase plus CPI. So, you know, if the state's going that way, um, I think it's something to consider the 5%. I mean, we're not going above the 5% where the state's going to go 5% plus CPI. This is, it seems to be a number that is eventually probably going to equalize everybody into that area. And I know, you said San Jose is at that area. So I think some, if there's any kind of studies to see if landlords feel comfortable with this, or will they still say, hey, you know, I'm not, I need to get an 8%, so I'm going to tear down buildings and put in something else. So, I think this is something worth continuing to look at. So I guess I'm in favor of it under those conditions.

[04:01:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[04:01:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I strongly support keeping the allowed increase, as is under measure V, for a couple of reasons, one is that I've lived in rent control cities for much of my life, Buffalo, New York, San Francisco and Oakland. And they, um, they have the, They're very similar to Major V in terms of the increases that are allowed. In addition, it looks like that's, if I'm reading it right, .7, that's what the rental housing committee is supporting, if I've read that right. And then the last reason is that When I was living in Berkeley, I was, you mentioned small landlords. I was a small landlord, a very small landlord. I had a duplex, and we, because of the rapidly increasing value of the duplex. We never had any trouble making you know, making any repairs that we had to. We just got out took out equity loans. So I think that the increase as it stands, I'm very comfortable with that.

[04:02:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Guess remember Clark?

[04:02:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: So one thing that I threw out, um, at the last committee meeting was, um, you know, there's the question of, do you prefer sort of a floating number, you know, CPI or CPI plus some number, or just a flat number, but regardless, so one of the one of the ideas that I had was Major V currently says it's, um, the maximum is CPI up to 5%. So if CPI were 5%, the maximum would be 5% and there is a total cap of 10% for everything passed through is whatnot. So one of the ideas that threw out for people to, you know, hopefully, and we can all talk about it would be having a program where, you know, the RHC had mentioned, you know, having tools to ensure that folks participated in the in the registry and did other things that they want them to do. And so one of the things that we could do would say the base increase rate for everyone is CPI. But if you participate in sort of a program that includes, you know, a registry, not having any violations in the past year, yada, yada, you're eligible for an increase of up to 5% or CPI plus some number. So that way you're, that way you're allowing sort of the, um, the folks who are sort of participating in the program doing a good job and generally are sort of good landlords, so to speak, to have a higher increase, um, not a significantly higher one, but, you know, something more than CPI. Um, and you're giving them an incentive to bring them into the system. And so the RHC might have, or we couldn't develop them, but someone would have to develop sort of the criteria for that. I mean, I think it would be, you know, maybe no, you know, violations of certain rules or regulations in the last year, participating in the registry, doing other things, that the RHC thinks would sort of keep the wrong folks out, but then also allow a greater increase for certain folks. But it would still be capped at. I would still respect the cap of the CSFRA of 5% and 10% total with all the passwords and everything like that. It was just something that I thought of to be another tool in their toolbox to sort of get compliance on certain things or certain programs that they might want to roll out. So I would invite staff to chime in as well.

[04:05:11] City Staff: But given the late hour, I would just caution the council. I mean, we can certainly set up any structure you want, but I would caution you about the administrative implications of doing either a rent assistance program or a good actor program, you know, that's going to be significantly more cumbersome than the current process, which will drive up costs staffing needs, which would inevitably be rolled into the fees of landlords. So, I mean, we can do anything, but I do caution that these complexities will be challenging to implement.

[04:05:50] Councilmember Chris Clark: I just want to say, so my idea wasn't to make people apply for this. It would just be, look, person, if you have met all these criteria and you vouch that you have, you can do X percent increase. And it would be complaint-based. Like if, and, you know, there, we would know who, I think, generally who the bad actors are, I wouldn't subject them to a petition process, I guess, what I'm saying.

[04:06:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor Abi Coco?

[04:06:22] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Another item that I came across and we didn't discuss it, but I believe San Jose has a no banking policy. So the current CSFRA allows you, if you didn't, don't increase it one year, to bank it for another year, and we could look at just having no banking if we did the flat rate. And then the other issue with, or the other thing with the short-term rental assistance program, and I know this is jumping ahead, but when we talk about displacement, I think I've heard some mention of maybe we look at a displacement fund, anti-displacent fund. And so I was looking at this as potentially a part of that, and it could all just become one program.

[04:07:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks?

[04:07:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm not clear what the anti displacement fund is, but, um, yeah, I'm not particularly supportive of the, either the good actor suggestion, um, or of, uh, using the, um, the business tax money. I mean, if we use the business tax money for this, then we aren't able to use it to create affordable housing. So I would prefer just to keep the rent control the way it is.

[04:07:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, come here.

