November 12, 2019 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:01:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we will call this meeting to order and I apologize for being a little bit late. Um, we've had some uh long discussions in our uh previous meetings. So we will start with the pledge of allegiance. If you'll join me.

[00:01:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:01:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next is roll call.

[00:01:50] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: All Council members are present. Thank you.

[00:01:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. We are going to start with a presentation. And this is an update on the 2020 census by Raymond Mueller, um, who is a partnership specialist for Northern California Bureau of the Census. If you'll come on up to the microphone.

[00:02:16] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: I'd like to answer as many of you. Um, well, good evening. My name is Ray Mueller and I am from San Jose, not the one up the peninsula, just so we're clear. We have been confused before. I am here to talk to you a little bit about our census. In my role as a US Census Bureau employee, I am a partnership specialist and our goal is to create partnerships with the trusted voices, and in this case, I'm reaching out to you as the trusted voices here in the community. What we're planning on doing here is we are planning on making sure that we count every person in America on April 1st. We want to count them one time and we want to count them in the right places. Um, I'm going to try and go through this relatively quickly because I know it can be a little dry. You do have copies of this on your, uh, desks, and I set out a packet that has something in the front of it that I want to refer to a little bit later on. So you don't have to get into that. It'll be reading later.

[00:03:10] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, so why the census? The census is done every 10 years and it is done because the, uh, Constitution actually requires it. We do count, as I said, everyone regardless of their age, their citizenship status, their gender, or any other characteristic. Outside of voting, it is one of the most important things we can do. Now why? We do it because it's in the Constitution. The exact wording is that the actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress and then within every subsequent term of 10 years. So we do it on the years ending in zero and it is on April Fool's Day. I do not know why.

[00:03:49] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Now the thing is, is it's all about power, justice, and money. It's like a little telenovela. I try to make it a little light. So, um, after each census the state uses the, state officials do use this to redraw the districts, as you are all aware. Uh, there has been this controversy about the committee that's being formed and making sure that it's representative. We want to make sure that each of those tracts is allowed to represent the communities that are there. Um, in addition, it is possible we could lose two of our representatives this year in the state of California due to the changes in population. We do want to make sure everyone gets counted to avoid that. And finally, of course, money. $675 billion worth of funds is distributed every year based on census data.

[00:04:35] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: That is just the federal stuff. And then when you go off to what other people use the data for, including the, uh, businesses that will decide whether they want to move into your communities, there are so many ways that money comes to the community based on your population. So obviously it's important to us that you all get counted and become part of the data. Now what is the data? So I'm gonna give you a couple of examples. First of which, here's one from Califor, the, uh, sorry, Alum Rock in, uh, San Jose. You'll notice it's got the population, the median income, the poverty rate, and the employment rate. Now I would like you to compare that with your own, which is about $50,000 a year more for median income, a much drastic reduction in poverty rate, and employment rate, of course, is higher.

[00:05:22] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Now I'm bringing this to your attention because I want you to understand that although there are some significant differences, there are some points of which the two communities are very much alike. You do have hard to count communities just the same as they do. And that's those folks that we're going to be talking about here in a minute. Now we want to make sure everybody knows that for the first time ever since 1790 that we will be doing this on the internet, by phone, and of course there will be paper forms available as a follow up or to those who do not have an address that we can go knock on their door. Um, those people that don't receive mail, I should say.

[00:05:56] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: I want to make sure everybody understands how this is confidential. It's the biggest concern many have had and I did this 10 years ago, it was the same concern. The confidentiality of the census is set into law. It is Title 13 that protects the census data and it ensures that your names will never be associated with that data for the next 72 years. We hope after 72 years we will not care that our name is associated with where we lived at this time. If you wish to look up your genealogy, you can currently look at census data up through 1940. Now, uh, I did mention 1790 is when we started and I have tracked, um, one of my lineages back to that actual census and I want you to understand how much we have grown over the years. Um, that was for free white 18 year old men. That was what the census counted at that time. So we've come a very long way.

[00:06:44] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: I'm going to talk more about those changes coming up. Um, as far as the confidentiality, even myself, and the folks that work with me, are sworn to keep this data safe. Um, and the penalties for that would be five years in prison or $250,000 and I do not love any of you well enough to give you that data for that penalty. So, um, now, we did speak a little bit about the changes and we do have a very changed community that we live in since 1790. And one of the things that we are doing this year is we're making sure that we support languages. We will be having 12 non-English languages on the electronic format online. There will be census questionnaire assistance in those 12 non-English languages. In addition, however, we will have language guides in 59 non-English languages.

[00:07:29] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: And I have looked at the German one and it does go through every single question and explains it in the language as to why it's being asked and how to answer it. Um, finally the paper forms will only be printed in English and Spanish this year. So that is one difference. Um, and if you do feel that you're going to have communities that will be impacted by that, we would like to try and work with you or some of the organizations in your community to make sure that those folks get access to those online language glossaries and guides. Now, as I... if there are any questions any point, please feel free to stop me. Trying to kind of roll through it kind of fast.

[00:08:04] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: So we talked about the hard to count populations. I do want you to take a close look at those individuals that are on this list. You'll notice that our veterans, our homeless, and our children under five are the top three. The number one most undercounted person in America in 2010 was children under five. We do not understand exactly why but obviously there are a variety of things that could've come into play. Parents being concerned about their child being in the data system. Uh, two parents and neither one just talked to the other and decided who was claiming the child. Or some people actually said they forgot. So we do need to make sure that they're counted because this data stands for 10 years. And therefore that 2, 3, 4, 5 year old will be in school. They will be accessing all of the services that the city offers through their families, including the roads, fire and police protection.

[00:08:57] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: So, um, that is one of our biggest points and we are working with the, uh, first five organization here in the county to try and make sure that we get into those communities that are, that have those children. Um, I do want to counter, or sorry, specifically specify the senior citizens here. We do want to make sure that that is noted because there are those of us in the elder group who do not like technology. And we're going full-on internet. So we may need to have some help with that. We are offering the opportunity to do this on a phone, so they don't have to go online. We have some folks, for instance the City of Santa Clara has gotten a grant to get for their library, to get pads, and they're going to set up a space in the library and have people come in and have an assistance center right there at the library.

[00:09:39] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: So these are some things that you might want to think about, some ideas that you might have. Um, in addition to that, I want to make sure you notice also that we do have the folks with limited English proficiency and again if you have pockets of folks you think will be impacted, please be sure to let me know and we will try to work with you as a community to figure out how to best handle that. Um, I have had some folks come to me with very specific languages from Mexico and and we don't have them in the 59 guides, but we do have some folks in San Jose that are willing to help interpret. So.

[00:10:09] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, so local partnership strategies. You may have heard of our Complete Count Committees. 10 years ago the census was kind of very engaged, we had about 20 of our people here on the ground. This year there are four of us doing that same job. So, uh, the city and the county, the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara have had offices open for almost a year now and they are doing a lot of the work that we did 10 years ago. Um, so that complete count committee that's meeting on Thursday, if you haven't heard about it, please check in. We'd be happy to see any of you come and attend that meeting. It is the first time it's met since March, it'll be a full update on where we are, where we're going, and there's also some RFP information available from the county because there is still some funding available for operations, or organizations that wish to do census work.

[00:10:53] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, I do want to show you here the a couple of others, uh, I am part of the partnership program. Statistics in School is one of our things that I am actually big on, some of you know that from our election season last year. Uh, so I am the government and education person for the census in the county. Um, what I'm doing now is tomorrow night I'm actually going to one study, uh, sorry, one school board and then again on Thursday to talk about Statistics in Schools. Statistics in Schools is an evergreen program. We always have it available, we've updated it for 2020 and it has drop-in things that people can use and it doesn't have to be actual school settings. Um, they can be used in libraries, there's these fun facts about the census, for instance how many pounds of chocolate were eaten at Halloween and about how many people really work in that industry here in the United States.

[00:11:43] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: It takes the data and brings it out in different ways. Uh, there are lesson plans available, including one that I've seen on Martin Luther King, where it has the class go back and investigate your community to see how it changed over the decades. And it uses Martin Luther King and his birth date and that whole lesson plan to get to that point. Um, so I will be speaking with all the schools actually through the, uh, county office of education and we are going to be doing that, but there's going to be a Statistics in Schools Week, the week of March 1st or this the first week of March there. And I bring it up to you because we're going to be highlighting this to the children then because a week later we're mailing out the postcards. And so when those kids are talking about it the week before and that postcard comes in the mail, the parents are theoretically going to be, oh, we just talked about this, let's go online and do this. Okay? We hope.

[00:12:35] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, all right, so, how are we going to do all this? We are going to hire about 3,000 people from each of the communities, within the communities I should say. Um, in the County of Santa Clara, about 3,000 people will be hired at $30 per hour to go out and knock on doors and achieve some of those goals. I do want to talk a little bit about some of those goals, we will be having a, what's called a temporary non-specific outdoor location count for the folks impacted by homelessness. And this does include people living in their cars. So we're going to be relying on the cities to help get us the data as to where those locations are, where people are congregating. Because three days prior to census we will in fact send out groups of our enumerators to go up and count them right there on the spot. So we want to make sure everybody gets counted within your city limits.

[00:13:23] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, in addition to that, we'll be doing our group quarters, which would include any of the dormitories, hospitals, nursing homes, et cetera. Um, and if you have ideas of where those places are that maybe we wouldn't know about, feel free to let me know. I'm actually the person that's going to be gathering that data and getting it over to our operations side. Uh, I do want all of you to know that, since you have this on your desk, uh, I do recommend that you try to share it out. I can also give it to you electronically, um, because anybody can apply and we hire within the areas that they work. So we're going to want people from wherever you all live to apply. So if you can't apply, take a picture of this and tell your friend or neighbor next door who needs an extra few hundred dollars. This is not something you're going to pay your rent with every month. Between now and then you probably won't get hired until March, and it may be two weeks or it may be two months.

[00:14:10] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: But it is a nice chunk of change and it's evenings and weekends for those folks who have that time. So... We have our city managers signing up for this. Yeah. Um, yep. Underpaid city staff, teachers, you know. Um, it is good money. Extra vacation. So... please consider sharing that information out to your communities. In your, uh, packet of information I also did give each of you a poster that you could put up in some other organization that you're a part of that specifically talks about how to apply for those jobs.

[00:14:46] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Now next steps. Help us to generate your community's readiness for the 2020 census. Well, your city is actually a little bit ahead of that curve, because some of the cities haven't reached out, whereas yours did. And we are doing a meeting on Monday of your stakeholders, and anyone who would like to join us, please feel free to do so. It is being held at the library at what time? 11 on Monday. The 18th. Yeah.

[00:15:10] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: So, um, and we'll do a presentation there that'll be a different presentation. It'll be more to the service organizations, CBOs, etc. We're hoping it folks like the library system and other systems that are in the community will come out. And individuals that are interested. Work to mobilize your community to apply for those jobs. We will be needing, like I said, 3,000 people and we want them to come from your neighborhoods rather than for us to have to bring them in from other cities to do the work here. It is usually better for somebody to be able to say, hey, I'm your neighbor from right over there and I need to help you fill out your census, than hey, I just came in from Gilroy and I want to help you fill out your census, okay? Um, promote your census in your workplace, business and personal, or social, oh, there's a mistake. Social media.

[00:15:58] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, so there are some great little things online on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel that has some drop-in things you can put out there that are, uh, for instance, we have some celebrity endorsements, there is a census song that is just too cute and I wish I could put it into my slideshow but I have not. But you can, you can actually find it. It's part of the statistics in schools and it's geared to the younger age. About how we all count. And it will get stuck in your head and you'll wish you hadn't. But it's cute. You should go find it. Um, next please invite census staff to your networks and networking meetings. If you have opportunities where I can stand in front of groups and talk about this, I would really like to do that. Um, whether it's a group of people that are working together, or a group of people that are together for some other cause that this kind of cross-references with.

[00:16:41] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, as you know, the census does impact our health care, so if you have any types of meetings on that type of thing, we'd be happy to be there. And if I can't or my staff can't, we'll bring someone in from one of the other counties as needed. We do also offer language for that. We do have here in the county currently hired a person who speaks Spanish, one who speaks Mandarin, two who speak English, but within the area we have Russian and we have, um, more Spanish and we have Vietnamese, and we have Tagalog, uh, and they're all within 30 miles. So we could bring them in if we needed to, if you have a language-specific group. Um, I know in 2010 we actually did some Russian outreach here in the area and up on the peninsula, and we don't have that person hired here, but we do have someone in San Francisco, so.

[00:17:23] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Finally, I am going to ask you, as a group, as a city, to plan an event. A census kickoff of some nature in February, or something to go along with that statistics in schools week in the first week of March, because we want to make sure that although that it will be blasted out on every possible electronic media and through the press and through all the print media, we want to make sure that they hear it from their local leadership, that it's important and that you help them understand why it's important. So I'm gonna ask you to all think about that and work on that point. And finally I'm hoping that the city will be able to pass a resolution in support of the census at a future meeting. I did provide some language for that, so that it be considered and brought before you later. All right, I am pretty much done talking. I hope I haven't taken too much time. Are there any questions at this time? I have never had a room with no questions. There we go.

[00:18:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Kamei.

[00:18:23] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: No, I just want to thank you Mr. Mueller. Other, other Ray Mueller, um, for joining us. I've been on the Santa Clara County Steering Committee and so we talked about this in April when it was a year out. Um, and excited to, to see you here and I thought, when I saw the agenda, Census, yes, yes! More about the Census. Um, so I'm sure we'll, we'll take your, your homework and and discuss as a, as a body. But thank you so much for being here and bringing more awareness to the census and that's what's most important. Thank you.

[00:18:54] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: I did forget to mention one other thing, we do have offices already open. One of them will be in Sunnyvale and it will be covering this area, um, and we have one in San Jose as well, which will be covering South San Jose and the southern counties. So we do have operations office already open. Um, so if you have questions about that, feel free to email me and I'll be happy to get you more information on that as well. All right? Great, thank you. Last thing I'm gonna bring to your attention. This is your real homework. So this is the data you can get online by yourself, by going to our data dot, sorry, data.census.gov, and pulling up, Rome tool is what it's called. I've got three of your census tracts that are actually listed in this, um, and the maps on the back so you can see that you've got a variety of 'em.

[00:19:41] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: Um, and the first one here, as you can see, the response rate was about 88.3. That's pretty darn good. If you look at the second page, it dropped down to about 81.8, I think. 81, yeah, 81.1. And then finally the last one, and this is going to be one of those dark blue areas on the fourth page on the map, and the response rate there was only 63 percent. So you do have areas where people are not going to do that. Now I also highlighted the information lower down on that data, and you'll notice that that's also where those multi-unit housings are. So, um, if you have ideas on how to get into those organizations, frequently our enumerators have a problem getting past those locked doors, we would welcome any assistance with that as well. Alright, um, but this is some information so if you wanna dig deeper into what your city is about, this is the data you can find and it shows languages and ethnicities, etc. So, um, if you have any questions again, thank you so much for your time.

[00:20:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Appreciate the information. And I'm looking forward to the song.

[00:20:47] Raymond "Ray" Mueller: I will email that one to you.

[00:20:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Perfect. Thank you again.

[00:20:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, okay next is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. The reading of the full text of ordinances and resolutions will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. Does any council member wish to pull an item? Councilmember McAlister.

[00:21:16] Councilmember John McAlister: Uh, I just wanted to comment on 4.2. I didn't wanna pull it, but just comment on it.

[00:21:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, if you wanna comment, go ahead.

[00:21:24] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, yeah, um, this is the one about the reach code and I'm very supportive of everything in this particular, uh, ordinance that we're putting out. But I am concerned about some of the unintended consequences that this action may actually be counterproductive to reducing greenhouse gases. And as I see some more reports coming along, um, there was only one very small section that concerned me the most was cooking appliances was one of the concerns I was looking at. Um, and how we're maybe intruding a little too much into people's lives and the also the consequence of giving the alternative of trying to produce the energy but if you look at how that energy is produced, it goes to a natural gas generator which is probably producing more greenhouse gases than a cooking top appliance. So, uh, I am going to vote yes for this particular item but we need to always look at what the, uh, there's scientific more information that's coming out about what are the implications of what we're doing and I think we just need to be following up on those and review our policies as more data comes out.

[00:22:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Clark.

[00:22:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: I just had a, less a comment and more just a question of staff on that item 4.2 just to confirm. So I appreciate answering the council questions submitted on, um, this is sort of looking at folks who, um, who already had sort of plans in process, uh, and were, um, you know, planning to submit them soon but maybe not by the end of the year and now are sort of either redoing them in order to comply with the new January 1 date or, um, trying to redo them to speed things up. And um, so one of the things I was thinking about, just looking at um the single family homes and the gas connections there, would, I know with the RV um, ordinance I know we we adopted the ordinance which I understand we need to do tonight so I'm not questioning that, but was the delayed implementation on the RV, was that sort of baked into the ordinance or could a delayed implementation or a delayed enforcement be done, be um, be sort of staff direction? Or does it need to be, would it just have to be pulled out and done separately?

[00:23:57] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I can speak to that. Um, the RV ordinance, that was a change that was introduced with the uh introduction to the ordinance, and there was agreement by council to uh pick a specific uh staggered uh implementation date. Here we're at the the second reading uh stage and it's a it's a different posture of the ordinance so that would be a material change which is different than the RV example.

[00:24:25] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. So I guess what I misunderstood was the implementation dates and those changes were actually in the ordinance as opposed to in a separate sort of how staff generally implements it.

[00:24:32] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: That's correct.

Segment 2

[00:45:18] Chief Building Official Shelley Woodworth: Shelley Woodworth, Chief Building Official. So they would need to be substantially complete. So what I mean by that is, of course, they're not going to be 100%. That's why we see plans multiple times because they're trying to comply with volumes of code. But they do need to have the meat of everything there.

[00:45:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: But if you, if you had questions about things and requested that they revise things, that revision, they'd be grandfathered at that point as long as the first one was substantially complete and they're not changing a whole bunch of things.

[00:45:49] Chief Building Official Shelley Woodworth: Right, the date of submittal is what determines the code that they're going to follow during construction.

[00:45:54] Councilmember Chris Clark: That's helpful, thank you.

[00:45:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abe-Koga.

[00:45:57] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I just wanted to comment and I appreciate Councilmember McAlister's concerns. I think through this process, something that I, I've realized is that, um, there's probably, we need to, and Silicon Valley Clean Energy is in the process of putting materials together, but I think what I've gathered is we need to do more work on educating the community. Some of, there was like this flurry on Nextdoor yesterday of concerns and I think once, I think it was Bruce said it was, you know, new construction only that died down. But, um, there's a lot of data, there's a lot of outdated data that's being used. Um, frankly, I'm not up on, this is very technical at times, I'm not up on the most up-to-date technology, but, um, I think what I've gathered is to quell the concerns, we just need to be more diligent about, um, educating the community. And so, um, you know, I, I appreciate that we're moving forward with this, this evening. Um, and I think we should just, uh, make sure that we, um, work on outreach and education. Thank you.

[00:47:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on an item on the consent calendar?

[00:47:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, seeing none, we will close the public input portion. Um, and a motion is in order.

[00:47:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abe-Koga.

[00:47:42] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, so I will, uh, make a motion to, uh, adopt the consent calendar including item 4.2. Adopt an ordinance amending Chapter 8, Articles 1 through 14 of the Mountain View City Code relating to the adoption of the 2019 California Building Codes, incorporating by reference other international and uniform codes, and adoption of the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code and the 1997 Uniform Code for the Abatement of Dangerous Buildings. Adopt an ordinance amending Chapter 14, Articles 1 and 2 of the Mountain View City Code relating to the adoption of the 2018 International Fire Code, incorporating by reference the amendments adopted by the State of California to establish the 2019 California Fire Code. Adopt an ordinance amending Chapter 24, Article 1 of the Mountain View City Code relating to hazardous materials. And 4.4, adopt a resolution making findings with respect to the unexpended balance of the sewer development impact fund. California Government Code Section 66001(d) to be read in title only, further reading waived, and the remainder of the consent calendar.

[00:49:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you, so we have a motion by Vice Mayor Abe-Koga and a second by Councilmember Hicks. Let's call the question.

[00:49:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That passes unanimously. Thank you.

[00:49:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next is item 5, 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 three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the Council from acting on non-agenda items. Are there any members of the public who wish to address the Council on items not on the agenda tonight?

[00:49:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And sometime before or after you speak, if you could fill out a blue card and leave it with our City Clerk, that would be great.

[00:49:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: You can do it after you speak.

[00:50:13] B. Hansen: Hi. B. Hansen, Santiago Villa. Uh, in preparation for our mobile home ordinance discussions next year, I've been working on identifying the rental units in Mountain View's mobile home parks. So far, we found 85 rental units in Santiago Villa alone, and we identified the majority of those by searching the Santa Clara County Assessor's property tax records. Right now, the average mobile home, uh, has three bedrooms, two baths, and rents for $3,800 a month. Uh, if they were all rented, that would be a potential income of $320,000 a month, and almost $4 million annually, not including homeowner rent, space rents. And I'd say that would be an extraordinary return on investment for a landlord, wouldn't you? Knowing this puts the seniors and disabled residents in our park who are living on Social Security and SSI in the odd position of supporting our landlord's winery and huge estate in the Los Altos Hills. Uh, since his family owns enormous swaths of land in the Central Valley, our space rent could be subsidizing his water wars in Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties. We could be contributing to his legal defense against the people who are suing him over water rights down there. So I'd like to suggest that when we start discussing, uh, the annual general adjustment that will be defined in our ordinance, you think in terms not of CPI but zero.

[00:52:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who wish to address the Council on items not on the agenda tonight?

[00:52:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, seeing none, we will close the public in, the oral communications portion of the meeting. And we will move on to item 7... which is, I'm sorry, 7.1. Potential 2020 Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act amendments. And we will start with the staff presentation. We'll then have Council questions. We'll then open it up for public input and then bring it back to Council for discussion and action.

[00:53:02] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Is there a handout for the presentation? I don't have it.

[00:53:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I guess we're just asking, is there one? If not, we'll just look at the screen.

[00:53:19] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Okay, apologies, we'll get some handouts right now, but, um, I'll go ahead and get started.

[00:53:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, please.

[00:53:25] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Alright. So thank you. Good evening, my name is Tim Wong, I'm the Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager, and tonight before you is consideration about potential 2020 Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act amendments.

[00:53:44] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And so tonight staff is requesting that the Council... A, decide or number one decide on a methodology to set the annual general adjustment of rent for the CSFRA. Number two is to approve the draft amendments to the CSFRA. In addition, um, that the Council decide, um, whether to place the ballot on the March or November 2020 ballot, and if the Council decides to place the ballot on the March 2020 date, that staff has additional recommendations in regards to how to handle the ballot.

[00:54:27] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: In addition, the same recommendations apply for the voter-initiated amendments to the CSFRA. So again, staff is asking whether the Council wishes to put the voter-initiated amendments on the March 2020 ballot, and if so, um, the following or the recommendations as outlined is being requested from the Council. And lastly, uh, the recommendation to appropriate $225,100 from the general operating fund reserve, uh, for the preparation of the CSFRA CSFRA amendments for the city-initiated amendments.

[00:55:17] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So just to give a quick recap, this is where uh we have gone in in regards to the process. We've had four subcommittee meetings, two RHC meetings, and one Council meeting to to discuss uh potential CSFRA amendments. And then lastly, December 6th is the deadline to submit the ballot measure in order for it to qualify for the March 2020 ballot.

[00:55:48] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And so tonight's uh presentation where uh staff will in regards to the city-initiated amendments, request the Council to determine uh how to approach the AGA for the amendments. Secondly to uh consider the remaining CSFRA amendments, and lastly again how to proceed with the ballot. Also, um, we'll also staff will also be presenting about the voter initiative and how the Council would like to treat the voter-initiated amendments in regards to uh timing and other uh other considerations.

[00:56:32] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So starting off, to determine the AGA methodology, through various discussions between the subcommittee and the Council, uh there have been a number of options, but in in uh in the end there have been four options that have been presented. Uh, option number one is the current option. In the CSFRA, we currently use the 100% CPI model to to determine the AGA.

[00:57:07] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And also in the CSFRA there is language that says that the AGA cannot be below 2%, but cannot be higher than 5%. The AGA can only be applied once every 12 months. And in the CSFRA there is banking allowed. And the maximum AGA on an annual basis is 10%, which includes any application of a banked AGA.

[00:57:33] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So the subcommittee also did come up with two other options. Option number two is using the CPI plus 1% with no banking. Option number three is a flat rate of 4 or 5% with no banking. And option 4 is an option that has been proposed by the Vice Mayor. This was proposed after the last subcommittee meeting of October 14th.

[00:58:01] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Um therefore the subcommittee has not reviewed this uh fourth option, but uh staff has put it on for Council's consideration. Just as reference, these are other rent stabilized stabilized jurisdictions that um use either the the CPI as their AGA or have a fixed uh rate for their AGA determination.

[00:58:36] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And I know that there has been reference to the City of San Jose, so this is to provide information. Recently the City of San Jose weighed these two options on how to apply uh either of these options to the AGA, and uh for reference the City of San Jose did vote to um use option 1 for their rent stabilization program.

[00:59:04] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So staff's first question to the Council is, does the Council want to keep the AGA based on 100% CPI or does it wish to pursue one of the other options as provided? And then moving on, um, there were a number of proposed summaries or amendments to the CSFRA, but there were really two main amendments proposed.

[00:59:33] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: One of them being RHC oversight. There have been discussions between the subcommittee and the Council, but at the last meeting uh with Council, uh the Council determined or directed staff that they would like to see limited oversight over the RHC, only for those uh legal items and any decisions that may impact the city general fund.

[01:00:02] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So, um, it again it's a very limited oversight of the RHC. In addition, the Council wanted the ability to remove RHC members. Currently in the CSFRA, the CSFRA allows or gives the Council the ability to appoint members to the RHC, but it is silent on the ability to remove members. So this would provide that clarification.

[01:00:27] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: There was also discussion about allowing non-Mountain View resident property owners to serve on the RHC. And so that amendment has been included as as the package of amendments, but there has been a caveat added that, um, non-Mountain View residents can serve on the RHC only when there are no adequate qualified Mountain View residents that are available to serve.