[04:07:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, thanks. So I think there are a couple different ideas that are getting floated for this one. I think at this point for myself, I'd like a little bit more information on what the subcommittee's been looking at and the different ideas that they're floating around. I just, I, I feel like, uh, there just could be, uh, yeah, I just, I think there are different possibilities that we're starting to talk about and at least for myself. You know, I'm thankful the staff that they were provided the chart on the calculations for the running increases based off of, you know, CPI versus flat rates that they were able to share with us. But for me, I just feel like there's a little bit more kind of that I'd like to dig into on this before making a decision on this one. You know, the idea of the short-term rental assistance program is one of the interesting, the one that Council member Clark is of interest. But I, you know, I don't know if we make a decision tonight necessarily where that leads when I think there's more that can be fleshed out.

[04:08:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez?

[04:09:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Just so, uh, Jer Grunwald, I hope you don't mind if I call you up, uh, because this is one of the things that the, the rental housing committee did weigh in on. Can you share with us the the thinking behind the recommendation to not change the AGA?

[04:09:21] Rental Housing Committee Member Grunwald: Well, they're... While there were differing opinions, I think, generally, we were really focused on the essential elements that we would like to see pass. And for the constituents that we heard from, we thought that it just threatened the overall viability of any charter amendment. So I wouldn't I think we were unanimous in that in trying to bring focused to the items that we would really like to see past that we feel like would make administering the SCS a parade better. We thought that that one, we wouldn't recommend putting it, but we couldn't find a unanimous recommendation to put that on the bill.

[04:10:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I know it's getting late. Thank you very much for being here.

[04:10:09] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I think this is one of those things where it's going to be hard to find consensus now. So just maybe to council member Kame's point thinking about this a little bit more and maybe maybe coming up with justifications for rationales for particular alternative AGAs, you know, so it's not satisfying to not have a hard number now, but, you know, I'm I'm still not convinced that there's a superior alternative that I can justify in speaking about it with folks in the community. So for me, I'm open to, um, the flat rate. But I also think if we did that, maybe we do want to talk about other things, other programs we might have or the elimination of banking. I think that's kind of an interesting one. Um, to help, um, because I do agree that predictability, everybody says they want certainty and predictability. And we are trying to strike a balance here. And as council member McAllister said, you know, ultimately, I feel like I'm entertaining all of this because we do want to address the situations where the housing providers are choosing to sell, and then we have incredibly painful decisions to make about new developments. And I think we are definitely trying to do that to address displacement, as one of the ways to address displacement. So I am open to a flat rate with potentially, um, like a 5% with potentially some other things to go along with it. So I'll make that, yeah, I'll make, I think it's my turn, yes, I'll make that as emotion. that we look at a flat rate of 5%, but then look at or have the subcommittee continue to look at what could accompany that to address specific situations. Well, I was looking at, um... Well, I mean, do we need a 2nd or just... No, we're just gonna do a show of hands. No, no, no, no. Silent, silent.

[04:12:52] Unknown Speaker: Reason I'm not voting, yes, is, if you're just, are you, you're saying go with a fixed rate. So not a floating rate, not something tied to CPI. is what I'm, or are you open to something that floats as long as it doesn't exceed something. What's your option? was floating or was it? I guess I took Europe, the idea is a flat rate up to 5%.

[04:13:17] Unknown Speaker: I did, too. It was CPI up there. Well, it was the standard, the default would be CPI, which is floating. But there would be a maximum, which would be a flat. Yeah. It could also be CPI post-one or something, but... which is what we currently have. So here we're adding in if you are responsible. That could be a potential thing. I'm not saying that will be how it ends up, but if you're comfortable with a flat rate, then that's just good for us to know, because then we...

[04:13:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I'm comfortable with a flat rate. But then adding or looking at other options that might accompany that.

[04:13:53] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Does that include Chris's concept or...?

[04:13:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, I don't think it does. I think sort of the good actors, bad actors, as it's been called. I think that's pretty difficult to administer. I don't think I want to add that overhead to this. But the idea of no banking and um, rental assistance program and other things that we might be able to come up with, um, I'd be open to exploring.

[04:14:27] Unknown Speaker: We're having a discussion set here, but you are willing to look at, this is just a starting point.

[04:14:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: It's the start of a discussion. Yeah. Yeah, this is to direct the subcommittee too. It's not our final say on this, is to direct the subcommittee to take a look at it, with a flat rate of 5% and other things that would accompany it. That's what the vote is that, you know, help them keep looking at it.

[04:14:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Right. Right, but I think that the mayor's specifically calling out the flat rate, I'd like a little bit more information on the comparison between both. And that's not what I hurt, but I am trying to be flexible per your comments earlier. Um, but I heard flat, plus looking at something else. I didn't hear CPI Flat and the other programs. That's not what I heard.