[01:00:57] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And lastly, the Council uh determined that they wanted the ability to assign or delegate work to the the work items to the RHC, such as potentially in the future maybe a mobile home rent stabilization ordinance. So those are some of the amendments that have been included that um speak to RHC oversight.

[01:01:22] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: The second major amendment, if you will, proposed was a separate petition process, in which certain capital improvements could be eligible for a separate petition process and therefore not have to go through the full petition process. And some of those eligible improvements include improvements that need to comply with health and safety.

[01:01:47] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Um improvements that lend itself to environmental sustainability, solar panels, charging stations, those type of things. And or improvements that extend the useful life of the property. And the Council also put in some guidelines stating that these improvements had to provide a benefit to the tenants, such as reduction in costs.

[01:02:12] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: If you put in solar panels, that would have to show up as a reduction in cost of energy costs to uh the tenants. In addition, uh no luxury improvements would be eligible for the separate petition process. And lastly, the Council also uh determined that they wanted the RHC to design the separate petition process.

[01:02:39] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: There are there are other amendments included. Uh one amendment is that the sub sub committee and the Council also also uh supported the subcommittee that to have some language in the CSFRA stating that mobile homes are not covered by the CSFRA. So more affirming language.

[01:03:02] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: In addition, there were a number of administrative amendments, some uh providing uh clarifying certain exemptions, and these administrative amendments are more procedural items rather than uh substantial. And so for the second question to Council is in regards to the timeline for the city-initiated ballot.

[01:03:32] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So the Council has the option to place the the city-initiated amendments on the March or November 2020 ballot. And so if the Council wishes to place it on the March 2020 ballot, uh it must adopt a resolution by December 6th, 2019. In addition, the subcommittee recommended that these amendments uh move forward on the March 2020 ballot.

[01:03:57] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So question 2 is, does the Council wish to place the city-initiated measure on the March 2020 or November 2020 ballot? In addition, in regards to ballot arguments and impartial analysis, the the City Council has the option of submitting a written argument on behalf of the city-initiated amendments.

[01:04:24] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Uh the Council or any individual voter, association, or a combo of voters or association can put on um written arguments, and but that is at the Council's discretion. And secondly, the Council may also direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis of the measure.

[01:04:46] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So question 3, uh staff's question to Council is, if the Council proceeds with the March 2020 ballot for the city-initiated measure, does the Council wish to draft an argument for the measure and direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis? Also, another Council option is whether to place the full text of the measure in the voter information guide.

[01:05:16] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And for reference, a full text of the city-initiated amendments would be approximately 14 pages and cost roughly $90,000. So um question 4 is, does the Council want to include the full text of the city-initiated measure in the voter information guide?

[01:05:39] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And then there's the consideration of the voter-initiated ballot or or amendments. And again, similar to the city-initiated amendments, the Council has the option to place the voter-initiated amendments on the March or November 2020 ballot. And then similar to if the if the Council wishes to place it on the March 2020 ballot, then staff has some follow-up recommendations regarding again, a Council counterargument, the impartial analysis, and whether the county wish Council, excuse me, wishes to include a full text of the voter-initiated amendments.

[01:06:24] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And if the Council wishes to place it on the November 2020 ballot, then staff will return to Council at the appropriate time. So question 5 is, does the Council wish to place the voter-initiated measure on the March 2020 ballot or the November 2020 ballot?

[01:06:42] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Again, similar to uh the city-initiated, the Council has the option to submit a counterargument if it likes. Also, the Council again may uh direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis of the voter-initiated measure.

[01:07:02] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So question 6 is, if the Council proceeds with the March 2020 ballot for the voter-initiated measure, does the Council wish to draft an argument, a counterargument for the measure, and direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis for that for those amendments also.

[01:07:23] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And the last question, almost done here, is again with the full text printing. Does the Council wish to provide a full text of the voter-initiative initiated measure to be printed in the voter information guide? That would be about 12 pages and cost approximately $80,000.

[01:07:42] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So question number 7, if Council places the voter initiative on the March 2020 ballot, does the Council want to include full text of the excuse me, the city-initiated measure in the voter information guide.

[01:07:58] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: So here are a summary of the questions that have been posed to the Council, and these questions will help direct um Council towards the recommendations, but here are the summaries, and again the recommendations is to decide on the methodology for the AGA, approve the draft amendments as outlined in the staff report, and also um determine whether to place the uh city-initiated uh amendments on the March or November 2020 ballot, and then if Council chooses to place it on the March 2020, then um the the following recommendations as outlined, um to adopt a resolution, direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis, uh whether you want to submit an argument, and whether you wish to place full text in the voter information guide, and lastly to direct the Clerk and the City Attorney to provide uh take all necessary related actions.

[01:09:08] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Those recommendations are if the Council chooses to place the amendments on the March 2020 ballot. And the same recommendation regarding the voter-initiated amendments. Whether you wish to put it on the March 2020 amend uh calendar.

[01:09:28] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And if so, then uh staff recommends that the Council adopt a resolution, direct the City Attorney, whether to prepare an impartial analysis, submit an argument, and determine whether the Council would like to provide full text of that voter-initiated amendment, and then direct the City Clerk and Attorney to take all necessary related actions.

[01:09:54] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And lastly, uh the final recommendation is to appropriate $225,100 from the general operating reserve for the preparation of these amendments.

[01:10:06] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: And before I conclude, I'd like to introduce the rest of the team. We have Anky Van Deursen, CSFRA Program Manager, and Karen Tiedemann and Justin Bigelow from Goldfarb and Lipman, who helped uh help staff craft these amendments. So that concludes staff's recommendation. Apologize again for the lack of handouts, and happy to answer any questions that the Council may have.

[01:10:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. We'll start with Council questions. Uh, Councilmember Clark.

[01:10:38] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I had just a couple that I thought of actually today when I was rereading the, so I'm looking at the actually the redline of the draft amendment, so the entire um CSFRA as redline. And the the one thing that I'd forgotten is just because of the, I think the timing of the original passage of Measure V and getting everything spun up, there was sort of a September 1 cycle, so that for rate increases that was set up, so it was like a June 30th notification date and then a September 1 effective date of whatever by June 30th was declared by the RHC to be the allowable increase. And so my um I see some of that language in the various scenarios has been struck, and so my my question on this would be, you know, one, do we need to specify that um, let's say the let's say the new rate is either a flat rate or CPI plus 1. Do we need to specify that the initial date on which that new rate takes effect, like either September 1, 2020, um or if we want to move to a calendar year cycle, like January 1, 2021, um or is it or is the intent to remain silent on that and just let the RHC implement it and decide how to how to deal with that?

[01:12:09] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Councilmember Clark, would you be able to just um cite the the section just to make sure we're looking at the same thing?

[01:12:12] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, so I'm looking at um council provided at the very basically the last pages I think 29, 30, 31, there's sort of the here's what section um here's what these sections would look like if you choose uh flat rate, here's what these sections would look like if you choose CPI plus some number. But none of them um, and all of and most of them strike the September 1st um at least for the for the flat rate um you strike the September 1st language. But then it it becomes unclear to me if that new flat rate is in effect, when it actually takes effect, when the first allowable increase of that amount would be. If it would be, or if it's just left to the RHC to decide that. And you don't have to answer that right now, um, if if you need time to look it up, but um, so that was the that was the first piece and really what I'm getting at is do we need to specify in the should we specify in this like what the effective date of whatever that new increase is um or is it okay to remain silent on it? Um, and then the second question that I had um, basically hopefully a little easier, was it we I remember on the committee we specified we changed the language to say that the RHC shall um sort of these separate procedures for uh for pass for certain passthroughs, um but we didn't remain silent on um you know, should that be done within one year, should it be done within, I and I don't know what a reasonable amount of time would be to sort of you know gather public input, um put those things together and then adopt them. But um I didn't know if it would um I I assume if we're silent on that, that it's just sort of left to them to be prudent and expedient um and but um if um I just wanted to make sure that I didn't miss something that there's no specified date by which they have to do that, it's just assumed they'll do it on their own time just like they did the original implementation.

[01:14:28] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: That is correct, there has been no time frame specified for RHC to design and prepare the petition process.

[01:14:39] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Um okay. But uh, we can get an answer to the first one later. Um, I just wanted to if we really need to set an effective date for that new for whatever that new increase is in the charter then we should probably do it now because I think that's probably better than remaining silent. And I also at the same time if we do that, you know, does it make sense to stick with the September 1 cycle or should we move to a calendar year um which I I don't know which is better but I just wanted to offer that.

[01:15:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I have a follow-up question on that. So, doesn't the CSFRA say you can only do one increase a year? And so, wouldn't it just be the same schedule as we have now?

[01:15:24] Housing Director Wayne Chen: So the section that Councilmember Clark was referring to, that section was intended to uh refer to the initial year of program um startup. Um, it was deleted because we're now past that first year. Um, it looks like there would be RHC ability or discretion to be able to determine what that would be or if it stays the same, or if it changes, but um the way that the amendments are allows RHC that discretion.

[01:15:57] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I think you're right, it is once every year, once every 12 months, but I think what I was getting at as well, if we're if there's interest later in shifting to a January cycle, maybe you just give them the extra three months of no increase right and then and then the new sort of higher AGA kicks in January 1, 2021 instead of September 1. And then that's how you would move um to a new cycle, but we can you know debate...

[01:16:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Or you get a prorated share for those few months. Or you could do that too. Yeah. Councilmember Hicks.

[01:16:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. I have two questions. One is a question about the proposed changes in um to give Council oversight over the Rental Housing Committee. Um, I asked a question to staff about this and it made me think of another question. The answer was that it would when I asked about uh changes in the staff, I mean the Council RHC relationship, um the answer was that Council would have limited oversight over the RHC in terms of budget and legal actions. Um, that that's what this would uh provide. And I'm I would like clarity on what kind of oversight Council would have over legal actions.

[01:17:24] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Um, those would be uh potential litigation against the CSFRA that may involve the city. So that was brought up by the sub subcommittee in early discussions and um supported by the Council.

[01:17:49] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So it's mainly um, with the lawsuits, um depending on the there's a financial piece to that. And if the city would have to um back up or cover the cost of if the lawsuit were to, you know, be ruled against the RHC. And so the idea was that the Council should have discretion over whether the RHC should or should not enter into a lawsuit situation because of the financial ramifications of it.

[01:18:25] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I see. So it would give Council the authority to possibly not go through with lawsuits. Okay. Um and then the second, is this, this one's uh about the annual general adjustment. Um so this fourth one is new to me. What is a flat rate of less than 5%? 'Cause less than to me sounds sliding, so clearly I don't understand what's being proposed.

[01:18:51] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: To answer that too. Um, so it's anything under 5%. And the reason it was written the way it was written is because at the subcommittee meeting, I believe the three committee members were in agreement that we would not recommend banking at 5%. But there was some talk about banking at some other number or CPI plus one or some other formula. And that's why I asked staff to include that. We didn't have a full discussion and a vote on that, but it was another option that came up during our discussion. And so that's why I asked staff to put it in. But it could be four, it could be three, you know, four and a half, whatever a number under five basically.

[01:19:39] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So a number to be determined tonight is what you mean? Got it. Thanks.

[01:19:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember McAlister.

[01:19:46] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I wrote a couple of questions for you and I just wanted to get clarification on or maybe you'll have a better understanding of what I was driving at. Um, I wrote a question about a baseline for rent. So if a recession or depression comes along, that as rents are decreased because the market can only bear a certain uh market value of getting a rent, that let's say the the market turned around quicker than whatever, quicker than sooner and demand became higher again, that would allow a the landlord maybe to recover back up to a base rent. So let's say there's a $2,000 base rent. It's 2,000 and it drops down to he can only rent the place for $1,500. The market turns around quicker than most people thought, but if they're only allowed to do 3% each year, he's the landlord is still going to be on the hook for the mortgage and all these other costs, and so he would be losing or not getting a fair rate of return, I guess is the term we're looking at.

[01:20:58] Councilmember John McAlister: In the gas business, I was in the gas business for many years, and we used to have a base gas price. And then they we would have what's called a temporary voluntary allowance, so that they would deduct pricing. So if you see gas has changed, the price of gas stays the same, but they always have these temporary voluntary allowances which would allow the company to reduce the cost.

[01:21:22] Councilmember John McAlister: And I was interested if if that's something that I would like to see considered in this amend- these amendments, that you know if the base rent is so much that the landlord will say okay, as I reduce, these are temporary voluntary allowances so that when it comes time and the market comes along, he's not in a hole and and therefore he can't really do much maintenance on the property, and that will allow them to come back up to a base rate sooner than later.

[01:22:06] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, but I thought they were capped at 4%. I mean, you might say this might take 10% or something like that. If they drop 30%, then to get back up to that base rent could take many, many years. So I'm looking at something that says, you know, that allows them, I guess... so your solution or your answer I don't understand would make them get back up to that rate quicker than before.

[01:22:31] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Yeah, the concept of the petition process would be, rent increases above what is allowed under the annual general adjustment. In the current structure under the fair rate of return mechanism, would allow um a rent increase to go above the AGA, uh through that fair return process.

[01:22:48] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, okay, I would true, I would like to see something in these amendments that is a little more defined. We have one of the concerns that we've had with the CSFRA is that there's ambiguity or not clear direction, and if you're saying, you know all of a sudden the market drops, you're going to have everybody coming for a petition, whereas I would like to see something maybe in the city-initiated one that would allow a fair recovery and not at you know to get back up to a certain level of maintenance and and development versus taking many years to do that.

[01:23:32] City Manager Dan Rich: Just to chime in here to reiterate what Wayne said. I mean, I think what you're talking about certainly is legally possible. It will require drafting, um, and just a reminder that tonight is your last chance if you want to put this item on the March ballot. So any substantive changes you just need to keep that in mind.

[01:23:46] Councilmember John McAlister: What happens on December 6th?

[01:23:48] City Manager Dan Rich: December 6th I believe is the deadline to get to the county and we don't have another regular meeting before then. Unless you want to have a regular meeting on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, which currently we do not have scheduled.

[01:24:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Um, yeah I'll sign up for that. Okay, the next uh question I had that was not um, I had a question on. Um, so I asked the question about whether the ability to improve the life of the building would all and the question would would that also apply if it were to do one unit. Let's say one unit needed some major you know retrofitting or so forth. But here's what's confusing, is your the answer was yes, it could, but the improvement of the one unit must benefit the majority of the tenants. So how can it be, you know, if you've got 20 units and you know there's some water damage or something that brings it up, how is you know you can't do both. You either can improve one, but how is that going to benefit the majority of the tenants?

[01:24:54] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Well, in in regards to water damage that might might affect other other units or prevent uh damage from other units. Um, but in regards to answering that question, it was more thinking maybe for example seismic retrofits have been mentioned. And so if if one unit was needed to shore up the entire building, then that would be an eligible capital improvement.

[01:25:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, but I was thinking more simple, you know sometimes somebody wants to come in and you know do a retrofit of the building, you know the plumbing hasn't been changed in that particular unit for 20, 30 years and they want to you know start doing some upgrades. That's what I was driving at, not the re- retrofits. So, based on that kind of scenario, can they do it or do you still have to benefit the majority of the whole tenants?

[01:25:50] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: If if they're re- redoing all the plumbing throughout the building that would certainly be...

[01:25:54] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, no let's just try to keep it to one unit, potentially or a few. Just the plumbing in one. No, I just, I'm trying to use an example that where there's coming in and there's a considerable cost of bringing it up to standards or extending the life of the building.

[01:26:10] Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Tim Wong: Um it that could be evaluated, but retrofitting one unit and extending the life of the building might extend the life of the unit, but that's something that can certainly be considered, but if it, I I think it was more the intent was to extend the life of the entire building.

[01:26:30] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, that's that's why I want clarity. So if somebody wanted to retrofit a building or remodel one particular unit, then that wouldn't qualify because it's only one unit and not to the benefit of the.

[01:26:43] Housing Director Wayne Chen: If I can add, I think conceptually those situations could occur. What the RHC would do is to take the amendments um if passed and develop the program um that would align with what the amended CSFRA states. They would develop um the um procedures and the elements by which um it meets that guiding principle that it would need to benefit the tenant and how to pass on those costs. So I think what you're um identifying in terms of a potential uh possibility could occur but that would be fleshed out through the RHC implementation and designing the the program to align with the intent of that capital improvement and what the amendments uh are intended to accomplish.

[01:27:28] Councilmember John McAlister: So our amend- our amendment that potentially the city amendments would make this process easier? Or or better defined of how it would move forward?

[01:27:38] Housing Director Wayne Chen: I think the notion of this separate petition process for individual increase um would be to facilitate and and streamline that process, something different than the fair return process.

[01:27:49] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, thank you.

Segment 3

[01:30:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: was asked by a council member about a limitation to the number of RHC seats that could be assigned to non-residents who own property subject to Measure V in Mountain View. And so the answer that was given is a limit was not discussed, but within the CSFRA right now is there not a limit to two maximum property owners, managers, and I guess folks in the real estate business generally?

[01:30:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, so the practical limit would be the existing limitation of a maximum two. Okay, so just it was it was unclear to me whether that was intended to be provided in the response.

[01:30:53] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, and then the other question I have is regardless of what we do with the amendments, um we Measure V subject property, CSFRA properties would would always be subject to the anti- the state anti-gouging law. So um you know there would you would never be allowed to go beyond what the state currently caps in terms of rent increases. Is that is that true?

[01:31:21] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Our understanding is that of the state or any city ordinance or program the stricter component prevails.

[01:31:33] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so we we for just you know just to sort of illustrate the point, we have the the 10% maximum but in the CSFRA right now, but if the anti-gouging law you know CPI plus 5% ends up being 8.5% then the maximum in the City of Mountain View would be 8.5% which is sort of the aggregate rent increase, you know AGA plus capital improvements and that kind of thing.

[01:31:58] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Our team is not incorrect, yes.

[01:32:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, got it. Thank you very much.

[01:32:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abe-Koga.

[01:32:05] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, so just following up on Councilmember Ramirez's question, I just wanted to clarify when we talk about the eligibility of non-resident property owners, that that does include property managers. Because right now we have one on the RHC I believe. Um, so is that a category or are we restricting it to just property owners now?

[01:32:35] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um, during discussions with the subcommittee I don't recall any discussions about property managers or any other real estate professionals in rental with rental properties, but if that is something...

[01:32:51] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, I guess I'm trying to recall the criteria, the original criteria and I believe one of the current members is a property manager, not a owner, but we counted that individual as one in one of those seats, the two seats. And so I just wanted to clarify that we're not changing that to make it more stringent to property owners only, but we're allowing for what we've been doing status quo.

[01:33:24] City Manager Dan Rich: I think if the council's intent is it for to be anyone who fits the category as in the current CSFRA that includes property owners, we'll make sure that the wording says that, but I'm not sure exactly what it says now, I think we were interpreting the intent as only property owners. But you can, if your intent is that it's anyone in that current category it can it can reflect that.

[01:33:49] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Yeah, we'll be happy to make that change to reflect the council direction whatever that may be.

[01:33:54] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. Um, and then regarding the RHC... well, so this is something that actually came up um during our appointments review committee meeting last week. Um, our commis- other commission members usually start their term January... January 1st I believe or the first Tuesday of January.

[01:34:23] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, but the RHC members and I think this was just because of the implementation, their term starts in April. Um, and we were talking about the possibility of aligning RHC with the other commission appointments. Um, if we were to include that this evening would that be a substantial change or do you think we can do that tonight without having to add a meeting on the 26th or what not?

[01:34:59] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um, language would have to be drafted, but I think that could be...

[01:35:06] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: It wouldn't affect the ballot language, because it's not that specific in there, correct?

[01:35:14] City Manager Dan Rich: I think that can be accomplished as long as the motion is clear, I think that can be some- something that can be done tonight.

[01:35:21] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. And then finally, going back to Councilmember McAlister's questions, I think this is similar but um I did express this concern at the subcommittee when we talk about sustainability measures like the reach codes that we just did earlier, that that's for new new building but um we want to... we will be wanting to encourage existing buildings to do retrofits.

[01:35:45] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, and I know there was a clause there that as long as it benefits the tenants with lower utility costs or what not, and I guess from you know the studies that I've the studying that I've done, um it's not definitive that um it would be cost... it would be cost neutral most likely at least, but there's no guarantee that it would be cost lower, reduction.

[01:36:12] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And so um I guess that's my concern is if we made that clause in there would we really be inhibiting the possibility of sustainability improvements because it's not a cost reduction in things like utilities. So could we be more general about that?

[01:36:35] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Cost neutral or cost reduction?

[01:36:38] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So I would say I can't... so I don't think we can guarantee cost reduction, possibly cost neutral.

[01:36:45] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Okay.

[01:36:47] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: At least. Or at the most, I don't know which way it goes, but I think, does that make sense?

[01:36:55] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Might, um, just ask the City Attorney whether that would be a substantive change or if that is something that could be done here at the dais.

[01:37:05] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I'm sorry, I was looking at another change from the past question, could you would you mind just repeating that? I'm so sorry.

[01:37:10] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, so I'll just give an example, let's say solar panels. Um, when we... depending on how you look at the cost of those solar panels, um it could be seen as maybe a cost reduction in viewing your utility bills down the road, um but the initial cost of putting the panels costs more, there's a cost.

[01:37:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So if you average it out it might end up being more than their the current utility bill cost. So I guess I'm trying to avoid that or or you know the intent here is that we encourage more retrofits to to include more sustainability measures. You know we said it needs to be a benefit of the tenant by seeing cost reductions, but depending on how you define those costs, it could be you know initially higher, could be cost neutral.

[01:38:13] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: There's no guarantee it's going to be cost reduction right now I think with current technology. So that's, I don't want to inhibit sustainability improvements.

[01:38:25] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, I think there would... I'm just brainstorming and I'd look to Wayne also, there may be some language such as and a measurable benefit, I don't know if it needs to necessarily be quantified as an actual reduction, but open to Wayne's input on that also.

[01:38:42] Housing Director Wayne Chen: I think that's a possibility when the subcommittee was deliberating on sort of the key principles for how to draft this language, yes, uh no luxury improvements and something to um articulate that there needs to be a benefit um to the tenant.

[01:38:58] Housing Director Wayne Chen: So if there is a desire for the council to be more general, um the RHC might still um include this into procedures because they have the independence to to implement it, but at this ordinance level there may be um a way to make it more general if that's the desire of the council.

[01:39:18] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, so like you know if you could say reduction in carbon emissions is a benefit, then I'm fine with it. But if it's tied specifically to a financial benefit of you know lowering your utility bill, then I think that becomes challenging is what I'm trying to was trying to get at.

[01:39:39] Housing Director Wayne Chen: If council has any specific um framing about if the concept of needing to benefit the tenant specifically should be there, and if there are any other additional parameters and we can deliberate here real quickly with with the team.

[01:39:55] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um, but if the is there a general concept that that still remains as a as a guiding principle that the tenant should still benefit. Uh, and if so maybe that um notion remains here but perhaps it becomes more general. Um, to to your notion about whether it could reduce um carbon emissions, that seems to be um broader than benefiting any particular tenant, so if that is something that the council was thinking about that that may be a change in the guiding principle.

[01:40:30] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, yes. Because I think at some point we did talk about our sustainability goals as a city and contributing to that, which would be... but not financial benefits. Thank you.

[01:40:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I had a follow up question on the base rent issue that Councilmember McAlister brought up. And um I think I understand what you're trying to address, um but I'm wondering if we've seen in other cities um how that might be addressed. Um I can't imagine at this late hour trying to incorporate it into this, but are there other cities that have um addressed that in another way, like maybe in the lease or I don't know if that's possible.

[01:41:22] Housing Director Wayne Chen: I'm going to turn to see if maybe Karen or Justin may have examples.

[01:41:34] Karen Tiedemann: Excuse me. Karen Tiedemann, Goldfarb & Lipman. Um, there are cities that do have a base rent concept, um but most cities also have a limitation on the the maximum rent increase per year.

[01:41:49] Karen Tiedemann: So in terms of bringing people back up to base, that's going to be problematic with those limitations, so I can't think of another jurisdiction that essentially allows you to go up to base if you've gone below without a petition. Um, and with 1482 we are going to be limited anyway on annual increases for these units. So that's going to be our ultimate cap annually. So you wouldn't be able to go back up under 1482.

[01:42:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And you couldn't do it in a lease?

[01:42:20] Karen Tiedemann: Uh, no. The tenants can't waive their rights under the state law or under the CSFRA and putting it in the lease is essentially a waiver.

[01:42:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you.

[01:42:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just had a couple follow-up questions. So by not allowing a base rent you're disincentivizing a landlord to drop their right... potentially. Okay, so we'll keep them artificially high. Okay. That's one... down to one context.

[01:42:46] Councilmember John McAlister: And then to Councilmember Lucas Ramirez's question, um there was this thing that qualified and again we're using a lot of language that can be defined many ways. So will there be something a little better in there that says if no qualified Mountain View resident... what does that mean, the experience, the position, their their profession? Does it mean that you know if we have two seats they're only qualified for those seats, or does it mean their professional experience and their life experiences?

[01:43:23] Karen Tiedemann: Well, I think at the subcommittee that was, we were asked to put that in and I think the idea was that we give the council some discretion in terms of determining qualifications for the appointment because the council makes the appointments.

[01:43:38] Councilmember John McAlister: So it could be a lot of things then, right? So when you say discretion, was there any discussion among the council, I mean the subcommittee to try to make it a little tighter than not qualified? I mean you can have two people that's lives in Mountain View and doesn't, and yet you go well this person has more experience, but you know, then you're starting to go well okay this is how that judgment goes, and that's why I was trying to maybe have examples or two or you know something more quantifiable.

[01:44:15] Karen Tiedemann: I don't think we got too specific, but the interest was to find um folks who have some more technical experience in this industry. So you know, I guess the example would be you have a resident who isn't isn't in the industry versus one a non-resident who might be a property owner, then we would be able to choose the non-resident because of their experience.

[01:44:50] Councilmember John McAlister: So are you looking particularly... would all seats be up for determination or just the two property owner category?

[01:44:59] Karen Tiedemann: Just the two property owner category which I think includes managers and vice mayor brought it up, it talks about realtors, developers, property managers.

[01:45:06] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. That's, I just wanted to get a little better clarity on that. Thank you.

[01:45:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I was just going to comment on that, one of the things we talked about was not being too prescriptive in the charter amendments that we propose, and something like that I think could be addressed through council policy or some other kind of regulation. So we don't necessarily have to be so precise in our definition right now.

[01:45:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Are there any other council questions? Okay, seeing no one in the queue, um before I open this up for public input, can I see a show of hands of how many folks wishes to address the council on this topic tonight?

[01:45:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Uh, each speaker will have two minutes. And if you could be sure to fill out a card before or after you speak and leave it with our city clerk, that would be great. Um, and I want to remind folks tonight that there's probably a variety of perspectives on this topic, and it is my expectation that we'll listen uh to what folks have to say, um and we'll do that without any signs of um applause or booing. We're just going to listen. Um, we can learn from others and we're going to listen respectfully. So, um if you want to address the council, please come up.

[01:46:34] B. Hansen: Hi, uh B. Hansen, Mountain View Mobile Home Alliance. Um, I I'll be very brief. Um, I am concerned about the annual general adjustment. Every time I talk to any of my residents they are very worried about what is going to happen. Um, CPA even CPI is high for a lot of people.

[01:47:03] B. Hansen: Next year we are facing a COLA of only 1.6% for social security increase. Uh, we are now in Santiago Villa alone, it's uh 3.5% uh AGA. Um, other parks are have much higher, um Moor Park has I think a 12% problem now.

[01:47:28] B. Hansen: Um, and in addition we are going to have an increase in Medicare cost Part B of 7%. So you know, this amounts up over years, uh most people who are on social security or SSI are spending over half of their checks uh at minimum on rent. Uh, I would I will continue to hammer on this issue as many chances as you give me.

[01:48:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:48:05] Deb Henigson: Hi, my name is Deb Henigson, I am a Mountain View resident and tonight I am representing the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. MVCSP is opposed to amendments that undermine CSFRA's core tenants. Renters represent a major vulnerable demographic in our community, including both lower income and missing middle folks, and therefore deserve the kind of special considerations we've been talking about on multiple fronts in our comment letters.

[01:48:31] Deb Henigson: Our members also less than fondly remember the voter confusion and disengagement when there were previously two rent stabilization related initiatives on the ballot. One of our efforts as a community organization is to reach out to voters and try to encourage engagement and increase voter education on hyper-local issues. And the competing ballot measures made the overall discussion confusing and discouraging. Frankly we got a lot of uh type of shrugs from many average voters that we talked to. Therefore we recommend that the city not proceed with its own ballot initiative.

[01:49:05] Deb Henigson: As League of Women Voters previously stated in their comment letter, there are very few modifications which are significant enough in the city's proposed amendment to warrant an election. If the city did decide to proceed with an initiative, we strongly oppose changing the AGA.

[01:49:21] Deb Henigson: And as staff has already pointed out, most cities with rent control in California use CPI as their standard, with 1% less than CPI being quite common for rent increases. And Mountain View's CSFRA, which is 100% of CPI, seems very reasonable and fair to landlords, by itself and by comparison. A higher annual increase would make it difficult for tenants who do not typically get raises as high as CPI. Tying annual rent increases to CPI is one of the core principles of this ordinance, of the charter amendment, and we encourage you not to change this.

[01:49:54] Deb Henigson: In addition, we believe Council should work quickly to pass an ordinance regarding mobile home park space and clarify in that ordinance how funding will be provided if RHC is asked to monitor it. Thank you very much.

[01:50:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:50:09] Alex: Hi, Alex here. I asked a bunch of people in the community about the AGA and none of them support an increase to the AGA. Thanks.

[01:50:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:50:23] Serge Bonte: Good evening, Serge Bonte, Mountain View resident. So, I I try to decipher, you know, not only what's presented here but also the packet, this is clear as mud. And I don't think it's going to be any clearer um at the end of the day. Um, and I I think it's a mistake to try to push it to a March 2020 um election. Um, you know, it's not going to be clear to the community what's fair, I don't think it's going to be clear to you, and I don't think you're going to be even be able to put any sort of cogent um argument pro or against that ballot.

[01:50:56] Serge Bonte: I think instead if you want to to pursue this you should put it to November, um and because it would give you more time to to to really um, you know, read even the ballot measure. Um, it would um putting it in November would um um give us time to also assess uh how serious you are about addressing uh uh mobile homes.

[01:51:19] Serge Bonte: Right now, you know, the ballot is to say it's going to be not going to be part of a charter um amendment. And there is only a vague promise of a study session early in 2020 without any sort of guarantee or indication of what sort of ordinance would be put in place, nor even what sort of ordinance you would be supporting.

[01:51:38] Serge Bonte: Um, so it feels a bit like a bait and switch there. Um, I think also that when it comes to jacking up the rents, either through a change in AGA or or more lenient pass-throughs, um you should really study the impact. Uh, whenever you set up fees and so on for for developers there is a financial financial feasibility study that's done to see when project pans out. Do one for the tenants. Um, you know, what's the financial feasibility for tenants to stay in Mountain View, based on your things. Thank you.

[01:52:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:52:18] Joan MacDonald: Good evening. Joan MacDonald. I'm speaking for the League and Advocates for Affordable Housing on one issue and myself for two others. The question of whether the full text of the amendments, the ballot issues, should be in the voter information booklet, as far as we are concerned, should be a non-issue.

[01:52:46] Joan MacDonald: Of course the full text must be there, it's the only way that voters can know what it is they're voting about. On another issue, we absolutely agree that the AGA should remain at CPI. A flat rate, no matter what the flat rate is, is not for the benefit of our residents, but rather a way for fair rate of return to be overturned or rather uh ignored in terms of any formula.

[01:53:25] Joan MacDonald: And you're looking at ways to avoid using the fair rate of return by saying, no we don't need petitions, we'll just have these streamlined uh efforts. That is really not what the voters voted for.

[01:54:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:54:04] Tim McKenzie: Hi, I'm Tim McKenzie, Mountain View resident. Um, I just wanted to say I'm against any changes to the uh annual general adjustment. Um, I voted on for Measure V and I was pleased with it when it passed. Um, and coming following up on the comment of Measure V versus Measure W, I looked into it, I was for Measure V over the other ones.

[01:54:28] Tim McKenzie: I didn't I'm upset with the continual attempts to change uh anything with Measure V. Um, and in terms of getting sort of a baseline of rent, I just wanted to share a story of one of my co-workers who recently had to take time out of his day to go uh to the Rental Housing Commission because his landlord was trying to increase rent past what was legal, and the the system is working, he was able to keep it with within the uh limits that were set set. Um, so I just I wanted to sort of say don't no changes to uh the AGA.

[01:55:09] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:55:14] Philip Crosby: Good evening, Philip Crosby, representing the Campesino at St. Athanasius. I'd like to be clear that from the standpoint of tenants there's nothing in the proposed amendment that's going to benefit them. And yet here we are you know going to a great deal of work, you know to craft changes to Measure V. We recommend that you not put something on the ballot.

[01:55:44] Philip Crosby: I understand that there's pressure to have a streamlined process to recover expenses, but why on earth can't the petition process serve that role? If people are complaining about providing sufficient financial information, you know, to get through the petition process, bear in mind that the voter approved initiative that will be also on the ballot would require tenants to provide that same detailed financial information. So my recommendation is do not do it. Thank you.

[01:56:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:56:24] Carol Meyer: Carol Meyer, fourplex owner in Mountain View. Um, I want to tell you a story about my grandmother who had some units in Berkeley and rent control came in in the 70s. When she died she was in a wheelchair, she was 98 years old, and legally blind, and because of rent control she couldn't afford her own care. And I'm not gonna let that happen to me.

[01:56:54] Carol Meyer: So I probably will be selling my units, because when I sit here and listen to all the restrictions, restrictions on top of restrictions on top of restrictions, I want to caution the council, you don't want to be so heavy-handed in your efforts to help people who have income problems, and I I don't doubt that they do, but you don't want to sit there and put all that burden on just a small subclass of Mountain View owners.

[01:57:19] Carol Meyer: Um, you wouldn't like somebody to sit there and restrict your income and say you can only get a certain amount and you can't get any more. And everybody, and Safeway doesn't lower their prices for me, roofers don't lower their prices for me when I need a new roof on my units.

[01:57:36] Carol Meyer: And all kinds of expenses go up, up and up. Craftsmen cost a lot of money now. I don't consider myself a landlord, I consider myself a housing provider, and I try very hard to provide safe, clean, sanitary, up to date, to code housing. So don't when you do this, you have to allow enough return to give an incentive. It's not just like clipping coupons, there is a lot of work involved in being a housing provider.

[01:58:07] Carol Meyer: So when you consider what you're going to do, please think you have to be fair-minded and not just listen to people who would like their rent held down, and I understand why they do it and why they need it, etc. But you can't just put that whole burden on just housing providers. Thank you.

[01:58:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:58:32] Alex Brown: Alex Brown, also Mountain View Mobile Home Alliance. Uh, yeah it seems like everything is becoming more complicated instead of less. Uh, the conflation of the AGA with the fair rate of return petition process has made this really messy.

[01:58:49] Alex Brown: Anyway, mobile homes, uh, please make sure that when you do this that you account for the fact that if this doesn't pass, that there still needs to be a process to help mobile home residents. Uh, if you exclude it from the CSFRA and do not add the ability to delegate to the RHC, what is the next path, how would you account for that, how would you handle us, how will you help us? Uh, don't depend on this passing in order to be able to add protections for mobile home residents. Thank you.

[01:59:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:59:24] Andrew: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, my name is Andrew and I'm a housing provider in Mountain View. And I'd encourage these revisions to go through. Um, it's, you know, the rate of return that has been set uh at CPI does not keep up with uh the costs that are involved in with being a housing provider.

[01:59:48] Andrew: Some of the things Councilmember McAlister talked about today, consideration of costs through and in and over a cycle, um these these types of uh rent control procedures make it very difficult over a over a longer period for us to provide a quality housing stock.

[02:00:06] Andrew: And um those restrictions coupled with um the restrictions outlined in the petition process make it difficult, um especially for for older units serving a lower income community um for the owners of those types of units to keep up. Um, my recommendation is is to consider these revisions in order to protect that type of housing stock um and allow for the housing stock to maintain its health in the city of Mountain View. Thanks.

[02:00:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:00:39] Reina Dominguez: Hi, my name is Reina Dominguez, from Rock Street. I'm still live over there. So, um, I'm asking you to keep Measure V. We still have some struggles with housing. And um I think having Measure V, uh, can still allow we can still allow to live over here in in Mountain View.

[02:01:07] Reina Dominguez: But the renters, like right now I'm looking for a place to live, the renters still making money charging water, garbage, I don't know how they do that because not any apartment has their own meter to see how much water we spend or to see how much uh garbage we spend. They just charge whatever I think whatever they they want or I don't know how that works. They don't explain that part.

[02:01:33] Reina Dominguez: Or to get an apartment we have to show that we get um we um get money uh we make money um three times as the rent cost. Which is um we can't make that much money. I mean, we don't get that much money. Mine, our, we get like about $17 to show that money we have to we have to got we have to get like uh between $28 to $30 an hour to get that much money monthly. To saying like to working 320 hours my husband and I, and then that's too hard.

[02:02:09] Reina Dominguez: So I don't know if um if the rates the rates of the the the workers can go up or and then we can make that much money. So keep the Measure V is a I think it's a good idea to stay there for us. Can you please consider that. Thank you.

[02:02:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[02:02:34] Lenny Siegel: Good evening, Lenny Siegel, long-term Mountain View homeowner. The only reason I could see to raise the AGA, the annual general adjustment, would be to transfer wealth from tenants, many of whom are overburdened with rent payments, to housing investors. Housing investors are limited in their property tax increase to 2% a year under Prop 13, and they usually have fixed rate mortgages.

[02:03:05] Lenny Siegel: So their expenses are overall not going up as much as most people's expenses are going up. So there was an argument that somehow a slight increase in rent would somehow prevent the demolition of apartments. I think that's pretty far-fetched. Um, there's a lot of money to be made even in building townhouses where apartments were, um, even if the rents stay the way they are.

[02:03:35] Lenny Siegel: So I'm expecting that if you have any AGA increase that people who worked to pass Measure V will work to defeat the council measure. So if you really think there's benefit in anything else you're putting into this, it's gonna go down to defeat.

[02:03:50] Lenny Siegel: Secondly, the pass-through issue. I last year advocated looking at pass-throughs particularly for earthquake retrofit. Um, we as a tenant movement, tenant advocacy movement, have not had a chance to discuss the language that's in here. Uh, a lot of people think it's too broad. The more you broaden it, like for greenhouse gas emissions or something like that, the more likely it is that people will work to defeat the ordinance.

[02:04:18] Lenny Siegel: Because people know what's going on in the city. They know who dominates the City Council, they know who dominates the Rental Housing Committee. They don't trust that any little loophole will just stay a little loophole, that it will be so big that you can drive uh an apartment redevelopment through it. Thank you.

[02:04:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to address the council on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public input portion and bring it back to council. Councilmember McAlister.

[02:04:48] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just want to get a little clarity on the uh if on a fixed rate is that to also to minimize the number of petitions or if we go to a fixed rate will therefore the landlord cannot petition for some more money, does it streamline it or it's you know sort of a balance act that you know if they're getting this much more over here then they can't petition for something else or is there give and take on both sides if if there's a fixed rent increase?

[02:05:26] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um, I believe a fixed rate does not preclude them from uh the petition process. It's just a way to calculate the AGA, but um if there are certain capital improvements they wish to to include, I think that could be...

[02:05:45] Councilmember John McAlister: So with the extra money then, their capital improvements would go, but they still would have they would still be able to ask for a petition to get more? That's what I was trying to figure out if there's, you know, hey we're going to do this, you got to cap that, as a type deal. But no?

[02:06:02] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Just to add to Tim's comment, some of the options that you've seen in, for example using San Jose as an option, the uh option between a fixed flat rate of 5% but the banking was removed um was one way to um seek some balance between having a higher but but but fixed rate. And the other option was uh CPI with with banking as um the city currently has.

[02:06:29] Housing Director Wayne Chen: The other options in front of you, options two and three, um I think seek to um have some of that give and take that you're referring to, so uh potentially higher than the CPI, CPI plus one or four and five, removing the the banking option.

[02:06:46] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Option four um is potentially higher than CPI, depends on where that flat rate is, but it reintroduces the banking option um under option four. Um to Tim's point, um even with a fixed flat rate, the ability to have a fair return petition process would still apply under the current set of amendments.

[02:07:09] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um and if the current amendments go go forward and is passed, there would be that uh uh that second petition process for that separate individual rent pass-through for those um eligible costs, um sustainability, extending the useful life, and uh code requirements.

[02:07:28] Housing Director Wayne Chen: So those two other petition processes would still be available even if there were a fixed flat rate if the council voted that way.

[02:07:39] Councilmember John McAlister: And then my last question is, have you looked to see that if there was a slight increase in the AGA, would it be a deterrent from people converting their naturally affordable units into something else throughout either cities or in the region that that's a incentive enough to prevent them from turning them over?

[02:08:02] Housing Director Wayne Chen: I think that's a difficult question to answer. Um you'll you'll hear a variety of perspectives about what might motivate a landlord to stay in the business or to exit the business. Uh the current set of modifications introduces the petition process to allow another way for uh recovering capital improvement costs.

[02:08:29] Housing Director Wayne Chen: And I think looking at how Mountain View compares with uh the other cities that have rent stabilization is probably somewhere in the middle. I think it's very difficult to say whether dialing this variable a little bit here um first whether that variable leads to a certain outcome, and then dialing that variable a little bit differently would would would change that outcome, I think those are all very difficult um questions to definitively answer.

[02:08:55] Councilmember John McAlister: And so I was going to open this up to the committee, maybe you guys could give me a little bit of your insight of this one option, if it if it goes particular to four let's say 4%, what was your thinking, or just hypothetically if there's 4%, and what do you expect from the outcome and the rationale behind it? So, Lucas or...

[02:09:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Clark is in the queue.

[02:09:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: It was for a question, but I can respond to that. Um, and the other committee members can jump in.

[02:09:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I don't think I don't think the committee generally felt that something more than 5% would be a pretty tough sell, like 5% itself would probably be a pretty tough sell. Um I think um we had at least one committee member who um felt that um you know any any increase would be uh you know would be a tough sell.

[02:10:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um I generally personally as I've expressed at at our last council meeting on this, you'll prefer something that floats CPI plus some number. Um and so what we've tried to do is um, but you know I I don't feel so strongly about that one particular item that you know I would vote against this whole thing if we're able as a council to come up with what we feel is a is a compromise.

[02:10:27] Councilmember Chris Clark: So um so that's where we we got into this you know we we as a committee can't um you know feel it's feel that the AGA is an important enough factor that it should be decided by the full council and um and you know here we and so let's present them with with the range of options and and sort of let us discuss this and and let us decide.

[02:10:53] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I think part of um you know what I had talked about in terms of the the CPI is, as we know the CPI is, you know primarily that's that's a dollar today is equal to a dollar a year from now, it's not really a return, it's not meant to be a a rate of return right, and so um if we're if we're trying to figure out a way in which to you know better get um better ensure that folks are able to make enough of a return that they aren't necessarily taking units off the market, um down the road whether it's happening now or not, then um then it probably needs to be something more than just what inflation provides.

[02:11:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I know there are a lot of other factors in that, some some of the costs are fixed and all these things, but that that's sort of where we got into this range of, our upper limit is probably um 5% and CPI is sort of the floor, and here are the options in between, um some options in between one that floats, um a few that are fixed, some that include banking or don't, um because um you know that that factors into it too. That's um, if if others feel differently feel free to to chime in. Um, otherwise I'm going to jump into my question.

[02:12:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um which was for staff. Um, it's just um so let's let's say this um if this were to pass, um what do you think is a reasonable implementation timeline for the sort of the initial set of um of um sort of the the separate um process for certain capital improvements?

[02:12:36] Councilmember Chris Clark: Would that be, I know getting the RHC up and running by itself was was a year, a little more. Um, would it probably take a year, would it take two years? Um what I'm just trying to get a sense of like what a reasonable timeline would be that um to expect if it's, you know roughly a year or more than that or less than that to sort of have those public meetings and then set everything out?

[02:13:07] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Um in discussion with staff other staff, oh looking to estimate about six months because it's a little more of a focused petition process for versus the larger scale MNOI process.

[02:13:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Thank you.

[02:13:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Hicks.

[02:13:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, first I have a procedural question. I was just gonna start going down my answer to question number one, but are we on question- a second round of questions?

[02:13:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Just Chris.

[02:13:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Um, so I was I'm going to make for question one, which is about the annual general adjustment, I was going to I'm going to make a pitch for number one, which is keeping the AGA unchanged at 100% of CPI.

[02:14:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And my reasoning is um first that um a lot of local uh cities they do that or uh or less than that. Um, second I if we want the rest of uh this initiative to to take force, I just have doubts that people will vote for it if we um if we pick any of those other options.

[02:14:27] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And then third, um, my family has owned not myself but my family has owned uh rental property in Berkeley for quite some time, and have never had any problems making repairs or improvements because um they just take out home equity loans, the value of their property has gone up so much that they believe that they've made a great investment and can afford to take out equity loans and make repairs.

[02:14:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I think we'll be fine if we just keep with the AGA.

Segment 4

[02:15:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: ...annual general adjustment that we have. Thank you.

[02:15:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abe-Koga?

[02:15:06] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, first of all, I'd like to thank many people for this effort, um, starting with our staff, um, when we started this process. Um, and it's been a, you know, relatively short period of time I understand. Um, there were a lot of, I would say there were many issues, many elements that we wanted to cover. And frankly, you know, I know some may have a different opinion, but that we've come to this in such a short amount of time is, to me, very impressive. And I, I want to thank staff and all of our staff, um, for our collective work on this. Um, I'm very impressed, actually. Very, very impressed.

[02:15:50] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And I want to thank my committee. Um, I had the honor of chairing the subcommittee. Um, I think we worked very well through the, the meetings that we had and got through a lot of material. So, um, you know, I, I think regardless of the outcome, we should be, um, proud of the work that has been done and I want to thank our, the entire Council for, um, engaging in this. And, you know, the reason being, doing, being, or why we are here is because, um, we've heard, uh, the challenges. Um, we've seen the challenges, you know, it really started with the capital improvements issue, and I think we've really come, you know, to get, come and have a package, um, that is, um, well put together.

[02:16:40] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: You know, it, it's just emailing someone the other day about another issue, but, you know, we do our best to, um, answer to the many concerns of the community. Um, not everybody gets everything they want all the time. Um, I think some of us, uh, try to adhere to the 80/20 rule or something like that. And I think this is really an attempt to build a compromise. Um, the reason being that we do have to, and the part of the second half of this discussion was, is, could be about the voter-initiated measure that we will have to put on the ballot next year, I believe. I don't think we can wait until 2022. So, um, in light of that, you know, is there, was there something, is there something we can craft that hopefully, you know, we get most people comfortable, or at least settled with so that we can put this issue hopefully to rest, you know, and move on with the many other issues we have.

[02:17:49] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I think that, uh, you know, we've heard from the property owners, housing providers, whatever you want to call them, that the current CSFRA is challenging. I think it's challenging in light of the need for the city to have seismic retrofits and other improvements. So, um, I think, you know, this is important. There is definitely a lot of cleanup that needed to be done. You know, everything I, we think we've built consensus on other than the AGA. And the reason, and I wanted to answer Councilmember McAlister's, um, question. I think Councilmember Clark covered a lot of it, but it's, you know, uh, um, I would say, I advocated for a flat rate because I think that, um, there is a question, an issue of predictability and folks wanting to have that predictability, and a flat rate would provide that.

[02:18:42] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I think, you know, to me, I believe that this is an attempt to try to incentivize housing providers to stay in the market and not take their rental units off. Um, you know, it's, you know, another, right now it's 3.5 CPI, so this is 4, it's a half percentage. And I guess I was looking at it the other way, is it worth, you know, trying to, yeah, keep folks in the market. Is that half a percent right now, which on a $2,000 rent is $10. Is that right? I hope I have my math right. Yeah. Is that worth it? And that's how I look at this is, you know, what is the cost-benefit? And to me, it is. Um, it might be 2%, is the floor for a CSFRA, and it goes to 4, and that's like a $40 difference a month. Like, is it worth that to avoid a big battle on the other initiative, hopefully, um, and to try to, you know, get everyone to a place where we can feel comfortable. So that's the question, the main question I think we're trying to answer.

[02:19:51] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, I, um, you know, I'm open, but I think it has to be more than CPI to incentivize. Um, I like the flat rate idea. I think I agree 5% was not getting a lot of, um, support, so going under that is fine. Um, if you, you know, I've asked councilmembers in other cities that have rent control, Los Gatos is one, San Jose the other. You know, I asked Los Gatos, they, they seem very comfortable with what they have at 5%. Don't have a lot of challenges. So, um, you know, it's 5% is there, but I know San Jose is contesting that, or there's a contes- possible contesting of the 5%. So if we want to go lower, I'm comfortable with that. So, I'm making my pitch for, you know, it could be, yeah, under 5% banking option four. Thanks.

[02:20:53] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Clark.

[02:20:54] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Yeah, and as I said earlier, um, well, I've shared with all of you previously that my preference was for something that floats, I, I think if, if a, if simplifying this to a flat 4% is what gets this across the line, um, as a, as a sort of a happy medium, CPI is currently, you know, mid-threes, right? It's not that much more than the current CPI. Um, CPI may, may, um, may rise above 4% in some years, but at least it's, um, it's capped at that, at that point, and there is an overall cap of, of, um, in that case, there is an overall cap of five. So I think we're, we're actually sort of limiting it in some ways. So anyway, that's a long way of saying that, you know, if, if my colleagues are most comfortable with a flat rate, then I'm, um, you know, I'm, I'm willing to go there. And if, uh, if folks feel that four is the fair compromise, then, um, then I'm, I'm open to that. I don't think that's so far above where CPI has hovered in the last few years and, and frankly in an up market that, um, that it would, um, um, it's, it's, it's too much. I just don't feel it's too much of an adjustment. I think it's a fair, it's a fair, um, it's a fair adjustment.

[02:22:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Ramirez.

[02:22:16] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Um. So the AGA is the, the component of the, the amendment that I've struggled with the most because it's the most exposed component, I think. You know, I think one of the things that the subcommittee has been sensitive to is the, um, the electoral viability of the measure. I think that's, that's challenging without the benefit of, uh, of public polling and, and um, and you know, just given the complexity of many of the issues we've contended with. But I think, I think I agree, the, the work that staff has done sort of fleshing out the direction provided by the Council and the subcommittee has been, uh, remarkable. You know, it, there's, there's a, you know, starting with just sort of the brainstorming initially and ending up where we have. Uh, I've been really pleased with, with the, um, the end result. And, uh, as, uh, as the Vice Mayor said, there's a lot of, there was a lot of compromise involved in this.

[02:23:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, and I, you know, listening to the, the public testimony, uh, from, you know, in the context of both the subcommittee and, and the, the couple of council meetings we've talked about this, I, um, you know, I, that, that's why the AGA is so tough. I, I know we hear you and we understand that this is, you know, this is a, a number that's very sensitive because it has material impacts not only on, um, on the, uh, rental property owners, but also the folks who are going to be paying the rent. So, all that said, I appreciate the, the Vice Mayor's addition, Option 4, because I think it speaks to the, the kind of compromise that we'll, we'll, we'll need to come to. And 5% was always a really hard sell for me. 4%, as, as Councilmember Clark, um, expressed, feels like a reasonable compromise. It's not a significant increase over CPI, and most importantly, CPI historically has been over 4%. So it does have a, it does sort of limit that upward potential for a rental property owner in the event there's, um, you know, if, if, if inflation increases and we end up with, you know, a CPI above 4%. So that's, that's, it, it could potentially have a material benefit to, to tenants in, in the, in the future.