[04:15:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I did not say that. So, I guess I thought we were trying to narrow things here. Um, but if that's not possible, um, if we are looking at, you know, more options, um, I'd kind of want to not say everything's, uh, on the table to look at because we are short of time. That's why I specifically said flat plus programs to accompany it. But we only had 3 for that, so.

[04:16:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I would just suggest that the subcommittee continue thinking about that and maybe do a little bit more of a deep dive into the rationale for, you know, why other jurisdictions did it certain ways. And if there's a way to dig into, I hear, I hear where council member McAllister and others are coming from about the concern about displacement, but I'm not convinced that just having a 5% AGA will mean that rental property owners will continue to keep operating a rental housing property. There is no guarantee. there may be some correlation, but there are also folks who will choose to exit the market for other reasons. And, you know, it's, If I had greater certainty that a 5% AGA would mean we wouldn't have any more demolitions and I'd be more enthusiastic about it. But right now it just, I don't have that certainty.

[04:16:54] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, counterfeit. I remember Lucas was, there will be displacement at 3.5%. And so I'm trying to get somewhere will there be less displacement, but I guarantee you there will be displacement at 3.5%. And at 5%. But at 5%, yeah, there may be, but maybe not as much. So you're guaranteed 3.5 at 5, you're not sure. So wouldn't you rather have them continue to see if there's something in there that will clarify it for you?

[04:17:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: The other challenge is, if you go to 5%, it's really easy to campaign, you know, as this is a, you know, do you want to raise your rents? You know, then vote yes on this measure. Well, maybe that comes at 4%, but if we don't do the deep dive as council you wanted to do, I'm just, let's have them come back and discuss it. But you're saying, I'm open to the discussion. I'm not ready to commit to 5% or to any particular modification.

[04:17:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I said a flat rate flat rate. I was saying 5%. Um, I guess I, you know, I am open to, um, Well, I feel like, you know, if the purpose was to narrow this, I'm not narrowing it. So maybe somebody else wants to.

[04:18:09] Unknown Speaker: Well, I was just gonna say, one thing that was helpful that you stated was that you're at least at least a few of you are open to a 5%, right? So we can take that, I think, as a committee, and work with it and bring back a menu of options, and you can decide. But was that not what you would decide? You can do that.

[04:18:28] Unknown Speaker: I'm just gonna remind everyone that 2 months from tomorrow, you need to have ballot measure of 75 words and an ordinance to implement it on the council agenda. So our time is, um, getting limited and the more focused, you can be the better.

[04:18:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, I'll be Coca.

[04:18:51] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, I just wanted to point out that, um, we talked about it as a flat rate, but it's up to 5%, and that's what it says in the CSFRA right now. It's CPI up to 5%. So, you know, I know it's unbelievable, but if you've been around long enough, there was a time when rents were just stagnant and rents actually went down. And so there's no, you know, there, sure, I guess if, you know, the market's hot, you can do the 5%, but if you're competing and trying to get tenants in, you may not be able to charge 5% more. So, you know, this is just a maximum cap is how I'm looking at it. Um, and I tied it. I also tied it to the 5% because that's what it says in the CFR, CSFRA. If we said 4%, it would actually be less than, and maybe, you know, for the renters that works, but it doesn't work for the landlords. we're trying to find a compromise here. Um, you know, I will say if we don't do, if we're not successful, um, you know, maybe we don't do it, there is another ballot measure that we're gonna have to put on the ballot. And, you know, that's the alternative. So, this is just an attempt to, yeah, find that compromise. And again, it's a cap. It's not, you know, it's guaranteed it's going to be 5%. Who knows? I mean that's what the beauty of the market. And yes, it's super hot right now, but it is actually starting to cool off. And there may be a time. There was a recession 10 years ago. You know, we may be in a completely different situation. And that's what I'm trying to do here is, you know, create or reform, fit, you know, fine tune this. We're not trying to take away measure V, like some people said. We're trying to fine tune it so that it can sustain time and be successful. So, um, you know, let's change the rhetoric here. We're trying to make this work. And so that's the whole point of doing this. But if folks, you know, don't want to do it. I mean, that's fine, too. I just want to give one honest, you know, attempt to see if we can find compromise.

[04:21:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[04:21:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I, um, like a lot of the way the discussion has gone tonight in terms of the pass through and the seismic retrofit and some of the things we've talked about regarding mobile homes. And I just, although we put that off to the side. Um, I just think that if we put the, um, the 5% or the flat rate on that, despite the fact that it might seem like a compromise to people on the daist now, I have a feeling it might negate the other good work we've done, because I have a feeling that voters might not, will probably not be responsive to it. So I guess I'm just saying the same thing that the Randall Housing Committee said, but I think for the viability of the rest of what we're talking about, I think we have a more attractive initiative if we don't go in that direction.

[04:22:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So, um, let's see, do we... Send this back to the sub...

[04:22:15] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think the question is whether you want to say that's it, or if you want to go back to the subcommittee and explore some options and look at it a little bit further. I think those are really your 2 options at this point.

[04:22:27] Unknown Speaker: So I would say we send this back to the subcommittee to look for options.

[04:22:31] Unknown Speaker: I will for that.

[04:22:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Well, that took us a while to get back.

[04:22:38] Unknown Speaker: Yes, it did.

[04:22:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, actually, we have one final question, and that is, uh, the date we would put this on the ballot, if it is March or November, of 2020. Council member Ramirez.

[04:22:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So, the subcommittee early on expressed a preference for March, and I think we should try and stick with that to the greatest extent possible. It is a complicated measure. Um, you know, if there are opportunities to make it simpler than I think it's a more achievable time frame, but I'm committed to sticking with March.

[04:23:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: What? March. March? So how many, is that motion? Okay, so how many are in favor of March? That's unanimous. You should do. Did you have... Yeah.

[04:23:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yep, yep. Thank you. So, I've been pushing on this for a while, and I think this is finally the opportunity to get a sense from the whole council, but what makes us really hard is we haven't been able to conduct public polling, to test concepts or, you know, specific figures, even just to get a high-level sense of the sentiment of the community. And so it often feels like a lot of the work can, or some of the work can feel like a shot in the dark. And even if we can't test specific ballot language, I do see a lot of value in testing, you know, where the public would be, for instance, on a flat rate versus CPI or, you know, would you support incorporating this capital improvement into the measure? But I wanted to see if there was support from the council in doing, to the greatest extent, we can expedite it some level of pulling just to see, is this a viable measure?

[04:24:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Comments on that, council member Hicks.

[04:24:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So 2 questions. Do you have, first, uh, council member Amris, do you have specific questions that you would suggest, uh, polling are vague ideas of them? And then I have a staff question, or whoever can answer this. Does anybody know the timeline for polling? Like, roughly, what kind of timing is needed?

[04:25:12] Unknown Speaker: So, um, we did some polling recently. I've done polling a few times in my career. Generally, it takes about 6 weeks from when you have the pollster on board to when you have your results disseminated and analyzed and back to you in a public forum. So, assuming we hired upholster tomorrow through a sole source process and a budget we don't have. And they expedited the process because they had no other clients. You know, you're talking at least four to five weeks before you have results, and I will state again, for the record, that two months from tomorrow, you will be asked to put this on the ballot. So, The timing would be extremely challenging. My experience is also that upholsterers are the 1st to tell you if you're not polling the exact question. It's not particularly valuable. You can ask general questions, it can help you frame it. But until you poll on the actual question with the actual arguments for and against it. It is a less valid source of information. Here you go.

[04:26:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Any other comments? Okay, then I think we can close this item.

[04:26:54] Unknown Speaker: November.

[04:26:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No, we just... We voted on March. Thank you all last week.

[04:27:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, um, can we take, like, a 5 minute break here?

[04:27:07] Unknown Speaker: Right, we have it broken. No. going. Oh, right, we have to vote to start the topic.

[04:27:16] Councilmember Chris Clark: I move it. I move it. We continue past ten. Move that we continue past ten.

[04:27:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Before we have a breaking... So, sorry, so, um... We have to have a vote if we continue past ten. So, um, Council member Clark made the motion. Is there a second?

[04:26:47] (archive recording) Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, yep.

[04:26:48] (archive recording) Mayor Lisa Matichak: A second by the vice mayor. Show hands. I thought you learn. The next one's pretty short. So we're going to take Actually, we'll take a seven minute break. We'll come back at 11:25. And this is gun safety related issues. And... do we have a staff presentation?

[04:27:23] (archive recording) Unknown Speaker: You will have a very brief staff presentation. There's an item before you. End of staff presentation. Now, this was a council initiated item from two weeks ago. Council unanimously directed staff to come back, as you can see, from the very brief staff report. There's really not a lot of analysis has been done at this point. nor do we feel like we can give you a full assessment of what the trade offs and workload implications would be until we get further direction from you on what, specifically, if anything, you want counsel to look at? I'm sorry, staff to look at? We did attach a document from the Gifford center that lists a number of different local gun safety related restrictions, which was fortuitous timing. So that might give you some direction on the kinds of categories you may or may not want to be looking at. But again, depending on how broadly or narrowly you define this issue, we'll have implications that we can give you more on what the tradeoffs or timeline issues would be. And with that, there were a number of council questions submitted, and thank you to Christian and his staff are getting lots of answers on a topic. We're not up to speed on very quickly, but we're happy to answer as many questions as you have, but we can at this point. That truly concludes the staff report.