[02:24:35] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, and, uh, I think, you know, as, as hard it is for me to, you know, to, to move on this, I think, I think I would be comfortable with, with proceeding with, with a 4% compromise, um, just because of, of that, um, that factor that, you know, it's, it's not that much of an increase and CPI itself is volatile and could exceed 4%. Um, the only other thing I would suggest is there were a lot of other, um, ideas and, and amendments proposed. Um, and some of those I was not totally comfortable with. Um, I like, um, what was in, in the draft, uh, um, amendment that staff provided. Uh, and I don't really want to get lost in a lot of other material changes because some of them I think could get quite complex. Um, I've been committed to proceeding with a March ballot and I don't want to keep revisiting this. Um, so if there are significant changes, then I, I guess we'll have that discussion, but my preference would be that the AGA be sort of the final, uh, detail that we provide direction on and, um, and then discuss the, the rest of the questions.

[02:25:53] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Can we, um, clarify, is that 4% with banking or without banking?

[02:25:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, with, with banking. And then the reason I'm comfortable with that is because we still have the state anti-gouging law that provides a practical upper limit. So if we want to if we want to just be clear about like a one-year banking, I'm cool with that. But I think, you know, there's also, you know, if, if CPI ends up being roughly where it has been, you know, the maximum rent increase, AGA plus capital improvements plus whatever else you can allow increases for still can't exceed what the state, um, limits, uh, a rental property owner to in a given year. So that's, I think that's a meaningful protection and that's why I'm fairly comfortable with, with allowing that.

[02:26:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I appreciate the work of the committee. Um, I'm glad we didn't do this as a full council. Um, but I'm sure there were lots of good discussions on the committee and I appreciate where you have come to, um, at this point. Um, I, you know, obviously there are different perspectives on this issue. For me, I was interested in making some tweaks to the CSFRA because, um, when we discussed making seismic retrofits mandatory and there was no way under the CSFRA to, um, address the cost of that in any way, that was a concern for me because I think it's really important to have a mandatory seismic retrofit program, um, but also provide a way to, for the property owner to ultimately recover those costs. Um, so I appreciate the sub-committee or the committee looking at other areas that might be similar to that and asking the RHC to develop a separate petition process for those. Um, I view this as, um, one of the tools in our toolbox to address, um, concerns we've heard, um, about units being taken off the market and folks being displaced. So if there's a way to have a little bit more, uh, a little bit more ability to recover your costs, um, then I, that's why I'm supportive of this, um, because I prefer to not have, um, displacement of folks, and I think this is just one of the many tools we have to address that in addition to the others that we've talked about and we'll talk about again.

[02:28:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Um, so in terms of the one outstanding issue, uh, it sounds like we're kind of circling around, uh, maybe a flat rate of 4% and banking. And I appreciate the comments about, uh, historically what the CPI has been. Uh, it doesn't sound like it's too far from historical levels. Um, and knowing that lots of people like predictability, um, seems like everyone likes predictability, um, whether you're a developer, you're a renter, you're a property owner, and so, um, I think I can be supportive of the 4% plus banking. Uh, and I just wanted to clarify on the non-residents who could potentially be appointed to the RHC. Uh, while the category includes, um, four groups of folks, uh, the housing provider, property manager, realtor, and developer, I'm really mostly just interested in a housing provider and property manager. But you would have to be a property manager of units in Mountain View, or own units in Mountain View, um, because we have seen that a lot of the housing providers, especially of the smaller complexes, don't necessarily live here, and were therefore ineligible to be on the RHC. So it's only the two of the four that I'm interested in.

[02:30:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Hicks.

[02:30:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So in the spirit of compromise, because it seems like we're settling at around a 4%, I, I don't think I'll be voting for 4% with banking, but if it goes to 4% without banking, then I would join you. Thank you.

[02:30:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Clark.

[02:30:48] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: So I originally had, um, a similar notion and then, um, because I didn't think it was really, um, being utilized and, um, and I learned, um, I think there's a council question about this maybe, um, it, it's actually utilized, um, it's actually being utilized more, um, more heavily than I expected, and I think frankly the, um, I just think that's actually a bigger change than I expected it would be. And I think the other piece of that is the implementation of taking that away is, um, I think a little complicated because you basically set a date at which, okay, the banking goes away, you know, how do you deal with stuff that's already, um, banked? Um, I, I think, um, I just think that aspect of it would be a little complicated and that combined with the number of people who are already, um, sort of counting on that, I think would, um, would cause me just to say I think we, it's better just to leave the current sort of banking structure in, in place unless we were going to something like 5% or something, you know, significantly above CPI and then I think it absolutely makes sense to sort of remove that. But I think in this instance, um, since we're staying fairly close to CPI, and in some cases, you know, it, um, it hasn't terribly terribly long ago that, um, you know, inflation was, um, I just, I guess it has been a while, but I, I know inflation's been, you know, uh, significantly above where it is today and 4% would actually be below it. So, anyway, I, I just think that, um, I think we should just leave the current banking language and structure in there rather than, um, for rather than take it out and have to deal with what happens with everything that's already banked.

[02:32:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Ramirez.

[02:32:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. One other thing I forgot, so I thought Councilmember Clark brought up a good point about sort of clarity and predictability about when this would go into effect, and specifically the AGA component, and I think, so I know staff's preference I think is to remove it, but I do think specifying September just to make sure we're operating on the same time frame and not allowing for the unpredictability of the Rental Housing Committee changing that would be my strong preference.

[02:33:27] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Well, I had a proposal around that, but...

[02:33:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, okay. Well, so, I'm interested in hearing your proposal, but I do, I do want to be more specific than to just to leave it sort of up in the air.

[02:33:38] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Well, sort of, um, so, so I think what's problematic here is that some of these things are tied to other things, um, that I was going to talk about in the second point. But I'll, I'll sort of spoil the surprise and say, um, on, on the AGA, what I was going to suggest is that it's, um, I don't feel comfortable putting staff on the spot tonight and saying should it be September, my guess is that September was sort of tied to a CPI, um, um, data release cycle maybe, I don't know, and, and it's enough time to sort of implement things, I don't really know, but I was going to say just put some parameters around it and say, you know, the, if we're going to say 4%, it shall be equal to 4% effective on a date determined by the committee, the RHC, but no later than January 1st, 2021. So if they want to stick with their current September cycle, that's fine. If they want to move to a calendar year, then they can do it on January 1, 2021, that way, um, no one's getting like a double increase or anything like that. But it sets a date by which it all, um, basically there's certainty around it's not going to be later than January 1. But it could be, um, it could be a date determined by the committee that they feel is, um, is appropriate. Um, and, and if you're worried that it might be sooner than September 1, if that's your concern, then that will be addressed in a later, um, suggestion I have in terms of the effective date of this, um, whole thing if it's adopted.

[02:35:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, one of my concerns is, uh, one of the reasons I felt like we did this is, uh, we were trying to keep things simple. Uh, and I'm kind of concerned that that would add complexity.

[02:35:34] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I'm, I'm fine picking a date, as long as staff feels comfortable tonight that yeah, it should be September 1, or actually, like a, you know, the same cycle as minimum wages and all those other things, all those other schedules that we do increases for makes more sense. So, if, I was just trying to provide a little bit of flexibility if we didn't know the answer tonight. And so if we think we know the right answer tonight, then I'm happy to go with that.

[02:35:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, if the current cycle is September, uh, it seems like keeping it at September would be the simplest approach from my perspective.

[02:36:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And why would that be an issue?

[02:36:18] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Based on a bit of discussion, it seems to, uh, next year, September would, um, be consistent with what is currently in practice and that, that wouldn't be an issue from staff's perspective.

[02:36:33] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I just, because we had the opportu- this one opportunity to change it, I just wanted to, if they wanted to change it, I was gonna be okay with that, but if they're comfortable with September then that's fine.

[02:36:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Do you want me to, do you want me to make a motion then for...

[02:36:58] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: So the, um... I guess, well the, the motion for everything later, when we actually read everything. So not really doing a motion now, but I would just, like, straw, straw motion or show of hands. So, I would say the, I think it's Section 1707, which deals with the AGA and, um, I think staff had proposed, um, the annual general adjustment shall be equal to 4% effective on, um, September, um, I guess it would be September 1st of 2020.

[02:37:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, assuming it passes in March.

[02:37:33] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Yeah, assuming it passes, but that's in there too, so.

[02:37:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And just to clarify, does that include banking or no banking?

[02:37:40] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Um, ah, with banking. So, basically the current banking structure that's there, so we wouldn't modify it. So I forget which, of the provisions in the... It was section 3.3...

[02:37:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I don't think you need to give us the provisions right now, I think right now if we get the answers to the questions through straw votes and then we'll come back at the end with the motion for everything.

[02:38:06] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Yeah. It was Section 3.3 that you noted.

[02:38:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just wanted to ask a question to follow up, uh, the effective date. If this passed in March, then four months later people would get, or six months down the road another rent, uh, a rent increase at a shorter timeframe? I personally sort of like...

[02:38:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well no, that's the same. Right now it goes up, well it's 3.5 or whatever the CPI is, then it bumps up...

[02:38:38] Councilmember John McAlister: So what I was, I, I liked the idea of starting on January 1, 2021. It's a clean cut. Uh, you're making it simpler, you're giving people a break because the rent potentially could go up, giving them a little flexibility. So, um, I know you were trying to be tying it into September 21st, or letting the RHC do it, but if, I would like to see some, again a compromise, and I think January 1st, 2021 would be, again, certainty that everybody was talking about, is okay, we know this date and then every year you know something's going to come along. So, uh, that's, uh, a consideration I'd like you guys to consider.

[02:39:16] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, a quick question on that, so from staff's perspective, is there, you know, from, from an administrative point of view, in terms of, um, uh, you know, when we get the information, how we promote it to rental property owners and to renters, what would be sort of the material difference between going with September 1st or January 1st?

[02:39:38] Karen Tiedemann: Um, I think by now the landlords have an established, um, annual review of the rent increases, and, uh, they do know that rent increases usually come at September 1, or some do a little later. There is also still the one rent increase per year provision, that will stay in the CSFRA. So if you now postpone that to January 21, they can't, uh, put a rent increase in on September 1, 2020 if they want to have the higher increase that then would be allowable on January 21. So, those are considerations to think of.

[02:40:17] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, I think to add on to that, there would be a gap between September 2020 to January 1st, 2021, so there would just, would be some provision to probably allow for that, whether it's a prorating, uh, methodology or some such. Probably a compromise. Give them the tenants something.

[02:40:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I think it also adds to the complexity. And I'd like to, um, not make more changes, uh, than I feel like, you know, have, that one has never been discussed before. Um, and if the subcommittee had discussed that, I'd feel more comfortable, but I don't think they did. And I'd just like to leave it as is.

[02:41:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um, you want a straw vote by a show of hands, uh, with Councilmember Clark's, uh, straw motion?

[02:41:15] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: So, that's, um, are you voting John? Or is your hand just like that?

[02:41:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Um, yeah. A 4% is, again, a compromise. Uh, my big concern has always been displacement, and I always said let's find a balance to try it. And we need to do something because we're just going to continue to see units being torn down. And so, even though it's not much, it's, it is a compromise, and hopefully it will be enough incentive for developers or landowners to keep their property and hopefully get a fair rate of return and enough money to be able to do maintenance. So, it's a compromise.

[02:42:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yep. Uh, so that passes 6-1 on the straw motion. So question two. Councilmember Clark.

[02:42:16] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: So, this brings me to my second point. So, um, my operating assumption here, so the, the whole reason that, um, you know, I was willing to spend time on this, um, is not just to find ways to increase, uh, rents on people, it's, um, it's always been about the long-term sustainability of this measure. And so, we went through a really bruising, um, period, and I've been on Council for a while, I've been involved with the city, you know, not as long as, um, several people here, but, but long enough to remember when things this divisive, um, just weren't, um, I, I just, I worry about the atmosphere that's been created, um, not just with rent control, but other things, but rent control certainly over the over the last, um, four years has been a really divisive issue. And so, even though I was originally opposed to Measure V, um, Measure V passed, I respect that. Um, and, um, and it's the law and, and we've worked really hard to implement it.

[02:43:20] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: And, um, but it's not perfect. Um, no, no measure is perfect. And, you know, as we've gotten into a few years into this, we realize that, you know, there are certain technicalities that should be corrected, um, there may be ways, um, to sort of adjust things and, and ensure that, um, one, the measure lasts, um, um, the, the protections that voters voted for last for a long time to come. And, and two, that we don't have to fight this battle every two or four years, or however often it is where the landlords and other interests try and fight it, and we go through this really divisive period as a community every two or four years, where two sides who just, frankly, don't trust each other at all, are at each other's throats. And it's not good for anyone, and a whole bunch of money is, in my opinion, wasted on, um, you know, one going one way or the other.

[02:44:21] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: And so, the whole goal here, um, for me, was to try and get the landlord measure withdrawn. Um, to make it go away, and to hopefully not have, get to a point where this isn't challenged this cycle or any future cycle. And while, um, you know, we probably aren't going to get any promises or anything from anyone, um, on that, I, I feel personally that where we're landing tonight is, uh, is, probably not liked by the landlord, um, and property owners at all, and I get that most tenants feel like there isn't a lot in here for them either. But I'm hoping to get to an equilibrium where not only do we not have to fight this battle this November, we don't have to fight this battle in any future November or whenever anything happens.

[02:45:20] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: And so, um, I've worked really hard to try and find a way, um, over the last several months to either and, to, um, to tie this to a withdrawal, like actually have some teeth behind it. So whether we, you know, we, we've explored many different options for a lot of reasons, because it's a charter amendment, you know, some of those things may be challenging, but I think I found, you know, a reasonable mechanism by which we can, um, we can try and, um, you know, get to a point where we have, um, if this passes, get the other measure withdrawn. And so that's a long way of getting to, um, I think the scenario in which that works is if our measure is on the March ballot, um, as soon as possible, we have an answer about whether or not it passes, and if it passes, then we have some leverage to get the landlord measure, if it's on the November ballot, withdrawn. Um, because, um, you know, I think what the, the compromise that we're talking about tonight is such that it's, you know, it's better for property owners than, than Measure V, it's certainly not what they want, or what they'd hoped, but it might be enough that it's not worth fighting this battle this year or in future years. And so, um, what I would propose is that we stick, um, as, and I really appreciate staff and everyone sort of putting up with the speed of this, but, um, you know, putting this, our measure on the March ballot, getting an answer yes or no on whether the voters will accept that. And if they do, then I think, um, I think it's very possible that through some mechanisms and the language that I'll talk about in a minute, we may be able to get the landlord measure withdrawn. Um, or at least, have some means by which to approach them and say, you know, is, is this really worth it? Cause we, as a community, don't want to go through this anymore. Um, and we're guessing they don't either. Um, if, it's a, it's a lot of time and money and and effort. And um, anyway. So that's, that's what I would propose is March and November. March for ours, and then I think we can either stay silent on the, we don't have to address the, the already qualified measure tonight. I think we can put that on the November ballot at a later date.

[02:47:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Ramirez.

[02:47:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Um, so I have a very different opinion. Um, my strong preference is for whichever ballot we select, that both measures go on that ballot. I don't, I, so I guess I disagree with the premise that we have meaningful leverage over what happens with the qualified initiative. Um, the qualified initiative, uh, by any metric is better for the rental property community. Um, and if there's, if the polling that they've conducted, if, if they want to run a campaign and feel that they have a viable measure, they will do that. And if we place our measure in March and it passes, it's already qualified, why not, you know, make the, the effort, right? We'll have to spend the money placing it on, on the, on that second ballot, and there will still be a campaign, and it'll still be divisive and very costly. Uh, my preference would be for, I thought the, the staff recommendation in, in the report to, to include, you know, I guess what may be poison pill language for some, but uh, in the event that the council-initiated measure, uh, receives more votes, then, if both measures pass, then our measure would supersede the other one. That would be my strong preference, and I could not support having two different rent control campaigns on two different ballots in the same year.

[02:49:16] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, I, I, I want to also thank Councilmember Clark because he's been working really hard and trying to draft language here. And I, I know all of us have taken this very seriously. Um, I agree. You know, part of the intent, and I, I said it in the beginning, was in hopes of finding some, you know, compromise, right? So that everyone can be happy with, and maybe try to avoid that expected battle. And I, and I think it's, you know, there, it could be a very hard battle. So, um, I, you know, I, I don't, I can't support putting both measures on the ballot, you know, from a purely political perspective and, you know, as folks have mentioned, past history, recent history, we had Measure V and Measure W. And it was clear that it was just very confusing. Um, the other problem was Measure V had a campaign, but Measure W didn't. So, um, it's just, you know, politically, it takes a lot. And it takes a lot of effort to pass any measure. And having two that are very similar, that, I, it will confuse voters, and then I think it will split resources. And so, as a council, if we're going to put this measure on a ballot, I would like to make it as strong as it can be so that we can pass it. Um, so I think that, um, we should go forward with this on the March ballot. And then, um, I, I, was going to ask you, Councilmember Clark, that is, you've talked to staff, it sounds like. Is there language that we could use to tie the passage of this city-initiated, council-initiated measure to the voter-initiated measure?

[02:51:10] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I think, um, uh, I don't want to get too far under the weeds. I think, um, I think it would be, uh, I think, I think staff feels it would be challenging to tie an effective date to, um, to a, to a withdrawal of a named measure. But um, um, not that it couldn't be done, but I think, um, it complicates things a little bit. I, what I would propose, um, and that I think is very clearly within, in my opinion, within our authority, um, is to not, um, tie the effective date, um, or, or the, the, um, the implementation of the charter to, you know, a specific measure, but to, um, basically very clearly state in the measure that, um, we, we choose, um, as a council, um, when this becomes effective as long as there's a date by which, you know, it would be effective. But we could make it effective sooner than that. And what I would propose, um, and others can chime in, and, and as can, um, the City Attorney and and Council, is, um, either we do one of two things. Either we tie, um, we, we say the implementation of, for example, the the, the capital improvement, um, uh, basically putting all that in place, um, you know, is, is delayed to a certain period of time. And it could be accelerated, through the implementation, we could accelerate that if, for example, um, you know, something happens, um, that that creates an atmosphere in which we think it makes sense to accelerate that. But I think an even simpler way to do it, um, and I'd be care- would just be to say, we've already set a September 1 date for the increase, um, the deadline if, if the landlord measure qualified measure goes on the, um, November ballot, their deadline to withdraw is in August. And so if we say, um, basically this, this measure, um, shall be effective on September 1, 2020, um, unless the City Council by majority vote sets an earlier effective date. And an earlier effective date would mean the capital improvement stuff would start, um, or at least they'd start drafting that, it would probably be implemented a year or so sooner, some period of time sooner. Um, I think that to, frankly, is probably the greatest sort of change in and benefit over time. And so, um, I, I think if we were, um, I think if, um, you know, it's going to be a risk in anything that we add in here, but I think the, it's, it's pre- pretty clear to me that, you know, if, if, as long as we say it's effective no later than this date, so there's a, if we take no action, it still becomes effective. We aren't subverting the voters. Um, but we have the clear, stated authority to set it to a date sooner. Um, if we, if if we feel that's in the, the best interest of the public and the, and to, um, and the implementation of all this. Then we have the ability to do that. Um, and I think just having that drop-dead date of September 1, 2020, which is after the, um, after the withdrawal date, and it matches the, the rent increase now. Um, that we, I think have, at least a, some mechanism by which to, um, sort of ensure, yeah. Yeah.

[02:54:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I thought the effective date we were talking about was just for the, um, AGA.

[02:55:02] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: You are, that's the effective date of the of the AGA, and that would be annually, but there's also in Section 1720, there's the effective date of the charter amendment, which would normally be I think 10 days after we certify. And so what we're saying is instead of 10 days,...

[02:55:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Oh, sorry, I was just clarifying. When you said, you know, we already talked about the effective date, that was just for the AGA.

[02:55:21] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I meant I meant AGA effective date, yeah. I'm not, I'm not talking about the charter amendment effective date. So instead of just 10 days from the certification, it would be a time and date certain.

[02:55:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay.

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we'll just go by the slides then. Question 3. Anyone have any thoughts on that one? Councilmember Clark?

[03:00:31] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think it's prudent for us to draft an argument for the measure. And I think it's probably prudent to have an impartial analysis as well, unless others feel otherwise. But I think we definitely need to draft the argument.

[03:00:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And I assume since I'm not particularly for the measure my name just won't appear on it. Is that... is that the way this plays out? Yeah. Okay.

[03:01:01] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And if we just clarify that. I think it depends if it can be signed on behalf of the entire council or it can be signed as individuals. So I want to make sure everyone's on the same page.

[03:01:14] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: If the council can designate who they, who will be the author and signers of the argument, up to five signers.

[03:01:24] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, if it's this one, I... in the council questions there was a question about the deadlines for draft arguments and whether we could have a little more time in light of the fact that the original date, the 25th I believe, some of us are going to be at the League of Cities conference next week, it just doesn't give us any time. So December 6th, is that the...

[03:01:58] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Correct. I proposed some new argument deadlines that would still meet the registrar of voters deadlines but allow more time. So the proposed new argument deadline would be December 6th.

[03:02:11] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. So yes, I agree that we should do a draft an argument and the impartial analysis. Um, I'm going to jump ahead maybe and mention that we probably would have to create the or decide who's going to be the signers and in order to do that, we probably I would recommend we create a subcommittee of the council again to move this initiative forward.

[03:02:42] Councilmember John McAlister: I nominate the existing committee.

[03:02:45] Councilmember Chris Clark: Are you suggesting a new subcommittee or the current subcommittee just be empowered to make that decision?

[03:02:50] Councilmember John McAlister: That sounds good.

[03:02:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I would leave the current, if they're willing to do that.

[03:03:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So um, sorry, I didn't want to make very clear the November thing is really important to me and that hasn't materially impacted how I think about the next steps. So I don't want to leave any impression about that or any other counter thought about that.

[03:03:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So um, the question three was do we want to do a draft do we want to draft the argument for and direct the city attorney to do an impartial analysis. And we have I believe a motion. A straw motion. So those in favor of that? 7-0 that's unanimous. Okay.

[03:04:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So question four. Vice Mayor Abe-Koga?

[03:04:08] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So the full text, um, there was a there's a it was a 20 pages or it's could you remind us how many pages that would entail and the cost to that. And then the other question I can't remember, did the full text of measure V was that printed?

[03:04:27] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: I do not believe so, no. And the measures for the last election were not printed as well.

[03:04:34] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: 2016 and 2018 we did not do the full text and it's estimated to do the full text to this one would be approximately $90,000.

[03:04:44] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, and so then I'm comfortable if we do not print the full text.

[03:04:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I'm also comfortable not printing the full text as long as it's accessible which it will be.

[03:05:00] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Correct. So the impartial analysis in that case would include a sentence just under the impartial analysis actually that indicates to the voters that they can get a copy in my office and also we would probably include something as well that says it'll be available on the website and we could we'll have that available upon request.

[03:05:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I agree. I think the availability of it is the key. I can't remember a time when we've ever published the entire text of something in the actual sample ballot.

[03:05:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So um, all those in favor of not including the full text, but having it noted in the impartial analysis and available online and other places. That's 7-0.

[03:06:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So question five.

[03:06:08] Councilmember Chris Clark: No.

[03:06:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No.

[03:06:10] Councilmember Alison Hicks: No.

[03:06:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I also would be no. Um, so all those in favor of not placing the voter initiated measure on the March 2020 ballot. Three... What are we doing?

[03:06:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, the motion was uh not placing the voter initiated measure on the March 2020 ballot. All those in favor of not doing that. 5-2, thank you.

[03:06:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Question six.

[03:07:00] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: You can skip that one. Oh so yes 6 we can skip and 7.

[03:07:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yep.

[03:07:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: So questions 6 and 7 are no longer applicable. So, thank you very much, and those are... do we need a motion for all of it together? For what we decided? Yeah. That and there's the ballot question language. I don't know if we have to do that tonight too. Um, yes. Yeah. So I... and who's gonna write this? Yeah, and I feel badly about not printing out um what I was gonna propose, um, but I can read it. Um... unless others have, I don't wanna preclude others from proposing things too, but I think, um, I think what I have meets the word count requirements. Uh, that may be all it meets, but I don't know how... So, um, in a few, so basically it's, um, first of all, staff and council did a great job doing this first draft of it. I sort of rearranged a few things and then I, um, I did a little wordsmithing just to, um, clarify, make it more clear sort of what some of these things are. So it's, um...

[03:08:18] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: Chris, I'm sorry to interrupt, but it are you talking about alternative ballot language for the question? Can you email that to Audrey and we'll go print out copies of it? I think it'd be important for everyone to see actual wording.

[03:08:34] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I'll send it to you right now. It's, it's very... it's substantially it's basically the same thing that I sent in the questions, but I'll um...

[03:08:41] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Sure. Councilmember Clark, if you want to email it to me I can take care of that.

[03:08:45] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay.

[03:08:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Maybe we can go on to whatever else. Is there anything else? Well so to we wanna circle back and vote on the questions we answered in established motions on? And then do any uh other items like that? 'Cause that wouldn't be part of the motion, right?

[03:09:11] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: There were two, two issues raised earlier that haven't really been settled. One, if if my notes are correct, was what how to address the non-resident member, if it's for the entire category or only a subset of the category. Um, and the other was uh the timing of the term for members, whether that should shift to a January 1 date.

[03:09:34] Councilmember Chris Clark: I I I was going to propose um for the term um, this would be a question for the city attorney and council, but um in, so this is in it's section 1709 which talks about the terms of the members. Um, and I was going to say maybe we could just say something like the city council may adjust the term start and end dates to better align them with other appointed bodies as long as the terms are not adjusted by more than 6 months. So that allows us to, I think right now they're March, so um that could allow us to move it up or if some future council decides they don't like doing appointments right by the holidays and they want to shift it to July 1 or whatever, it doesn't that way you don't lengthen or shorten anyone's term more than 6 months during the adjustment but you have the flexibility to shift them half a year either way if you if you wish. So...

[03:10:32] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: Yeah and and just to be clear you're referring to 1709C.

[03:10:36] Councilmember Chris Clark: A C yes. So and I that sounds uh reasonable I I would just like to get another set of eyes from Karen uh to see if that, yeah, it doesn't have to be exactly what I said, but the the idea was that you know the terms are set as they are now but we we may adjust them we may adjust just the start and end dates um as long as the terms are not adjusted by more than 6 months um and if you need a reason you can say to better align them with other appointed bodies.

[03:11:10] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, we could also um have a general authority delegated to council on establishing those dates.