[04:39:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That was a great staff report. So, are there any questions from council members? Council member McAllister.

[04:39:25] Councilmember John McAlister: So... You said you weren't able to figure out... the trade offs of, if we go forward with this, what comes off the table. Okay. If we do many of these, is it more symbolic, of a type of a deal? Some of the things that are proposed that you would do in your staff report, or would it just, you come back and possibly just give us the Gifford report and recommend those, and that would be it. I mean, what are you trying to do as a, we come back to you, what you just do? Just look at existing ordinances or resolutions and say, these are good.

[04:40:07] City Manager Dan Rich: Oh, we're trying to do whatever you direct us to do. But okay, look... I mean, whether it's symbolic or not, that's for you to decide. I mean, I think a number of cities have taken actions. Obviously, I think most people would agree to have meaningful action on this. It needs to be done at the federal and state level. Having said that, there are communities of the local level that have taken actions, and if those are desired in this community, We can take them.

[04:40:35] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, my main question is, what are we giving up for something that could be totally symbolic, that there's already existing laws and procedures, or, yes, it's nice we did it, but will it really make a difference to versus something that will get something more immediate results for our residents? So... That's one question, hopefully, I'll learn tonight. answer.

[04:41:00] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I mean, in terms of what you're giving up again, we can't tell you what the trade house will be. I mean, if you say, if your direction is, we want this one ordinance exactly identical to Sunnyvale's and no public outputs, that's a fairly simple process, if you say you want us to research 7 different ordinances that have been implemented across the country with pros and cons, and community input, that's a very different process. And so the trade-off primarily for Christian and his staff is the number of hours that we'll take to do that research, develop those ordinances, do that outreach or whatever, and therefore what other work plan items would have to slip. So, but until we know what that scale is, we really can't tell you what the tradeoffs are.

[04:41:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, Hicks.

[04:41:53] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I think, council member McAllister, you're asking the right questions to start with. I, um, I was, I thought it was an excellent, uh, quickly pulled together staff report. Thank you. The two things that most interested me in it, to the attachments, were, um, lists of cities that had other measures that it seemed like we could pretty quickly adopt, and that we might be able to look them over and see, are there any of these that are more than symbolic? And there were a number of them. And then the second thing was a comment in the article that was attached that said that, I think, the Gifford Center finds that, although I would agree that, at the state or national level, any measures would be much more effective. This did say that the Gifford Center, if I'm not quoting it exactly right, but that the Gifford Center thought that city and more local legislation was often a good, offered a good place to have a pilot project that could then, you know, be spread more widely. So, those were the two things I was most interested in was looking through the list of things that other cities have, um, adopted in our, again, are there any that are effective or doing something that is, you know, talking to one of the centers with professionals who work on this subject, and seeing if they're any that they really want to pilot. Now, that said, I am mindful of what council member McAllister was bringing up of the time that it would take to do any of those things. Thank you.

[04:43:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions?

[04:43:42] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: And I just want to offer, I think we certainly could look at the approaches of other cities and do, perhaps not exhaustive analysis, but certainly look at the ones that are more comprehensive and more meaningful, if that's of interest to counsel. I think that's certainly something we can look at and bring back to you, uh, maybe options in terms of the scope of the scope of action you could take and where we see that it's been meaningful.

[04:44:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any questions? Okay, if there's no other questions, uh, well, open this up for a public comment, if anyone wants to address the council in this.

[04:44:36] Public Speaker: Thanks, dear. Um, my name is Sergeant, a Mountain View resident. So, just one quick comments. It looks like it's more like an exploration of things, and you have many advisory bodies, and I think my suggestion would be to kind of refer this to the human relations commission. That's kind of right body, and they can probably do that sort of discussion, you know, and advise you on this. Thank you.

[04:45:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to address the council on this topic? Okay, seeing none will close the public input portion and bring it back to council for discussion and direction. Brief discussion and direction. Vice mayor Abi Koga.

[04:45:24] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, thank you to staff for bringing this back quickly. As I already stated why I was interested in us looking at gun safety legislation. I think it is more than symbolic. Um, the, what triggered my thought about this was actually, um, more like a couple of years ago or a year or maybe even a year ago. I know there are state laws in place, but some of those are being challenged in court. And at that time, my question was the Sunnyvale's laws that stood the legal challenges. You know, Sunnyvale has those ordinances there in place. So that was like a safeguard. So that was what I started thinking about is like, is there are there things that we can do locally in case there are challenges at the federal or state level. Um, And clearly, and I appreciate the list. This is really helpful. I mean, I would like to bring this back. I would say, to be frank, I think, just having the discussion at the council is enough for in terms of public input. You know, I think it's safe to say that our community is pretty supportive of gun safety measures. You know, we had the rally at the high schools, last year, the year before. Our young people are asking for this. So I think, and in light of the long list of cities that have ordinances, which was surprising to me. I think, you know, it's time for Mountain View to join these other cities. So, I'd like to, I would like to move forward. Um, I, you know, I was trying to kind of limit what areas that we could look at. Um, you know, my main concern was about, um, gun dealerships, um, you know, prohibiting them from sensitive areas, um, I was surprised. I didn't even think about home businesses, but that's a real concern to me to have them in residential areas. Sunnyvale's, uh, ordinance about, um, prohibiting, uh, under aged, um, individuals, um, from purchasing or even entering gun stores, um, or and, and then, uh, safe storage and site security for dealerships would be the other areas that, um, just looking at this list. I would like to explore. I also think that even though the state law limits handgun purchases to one per month to me, that seems rather excessive, and I would look at something a little less than, or maybe even more or less than, less than, um, that frequency. Thanks.

[04:48:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I am very interested in having this move forward, and I really appreciated the attachment, the Giffords Law Center, information, and that was incredibly useful because going into this, I thought, oh, what does Sunnyvale have? Um, and then I saw this list with all of the different elements and all the different cities that have it. And I got very far into this before I saw Sunnyvale on any of the list of cities. So I thought clearly there's a lot more to this. And I tried to narrow down the areas. But, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, I'd move that over to my list, and then I'd get to the next one and move that over to my list, and pretty soon I had pretty much moved everything over to my list. And so I'm not going to be any help in narrowing this down. So I think the idea that the city attorney suggested was give us options, I kind of would like to know, yeah, which ones are the most, have the most impact, and also some element of the amount of work it would require. Um, so if there's, um, you know, so that we can make a good, like trade-off, if we need to make trade-off, um, to which ones we want to include, uh, maybe in our phase one. And maybe years from now we can do phase two. Sure. And I also wanted to build in, I know some cities have undertaken some public outreach, if you wanted to include that, maybe not too elaborate, but some of some cities have included some sort of public outreach and input, and we could look at that too. Yeah, I think I'm interested in that. But I would always say want to hear what my colleagues have to say about that one, but I'd be interested in that. Oops, sorry. Council member Clark.

[04:50:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: So for my part, I mean, I was. In looking at this, I'm really only interested in things that we can do with the least amount of time. So if folks are interested in adopting Sunnyvale's ban on persons purchasing certain weapons under the age of 21 or there are some sort of ordinances that we can adopt without too many changes or staff time that have a significant impact, then I'm willing to look at that we think will have a significant impact of the local level and won't just be preempted by state law in a year, then in that local jurisdictions are, um, implementing elsewhere because it's hard to have those implemented at the state level, then I'm open to those things, but, um, you know, Again, with work plan items, like, I just think they're, in my mind, um, you know, this was one of my, not to say it's not a priority, this is definitely, I think, my part one of the lower priorities. And so I don't want to do, you know, for example, a large community meeting about this. I don't want to do a bunch of public outreach. I just, I'd like to know what, what, you know, ordinances in California cities, um, could we adopt that would have an impact here, um, with, with as little, um, time and effort as possible, and then sort of see where, um, where things net out at the, at the state level over time, and and as the mayor said, maybe there's a phase 2 to this at some point. But I think for the near term, I'd like to focus on things that will have the most impact and that we can adopt without a lot of, um, you know, outreach and, um, or, you know, additional public outreach and a lot of sort of customization to the various ordinances.

[04:52:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else? Council member McAllister.

[04:52:30] Councilmember John McAlister: I got a blank screen. That's why I was knocking on it this evening.

[04:52:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: But you can talk before we try to figure this out.