[03:11:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah.

[03:11:20] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I would suggest that, just that we know what it takes to change the charter and so things that are kind of ministerial it's better to have discretion and you can do that through council action.

[03:11:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I just don't want people to think we can willy-nilly like chop two years off of someone's term or something like that, but um but that's fine. I think delegating that to us is fine. And then the non-resident uh and I'm fine with just limiting it to uh property owners or owners of covered rental units in Mountain View and property managers who manage units in Mountain View.

[03:12:05] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Okay, so I just want to be clear section 1709B right now says the council may appoint an otherwise eligible person who is not a Mountain View resident to the committee so long as the person maintains an ownership or trusteeship interest in one or more covered rental units. Would your desire be to change that uh language to own own or manage, go ahead, to own or manage okay.

[03:12:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And would that cover uh the current language so to speak or should we use the exact same language that's currently in the CSFRA?

[03:12:49] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, the well the the composition of the entire committee is is broader um...

[03:12:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right, but in the current CSFRA it says, let me think I have to get to a different attachment. If you look in 1709A it defines the committee including the two restricted seats which is a little bit broader than just those two categories.

[03:13:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right, and so I I I'm not interested in having uh realtors or developers who don't live in Mountain View. It would just be the first two in that category. So if you just added um ownership or trustee interest or manage is that in good alignment with 1709A?

[03:13:46] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, adding uh to B uh if the person owns or main owns or manages uh rental property uh in owns or maintains owns or manages. So I think it might be as easy as saying so long as the person maintains an ownership or trustee interest or manages one or more covered rental units.

[03:14:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Uh-oh, I just played attorney. It's usually their role.

[03:14:52] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: No, that was good. That was good.

[03:14:56] Councilmember Chris Clark: So uh and while we're sort of waiting for this, there were two other things I was going to bring up at the end, I'll just bring them up now. Um, I just wanted to confirm that um, you had those different options for AGA in the in the redline, and there was some stuff below that, and one of those was the Section 5 Severability. So I just wanted to make sure that the severability clause would be in there regardless of which whatever AGA we we had chosen. Um, it's just I think it's there on like the very last page. Okay, I hear a yes. And then um there's uh the second thing right below that, Section 6, that effective date is different from the effective date in 1720. So the effective date in Section 6 talks about immediately upon certification and the one in 1720 talks about within 10 days of the council action and I think what we were wanting was you know a specific date, September 1, so I just want to make sure that all those things align and that there aren't any um discrepancies between Section 6 and Section 1720. So maybe Section 6 just goes away, but I just wanted to call that out.

[03:16:11] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Could we just back up and get a show of hands on the on the um non non-resident uh exception.

[03:16:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you, yes. Yes. So I think that's 6-1.

[03:16:35] Karen Tiedemann: So the way we've set this up, section 6 which would remain, we would make the change that the council has agreed to to the effective date being no later than September 1st, 2020, but potentially earlier based on a council based on a council majority vote. 1720 is the existing language in the CSFRA so we are going to have to tweak that language to make it clear that that applied to the first adoption of the amendment. Okay. Okay.

[03:17:08] Councilmember Chris Clark: So it's just leaving that in there for like historical record or or just or yeah. We'll we'll do a little clean up there for clarity. Okay. But it sounds like you understand the intent so as long as everything um...

[03:17:23] Karen Tiedemann: Right. So I mean the intent is to adopt section 3.3 of the full amendments, not 3.1, not 3.2, and make those changes in the CSFRA and then sections 4, 5, and 6 would also be part of the amendments.

[03:17:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: Those are the amendments, okay. Okay, so actually what we're doing is is changing section 6 of the ok, I understand now. Um severability is in there and then so the last thing that I wanted to check in with my colleagues on was um I'd mentioned earlier that you know currently um it says the the committee shall um you know adopt those separate procedures for certain capital improvements. Um it doesn't have a a timeline and so um I was going to suggest if if folks are interested in having a timeline it sounds like if we were just to say no later than one year from the effective date the committee shall adopt the c... So that's for staff's benefit that's section 1710 and it's the very first paragraph where you have the the redline language and I think you would just add the that first part so no later than one year from the effective date as defined in section 6 or wherever wherever we end up defining it the the committee shall have shall adopt separate procedures. Um and it sounds like it sounds like one year is a is a realistic um runway um based on what staff said, so. But I I'm open to it if if others feel that that's too restrictive that's fine but we can just leave it as is but...

[03:19:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I guess I was wondering, if we do the seismic retrofit as a mandatory program before that, is that a problem? Can it still be incorporated?

[03:19:21] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Just regarding the timeline for that, I I believe we're going to be in a two-year evaluation process at which point so there would be enough lead time prior to...

[03:19:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you.

[03:19:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So do we need a uh show of hands on these? Uh, so the um no later than one year from the effective date for the um separate petition process to be established?

[03:19:54] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, and that's the introductory paragraph of 1710 and the language would would precede the the redlining that you see there, yes.

[03:20:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, show of hands so folks shouldn't in agreement with that? So that's 7 that's unanimous. And then um, I don't think we did a straw vote on the um ability to adjust the term, the start date of the term or the end date of the term for RHC members that the council could adjust the dates but no more than six months. But do we need to do a show of hands on that? I don't have specific language for that, but it sounds like staff can...

[03:20:44] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I think we, I think we did address that one, yes.

[03:20:55] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, uh we can you can you can do it again it would just to be to add general language to uh just give me one second here. Section 1709 C to allow the city council uh the ability to adjust adjust those terms.

[03:21:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so uh show of hands of folks in favor of that? 7, that's unanimous.

[03:21:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I and I'll read this aloud for the benefit of the public too I guess. Oh I guess it's up there too. Um so I basically I just I sort of I rearranged a few things and then just added some clarifying language. Um so you know where um you know one of the big issues that came up was you know whether or not RHC members can be paid. So I just wanted to put that to bed. Um the clarify the uh the same language staff had on independently implementing the CSFRA and related initiatives. Um clarifying that the council can remove RHC members for reasons including misconduct. I put an example in there um you um can remove that if we want. Um authorize additional rent increases for critical housing improvements like seismic retrofits so I I wanted to give an example there so that we weren't just saying housing improvements or capital or using language like capital improvements that not everyone might um not understand. And then allow rent increases up to 4% and make technical and other revisions to comply with state law so I kept that section in there. So I I just rearranged sort of what staff had removed a few words so I could get to my word count and then provided a few examples of of what for example a a housing improvement would be or what a re a removal action might be from those sorts of things. And I'm pretty sure it's 75 words but...

[03:23:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Did anybody have any comments on that? I guess for me uh I was trying to do a comparison and uh what's taken out is um mobile homes are exempt.

[03:23:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: I did um yeah, so that um... yes, that's one of the I should've done a red line. And the other...

[03:24:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I don't you know I uh I was trying to figure out is this just what's different versus what's currently in the CSFRA? Um which is kind of what these are versus um some councilmember Kamei was saying um should banking be in there and I thought the same thing I thought well wait that's already in there the CSFRA so I'm thinking we're just highlighting the differences?

[03:24:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah. When obviously we can't highlight every difference we only have 75 words. So it's just sort of the key things that we think are the most informative in terms of what um what the changes are that we're making.

[03:24:53] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So in in comparing the two I I'm inclined to think that exempting mobile homes is a significant difference because uh under the decision decision that was made in court that the rental housing committee has the authority to subject mobile homes to CSFRA and I uh that so that could change um and I think that I would include that in in if there's a way it's only three words if there's a way to you know um um make some of this other language concise I I think it's a significant enough change that it is uh it it warrants sort of merits being included in the uh the question language.

[03:25:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't disagree. My thought there was not to my thought there was that I'm hoping that by the time this is on the ballot we'll have addressed that question one way or another and so I don't want I don't want the voters to think that we've forgotten about them. Um but I also don't want to like I also don't want to hide the fact that like we're we are exempting them from the CSFRA but we're not totally forgetting about them um hopefully by the time this gets to the ballot. But anyway that that was my thought process there, it wasn't...

[03:26:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Is this the exact word count?

[03:26:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: Uh I believe um when staff reviewed it earlier today they told me I was one word over and I took out the word the somewhere and so now I'm at now I'm at now I'm at 75 is my understanding unless someone counts differently. But if you if if a majority of council feels that the the mobile home piece is really important to have in there I'll um I'll do some rearranging.

[03:26:47] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: So staff will want to take a break before the final motion to confirm the word count and make sure all the language is clear 'cause tonight's it and we gotta get it right so we'll we'll count the words and get back to you but I do anticipate needing a break.

[03:27:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I guess I'd like to find out from the council uh do folks want to make it clear in the um ballot question language that mobile homes are exempt? I actually feel like I want to say you'd clarify that they're exempt um because I think that's what the RHC did. Or clarify that they're not covered. Um I'd be okay putting that in. Uh so let's do a show of hands before we agonize over words here. Um how many folks want to include that mobile home mobile homes are not covered uh in the CSFRA in this ballot language?

[03:27:56] Councilmember John McAlister: And then that would be addressed through an ordinance here at the city?

[03:28:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: You can't fit all that though.

[03:28:05] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I don't have that many words.

[03:28:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No, I was just saying that um that the CSFRA does not include them.

[03:28:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Sure.

[03:28:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So did that folks have comments about that? Did you want to include? Are there any comments?

[03:28:37] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, so I when we get to the motion I actually wanted to add an item that was going to address the mobile homes and that was to similar to what we did last week with the weeded school strategy but to direct staff to return with the mobile home rent stabilization item in Q1 of 2020. So I don't know if that helps to clarify this or or not. Um, I guess I'm not really clear on the implications of leaving the language in versus not. Um, but you know if it's if we need something to signal to the community that we're serious about addressing mobile homes, that was my suggestion that we add that as part of the motion.

[03:29:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: When was that currently scheduled? I don't have my uh long term agenda with me.

[03:29:36] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: I think it uh it may have been Q1, but I just want to Q1, we're looking at tentatively January 28th, the second meeting in January. For a study session. For a study session.

[03:29:45] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Yeah, just to be clear, I think our intent was we would bring a discussion of mobile homes back to council in Q1, but not the final discussion. But hopefully there would be enough direction from the council so there was clarity on on where you were going before the March ballot. Okay.

[03:30:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So um I'll ask again, do folks want to just counsel want to include that mobile homes are exempt, if so, if you could raise your hand.

[03:30:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: One other idea too, I'm comfortable with that, and I think whichever argument the proponents place could include language related to the council's intent related to mobile home parks too. So there there are other opportunities I think to convey to the voters what what we plan to do.

[03:30:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So show of hands? To include it, that they're exempt in the ballot statement. Okay, so that's unanimous. So then we'd have to figure out how we can include that, um, and what might be shortened or come out.

[03:31:06] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I just one comment for that, it might be under it says in the end make technical and other revisions to comply with state law, I I don't even know maybe that can be shortened or eliminated. Is that what you're working on? Okay.

[03:31:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Is there anything else that we need to discuss before we take a short break while we work on wording? I don't see anybody in the queue, so um how long should we take? I think uh looking over to Karen maybe 10 minutes would do it? Okay. We'll take a 10 minute break.

Segment 6

[03:48:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order. And, I'm not sure who's going to make the motion.

[03:48:36] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, and I can give some general parameters. I think it'd be easiest for, first for Karen and Justin to summarize the revisions that we just worked on. And then once those revisions are summarized and read into the record, the maker of the motion could begin. But we have to do this very methodically. And I would just start on page one of your staff report, the maker of the motion would go through those actions and when you get to 3A, that is the resolution that incorporates staff's changes, that's the only thing you'd have to say. But everything else you can follow the script as it's laid out in the motions. And then when you get to the voter-initiated, we don't even have to take any action on that, but it'd be an indication that that measure is not going to be placed on the March 2020 ballot. Is that, does that sound good, Karen?

[03:49:51] Karen Tiedemann: Yes. So I think what we'd like to do is walk through the language changes. So what we are looking at is exhibit A to attachment 6 in your packet. Attachment 6 is the resolution and exhibit A is the CSFRA amendment language. So the first change, let me go through many pages. So the first change we would propose is section 1709b which is on page 15. This is regarding the eligibility appointment and removal of committee members. And in the second sentence of 1709b, we would propose that the language read, 'If the city council determines that it has not received adequate qualifying applications from Mountain View residents for any vacant position, then the city council may appoint an otherwise eligible person who is not a Mountain View resident to the committee, so long as that person maintains an ownership or trustee interest in or manages one or more covered rental units, provided the limitation on the number of RHC members who own or manage rental property or are realtors or developers in 1709a shall continue to apply.' Moving on, in 1709c, at the end of that section regarding term of office, we would propose adding a sentence, 'The city council may adjust term start and end dates by up to six months to align with other appointments.'

[03:52:18] Justin: Okay, the next proposed change on exhibit A to attachment 6 is on page 19 in section 1710. You'll see the red line begins with 'The committee shall adopt separate procedures apart' and we would propose adding the words 'no later than one year from the effective date of this amendment to the CSFRA, the committee shall adopt separate procedures apart from section 1711 that are only applicable to temporary rent increases for specified capital improvements authorized by and in accordance with the provisions of section 1710 subsection e'.

[03:53:11] Karen Tiedemann: Yep. Okay, so then we're moving on to section 1710, which is a lengthy one, and we go over to page 22. Subsection B, we would propose changing the language to say 'significantly improves the environmental sustainability of the covered rental unit or property and does not result in a net increase in utility cost to the tenant.' Moving on, we would then propose on page 27 that we eliminate section 1720, which is the existing language on the operative date of the existing improvements. Section 3.1 and 3.2 will be deleted. Yeah. Section 3.3 will become section 3. The title will be 'Annual general adjustment equal to 4%.' 1707 will be revised to say 'The annual general adjustment shall be equal to 4% to be effective September 1st, 2020.' And then we would propose revising section 6 to read as follows: The title would be changed to 'Operative Date' and the language would read, 'If approved by a majority of the voters voting on this amendment, the amendment shall become operative upon the earlier of a majority vote of the city council or September 1st, 2020.' And then I think we have changes to the ballot language and changes to the resolution itself with regard to the schedule. So in section 14 of the resolution, the argument deadline will change to December 6th, 2019. The rebuttal argument deadline and the city attorney's impartial analysis will both change to December 13th, 2019. Right. On the third whereas clause, the language will change where we have the alternative language to say 'allow rent increases equal to a 4% flat rate.' And then I think we're hoping to have the ballot question language to show you. Excellent. Right there. Yep.

[03:56:23] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I can for those of you who have the ballot, sorry it's not color-coded, but I'll just call out exact because I only made very limited changes. So you'll see in the middle there it says 'exempt mobile homes'. So that added three words. And then I think it's the handout V2. So you'll see, you should see exempt mobile homes in there. Oh, I see, clarify mobile... oh, it's different from what I wrote. Okay, that's fine. Clarify mobile homes are exempt. Okay, well this is different so I guess we should all read through this, that's okay. It looks like they did a better job of this than I did.

[03:57:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So sorry, is the V1 what we previously saw from you? And then this is, okay, including mobile homes.

[03:57:20] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: We just did some rearranging and rewording of a couple things.

[03:57:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I'm just having some technical difficulties here, but I'll be right there.

[03:58:03] Karen Tiedemann: So the proposal is to go with the ballot language V2, which reorders a few things and makes the change to clarify that mobile homes are exempt.

[03:58:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Well, I just want to make sure, are there any questions at all to anything that we've gone through? Okay. Councilmember Clark.

[03:58:45] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: If folks are ready, I'll go ahead and make the motion and then if folks want to make comments after that they can. So I move that we adopt a methodology to set the annual general adjustment of rent in the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act, attachment 5 to the council report. Two, that we approve the draft amendments to the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act, attachment 3 to the council report. Three, that we approve the ballot question and placement of the city-initiated Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act charter amendment on the ballot for March 2020. That we...

[03:59:27] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Incorporate the changes...

[03:59:28] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Yes, and I actually misspoke. It would actually be to number two, the draft amendments, and the ballot question as specified. So in number two, including the staff revisions, and in number three, the revised ballot language. So yeah, so for two we're approving the draft amendments to the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act incorporating the changes that staff just went through with us. Three, approve the ballot question incorporating the changes that were just identified as well by staff and the placement of the city-initiated Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act charter amendment on the ballot for March 2020. Which includes also adopting a resolution calling for the holding of a special municipal election on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020 and requesting the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara to consolidate the special municipal election with the statewide primary election to be held on that date pursuant to section 10403 of the elections code for the purpose of submitting to the voters a proposed charter amendment and related actions to be read in title only, further reading waived, attachment 6 to the council report. Direct the city attorney to prepare an impartial analysis of the ballot measure. Determine that the council will submit an argument related to the ballot measure and designate, I believe it was the vice mayor, I guess we haven't determined this yet. So we'll deal with that separately. D, determine that we will not print the full text of the amendment in the voter information guide, but ensure that it's available in the city clerk's office and online and that the impartial analysis can have some information related to that. Direct the city clerk and the city attorney to take all necessarily related actions for submitting the measure to voters on March 3rd, 2020. Four, just noting that we are not taking any action tonight on the voter-initiated Mountain View Homeowner, Renter and Taxpayer Protection Initiative. And five, appropriate $225,100 from the general operating fund reserve for the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act amendments. And we'll need to determine the committee at some point to write the ballot argument.

[04:02:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we have a motion by Councilmember Clark and a second by Vice Mayor Abe-Koga. Vice Mayor Abe-Koga.

[04:02:36] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, sorry. Did you want to have that discussion now to determine the...

[04:02:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, we should, yes.

[04:02:42] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, sure, we could do that. I wanted to actually ask if we could add the item of directing staff to bring back the mobile home stabilization item in Q1. I know it's planned, but just to sort of codify that.

[04:02:59] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Oh, yes. And just to clarify that, council expects staff to bring back that item in Q1 of 2020.

[04:03:08] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. Just to clarify, staff will have a study session regarding mobile home regulation in Q1. Yes. And then in terms of the makeup, I'm fine to continue on the committee. I think it would be great to have the subcommittee continue, but I guess it's up to the other two members.

[04:03:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I would agree with that. Councilmember Ramirez.

[04:03:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. So I, I don't want to belabor the point. I can't support this motion, but if it doesn't pass then we could revisit the November issue. But for that reason, you know, if it's helpful to have my input on the crafting of the argument, I'm happy to participate, but I just wanted to, I don't want to surprise anybody about how I'm going to vote on this particular motion.

[04:04:07] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I'll just, I'll make that as a separate motion after we pass this initial one. We'll set the committee makeup after we pass the full thing.

[04:04:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So pretty much everything, with the exception of section four in the staff report, all the changes, and then we'll come back to 3C. Right? Okay. Any questions? I sort of hesitate to ask that. Okay. Let's call the question.

[04:04:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That passes 5-2 with Councilmembers Hicks and Ramirez, no. Councilmember Clark.

[04:04:50] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: And then I'll move that the council submit an argument related to the ballot measure and that we designate the vice mayor, Councilmember Ramirez, and Councilmember Clark to write and sign the argument, and authorize up to two other council members who aren't part of the committee also sign it.

[04:05:16] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: So, just a suggestion. I think you might want to authorize the subcommittee to draft it and designate the signers. Sometimes you select signers that are not council members as part of the totality of the package.

[04:05:27] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: Okay. Yeah. So we won't make any determination about who the signers will be, but we'll determine the council wishes to submit an argument related to the ballot measure and designate the vice mayor, Councilmember Ramirez, and Councilmember Clark to write that and to determine who the signatories should be.

[04:05:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have a motion by Councilmember Clark and a second by Vice Mayor Abe-Koga. Any further discussion? We call the question.

[04:06:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That passes unanimously. Are we done? We're done. Thank you so much. I really appreciate all the work on this one and all of the last minute revisions here while we're discussing it. So thank you all very much.

[04:06:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we need a motion to start a new item after 10 o'clock.

[04:07:01] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I move to continue the meeting past 10.

[04:07:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Raise your hand.

[04:07:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: All opposed? 4-3. Okay, so we will move on to item 8.1, which is R3 Zoning Code Update: Scope of Work. We'll start with the staff presentation.

Segment 7

[04:30:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And as for missing middle housing, as you can see right here, many cities are set up with a lot of single-family and then larger, mid-rise, higher-density buildings. And missing middle housing is really trying to get to that middle part of that where there's duplexes, you know, fourplexes, townhouses, live-work, bungalow courts, things like that. Now, Mountain View certainly does have those typologies in the city, but one of the goals of this project will certainly be to look more closely at R3 and see where properties can be better utilized to incorporate even more of these types of units as well.

[04:31:18] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And so just for the proposed scope of work that we've been working on with our consultant Opticos on, we've split it up into two phases. In phase 1 is going through—there's two tasks in phase 1, and the first one being existing conditions and outreach strategy. And we're really looking at a number of initial analyses, creating an outreach approach, a project website, and then also some initial stakeholder outreach. And importantly as well will be coordinating closely with the housing division on their own displacement response work and how that's going to be incorporated into this project as well.

[04:32:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Task 2 would be analysis where we're really looking at opportunities and challenges in the R3 zone. We're going to be doing a housing market study and economic feasibility, and then looking more closely at missing middle options and seeing how they can be incorporated, and then taking all this work and really developing a yield analysis through different zoning scenarios, whether it's, you know, a baseline current development scenario or something where we're increasing density in certain areas, we don't know exactly yet. But what we intend to do is come up with several scenarios and bring them back to Council in approximately six months from when this project starts and really give Council a better idea of what different routes or paths this project could take and get more feedback from Council at that time prior to going into phase 2, which will be more implementation of that code.

[04:33:04] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And so, as I mentioned, phase 2 we would be creating the draft zoning standards and guidelines, and this would include creating that form-based code, creating a design handbook as well to go with that form-based code to further improve those design outcomes, and then, you know, really refining the missing middle strategy and yield analysis and again finalizing a lot of that displacement coordination.

[04:33:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Task 4 is CEQA, and that would just be preparing the necessary CEQA documentation for this project, which we don't know at this time, but we'll certainly—we've budgeted enough to make that document possible when we need it. And then task 5 is just the public review of that draft code and implementation, which would be the completion of this proposed zoning code update, which is approximately 18 months from now total.

[04:34:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So the staff recommendations are to approve the proposed scope of work for the city-initiated R3 zoning code update project, authorize the City Manager or designee to approve a professional services contract with Opticos Design for the R3 zoning code update in an amount not to exceed $1.15 million, and three, appropriate and transfer $310,000 from the Development Services Fund to the R3 zone update CIP project 20-67. And that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

[04:34:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Are there any questions from the Council? Councilmember Hicks.

[04:35:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I was going to stay thank staff for this report and also ask, have you ever worked with Opticos before, or is this a first time relationship?

[04:35:11] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh, they haven't worked recently in Mountain View, but they have worked in other cities where some of our staff have worked.

[04:35:18] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I see. Okay. Thank you.

[04:35:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Kamei.

[04:35:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So one of the Council questions, I just wanted to bring it up because I thought it was a good one, it was if you could talk a little bit more about how the actions that we might take with R3 tonight fit into what we've discussed with the displacement strategies that we discussed, I think it was, was it last week, two weeks ago, and how they might, how they might align. I think it was question 10. I just think it would be great for us to highlight for the public on what we're doing there too.

[04:36:03] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, certainly it's important for this project to be in alignment with the displacement work that the housing division is doing. There's a number of properties in R3 zoning that are covered under CSFRA, and so it's certainly something we're going to be closely working with them to ensure that the right strategies go with this project as well. And it's something—it's a coordination we've begun, but it's just in the earliest stages. So we're certainly, we've already had meetings and things like that at this point, and I think as we move into this next phase of the project where we're going to be doing more analyses, that's something where we're going to start working a lot more closely with them.

[04:36:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And I guess to expand upon it, is the idea that we might kind of go the same way as we did when we were looking at for-sale BMR in terms of the city looking at certain aspects related to R3 and then trying to align them as we're looking at different projects before we adopt any changes with R3 because I know that the timeline is I think 18 months. But I know that we, we did that when we were looking at for-sale BMR, and so is that the same type of idea that we try to align the strategy for R3 as we're looking at those projects?

[04:37:31] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, certainly I think we're gonna, we're gonna try to align as much as we possibly can on this and, and where it can happen certainly, and still incorporating everything we can.

[04:37:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Great, thank you. Last question. So for the optional tasks that are outlined in the scope of work, is that gonna, I assume that that's an extra monetary cost, so will that be shared with Council at a later date in terms of what that breakdown would be? I saw for the different items in the response... attachment... it said, you know, optional, optional tasks, and I was just curious, sorry I actually didn't send this one in. For attachment 3 in the response for the scope of work under each item for, under each task they have, you know, so for like task 3C, optional task: prepare survey for feedback on key points of this process. So I was just curious if we're going to find out at a later date what that cost would be or if that's how it's monetized.

[04:38:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Correct. I think those optional tasks are something we'd have to decide on at a later time if the project seemed like it was needed, and at that point we could decide whether additional funding was necessary or if just our contingency funds could cover that.

[04:39:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Thank you.

[04:39:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Hicks.

[04:39:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm trying to... sorry, I'm asking my questions in two separate times, but I'm trying to figure out which ones are questions and which ones are comments. So I guess I'll ask this as a question rather than a comment. I am interested as is Councilmember Kamei in making sure that this coordinates with the work on displacement in the R3 zone, and I'm wondering whether whether we should tweak the tweak the scope of work to make sure that happens or how you how you see that happening whether you think it doesn't need any tweaking.

[04:40:03] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think it is incorporated in the scope of work at this time. There are points in, I believe, task 1 and task 3 where we specifically talk about that coordination. And I think also at our, at our next council meeting when we come to check in after task 1 and 2 are completed in that phase 1 part of the process, I think we'll have a little bit better idea and more updates on how that coordination is going and how we see it moving forward too.

[04:40:41] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. A member of the public suggested to me there was a walking tour of, let's see if I can find it, there's a walking tour of, I think, places where middle income housing could be placed and somebody said could potentially threatened units that were threatened for displacement, apartments threatened with displacement, could that be a part of the walking tour as well? There were several things like that. Will we have an opportunity in the future to raise issues like that?

[04:41:19] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think looking at the displacement that isn't directly in our scope, but it's something we could look into. As far as the properties go on this walk or something like that, I don't think we've gotten to that quite level of detail in terms of figuring that out.

[04:41:42] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So maybe we can add that as it goes.

[04:41:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Correct.

[04:41:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions from Councilmembers? Okay, if not, we'll open this up for public comment. Is there any member of the public who wishes to address the Council on this item? If you could be sure... If you could be sure to fill out a card before or after, that'd be great.

[04:42:18] Deb Henigson: Hi again. I'm Deb Henigson, Mountain View resident, and again representing the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. So as you know, housing availability in Mountain View is a major and ongoing problem impacting many aspects of our community. And MVCSP members really expect this R3 update to address this issue as much as possible, including housing affordability. Affordability at all levels is essential. While the missing middle is covered in the staff report thoroughly, we and we agree that this segment of the population is important to consider, our members specifically want to see more attention on needs across the lower income spectrum of resident buyers and renters. On displacement, we were gratified to see displacement addressed in the report. We would like the city to adopt a bold goal of zero displacement. We would like to see close coordination between this zoning effort and recently adopted displacement related policies. And then on naturally affordable units, we continue to be concerned about the number of older existing units that are being replaced where the new units would not be covered by CSFRA. And on the idea of no net loss, we would like to see this zoning update deliberately constructed to help no net loss projects become more feasible, if not outright easy or even the default. We know that most people currently being displaced in our city, and the ones that are coming to speak to us at our meetings, are not in the missing middle. And these folks would not be able to access that particular housing bracket. We are very concerned that these folks are no longer going to have a place in our community, and we think that's actively detrimental to the structure and fabric of our community. We also believe that land use efficiency is a critical consideration. Mountain View needs to build up. But currently more density means that it can be overly difficult for developers to meet city approval. Anything this R3 effort can do to increase acceptable heights and density would not only tackle our substantial housing supply gap but would also help address the additional secondary woes such as traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions that come from people having to live further and further away for jobs that are here. We like the coverage in the report on form-based code, and that approach around form-based code. While affordability is primary, we do want to see the best design elements possible in new housing projects. We think that good design helps neighbors accept greater density more easily. Finally, we also support the points made by the League of Women Voters in their letter to you on November 10th. Thank you for your focus on this important work.

[04:45:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[04:45:11] Joan MacDonald: Joan MacDonald again. And I support everything that you just heard. I was distressed and yet a little bit happy with the code update because it did indeed give the word displacement twice, once in task 1 and one in task 3, with no real concrete details, just coordination with staff. And that feels so unsure, uncertain about what will actually happen. And as I was thinking about that, I drove up Veranda to pick up trick or treat UNICEF boxes at Bubb School. And again I passed this huge mowed weed lot. I have no idea who owns it, but it's R3. And every time I pass it, I think this would be a great place for affordable housing for low income. And if people were going to be displaced, that housing would be for them.

[04:46:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the Council on this item? Okay, so we'll close the public input portion and bring it back to Council. Councilmember Ramirez.

[04:47:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I don't have any questions. I was just going to proceed to comments. So first, I wanted to thank the Council for prioritizing this during goal setting. This is I think one of the most exciting and potentially transformative projects that we'll be working on over the next 18 months, it looks like. You know, we don't often have the opportunity to update the zoning code, and a lot of the work that we do has been in change areas, and what's unique about this is we're focusing on a lot of areas that are not designated change areas, and so there's a lot of opportunity for creativity to achieve our goals, both increasing housing stock and then also addressing the vulnerable or protecting vulnerable populations, and then also to think about, you know, the evolution of our city, what do we want vast portions of the city to look like over the next 50 years. So this is, I think, an exciting project and I'm very eager to see what comes out of it. So I'm prepared to move the staff recommendation. I think it's solid. I appreciated Councilmember Kamei's questions about anti-displacement, and I'm pretty comfortable with the way I understand staff will be incorporating and integrating the anti-displacement work. If it's helpful, you know, maybe as we continue working on this just providing concurrent updates about the status of that work as well so we can see how they're integrating. I think the reality is a lot of the programs related to displacement won't necessarily appear in the zoning code under R3. It'll be somewhere else, and so it may not be wholly appropriate to include that in the zoning code update per se. But the one thing I did want to—if staff feels it's helpful to include—there was a question about discretionary process, which I understand through the work we've been doing over the past year is essential to getting more than we might otherwise be able to get from by-right projects. So if it's helpful to explore incorporating or how a discretionary process in this context could help us, you know, either implement or achieve our displacement, you know, goals, then I want to permit staff and the consultant that flexibility. If you don't think it's necessary, then I'll just, I'll go ahead and move the staff recommendation.

[04:49:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I know. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm on the healthy one now. It's no longer a cold. The folks on the ends are coughing. Sorry, I really apologize. My... while I am interested in this update, as others have mentioned, my biggest concern about this is displacement. And I'm kind of... while I see it in the scope of work about coordinating, I really, really want to make sure we think this through so that there aren't, I would say predictable consequences as well as unintended consequences of any changes we might be considering. I am not up for doing something that increases displacement. And I am very concerned, if I haven't said that loud and clear enough, I'm very concerned that this project could result in that. I also am not interested in a minimum density requirement, which was in the staff comments on the Council goals, and I'm much more interested in a good project rather than a minimum density. I think the city has had minimum density in the past and had some very odd-looking projects. And I'm much more focused on a good project and what it looks like than minimum density. So I don't think we need to look at having minimum densities. So, well, I feel like I'm all for this, I'm very concerned, but I will support the motion.

[04:52:07] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So I just seconded the motion. My questions earlier, thank you to staff. I know I didn't send in my scope of work question, I just re-looked at it earlier today. I think that a lot of the Council goals that we've put forward are ways that we can either generate housing or kind of tackle the hurdles that we've been facing like displacement. And so when I was asking my questions, I really want to find a way for us to kind of work in tandem with these different policies we're looking at and have those coordinate in terms of kind of hitting on the Mayor's comments not leading to any unintended consequences or further displacement, right? And so I do think that this is an important piece that we've been talking about for a while in terms of R3, and so I do feel like we need to move forward while I think being sensitive to our other council goals that are a delicate balancing act. In terms of the discretionary processes that Councilmember Ramirez brought up, I am interested in that, so I don't know if we need to incorporate that or that's just a comment that can be taken into consideration as this item goes forward. So thank you.

[04:53:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember McAlister.

[04:53:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'd like to concur with the Mayor's comment. I also looked at that italicized where the scope would include minimizing density ordinances, and I always prided Mountain View that we were able to accomplish many goals and yet still have a quality product that over time people want to live there. They don't want to be—they want their open space, they want their private open space, they want an area that they can live comfortably in. And it's interesting that we've had many times where we had developers come along and some direction from staff says oh, you got to ask for more units. And the developers sort of pushed back and says this is not going to be a nice project, people aren't going to want to live here. And so we always need to keep our eye on something that will stand the test of time and make sure that these projects are good, are welcoming. And I think we can still accomplish the goals of displacement, we can buy some units, but that's another question for another night that you guys—but yeah, we're getting to some—not in somebody's lifetime. But it's important that we make absolutely good projects. One of my first years on Planning Commission, Pat Pear goes 'don't worry about the massing whatever, just make sure it's a good project and that will take care of itself'. So I concur with the Mayor and I'll go from there.

[04:55:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Hicks.

[04:55:30] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I concur with almost everything if not everything that council members have said. And I will be supporting the motion. I just wanted to add that I wanted to commend staff for choosing this particular consultant. It's actually one that I've kind of looked at over the years and hoped we could work with, so thank you. I'm excited to do that.

[04:55:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have a motion by Councilmember Ramirez and a second by Councilmember Kamei. And do we need to specifically say we're not interested in looking at minimum densities? I know it was in the staff report.

[04:56:07] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: I think there were two items it would be helpful to get clarity on as part of the motion. One was the minimum density issue and the other was the discretionary process if that's part of it.

[04:56:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So if it's helpful, I mean, I'm inclined to think generally speaking a developer will maximize the density or do whatever is most profitable anyway. So I'm not super concerned about that, if it's helpful to say we're not looking at a minimum density requirement per se, I'm fine. And then on the discretionary process, if direction is helpful, then I'm comfortable including that as well.

[04:56:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Is the seconder ok with that? Okay. Any further comment? Okay, let's call the question. That passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, on to item 9.1, a study session on the residential parking permit program. And because this is a study session, we'll start with a staff presentation. Then we'll open it up for public comment, and then we'll bring it back to Council for questions and direction. So let's start with the staff presentation.

[04:57:46] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Good evening, honorable Mayor, members of the Council. I am Michael Fuller, the Public Works Director, and I am joined here this evening by Lorenzo Lopez, Senior Traffic Engineer. The city's residential permit parking program was created in 2016 as a tool to help residents deal with overflow parking from adjacent uses. Council members and staff have heard concerns from residents about the program, and we're here this evening to discuss some possible changes. I will briefly go through the program, our experiences to date, and some changes Council may wish to consider. If Council does wish to revise the program, staff can return with revisions to the ordinance. Now, an RPP area can be initiated with a petition from residents or by the City Council. If initiated by residents, the petition includes a description of the problem and the proposed zone. Signatures from 51% of the residents on each block, and five contiguous blocks are preferred, but if the impacted area does not include five contiguous blocks, there is a minimum of three. And if the petition meets these requirements, the city contacts the properties within the proposed area and adjacent blocks about joining the area and does parking surveys to verify that 75% of on-street parking is occupied during peak periods. If that threshold is met, then staff establishes a boundary and proposed time restrictions...

[04:59:30] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: ...and a postcard survey is conducted, which includes a description of the zone, proposed restrictions, and cost. And to pass that milestone, 50% of surveys must be returned from each block, and 67% must be in favor. If the surveying is favorable, the item goes to the Council Transportation Committee for consideration and a recommendation to Council, and then to Council for adoption of a resolution. If Council passes the resolution, then signs are posted and residents are noticed, and the area is implemented.

[05:00:50] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Now, when Council was discussing the establishment of the program, a variety of fee structures were discussed. And ultimately, Council landed on an approximately 50% cost recovery that translates to about $60 per vehicle per year. And provisions were made for guests, caregivers, visitors, and contractors. And the complete list of the various fees was included in the staff report at the end of the attachment that included the guidelines.

[05:01:38] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Now, our experience to date is somewhat limited. So far, two zones have been surveyed. One was resident-initiated near Church and Oak, and one was Council-initiated in the Willowgate neighborhood. Neither passed the postcard survey. For the Church and Oak area, there were three blocks, and only one block met the requirements. And then for the Willowgate neighborhood, about 20% of the petitions were returned, and about 37% of those returned were in favor. So that also did not meet the threshold. Now, there's no industry standard for the various elements of an RPP program. And Council may wish to consider revising some of our criteria in the city's program. The staff report contains some suggestions for Council's consideration. The first is a criteria for a successful petition. The city's program requires signatures from 51% of each block in the proposed zone. And though staff recommends that a relatively high threshold be maintained, staff or Council may consider revising this threshold or applying it to the entire zone rather than each block. The city's program also requires 50% 51% of the surveys to be returned from each block, and 67% support in each block. Here again, Council may wish to consider applying these thresholds to the entire area rather than to each block. To streamline the process, assuming that there is support in the neighborhood, Council may wish to consider eliminating the requirement that the CTC consider the establishment of the zone, and Council may also wish to consider lowering or eliminating the permit fee. And that concludes my presentation, and Lorenzo and I would be happy to answer your questions.

[05:03:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. As I said, since this is a study session, we'll open it up for public comment. So if there's anyone who wishes to address the Council, please be sure to fill out a blue card either before or after you speak and leave it with our City Clerk. First speaker, come on up.

[05:03:29] Robert Cox: Alright, my name's Robert Cox. I'm a 24-year resident of Mountain View. And I'm here to speak on behalf of the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association Parking Subcommittee on revisions to the residential parking permit program. Having an effective RPP is the best way to enlist resident support for parking lite projects and paid parking in the downtown neighborhood. These are issues that are going to be coming up for discussion in Council sometime soon. Without an effective RPP, non-resident office workers have little incentive to use greenhouse gas saving modes of transportation when they come to work in our downtown or even to park in their own office parking garages. No RPP zones have been established in Mountain View in the three years since the program has been initiated. We believe the unnecessarily complex eight-step process for establishing an RPP zone and the proposed cost of the permits are the primary reason. We therefore support the following revisions to the RPPP: replace the per-block rule used when tallying the returned postcards with a single tally of cards received in the proposed zone. Number two, reduce the majority required in favor of establishing zones from 67% to 55%, and reduce the cost of the permits to a nominal fee, something like $25 or less. We also support eliminating the CTC review of the RPP zones that have met other criteria in the interest of simplifying the program. We have provided our rationale for these changes in a letter to all council members, so I won't take the time to repeat that here, but if you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you for your consideration on this important neighborhood matter. I also was in contact with the Executive Secretary of Livable Mountain View, who was ill and not able to be here tonight, and she wanted me just to come and say, that's Louise Katz, that she supports these basic three principles as well. So, thank you very much.

[05:05:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[05:05:48] Dennis Goldwater: Dennis Goldwater, Stierlin Estates. The city has the stated objective of limiting car ownership among new residents in the Terrabella and Middlefield developments. If you could speak into the microphone, that'd be great. Yeah, the city has a stated objective of limiting car ownership among new residents in the Terrabella and Middlefield developments. The current residents have the stated objective of avoiding significant overflow parking. The city's plan seems to have little chance of truly achieving either of these objectives. I have a proposal that will ensure both objectives. The current plan for massive development includes great risk. I hope that the Council recognizes the responsibility to mitigate this risk, rather than abandoning us to shoulder the full burden of dealing with the consequences. I'm referring to the impending creation of significant demand for overflow parking. The city provides for a parking permit program, but the hurdles to implementation are high. Neighbors would have to devote significant time and effort against difficult city-imposed odds in an effort to mitigate the foreseeable results of the current city plan. I propose the following: The city should take full responsibility to implement a parking permit program in Stierlin Estates and in other affected neighborhoods. The city should fully subsidize all permits, after all, the city is creating the problem. A neighborhood-wide parking permit program would ensure that all future residents know before moving in that there will be no possibility of finding parking outside of their housing complex. This will enable the full achievement of the city's objective of limiting additional cars. The current city plan will create a clearly foreseeable demand for significant overflow parking and will provide unlimited access for parking. Having the city responsible for the solution is the only sure way to guarantee that a parking permit program will be implemented. Having a parking permit program in place in advance is the only sure way to guarantee that the city's objective of limiting car ownership among new residents can be completely and successfully achieved. Thank you.

[05:08:05] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[05:08:17] Albert Jeans: By the way, I was lucky to get in here because all the doors are locked. And I guess being a public meeting that shouldn't happen, no matter how late the meeting runs, right?

[05:08:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you for letting us know.

[05:08:34] Albert Jeans: Yeah, fortunately somebody was going out so I tailgated in. Because they should be open, shouldn't they?

[05:08:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you for letting us know. Yeah, that shouldn't be.

[05:08:44] Albert Jeans: The garage is closed and then all the outdoor doors are locked too.

[05:08:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you for letting us know.

Segment 8

[05:15:35] Public Speaker: So the problem with parking zones is as as Nancy just said, cars get pushed out of one neighborhood into another, creates more conflict. Doesn't solve the problem. Requirements are too strict with a three-block minimum. You know, when this one block is constantly parked, but I would never qualify. There's a problem of you know, just people abusing. I mean, storing cars on the on neighborhood streets as I just saw.

[05:15:59] Public Speaker: And then enforcement by police is really difficult because they don't know where, you know, you've got time and location requirements and everything, it's not very easy. So, one solution is a city-wide policy. And Menlo Park, which wasn't listed in the list of in the study thing, has had an overnight parking ban in all residential areas since 1963. Now this is pretty dramatic. I don't think you could do this without phasing it in over a pretty long time. But basically, only vehicles with permits can park overnight and the only way you can get that permit is if you live in a special zone like an apartment that doesn't have enough parking or you you can buy temporary permits for like a couple dollars, but in general nobody is allowed to park on the street overnight. And there's a whole list of benefits here. I'm running out of time so I'll let them read them. But basically, it makes things much more efficient, makes enforcement easier, makes things crime you know, less crime, all that kind of good stuff. So, something to think about. Thank you.

[05:16:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[05:17:00] Alex Brown: Hey. Alex Brown, Santiago Villa, North Bayshore. Uh, yeah, I just can't pass up the opportunity to call out the fact that all the development in North Bayshore right now is removing a bunch of on-street parking that our residents depend on and it's a huge concern that comes up pretty much every monthly meeting. Uh, and that having a means of protecting their ability to park their cars on the street after the development would be really nice. Uh particularly it in North Bayshore after the development of the new apartments where we have we're going to have a lot of people who aren't going to have room for their cars because the minimum car parking for the new developments is lower than one per unit. Right. Thanks.

[05:17:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the council on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public input portion and bring it back to council for any further questions and then uh direction. Councilmember Clark.

[05:17:56] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: I just had a question on the um... the CTC um review. Was it was the and I'm trying to remember back to when we first put this in place. Was the idea that the the CTC would just sort of um help ensure that you know, we didn't have that the basically the boundaries and everything made sense, we didn't have an overlap or something like that? It was just sort of an overall coordinating mechanism. Is that really what it was or was it something else?

[05:18:25] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Yeah, having had no experience with implementing these, we assumed um they would be somewhat controversial. There may be a lot of discussion about the details such as boundaries and so on. and we often use the CTC as a way to kind of vet that, um give it a public airing with policymakers, um that's not at a council meeting. um having not had much experience with that still, um you know, we could just let it go straight to council. But the idea was to kind of air the neighborhood concerns and so on at the CTC instead of council.

[05:19:02] Councilmember Christopher R. Clark: And a smaller forum, that isn't at midnight. Okay. Um I I just wanted to refresh my memory, thanks.

[05:25:15] Councilmember John McAlister: I understand. But if we can get fees from them, is there a nexus on how much we can charge for them to park in our lots?

[05:25:27] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: We will get back to you with the legal restrictions on the use of those funds.

[05:25:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. But you know, to the point of as I say I don't want neighbors to be having to pay for something that they didn't cause. And my other question on the CTC, and I forgot I mean we did Sylvan was our one, and then that was probably one of our last discussions. I thought it was CTC. I mean we came through the CTC though. Yeah. Did the... If it comes to CTC and we make a recommendation, would that then be on the consent calendar or would it be a full council...

[05:26:08] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: It could be on the consent calendar as a resolution.

[05:26:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. So I you know if Mr. Clark was saying eliminate it, then it would still go to the council. But this way I think it would by probably be more efficient by keeping it with the CTC because it'd be good to your point is that they will have contact, more dialogue, and it still would be moving along quickly. So okay, I just wanted to clarify that. And uh so dress that. And the requirement for a RPP zone is initiated through a neighborhood petition or by City Council with a petition process. So what does it mean by a petition neighborhood petition or by the City Council with a petition process?

[05:26:53] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Well if the if the City Council initiates it, then that replaces the petition process but there is still a postcard survey process. So the name the Council initiation replaces the neighborhood the resident petition.

[05:27:09] Councilmember John McAlister: I saw a comment in there. Okay. Neighborhood present or by the City Council with the petition process. So are we sort of doing it twice or...

[05:27:18] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: No the the um the Willowgate example was one that was Council initiated and um the one at Oak Street was an example of one initiated by a petition. We didn't get a petition from Willowgate. We heard feedback from Willowgate but Council initiated that process.

[05:27:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, that was sort of interesting to see only 20% of the surveys were returned for the Willowgate. And that we were trying to help them and they just sort of... didn't work out the way people wanted it to.

[05:27:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Along, yeah, Santa Clara Avenue and...

[05:27:51] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah.

[05:27:53] City Staff: We actually we for the Willowgate neighborhood we got a lot of feedback from residents that they were just not interested in permit parking. And we were that was really the initial request was to gauge their interest and a lot of negative feedback so that's probably why we only got 20% returned.

[05:28:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: But at that CTC meeting I recall we were going to find out what was the appetite for the um to restrict parking on the I guess it would be the south side of Willowgate folks who were parking the transit who were using the transit center and also the businesses along Moffett who were parking in the neighborhood. So actually I felt like we wanted to ask the neighborhood a different question than the standard RPPP and that was you know would you be interested uh in the businesses being able to park on the south side of Willowgate um because the businesses don't have enough parking. I think we had three different approaches to parking in in instead they were asked the standard um question about the RPPP.

[05:29:11] City Staff: Yes, that's true.

[05:29:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, so I feel like maybe um... Yeah. Yeah, so I'm sure I think you know the folks I talked to they felt like um the survey they got was different than what they expected. Um so that could attribute to some of the or account for some of the low uh return rate because they were expecting something different.

[05:29:46] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: It could have. And and we had some experience on the other process as well. We we actually talked to the people along Franklin Street across the street from the library. That's probably the most impacted block in that little area. And a lot of them said no, there's a lot of library parkers here and stuff, but we just don't want to deal with having to buy permits and this and that. So a lot of people kind of weigh the inconvenience of the overflow parking with the inconvenience built into having to get permits and worry about guests and so on. And so we've heard that on from both of these examples.

[05:30:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Hicks.

[05:30:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I am concerned about the the what some of the public raised about uh short street shorter streets and does staff have any is there any reason we could just eliminate that requirement? Is there what what was the reasoning behind it or do you have any other simple solutions to that problem?

[05:30:50] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Yeah, the um... This is how we define a block. Um to that point, it means a public street segment intersected by two other public streets. And so there's no length requirement there. And where the 1200 feet comes in is street segments over 600 feet in length but less than 1200 shall be considered two blocks. So in other words, if you have a particularly long block that's not intersected, at some point we call it two blocks. Um and then street segments over 1200 feet shall be considered three blocks. So there's no minimum block size, but when it gets big enough, we start to count it as several blocks.

[05:31:30] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Are you saying you don't see a problem in that case, in the case that was raised earlier this evening?

[05:31:36] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: No.

[05:31:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Oh, they aren't.

[05:31:42] Councilmember John McAlister: Because they didn't have three... different streets, a minimum of three streets, street segments. They only had one street.

[05:31:45] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Yeah a street less than 1200 feet could or even shorter than 600 feet could be considered a block if it's intersected by two other streets.

[05:31:54] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. So maybe the problem is that they're not three contiguous blocks or three blocks in a row? I'd have to look at the particular circumstance.

[05:32:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Is that what the problem is?

[05:32:12] Alex Brown: It's just the call out was there were impacted streets. So it's 50 attached homes, you could probably divide it up into three blocks, but we still to be able to fit...

[05:40:13] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: If I could make a suggestion, um if there's a a consensus on the council to maintain some sort of fee but lower the fee, um I think that would be good direction tonight. And in terms of other sources like the downtown permit parking program or developments or so on, I I think staff would like some time to look at that and and if we do come back with some kind of affirmative answer on that, maybe we could use that to um help fill the gap that the city is otherwise subsidizing. That way we'd have clear direction tonight on the program um and we could address the other questions um with a little...

[05:40:50] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I guess I just feel like the developments, these new developments need to bear some responsibility in getting the people who are there, whether they're residents or their office workers, like they should be supplying the parking needed on site. And I know we're trying to reduce parking ratios to encourage folks not to drive. But that's not what's happening. It's just that the parking is getting pushed off. And so how do we get these, you know, the new developments to bear some responsibility and get get their people to park in the parking that they provided or get them out of their cars and actually do TDM. That's my I guess my real question on this item. So whether it's to have them pay the fee to help with permits, you know, if that's the only solution because that's all I keep hearing is oh we'll just do a residential permit parking program, that's fine but then I think the you know the creator of our the problem should be helping to pay for that. So it's could be that or could be other measures but I just it's not working the way it is now and I just want to figure out how to resolve that.

[05:42:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I maybe not surprisingly have a related comment. Should I wait my turn or jump off with what...?

[05:42:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I'm done with that so...

[05:42:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Is that in answering these questions?

[05:42:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: It could be, but I I was gonna...

[05:42:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Since I have a lot of experience with a very similar problem, I could wait my until it's me in the queue but it might make more sense to jump off of Councilmember Abe-Koga's comment.

[05:42:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, if it's just a comment about that, yeah, go ahead.

[05:42:39] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. So when when I think about the RPPP program and then I think about the situation in my neighborhood, I'm not sure there's a there's a perfect match. And the reason is the impacts in my neighborhood are um well they're two things that are not a perfect match for the whole city and maybe the whole city is not a perfect match. But we have um offices that are being constructed that are are made to provide parking, but people, I mean I've been in the parking structures, people don't park in them. And essentially what that means is you know, because we've required underground parking and this would be the same for I suppose for apartments as well, because we require that parking and we say people are going actually, when somebody parks on the street near the office, they're occupying two parking spaces. They're occupying the one underground that was built for them and that raised the cost of that structure, and they're also occupying the street outside Margaret's house and my house. I have a double driveway, I don't care, but in terms of policy, we're not getting I think there's a lot of unoccupied parking all over downtown because nobody and I think it's probably the and then it's probably uh our TDM programs could be better. We could somehow, and and some office developers have told me they could do this. They could either have somebody on site interviewing people and encouraging them to do that, or they could put a sticker on their car saying that they could part that they have permission to park underground. So if they're parking above, you can talk to them about it, but there's something lacking in the TDM programs and there's a huge mismatch. We have tons of unused underground parking and that's an expensive thing to have. So there's more than just an RPP that we RPPP, however many Ps there are, that we need to and and the other thing that happens in areas where we're trying to do um where we're trying to have mixed use where we have offices and restaurants, and this should be common in other areas of the city too. The other problem is that when I talk to people running the restaurants, they say because the uh because people using the offices tend to come in between 7:00 and 10:00 in the morning and then leave, you know, in the middle of dinner time at night, that people coming to use the restaurants can't use them. So I'm thinking, okay, maybe the RPP RPPP program could help the the people from the offices park underground and then help the restaurants out, but really it's not the residents in our neighborhood who should have to initiate that process of helping the restaurants function and helping the offices function. And I actually don't even know if if they will because I wouldn't pay $60 to get those two things to function. It's not really my I would park in my driveway, which I do. But um so there's some other dysfunction there that the RPPP doesn't address.