[04:52:37] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. So, I, yes, I understand gun control is very important, and a lot of tragedy is going there, but, you know, we put items, or laws come before the city, or we put them on there that we don't have the resources to enforce them, or to follow up on them. And it's, you know, I sort of like what Chris said, you know, if you have something that's already done, go through it, and get it through. But I don't think anything that we will pass will ever prevent anybody if their mind is set on doing something that's gonna happen. And again, I don't know what the trade-off is that we're going to give up. Are we going to give up something for housing, or are we going to give up something for transportation? Are we going to give up what? I mean, if you want to give up something? You know, uh, Wage Seth, give that up to go do gun laws or something like that. But it's, yes, it's an important issue. But, you know, as you say, we look through this, there's a lot of guns. I mean, a lot of laws. And look at Gilroy, they had things, so... I want to get a big bang for the buck. But if it's gonna take a lot of staff time to figure out, you know, what, we're gonna look, we're gonna bring back to us, I think that, I think we should, Dan, get ready for this. Trust staff to give us a comprehensive package that we can, say, we've looked at it. This is what we think would be effective, and we can enforce it in Mountain View, and this is what we recommend. And then one and done.

[04:54:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else? Vice mayor of Vicoga?

[04:54:32] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I'm gonna try to make a motion. Um, I think I heard, um, interest in having staff do a survey of the gun safety measures and to bring back recommendations to counsel on, um, what they would be the most effective and easily implementable gun safety ordinances.

[04:54:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have emotion by the vice mayor, and I seconded it. Is there any further discussion?

[04:55:07] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Is there possible that staff would be able to give us a memo, saying, as we pursue this, that this is what is the time requirement, and what we're gonna give up, or take off the, or postpone down the way?

[04:55:23] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I think, you know, if we have clear direction from you tonight on what the scope of it is, then we can do an analysis. I mean, we also need to check in with the police department on issues around enforcement, and if it's a permitting structure, what does that look like, how many people are involved, et cetera. So, I mean, they're even the easiest element of this will require work. So, yeah, we could come back with a memo saying, you know, we think this will take X number of hours, and as a result, you know, this project is going to need to be delayed a month or 2 months or we can do this, but we can't get to it until next March or, you know, whatever it may be. So we'll have to look at all the moving parts and we can come back to you with a memo on that.

[04:56:09] Unknown Speaker: I just want to make sure I understand the motion, and Christian, I want to make sure you understand the motion, since you'll have to do most of it, when you vice mayor, when you say survey of measures, I mean, we've got this list from the Gifford Center of 7 or 8 different things, are you, what exactly do you mean by survey? I mean, does that mean, go into all these cities and say, how does it work? Or... Just if... A summary of what each one is?

[04:56:38] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, a quick analysis of the, I know, just keep it to this list of gun safety ordinances, um, with analysis on what's most easily, um, implementable, most effective.

[04:56:58] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, and I think most effective. I think having worked in regulation of other areas, usually these regulatory approaches fall into certain categories. So I'm thinking ahead, we can probably categorize them into certain types of regulation. There's probably a bare bones one and I'm just guessing there's probably a way to sort them in a helpful way. I'm thinking that's doable. And yeah, we would certainly reach out to the Gifford Center or someone like that to get their, you know, opinions and thoughts on, you know, kind of what is the most bang for the buck, so to speak, terrible choice of words in this case. Somebody else used that already. Say it first. for this item. But you know, so we can do kind of basic research on that. I just want to be careful of, you know, how much you're expecting to see when we bring it back and it clearly would not be before Q1 at the earliest of next year.

[04:58:04] Unknown Speaker: And when you come back, it also should include not just, um, when you can start it or what gets delayed, but also choices of what we could potentially take off the work plan, um, to trade for this. Because I know I'm willing to look at what other items consume the same department's time to see if we want to take any of those off.

[04:58:28] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I thought suggestions, we would just give you a memo, you know, once we've...

[04:58:33] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, that's fine.

[04:58:34] City Manager Dan Rich: We have looked at this and said, well, we think, you know, this phase of it will take X number of hours, and that's a result. This one or two items will slip or whatnot. But yeah, so we'll be specific on what would have to be moved out by what amount of time.

[04:58:52] Unknown Speaker: So no choices of what could be taken off your plate?

[04:58:56] City Manager Dan Rich: That would be what we'd put in the memo. We would say...

[04:58:59] Unknown Speaker: Right, but you said move. So, to me, it's also remove projects.

[04:59:04] City Manager Dan Rich: Oh, take off.

[04:59:06] Unknown Speaker: Take completely take off your plate.

[04:59:08] City Manager Dan Rich: Well I think that is a bigger discussion. I mean, we could, but then you're sort of reprioritizing everything, which might get a little messy. You know, I think until we know how big this is. We don't really know if it's a, you know, total removal or just a delay of a month, 6 months. You know, also when we start this, well, dependent on the workload as well. I mean, we could give you options, but we can't give you options in a memo. We would have to bring that back for, you know, have you make those decisions. So the easiest path would be simply for us to recommend what the trade-offs are. And if you don't like those trade-offs, you could agendize it for, you know, for different options.

[05:00:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Any further comment on this?