[05:46:18] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: So, just a few quick comments. Um number one, RPP I think does address it because those people wouldn't be able to park in your neighborhood, because they're not allowed to anymore. But also...

[05:46:31] Councilmember Alison Hicks: But the people in my neighborhood will not pay the sixty dollars or maybe even twenty.

[05:46:35] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Well we're talking about the fee tonight, that's one of the decisions you have to make. Um number two, we're looking at downtown holistically and you have the right to look at the parking requirements. We're also looking, as I said earlier, at the employee permit program, so there's a lot of different things going on. Council could also initiate an RPP process for the downtown based on whatever criteria you ultimately come up with to make it easier to neighbor...

[05:47:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So you've kind of summed it up for me. I think that the residents even for 25 dollars may not be willing to solve this problem. They may rather park in their driveways, and that we may need a larger we may need a larger solution and you're right, it might be the downtown parking solution. But I'm recused from that. So this is my opportunity to bring it up, something that you'll the rest of you probably know nothing about. But it's huge, and it's there are floors of unused parking.

[05:47:29] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: So, we have data on parking utilization of the structures and the surface parking lots. And...

[05:47:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: But not the...

[05:47:39] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: So the underground there's uh the Sobrato one, where's where are all the other ones you're talking about?

[05:47:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well I don't think that there's anything oh, I don't think there's probably anything unique about office workers at Sobrato. I'm assuming if this is happening there... Because there's entire floors of unparked parking under the Sobrato office, I'm assuming it's in other offices as well, that there's nothing unique about those particular office workers.

[05:48:15] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Oh, we just, I don't think we have a lot of underground parking. There's Fenwick & West has about four levels and then 444 Castro has, and I can't think of any others, there are probably a couple other smaller ones, but those are two pretty big ones I think.

[05:48:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: But there are also proposals for them in the future. So I think it's a policy question that people might not have been aware of.

[05:48:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Um, okay. Councilmember McAlister.

[05:48:40] Councilmember John McAlister: We're back to the questions.

[05:48:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Oh. Great.

[05:48:45] Councilmember John McAlister: Um. So the question explore the change in signature for um... Since, but are we also changing the petition, is this the petition process because if you're changing the...

[05:49:00] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Are you asking for the petition process to be changed or what is the signature required? 50%?

[05:49:07] Councilmember John McAlister: What are you asking for here? What do you...

[05:49:09] City Staff: The program requires um 51% of each block sign the petition.

[05:49:15] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. So you get the majority of people and they determine to form the RPP is the petition group. Right?

[05:49:23] City Staff: Yes. They they propose they propose a a set of blocks and then the requirement is.

[05:49:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so you want 51 50%. How many projects have gotten close to 50% and didn't pass or 51% and didn't pass?

[05:49:35] City Staff: We've only had one petition submitted. And we actually went out and beat the bushes a little bit to get them to qualify.

[05:49:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Uh I don't know if we got got to what's what's the current uh signature is now?

[05:49:50] City Staff: It's 51% block by block making it 51% of the...

[05:49:54] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: What's the current policy now?

[05:49:56] City Staff: 51% block by block.

[05:49:58] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: No the the suggestion would be to consider making it 51% for the whole area. That way one block doesn't drag down the whole area. Or you could reconsider the 51% itself.

[05:50:12] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, but if wasn't the the petition included the whole RPP?

[05:50:18] City Staff: Yeah, it's it's the it's a proposed area and then the requirement is.

[05:50:22] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: By the petitioners.

[05:50:24] City Staff: By the petitioners and then the requirement is that 51% of the people on each block sign the petition.

[05:50:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. On each block as opposed to just 51% in total.

[05:50:32] City Staff: Oh. Okay. Fine. So eliminate block by block.

[05:50:35] Councilmember John McAlister: I got it. Okay. Uh to reduce required percentages survey returns, uh I'm still what I...

[05:50:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Are you okay with Q question one?

[05:50:45] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah. I said it. Okay.

[05:50:47] Councilmember John McAlister: Um the to reduce required percentage of surveys returned, that would still require more than 51 50% correct?

[05:50:57] City Staff: Yes, and again there's the block by block versus the total area question.

[05:51:01] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so we get the total. Uh well make sure I yeah 'cause if it's if the total percentage is is I was interpreting this as it was smaller than the 50% of the total packet. So if you have 100 homes and only 50 or 40 surveys came in and those 40 surveys were 100% for it, it would pass. But that's not the case. Okay. Uh but I'm not sure about I want to reduce the percentage too much. Um three, of course, yeah, I said the CTC. Four, support lowering the permit fees. Yeah, that's what I was suggesting. Then I expected this is going to come back in the study. And question five is uh increased parking enforcement. I think that's a yes. That's part of it. I know it's not on there but you know. Um we always hear people seeing nobody comes and and gives tickets. Well here here's a question for the City Attorney. Where does that parking ticket go to?

[05:52:07] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I think it I think it's general fund. I think it's administered by PD um...

[05:52:13] Councilmember John McAlister: So if it goes to the general fund, then we could help subsidize the parking permit program.

[05:52:20] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: So just to be clear the proposed 60 dollar fee which we're talking about reducing significantly tonight is already 50% subsidized, estimated to be 50% subsidized by the city. So there is a subsidy going on already. The reality is we don't know what the cost of the program is 'cause we don't have one up and running. So if you want to lower the cost let's get it going and get some programs in and then we'll know what the true cost is and then you can decide how much of a subsidy you do or don't want to...

[05:52:51] Councilmember John McAlister: So you're saying this whole subject tonight should have just been postponed until after we did the parking study?

[05:52:55] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Well, Q1 would have been good, but no...

[05:52:58] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Well, I'm going with rule number two. Trust the staff and you know, let the staff do their job and come back and then we can form this policy. I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.

[05:53:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Kamei.

Segment 9

[06:00:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, question one... well for question one and two, yes I would eliminate the block by block rule with a single tally. For question one, change the signature requirement to 51%, that sounds good. For question two, um, yeah, as others have said, whatever staff says, 55% or whatever staff recommends. Um, I, I like the idea of going to the CTC and then consent calendar, um, for council. And, uh, the permit fee, I like the idea of reducing it to 25 for one and greater for more. And then again I'll reiterate that I don't, I think that there's an overall policy solution when we say we're going car light. If we have places that are surrounded by free parking, I think we're not being honest with ourselves about what whether people are actually, whether we're actually getting people out of their cars or whether we're just spreading them on the street. And that that's a larger policy situation that I haven't been able to comment on earlier, but I think it's out of more than just the core downtown. And I think it's affecting our restaurants and it's affecting our policy because we think we're going car light and we're not. Thank you.

[06:01:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember Ramirez.

[06:01:33] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I have substantially similar comments. I think, uh, as Councilmember McAlister said, uh, some level of, um, neighborhood support, uh, participation buy-in is really important, uh, and so I, I support, um, uh, questions one and two, yes, I, I would support reducing the signature requirements, uh, and the, um, percentage of surveys returned, the percentage of support from each block. Um, I don't know if I have the the best number right now, um, something, you know, demonstrating that the neighborhood actually does support implementing a program. Uh, and I, you know, there were a number of suggestions here that I think are sort of appropriate. So, um, 51% for the total proposed area rather than block by block. Although, you know, if there's, if there's an extreme example where there's one block that is not supportive at all, um, going to question three, I think that's an opportunity for the CTC to sort of evaluate whether it's appropriate to impose it on that block. I think so, that there's kind of a built-in protection there. But, you know, reducing the requirement overall, um, I'm not sure what the right percentage, you know, of returned, uh, surveys should be. But, um, if we're looking at, um, you know, somebody said 55%, 60% for support, um, you know, that sounds appropriate. Um, you know, I think we're talking generally between 50 and 60% for a lot of these. Um, so question three, I the the uh solution that um I think every member of the council has suggested is fine with me. Um, and then so the, the permit fee is is also hard for me. Um, I like Councilmember Kamei's suggestion of having sort of the tiered approach. So I don't know what, you know, the the first vehicle should be priced at, um, but having that at a maybe a more entry level sort of neighborhood supported figure and then, you know, for subsequent vehicles, it, you know, it'll be more, uh, it'll, it'll help us address the, um, you know, the or achieve something closer to cost recovery. Um, I don't know what those numbers would be, but I, I do support, uh, looking at reducing the permit fees overall but not going so low that um it's it's a a wholesale, you know, uh, subsidy from the city.

[06:04:09] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So for question one I agree to eliminate the block by block requirement and I'm good with 51%. On question two, uh, I also think it's good to eliminate the block by block requirement there. And I'm open to like 51 to 55%, whatever staff thinks is best. Uh, question three, I'm fine with the CTC reviewing this and then being on the consent calendar for Council. And I do think the permit fees could be reduced, and um, I also agree that it might be good to have a tiered structure with a lower entry fee and then it goes up from there. Uh, the one other thing I'd like to mention is to be the um, woman who lives on Linda Vista, left, um, if a petition comes in and we see that there is a street that it would make sense to include it, I would like us to look at that and say we should include it so that we don't have the situation, um, you know, I think if I can put some words in her mouth she's concerned that the, uh, neighborhood across the street doesn't want them to be part of that permit program. But I don't want to leave an area sort of stranded. Can we already do that?

[06:05:38] Councilmember John McAlister: So...

[06:05:39] City Staff: Yeah, if you mean there's an area that by its circumstances doesn't lend itself to the five or three, um, I think what we could do, and and, you know, if there's support for the permit parking and we see that there's no way for them to meet it, um, I don't know whether the current ordinance and guidelines allow for that, I think we can review that. This is only a study session and say that, you know, staff has some discretion that if the circumstances make it such that this can't be met, we can bring it to the CTC or or something. I mean, kind of a kind of an off-ramp for those that just by circumstances of their street configuration can't make it. If that satisfies that concern.

[06:06:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Um, I think there's two concerns. One if they uh can't do it on their own, but also, or or it just is not as straightforward as other areas, but also the concern I think if the homes across the street, um, across Linda Vista, have an RPP and then they only have a very small area where they can park, um, that's the other concern I think.

[06:06:53] City Staff: Yeah, we're not going to have a, the way the blocks are defined, you're not going to have one side of a residential street with an RPP and one side without.

[06:07:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay.

[06:07:03] City Staff: The only way we'd have that is if one side is commercial and the other side is residential, the residential would have it.

[06:07:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay. So, in summary, um, it seems like we're eliminating all the block by block. And for, um, the petition, it's 51%. For the survey, it's uh, lower than it is now and we'll leave it up to staff to make it, um, to come back to us, um, with a recommendation on is it 51 or 55%. Seems to be the common theme here. Um, question three, we go to the CTC and then it's on the consent calendar. Question four, reduce the permit fees. Um, and there were definitely some numbers mentioned, but, um, actually if I, yeah, I would agree with $25 for the initial one, that would make it four, and then a, tearing up from there for, uh, the second permit would be more than 25. Um, and also look at, um, other funding options that might be available to offset the cost of this program.

[06:08:19] Councilmember John McAlister: And question five, enforce parking.

[06:08:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well you were the only one that said that.

[06:08:25] Councilmember John McAlister: Well I know, but we all inferred it was a quiet majority.

[06:08:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: We all inferred it was a quiet majority.

[06:08:31] City Staff: And um, Mayor, if I may, um, the, you'd made a suggestion at the end about if it looks like they can't make it somehow, get some flexibility that we can bring it, I presume there's some consensus for that as well.

[06:08:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay.

[06:08:48] City Staff: To bring to the CTC or somehow initiate the process so it could be considered. We'll look at the guidelines and see how that fits in.

[06:08:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. I think I see four nodding heads. I did see at least four nodding heads for that. Mr. City Manager, do we need anything... I think we're good.

[06:09:06] City Manager Daniel H. Rich: Okay.

[06:09:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you so much.

[06:09:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, on to item 10, which is Council, Staff and Committee Reports. Are there any?

[06:09:30] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Excuse me, Madam Mayor. Did you still have an interest or did the council have an interest in reopening the EPC matter with the question about the alternate that you mentioned?

[06:09:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, yes, so I thought we were going to go back to the...

[06:09:47] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Oh okay, I just wanted to double check. Okay.

[06:09:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah. Would that be what I would do, adjourn this meeting eventually, and then reopen the or continue the study session?

[06:09:59] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: You would just reopen that, uh, yeah.

[06:10:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Reopen that? Okay. Okay. So, um, we're still on item 10. And I only see my name in the queue. So, I attended the Santa Clara County Emergency Operational Area Council meeting. And it was one of the better meetings I've been to. Uh, they recapped what happened during the public safety power shutoffs and the operations that happened in Santa Clara County. And, um, it was a, I, I don't know if they record those, but it was a really good summary of what went well and what didn't go so well. And, um, Santa Clara County was definitely on it in comparison to other counties, which was good to hear. But one of the things that really concerned me is, um, the information that they had on individuals who might have a need for power because of medical issues was, uh, challenging to work with because they didn't have any way to prioritize somebody who maybe was on, say, a ventilator versus somebody who had a hospital bed at home that needed power to move it up or down. So there was another source of information that they found much better that they worked with. But clearly it's an area that, uh, needs some improvement. But if you, if it was recorded, it was just fascinating to hear, um, what went on, and I am sure that we will continue to improve the operations, um, because I don't think the public safety power shutoffs are going to be ending anytime soon. And then we had the, uh, second half of the Council Appointment Review Committee meeting, where we finished up all the interviews for the other boards, committees, and commissions, and then that will come to Council to review the recommendations of the CARC. Uh, anyone else? Okay, so, um, a closed session report.

2020 Census

[00:25:23] Raymond Mueller: Now, I'm bringing this to your attention because I want you to understand that although there are some significant differences, there are some points of which the two communities are very much alike. You do have hard to count communities just the same as they do, and that's those folks that we're going to be talking about here in a minute. Now, we want to make sure everybody knows that the first time ever since 1790 that we will be doing this on the internet, by phone, and of course there will be paper forms available as follow-up, or to those who do not have an address that we can go knock on their door. Um, those people that don't receive mail I should say.

[00:25:58] Raymond Mueller: I want to make sure everybody understands how this is confidential. The biggest concern we have had, and I did this ten years ago, it was the same concern. The confidentiality of the census is set into law. It is Title 13 that protects the census data, and it ensures that your names will never be associated with that data for the next 72 years. We hope after 72 years we will not care that our name is associated with where we lived at this time.

[00:26:23] Raymond Mueller: If you wish to look up your genealogy you can currently look at census data up through 1940. Now, I did mention that 1790 is when we started, and I have tracked one of my lineages back to that actual census. And I want you to understand how much we have grown over the years. That was for free white 18-year-old men. That was what was census counted in that time. So we've come a very long way. I'm going to talk a little bit more about those changes coming up.

[00:26:50] Raymond Mueller: As far as the confidentiality, even myself and the folks that work with me are sworn to keep this data safe. And the penalties for that would be five years in prison or $250,000. And I do not love any of you well enough to give you that data for that penalty. So, um, now, we did speak a little bit about the changes, and we do have a very changed community that we live in since 1790.

[00:27:15] Raymond Mueller: And one of the things that we're doing this year is we're making sure that we support languages. We will be having 12 non-English languages on the electronic format online. There will be census questionnaire assistance in those 12 non-English languages. In addition, however, we will have language guides in 59 non-English languages. And I have looked at the German one, and it does go through every single question and explains it in the language as to why it's being asked and how to answer it.

[00:27:43] Raymond Mueller: Finally, the paper forms will only be printed in English and Spanish this year. So that is one difference, and if you do feel that you're going to have communities that will be impacted by that, we would like to try and work with you, or some of the organizations in your community, to make sure that those folks get access to those online language glossaries and guides.

[00:28:03] Raymond Mueller: If there are any questions at any point please feel free to stop me. I tend to kind of roll through it kind of fast. So we talked about the hard to count populations. I do want you to take a close look at those individuals that are on this list. You will notice that our veterans, our homeless, and our children under five are the top three.

[00:28:21] Raymond Mueller: The number one most undercounted person in America in 2010 was children under five. We do not understand exactly why, but obviously there are a variety of things that could have come into play. Parents being concerned about their child being in the data system. Two parents, and neither one just talked to the other and decided who was claiming the child. Or some people actually said they forgot. So we do need to make sure that they're counted because this data stands for ten years, and therefore that two, three, four, five-year-old will be in school. They will be accessing all of the services that the city offers through their families, including the roads, fire and police protection.

[00:29:01] Raymond Mueller: So, that is one of our biggest points, and we are working with the First 5 organization here in the county to try and make sure that we get into those communities that have those children. I do want to specify the senior citizens here. We do want to make sure that that is noted because there are those of us in the elder group who do not like technology. And we're going full-on internet. So we may need to have some help with that. We are offering the opportunity to do this on a phone, so they don't have to go online.

[00:29:33] Raymond Mueller: We have some folks, for instance the City of Santa Clara has gotten a grant for their library, to get pads, and they're going to set up a space in the library and have people come in and have an assistance center right there at the library. So, this is some things that you might want to think about, some ideas that you might have. In addition to that, I want to make sure you notice also that we do have folks with limited English proficiency. And again, if you have pockets of folks you think will be impacted, please be sure to let me know, and we will try to work with you as a community to figure out how to best handle that.

[00:30:03] Raymond Mueller: I have had some folks come to me with very specific languages from Mexico, and we don't have them in the 59 guides, but we do have some folks in San Jose that are willing to help interpret. So, local partnership strategies. You may have heard of our Complete Count Committees. Ten years ago, the census was kind of very engaged. We had about 20 of our people here on the ground. This year, there are four of us doing that same job.

[00:30:33] Raymond Mueller: So the city and the county, the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara have had offices open for almost a year now. And they're doing a lot of the work that we did ten years ago. So that Complete Count Committee that's meeting on Thursday, if you haven't heard about it, please check in. We would be happy to see any of you come and attend that meeting. It is the first time it's met since March, it'll be a full update of where we are, where we're going, and there's also some RFP information available from the county because there is still some funding available for organizations that wish to do census work.

[00:30:58] Raymond Mueller: I do want to show you here a couple of others. I am part of the partnership program. Statistics in Schools is one of our things that I am actually big on. Some of you know that from our election season last year. So I am the government and education person for the census in the county. And what I'm doing now is tomorrow night I'm actually going to one school board, and then again on Thursday, to talk about Statistics in Schools.

[00:31:23] Raymond Mueller: Statistics in Schools is an evergreen program. We always have it available. We've updated it for 2020. And it has drop-in things that people can use, and it doesn't have to be actual school settings. They can be used in the libraries, there's these fun facts about the census, for instance how many pounds of chocolate were eaten at Halloween, and about how many people really work in that industry here in the United States.

[00:31:47] Raymond Mueller: It takes the data and brings it out in different ways. There are lesson plans available, including one that I've seen on Martin Luther King where it has the class go back and investigate your community to see how it changed over the decades. And it uses Martin Luther King and his birth date and that whole lesson plan to get to that point. So I will be speaking with all of the schools actually through the County Office of Education. And we are going to be doing that, but there is going to be a Statistics in Schools week, the first week of March there. And I bring it up to you because we're going to be highlighting this to the children then, because a week later, we're mailing out the postcards.

[00:32:35] Raymond Mueller: And so when those kids are talking about it the week before and that postcard comes in the mail, the parents are theoretically going to be, 'Oh, we just talked about this, let's go online and do this.' We hope. All right, so how are we going to do all this? We are going to hire about 3,000 people from each of the communities, within the communities I should say, in the County of Santa Clara. About 3,000 people will be hired at $30 per hour to go out and knock on doors and achieve some of those goals.

[00:33:00] Raymond Mueller: I do want to talk a little bit about some of those goals. We will be having a, it's called a temporary non-specific outdoor location count, for the folks impacted by homelessness. And this does include people living in their cars. So we're going to be relying on the cities to help get us the data as to where those locations are, where people are congregating, because the three days prior to census we will in fact send out groups of our enumerators to go up and count them right there on the spot.

[00:33:28] Raymond Mueller: So we want to make sure everybody gets counted within your city limits. In addition to that, we'll be doing our group quarters, which would include any of the dormitories, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. And if you have ideas of where those places are that maybe we wouldn't know about, feel free to let me know, I'm actually the person that's going to be gathering that data and getting it over to our operations side.

[00:33:45] Raymond Mueller: I do want all of you to know that since you have this on your desk, I do recommend that you try to share it out. I can also get it to you electronically. Because anybody can apply, and we hire within the areas that they work. So we're going to want people from wherever you all live to apply. So if you can't apply, take a picture of this and tell your friend or neighbor next door who needs an extra few hundred dollars.

[00:34:08] Raymond Mueller: This is not something you're going to pay your rent with every month between now and then. You probably won't get hired until March, and it may be two weeks or it may be two months, but it is a nice chunk of change and it's evenings and weekends for those folks who have that time.

[00:34:28] Raymond Mueller: Yeah, underpaid city staff, teachers... it is good money. Extra vacation. So please consider sharing that information out to your communities. In your packet of information I also did give each of you a poster that you could put up in some other organization that you're a part of that specifically talks about how to apply for those jobs.

[00:34:51] Raymond Mueller: Now, next steps. Help us to generate your community's readiness for the 2020 census. Well, your city is actually a little bit ahead of that curve, because some of the cities haven't reached out. Whereas yours did. And we are doing a meeting on Monday of your stakeholders, and anyone who would like to join us, please feel free to do so. It is being held at the library at what time? 11:00 on Monday. The 18th. Yeah.

[00:35:20] Raymond Mueller: So, and we'll do a presentation there that will be a different presentation, it will be more to the service organizations, CBOs, etc. We're helping out folks like the library system and other systems that are in the community will come out. And individuals that are interested. Work to mobilize your community to apply for those jobs. We will be needing, like I said, 3,000 people, and we want them to come from your neighborhoods, rather than for us to have to bring them in from other cities to do the work here.

[00:35:48] Raymond Mueller: It is usually better for somebody to be able to say, 'Hey, I'm your neighbor from right over there and I need to help you fill out your census,' than 'Hey, I just came in from Gilroy and I want to help you fill out your census.' Promote your census in your workplace, business and personal social media. So, there are some great little things online on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel that has some drop-in things you could put out there that are, for instance we have some celebrity endorsements.

[00:36:13] Raymond Mueller: There is a census song that is just too cute. And I wish I could put it into my slideshow, but I have not, but you can actually find it. It's part of Statistics in Schools and it's geared to the younger age, about how we all count, and it will get stuck in your head and you'll wish you hadn't, but it's cute. You should go find it.

[00:36:33] Raymond Mueller: Next, please invite census staff to your network meetings. If you have opportunities where I can stand in front of groups and talk about this I would really like to do that. Whether it's a group of people that are working together, or a group of people that are together for some other cause that this kind of cross-references with. As you know the census does impact our health care, so if you have any types of meetings on that type of thing we'd be happy to be there.

[00:36:53] Raymond Mueller: And if I can't or my staff can't, we'll bring someone in from one of the other counties as needed. We do also offer language for that. We do have here in the county currently hired a person who speaks Spanish, one who speaks Mandarin, two who speak English, but within the area we have Russian, and we have more Spanish, and we have Vietnamese, and we have Tagalog, and they're all within 30 miles so we could bring them in if we needed to, if you have a language-specific group.

[00:37:18] Raymond Mueller: I know in 2010 we actually did some Russian outreach here in the area and up on the peninsula, and we don't have that person hired here, but we do have someone in San Francisco. So. Finally, I am going to ask you as a group, as a city, to plan an event. A census kickoff of some nature in February. Or something to go along with that Statistics in Schools week in the first week of March.

[00:37:43] Raymond Mueller: Because we want to make sure that although it will be blasted out on every possible electronic media and through the press and through all the print media, we want to make sure that they hear it from their local leadership, that it's important and that you help them understand why it's important. So, I'm going to ask you to all think about that and work on that point. And finally, I'm hoping that the city will be able to pass a resolution in support of the census at a future meeting. I did provide some language for that, so that it be considered and brought before you later.

[00:38:13] Raymond Mueller: All right, I am pretty much done talking, and hope I haven't taken too much time. Are there any questions at this time? I have never had a room with no questions! There we go.

[00:38:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: No, I just want to thank you Mr. Mueller. Other, other Ray Mueller. For joining us. I've been on the Santa Clara County Steering Committee, and so we talked about this in April when it was a year out, and excited to see you here, and I thought when I saw the agenda, Census, yes! More about the Census! So I'm sure we'll take your homework and discuss as a body, but thank you so much for being here and bringing more awareness to the Census, that's what's most important. Thank you.

[00:38:59] Raymond Mueller: I did fail to mention one other thing. We do have offices already open. One of them will be in Sunnyvale and it will be covering this area. And we have one in San Jose as well, which will be covering South San Jose and the southern counties. So we do have operations offices already open. So if you have questions about that, feel free to email me, I'll be happy to get you more information on that as well. All right? Great, thank you. Last thing, I'm going to bring to your attention. This is your real homework. So this is the data you can get online by yourself by going to our data.census.gov and pulling up our ROAM tool is what it's called. I've got three of your census tracts that are actually listed in this, and the map's on the back so you can see that you've got a variety of them.

[00:39:48] Raymond Mueller: And the first one here as you can see, the response rate was about 88.3. That's pretty darn good. If you look at the second page it dropped down to about 81.1. And then finally the last one, and this is going to be one of those dark blue areas on the fourth page on the map, and the response rate there was only 63%. So you do have areas where people are not going to do that.

[00:40:16] Raymond Mueller: Now I also highlighted information lower down on that data, and you'll notice that that's also where those multi-unit housings are. So, if you have ideas on how to get into those organizations, frequently our enumerators have a problem getting past those locked doors, we would welcome any assistance with that as well. All right? But this is some information so that if you want to dig deeper into what your city is about, this is the data you go and find and it shows languages and ethnicities and etc. So. If you have any questions, again, thank you so much for your time.

Consent Calendar - Item 4.2

[00:41:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Yeah, this is the one about the reach, and I'm very supportive of everything in this particular ordinance that we're putting out, but I am concerned about some of the unintended consequences that this action may actually be counterproductive to reducing greenhouse gases. And as I see some more reports coming along, there's only one very small section that concerned me the most was cooking appliances was one of the concerns I was looking at. And how we're maybe intruding a little too much into people's lives, and also the consequence of giving the alternative of trying to produce the energy, but if you look at how that energy is produced, it goes to a natural gas generator, which is probably producing more greenhouse gases than a cooking top appliance. So, I am going to vote yes for this particular item, but we need to always look at what the scientific more information that's coming out about the implications of what we're doing, and I think we just need to be following those and review our policies as more data comes out.

[00:42:55] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I had less a comment and more just a question of staff on that item 4.2 just to confirm. So I appreciate you answering the council question I submitted on um, this is sort of looking at folks who had already had sort of plans in process, uh and were planning to submit them soon but maybe not by the end of the year and now are sort of either redoing them in order to comply with the new January 1 date or um trying to redo them to speed things up. And so one of the things I was thinking about, just looking at the single family homes and the gas connections there, with the RV ordinance I know we adopted the ordinance which I understand we need to do tonight so I'm not questioning that, but um was the delayed implementation on the RV, was that sort of baked into the ordinance or could a delayed implementation or delayed enforcement be um be sort of staff direction, or does it need to be, would it just have to be pulled out and done separately?

[00:44:03] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I can speak to that. Um, the RV ordinance, that was a change that was introduced with the introduction of the ordinance, and there was agreement by council to pick a specific, uh, staggered implementation date. Here we're at the second reading stage and it's a, it's a different posture for the ordinance. So that would be a material change which is different than the RV example.

[00:44:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Um... Okay. And then just in terms of the um, the applications that are being submitted, um, can it be, um, if someone wanted to submit something, basically they're sort of at the, at or close to the finish line now. Um, if they want to try and meet the deadline and submit things now, does it have to be 100% um...

CSFRA Amendment

[04:08:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order. And um, I'm not sure who's going to make the motion.

[04:08:56] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, and I can give some general parameters. I think it'd be easiest for uh, first for Karen and Justin to summarize the revisions that we just worked on. And then once those revisions are summarized and read into the record, the maker of the motion could begin. But we have to do this very methodically. And I would just start on page one of your staff report, the maker of the motion would go through those actions and when you get to 3A, that is the resolution that incorporates staff's changes. That's the only thing you'd have to say. But everything else you can follow the script as it's laid out in the motions. And then when you get to the voter initiated um, we don't even have to um take any action on that, but it'd be an indication that that measure is not going to be placed on the March 2020 ballot. Is that uh, does that sound good Karen?

[04:10:12] Karen: Yes. So I think um, what we'd like to do is walk through the language changes. Um, so what we are looking at is exhibit A to attachment six in your packet. Attachment six is the resolution. And exhibit A is the CSFRA amendment language. So um, the first change, let me go through many pages. Um, so the first change we would propose is uh, section 1709.B, which is on page 15. Um, this is regarding the eligibility appointment and removal of committee members. And in the second sentence of 1709.B we would propose that the language read: 'If the city council determines that it has not received adequate qualifying applications from Mountain View residents for any vacant position, then the city council may appoint an otherwise eligible person who is not a Mountain View resident to the committee so long as that person maintains an ownership or trustee interest in or manages one or more covered rental units, provided the limitation on the number of RHC members who own, manage, or manage rental property or are realtors or developers in 1709.A shall continue to apply.'

[04:11:59] Karen: Um, moving on, in 1709.C, at the end of that section regarding term of office, we would propose adding a sentence: 'The city council may adjust term start and end dates by up to six months to align with other appointments.'

[04:12:39] Justin: Okay, the next proposed change on attachment A, or excuse me uh, exhibit A to attachment six, is on page 19, in section 1710. Uh, you'll see the red line begins with 'The committee shall adopt separate procedures apart...' Uh, and we would propose adding the words 'no later than one year from the effective date of this amendment, the committee shall adopt separate procedures apart from section 1711 that are only applicable to temporary rent increases for specified capital improvements authorized by and in accordance with the provisions of section 1710 subsection E.'

[04:13:34] Karen: Yeah, um, okay, so then we're moving on to section 1710, which is a lengthy one, and we go over to page 22, uh, subsection B. We would propose changing the language to say 'significantly improves the environmental sustainability of the covered rental unit or property and does not result in a net increase in utility costs to the tenant.'

[04:14:15] Karen: Moving on, we would then propose um, on page 27, that we eliminate section 1720, which is the existing language on the operative date of the existing improvements. Section 3.1 and 3.2 will be deleted. Section 3.3 will become section 3. The title will be 'Annual General Adjustment Equal to 4%'. 1707 will be revised to say 'The annual general adjustment shall be equal to 4% to be effective September 1st, 2020.'

[04:15:15] Karen: And then we would propose revising section 6 to read as follows. The title would be changed to 'Operative Date' and the language would read 'If approved by a majority of the voters voting on this amendment, the amendment shall become operative upon the earlier of a majority vote of the city council or September 1st, 2020.'

[04:15:47] Karen: And then I think we have changes to the ballot language and changes to the resolution itself, um, with regard to the schedule. So in section 14 of the resolution, the argument deadline will change to December 6th, 2019. The rebuttal argument deadline and the city attorney's impartial analysis will both change to December 13th, 2019. Right. Um, on the third whereas clause, the language will change where we have the alternative language to say 'allow rent increases equal to a 4% flat rate'. And then I think we're hoping to have the ballot question language to show you. Excellent, yep.

[04:16:45] Justin: I can, for those of you who have the ballot, sorry the, it's not color coded but I'll just call out exactly because I only made very limited changes so you'll see in the middle there it says 'exempt mobile homes'. Um, so that added three words. And then um, I think it's v2, the handout v2, um, so you'll see... you should see 'exempt mobile homes' in there. Oh, I see. 'Clarify mobile...' Oh, it's different from what I wrote. Okay, that's fine. 'Clarify mobile homes are exempt'. Um, okay, well this is different, so I guess we should all read through this, that's okay. Um, looks like they did a better job of this than I did.

[04:17:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So sorry, is v1 what we previously saw from you? And then this is um, okay, including mobile homes.

[04:17:39] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: We just did some rearranging and um rewording of a couple things.

[04:18:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So the proposal is to go with the ballot language v2, which revises... reorders a few things and makes the change to clarify that mobile homes are exempt.

[04:18:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Well, I just want to make sure, are there any questions at all uh to anything that we've gone through?

[04:19:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, Councilmember Clark.

[04:19:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: If folks are ready I'll go ahead and make the motion and then if folks want to make comments after that they can. So um I move that we adopt a methodology to set the annual general adjustment of rent in the community stabilization and fair rent act attachment 5 to the council report. Two, that we approve the draft amendments to the community stabilization and fair rent act attachment 3 to the council report. Three, that we approve the ballot question and placement of the city initiated community stabilization and fair rent act charter amendment on the ballot for March or excuse me for um for March 2020. Um, that we um, is this where you want me to say incorporate the changes that staff-

[04:19:49] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, and I actually it would actually be to number two uh the draft amendments and um, and the ballot question as specified. So in number two, including the staff uh revisions and in number three, the uh revised ballot uh language.

[04:20:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: Got it. So so yes, so for for two we're approving the draft amendments to the community stabilization and fair rent act uh with the changes uh incorporating the changes that um staff just um went through with us. Three, approve the ballot question um incorporating the the changes that have been um that were just identified as well by staff and um and the placement of the city initiated community stabilization and fair rent act charter amendment on the ballot for March 2020, um, which includes um also adopting a resolution calling for the holding of a special municipal election on Tuesday March 3rd 2020 and requesting the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara to consolidate the special municipal election with the statewide primary election to be held on that date pursuant to um section 104, uh is that uh code um 10403 of the elections code um for the purpose of submitting to the voters a proposed charter amendment and related actions to be read in title only further reading waived attachment 6 to the council report. Direct the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis of the ballot measure. Um, determine whether the um, um, we've determined that the council will submit an argument um related to the ballot measure, um, and designate um, uh I believe it was the the vice mayor, um council... I guess we haven't determined this yet. Um... so we'll deal with that separately. Um, D, uh, determine um that we will not print the full text of the amendment um in the voter information guide um but make sure that it's available in the city clerk's office and online um and that the impartial analysis um have you know some um some information related to that. Direct the City Clerk and the City Attorney to take all necessary related actions for submitting the measure to voters on March 3rd 2020. Four, just noting that we are not taking any action tonight on the voter initiated um Mountain View homeowner renter and taxpayer protection initiative. Um, and five, appropriate $225,100 from the general operating fund reserve for the community stabilization and fair rent act amendments. And we'll need to determine the committee at some point to write the ballot um argument.

[04:22:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we have a motion by Councilmember Clark and a second by Vice Mayor Abe-Koga. Vice Mayor Abe-Koga?

[04:22:56] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh sorry, did you want to have that discussion now to determine the... ballot we should?

[04:23:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[04:23:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you.

[04:23:30] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Just to clarify, staff will have a study session regarding mobile home regulation in Q1.

[04:23:36] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. Um, and then in terms of the makeup, um, I was... I'm fine, I'm fine to be on the committee, um, continue on the committee. Uh, I think it would be great to have the subcommittee continue but I guess it's up to the other two members.

[04:24:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor. So I um, I don't want to belabor the point. I can't support this motion but if it doesn't pass then uh we can revisit the November issue. But for that reason, you know, I'm if it's helpful to have to have my input on on the crafting of of the argument, I'm happy to participate, but I just wanted to, I don't want to surprise anybody about how I'm going to vote on this on this particular motion.

[04:24:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay, so pretty much everything, um, with the exception of section 4 in the staff report, all the changes, um, and then we'll come back to um 3C. Right. Okay, um, any questions? I sort of hesitate to ask that.

[04:25:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, let's call the question.

[04:25:30] Councilmember Chris Clark: And then I'll um move that we um that the council um submit an argument related to the ballot measure and that we designate um the Vice Mayor, Councilmember Ramirez, and Councilmember Clark to write um and sign the argument um and authorize up to um can two other council members who aren't part of the committee also sign it? Um...

[04:26:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: That's right. Okay, yeah. Um, so we won't make any determination about who the signers will be but we'll determine the council wishes to submit an argument related to the ballot measure and designate the Vice Mayor, Councilmember Ramirez, and Councilmember Clark um to write that and to determine um who the the signatory should be.

[04:26:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That passes unanimously.

[04:26:58] Justin: Are we done?

8.1 Zoning Code Update

[04:28:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: All opposed?

[04:28:41] Matt Van Osten, Planning: All right, good evening Council. My name is Matt Van Osten in planning and I'm joined with Martin Alkire. Just for some background on this project, uh earlier this year council major goal for fiscal year 2019 to 2021 goal 2 was to improve the quantity, diversity and affordability of housing by providing opportunities for subsidized, middle income and ownership housing. One of the projects to receive funding through this to help achieve goal 2 was project 2.5 which was updating the City's R3 zoning code. Uh this project outlines several objectives, and those were incentivize stacked flats, study allowed densities, update design guidelines and standards in R3 zoning, and implement a form-based code to achieve desired outcomes. So just to give you an idea, uh, these are R3 properties, R3 zoned properties throughout the city of Mountain View, and uh they total about 16,500 units uh spread over 923 acres with 580 of that being rental. And their general plan density is typically up to 30...

Unknown

[05:09:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: If you could speak into the microphone.

[05:09:40] Nancy Weed: Oh, sure. Of course. Sort of. I'm not sure I can get far enough away from it. Okay. Alright, I will start over.

[05:09:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay.

[05:09:53] Nancy Weed: Alright, I'm ready to start now. Alright, I'm Nancy Weed and I live in one of these 50 Stanton Place townhomes that are at the corner of Middlefield and Linda Vista. And as you can see, the Vision Plan and Terra Bella abuts us here, and we are across the street from Stierlin Estates. The Vision Plan anticipates overflow parking problems and recommends the permit program as a solution. That will solve the parking problems for Stierlin Estate residents, however it will push the Vision Plan residents back out to fight over the Linda Vista parking, including the spots right here in front of our property.

[05:10:36] Nancy Weed: That would not be a problem if we too could qualify for the permit program, but we can't. The net effect is the Stanton Place residents will lose all their street parking on Linda Vista to the Vision Plan residents and in Stierlin Estates to their permit program. Since the program is for all residences with overflow parking from non-residents from an adjacent area, I'd hoped we too could get permit parking to prevent losing our street parking. However, we can't qualify because the impacted area must be at least 1,200 feet on city streets, and only our Linda Vista street parking is impacted and that's less than 500.

[05:11:21] Nancy Weed: Although we have two-car garages for residents, residents, like all similar properties we have limited visitor parking, so we rely upon the parking in front of our property being available for visitors, gatherings, book clubs, friends, home health aides to keep us at home as we age. This has worked really well since 1974. But if we can't protect those spaces by passing our own permit plan, and these people stop coming to our homes because they can't find reliable parking, our qualities of life will dramatically suffer.

[05:12:00] Nancy Weed: Um, I have to skip here. Although the current street length requirements tend to favor the wealthier detached home neighborhoods, in effect excluding many townhome and similar communities, I don't think that that was deliberate. I'm asking the city to recognize it may have inadvertently excluded many city communities with large numbers of homes and residents along shorter street lengths, and asking them to design requirements specifically for townhome, condo, and similar communities that include these shorter street lengths, so they too can not only apply but qualify in the future.

[05:12:40] Nancy Weed: If this does not happen, and instead the city relaxes the requirements for detached home neighborhoods, as dense housing is built throughout the city, nearby detached home residents will pass the permit programs and the parked cars will eventually be pushed onto and flood the streets of townhomes or similar communities that can't qualify. That's not fair, and access to these programs shouldn't depend on what kind of house you live in. Thank you.

[05:13:31] Albert Jeans: Yeah, fortunately somebody was going out so I tailgated in.

[05:13:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Because they should be open, shouldn't they?

[05:13:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you for letting us know. Yeah, that shouldn't be. And it usually isn't, so something must have gone wrong tonight.

[05:13:49] Albert Jeans: I'm sure they didn't expect it to go this late. My name is Albert Jeans, as you know. I'm gonna, I'm actually saying things similar to what Dennis said, although we really didn't coordinate anything. I live in Stierlin Estates which is close to San Veron Park Apartments. And this is their overflow park. So this is the problem I have right now. I live on San Lucas Avenue, which is close by, and just about every night there are cars parked in front of my house that don't belong to our residents.

[05:14:18] Albert Jeans: And so this results in, by the way, the reason is San Veron Park Apartments has 93 bedrooms and 48 spaces. And so this prevents street sweeping from happening. I've almost never had the street sweeper sweep my street here. Trash collection, I have to make sure my bins are out early so that somebody doesn't prevent me from putting them out.

[05:14:36] Albert Jeans: As you can see, I have a sedan so I can't see around this SUV and it's extremely dangerous to pull out here because people go pretty fast down San Lucas. Occasionally there's a litter problem, these people tend to just drop their McDonald's and things on the road. And I'm constantly calling to report abandoned vehicles, that is vehicles that are parked there for more than 3 days. On the other hand, we do have a...

N/A

[05:53:37] Councilmember John McAlister: We're back to the questions. Oh, great. Um, so explore the changing signature for, um, since are we also changing the, is this the petition process? Because if you're changing the, are you asking for the petition process to be changed or what is the signature required? 50%? What are you asking for here?

[05:54:34] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: We've only had one petition submitted.

[05:54:37] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay.

[05:54:57] Councilmember John McAlister: Oh, so we're not changing anything. You're just...

[05:55:18] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Yeah, it's a proposed area and then there...

[05:55:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay.

[05:55:32] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Oh, okay. Fine.

[05:55:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So eliminate block by block.

[05:55:35] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: I got it. Okay.

[05:55:36] Councilmember John McAlister: But that's the total. Okay. Uh, to reduce the required percentage of surveys returned. Um, I still...

[05:56:01] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so we got the total. Uh, making sure, yeah, because if it's, if the total percentage is smaller than the 50% of the total package. So if you have 100 homes and only 50 or 40 surveys came in and those 40 surveys were 100% for it, it would pass. But that's not the case. Okay. Uh, but I'm not sure about changing that. I still like to see everybody buy into it, and so I'm not sure about I want to reduce the percentage too much.

[05:56:35] Councilmember John McAlister: Um, three, of course, yeah, I said the CTC. Four, support lowering the permit fees, yeah, that's what I was suggesting, and I guess that's going to come back in the study.

[05:56:46] Councilmember John McAlister: And question five is, uh, increase parking enforcement. I think that's a yes. That's a part of, I know it's not on there, but you know, um, we always hear people say nobody comes in and gives tickets. Well, here's a question for the city attorney. Where does that parking ticket go to?

[05:58:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So for question one and two, um, I just wanted to state I do support eliminating the block by block for requirement for both, um, question one and two. So, um, in terms of supporting the signature requirement to 51% for the total area, I support that. And then to reduce the required percentage of surveys returned, yes. You know, I think I'm flexible in terms of the percentage. I know the Vice Mayor said 55%. I'm comfortable with whatever staff recommends, um, as long as it's a reduction. Um, for question three, um, I did like the suggestion that, um, this comes to the CTC and then back to Council on consent. I think that that would be, um, fine. Um, and then for lowering the permit fee, um, somewhere earlier in the conversation I think we talked about exploring lowering the fee as well as other kind of fiscal mechanisms to help, um, do the recoup of the total cost and I'm comfortable going in in that direction. Um, you know, I do think that some sort of fee so people have some sort of buy-in to the program is important. Um, you know, I think something else that other, um, local jurisdictions have done is, you know, you get one for like a lower cost and then if you want any additional it tiers up. So I could be interested in in that model as well, so maybe the first one's 25 and then the second one is is the 60 which is the 50%. I mean I think we can be creative, um, in that.

[05:59:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

Not specified

[05:19:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: refresh my memory thanks.

[05:19:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abe-Koga.

[05:19:14] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, this question may not be quite connected, but um, I noticed in my neighborhood just a couple of blocks from my street, there was, I don't know when it appeared, it might be new, but um, two-hour parking restrictions. And I know, maybe because we're downtown, it might be different, but these timed um restrictions, is that a separate process or?

[05:19:48] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: I'm going to answer that and Lorenzo is going to correct me if I'm wrong. Um, there are some timed parking restrictions throughout the city. There are several downtown and those were implemented in response to um resident concerns about things like transit center parking and so on.

[05:20:08] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Um, we didn't have an RPP program at that time and so it was a way to try and deal with some specific resident complaints. We kind of modeled it after the neighborhood traffic management program process, um, but we didn't have a formal process to do it. Is that accurate? Okay, yeah, so those are kind of in response to individual neighborhood concerns. There wasn't really a formal program to do it though.

[05:20:37] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: And this program, you know, if you did an RPP in that area, we would reconsider those time restrictions um in the context of having RPP because something different may be appropriate.

[05:20:49] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Then that was my question is, um, like how do you ensure consistency, um, like with this program, it's three blocks, but how do you go, how do you, I guess I'm trying to, I was actually thinking should we be looking at bigger swaths of or boundaries so that we don't have like one street that's two hours and then the next street is five hours and then another street is residential permit parking only.

[05:21:23] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So is the idea that we would eliminate those timed restrictions or change it to whatever the larger area has I guess is my question?

[05:21:34] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Within an RPP zone, we would look at the time restrictions. Um, because what we're trying to do is address the overflow parking issue, and it's different in different areas. Um, next to a mobile home park it's probably in the evening when the park residents come home and don't have enough parking on site. Downtown it might be during the day when you have transit center users coming.

[05:21:55] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: So, um, the idea is not to proscribe certain restrictions but to consider them on a case-by-case basis. Um, I think in a way the simplest thing is to have, and there was a comment from a resident today about Berkeley's program about having these nice well-defined areas with well-defined restrictions and so on.

[05:22:19] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Um, and the reason we didn't do that was we wanted to be reacting to the residents wanting the program rather than staff or even staff and council drawing maps and trying to impose it. And our experience trying to do that has been often negative.

[05:22:36] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Um, and so what we did was we tried to set, to avoid on the other hand, to avoid the street by street, right, we tried to set a minimum size so that you didn't just have one block because then police have to enforce one block, um, which is not terribly efficient.

[05:22:55] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Um, the trouble is if you do only have one block, this program doesn't satisfy your concerns. Right. And so there are a whole bunch of different objectives here and what we tried to do was put something together that seemed reasonable. And I think what we're hearing is it's not addressing some of the needs. Okay. I hope that answers your question.

[05:23:15] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, kind of, yes. I guess I still don't quite understand how it would work if we have this current street that has two hours, but let's say the street over wants permit parking. So then would you revisit the two hour zone to include that with the...

[05:23:36] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: I think the first thing we'd do is say if the two hours makes sense, then it's probably appropriate within the zone, and then it's consistent with the various streets. If based on current circumstances two hours doesn't seem appropriate, we'd probably look at that adjacent street outside the zone and try and reevaluate that.

[05:23:55] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: We would go for consistency and we would consider everything on a case-by-case basis. And if we got negative feedback about it from residents or from council or something we could adapt. But no, we would absolutely look for consistency to the extent we could.

[05:24:09] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you.

[05:24:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Councilmember McAlister.

[05:24:13] Councilmember John McAlister: Uh, I asked a question about, uh, using funds and so my question was with the, uh, employee parking permit fees could they cover the cost of the residential fee? And you said no because those fees can only be used in the downtown parking district. Why?

[05:24:40] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Um, because they're associated with the district and I think there are some legal restrictions on using those funds within the district which is separate from an RPP program.

[05:24:56] Councilmember John McAlister: So I'm looking at you but I just see that Krishan has...

unknown

[05:32:55] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. So maybe the problem is that they're not three contiguous blocks or three blocks in a row.

[05:33:05] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: I'd have to, I'd have to look at the particular circumstance.

[05:33:13] Public Speaker: For the specific townhomes is a total of 500 of the impacted street. So if it were 50 detached homes, we would probably be three blocks. But we still have to deal with being attached to that 500 feet front only when adjacent residents take all the existing parking.

[05:33:41] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, um, so is there any reason why they couldn't, um, include some other streets besides just the one in front of their units?

[05:33:51] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: No, there's no other reason as long as there's either five or three depending on the circumstances. But if it's just a 500-foot section of one block, that isn't going to qualify.

[05:34:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right. And I don't think I would look at it as across the street, across Linda Vista is a different neighborhood, it's still close by, and there's no reason why the homes there couldn't be part of the area with the permit, right? You could also go north.

[05:34:27] Public Works Director Michael Fuller: Right. What you can't do is look at it as, you know, a townhome community, their frontage probably isn't going to qualify under the program because we designed it so that you wouldn't have these relatively short segments or one-block segments. And it does require getting other streets involved.

[05:34:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right. Okay. Um, did you have more, Councilmember Hicks?

[05:34:53] Councilmember Alison Hicks: No, thanks.

[05:34:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: I was gonna start addressing the questions if we're ready. So I don't have any, um, and just to wrap that up, like it could be the frontage but you could add sort of the contiguous adjacent streets even if they're not going the same direction, you just have to add a few more segments to get to, um, basically you're having a more comprehensive sort of neighborhood approach.

[05:35:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I think I understand now. So for question one, um, I would be fine with changing the signature requirement to 51% of the total RPP area. I'd even be willing to do the Palo Alto 50 plus one, like the simple majority, if you think that's easier. But, um, whatever you're most comfortable with.

[05:35:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I'm fine with reducing the required percentage of, um, surveys returned, um, to match, um, maybe the same 51% requirement.

[05:35:59] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I am sympathetic to the sort of perceived sort of extra CTC step, but I think if we did that where like the actual review and the setting like we have tonight was at the CTC and it ended up on our consent calendar for the full council instead of having to do that whole thing twice, I think would be fine.

[05:36:20] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, because I trust the CTC, the smaller subset of folks in a forum that I think is easier to attend and easier to, uh, sort of express, you know, specific concerns to the committee on. I think that's just a better, um, just a better and easier forum and then I think as long as we're committed as a council to just having those recommendations end up on the consent calendar, it's probably, um, the most efficient way rather than bypassing the CTC and ending up, you know, in a forum like this where we have to discuss it as a full council.

[05:36:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, the, um, so the permit fee, I, um, so I, if folks think that, think that, I mean, 60 is way more than for example what, or way less than like what San Francisco charges per year. But it's also more than I think some of the other communities charge.

[05:37:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't want to set, I don't want to waive the fee or set it so low that it's, it's just, um, it's more a perfunctory thing because for me, you know, a lot of these, um, I don't want to encourage people parking on the streets. I don't want to encourage them to take the car out of the garage. I want, you know, I want there to be a cost associated with parking in a, in the public realm. Right?

[05:37:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: Because that is today, that is a public asset, it's a public resource. And I don't have issues with folks in the neighborhood utilizing that, but I don't want to make it so simple to do that that we end up with, you know, people using their garage for storage and they're parking on the public street.

[05:38:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I just think that there should be some recognition that, you know, if you're going to utilize that public asset you should be willing to pay, you know, a reasonable amount, um, per year for that permit. And so I think if we're restricting a public asset, you know...

Adjournment

[06:11:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: But if you, if it was recorded, it was just fascinating to hear um what went on. And I am sure that we will continue to improve the operations um because I don't think the public safety power shut downs are going to be ending anytime soon.

[06:12:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And we had the uh second half of the Council Appointment Review Committee meeting where we finished up all the interviews for the other boards, committees, and commissions, and then that will come to Council to review the recommendation of the CARC.

[06:12:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Uh, anyone else? Okay, so um a closed session report?

[06:12:32] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: There actually is a closed session report tonight and because of the importance of it, um the Mayor would like to make the closed session report.

[06:12:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So the closed session report this evening is that the City Council has appointed Police Chief Max Bosel as the interim City Manager by unanimous vote.

[06:12:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: The appointment shall be effective upon the retirement of City Manager Dan Rich and will continue until the hiring of a new City Manager and until the new City Manager begins employment with the City of Mountain View.

[06:13:16] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Very good. And we don't have to reconvene in the plaza for the EPC matter, we can do it right here if you like.

[06:13:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um... Actually, I think I'd rather do it in there.

[06:13:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: If that's okay. So I am going to adjourn this meeting and the next council meeting will be held on Monday, November 18th... yeah, Monday, November 18th, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers, 500 Castro Street.

[06:13:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And after a quick break we will reconvene in the Plaza Conference Room to finish the uh study session we had earlier on EPC appointments.

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