[05:00:08] Unknown Speaker: Just on the memo, do you need that part of the motion, or you would just do that anyway?

[05:00:13] City Manager Dan Rich: Well, we don't need that as part of the motion. We can do that.

[05:00:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So it's called a question. That passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, on to... item nine, council, staff, and committee reports. Council member McAllister.

[05:00:49] Councilmember John McAlister: I have a question for the city clerk. So, when you guys were doing 7.1, I heard the mayor say that we abstained, it shouldn't that be refused correct? Correct.

[05:01:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Oh, sorry. I did say that.

[05:01:04] City Clerk: I captured it, recused in the minutes, yes.

[05:01:06] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, I just wanted to make sure that got on the record before we closed out the mail.

[05:01:10] City Clerk: Absolutely.

[05:01:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Thanks.

[05:01:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Thank you for catching that. So I just have one item. Uh, we had last week. The, um, I can't remember if it was the 4th or 5th meeting of the interested parties to talk about, um, a subregional or regional TMA. This is part of the Manzanita Talks, and the person working with us did a lot of research on what existing TMAs, kind of like their characteristics. And we had a discussion about what else we would like to see in that report. We did not come to any sort of recommendation, a consensus on what type of TMA we had, we might consider having. Um, but, we have one more meeting next month, which unfortunately conflicts with the Lake of California City's conference. So I will not be going to it. But Dawn will be there. And then maybe one of us. is the alternate. Uh, Vice Mayor Abbe Kogan?

[05:02:27] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you just quickly. We had a Silicon Valley clean energy sheet board meeting last week where we passed our upcoming budget, and the good news is that we had set certain reserve targets, and we've actually met our target. I think it was 50% of our operating costs or up budget, which enables us to actually look forward to applying for a credit rating, which will then help in terms of us being able to begin to build our own projects for creating our own renewable resources of energy. And that's been really one of the major goals of clean energy, since it's inception. So, um, just wanted to say we're in good shape and, um, hopefully we'll be able to do bigger things down the road. And also, you may have heard, um, we received, the clean energy is, our SVC is a part of a joint effort, partnership, received a major grant for EVs for electric vehicles, um, from the state. And so we are in the process of putting together a program to roll that out, which ties into that last night, our sustainability subcommittee met, and we our recommendations will be coming to council, I believe, in October. Quite an ambitious plan, I'd say, but, um, I would say, um, it's a, I think, transformative one. So look forward to that. Thanks.

[05:04:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[05:04:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I just have a question on that, uh, council member, at the Kogo. The Silicon Valley Clean Energy can create its own projects, can you give one example of a kind of project?

[05:04:27] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, we can build our own solar farm or wind farm, and that's, um, you know, what we're looking, we've been looking at doing. Right now, we've contracted with other providers. Um, to build those types of infrastructure. But the idea is that eventually we would be able to do our own. that would then make us more, you know, independent from the current resource providers, which we are seeing a shortage of. So based on the new requirements that the state's coming down. You know, there are more CCAs, there's more interest in renewable energy. The problem now is there's actually not enough resources. And so that's one of the other issues that we're gonna have to deal with. So this would help us to be able to build our own resources.

[05:05:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you.

[05:05:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else?

[05:05:28] Unknown Speaker: Yep. So, at the Art and Wine Festival, I saw that Clean Energy, Silicon Valley, Clean Energy was a sponsor, so, how did the, what was the thinking about entering, or advertising or marketing like that to the...

[05:05:48] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, so, um, a lot of folks don't know. Or they still are learning about SVCE. You know, it was an opt out program, so folks were automatically enrolled in. So they, you know, probably didn't see any change in their energy providing. Um, so this is our way to try to um, get the word out about what SVCE is, what it does. is leading up to, you know, will be rolling out programs soon. Um, like the, you know, hot water heater pump program or the EV charging stations. So we're just trying to get the word out that we exist and what we do and, you know, look forward to these great programs coming forward.

[05:06:40] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so there is a marketing budget for clean energy. You know, it's a JPA type of agency, a public agency, but it actually is run and it's run like a business. So part of that is marketing.

[05:06:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else? Okay, um, item 10, uh, for the city attorney, is there a closed session report?

[05:07:03] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: There is no closed session report.

[05:07:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, so item 11. We will, let's say, the next council meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 24th, 2019, at 530 p.m. in the Plaza Conference room, 500 Castro Street, and tonight, we will adjourn this meeting in honor of the memory of longtime resident Don Ball. Mr. Ball was very engaged as a resident. He came to an awful lot of meetings. And I know from my perspective, he is a very kind man. And I'm sure all of our thoughts are with his family at this time. And so tonight, we'd just like to recognize him.

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