 Just a second while all our participants are led into the meeting here. It looks like they're coming in. All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for tonight's meeting of the Capital City Council. My apologies for our tardiness in getting started this evening. Before we start with our roll call and our pledge of allegiance, I'm going to turn it over to our interim city clerk Chloe for some details about how to participate in tonight's meeting. Hello. Thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me? So unfortunately, because I think this is technology and it's just the way it works. I'm not sure that we have our city clerk piped in at this point. So for information about how to participate in the meeting, you can find out on our published agenda. In addition, you can find out how to participate by going to the city's website. And there you can find information about joining the meeting by Zoom, participating through watching it on cable or phoning it. The host would like you to unmute your microphone. You can press star six to unmute. Let's get started then. And it sounds like because we're having some technical difficulties in. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I'm so sorry. I just was led in and I'd be happy to do a roll call vote whenever you'd like. Just roll call. Council Member Bertrand. Here. Council Member Bautour. Here. Council Member Story. Here. Vice Mayor Brooks. Wonderful. And Mayor Peterson. Here. Thank you. Let's go ahead and move forward with the Pledge of Allegiance. No. All right. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, unto God, and the soul of liberty and justice for all. Great. Thank you so much. Can we move forward with the report on closed session? Yes. We had closed session on the item on the closed session agenda and no action was taken. Thank you. Do we have any additional materials? No. Thank you. We had two emails in support of a beach closure regarding item 8A. One email in favor of item 8D and 94 notes against that item. And for item 8F, there was one supporting document. Great. Thank you. Are there any additions or deletions to tonight's agenda? We're going to move on now to public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to address the council on any items that are not on tonight's agenda. So if you have joined us this evening to comment on any items that are on tonight's agenda, you will speak to those items when we get to them. But for now it's public comment for any items not on the agenda. I'm going to go to the attendees and take a look. And I'm also going to turn it over to our moderator, Larry. Can you hear me now? Okay, great. I do not see any hands up and I do not see any items via email for public comment. Great. I do not either. So with that, we will close public comment and move forward with city council and staff comments. And we'll start with staff. Does staff have any comments this evening? I don't think we do. I think we're running late and we need to keep moving. All right. Council, council members. And I see a hand up by Mayor Brooks. Thank you, Mayor Peterson. I just want to move into the election period. This is my third time requesting a process on our. As we know, we make that and I've asked for it a couple of times and looking at that and bringing that back. And then also I just want to touch on the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet again, we have seen another life taken. And I just want to acknowledge that I'm sure Mayor Peterson will talk about this about an upcoming community forum that she will be leading. Also, I just want to thank Joy Flynn, who has been an outstanding leader in our community in supporting the cause and inspiring others to practice anti-racism. And I also wanted to just acknowledge a speaker at the Black Lives Matter movement. And I also want to thank our, in March, the last month, Bakari Broadnest, who was an incredible speaker who is from Capitola and who is really leading the charge on anti-racism here in Capitola. Thank you. That's all I have. Great. Thank you. I see Council Member Bertrand has a hand up also. I do. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to thank the public safety personnel in Santa Cruz and supporting agencies around the state of California. And I thank the nation also, the firefighters in particular, and the police department and the various Sheriff's, members of the Sheriff's Department. They provide a lot of assistance to the residents that have, in many cases, lost their homes and are quite dire straits. So, with that, I'm also like Chief McLean is to, well, he may comment upon this later, but I believe we've had some of our personnel from our police department also give aid. So thank you for that participation. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bertrand. No additional comments from any other Council Member? Okay. I've just got a couple and I'll try to be brief because I know we're running behind. I want to first echo what Council Member Bertrand said in thanking the fire and law enforcement personnel that are out there for very long shifts, 12 to 24 hour shifts at a time to put out the fires to protect the homes of those who've been evacuated. I want to send my heart and my thoughts out to those who have been evacuated. These are very difficult times. And thank you so much as mentioned to all of those addressing this issue, but also to our own capital of PD that is providing additional service as well as our fire. I'd also like to remind for anyone who's listening from out of the area that the county has asked that visitors, tourists and summer renters return to their home counties right now so that we can allow space for evacuees in our hotels and vacation rentals. This is incredibly important. There are so many people out of their homes right now and we need to keep as many of our vacation rentals in hotel rooms as possible open for those who otherwise do not have a home at this time. Third, as Vice Mayor Brooks mentioned on September, Wednesday, September 2nd from 6 to 730 will be the first of four monthly conversations about racial justice and equity in Capitola. These conversations were suggested by Joy Flynn as Vice Mayor Brooks suggested and several of our community members have come together to put this together. So if you're interested in participating, the link has been shared on Nextdoor. It's on my Facebook page. If you're interested in participating, please feel free to email me. My email is on the City webpage and I can provide you with the link to register. Fourth, August 31st is Overdose Awareness Day and on August 31st there will be an editorial and op-ed in the paper that I have signed on to along with Mayor Justin Cummings and Santa Cruz and others to really draw focus to the stigma of substance abuse that prevents many from seeking treatment. So that's something that we need to address as a community. And then finally, I received word a couple weeks ago of the passing of a Capitola resident, Emile Edgren. Emile Edgren was a photojournalist documenting the events of World War II and was a member of the U.S. Army Pictorial Service for four and a half years. He was a contracted photojournalist for international news photos, the Associated Press and Unlimited Press International. Emile lived to be 100 years old and has survived by his wife Lucy, his sons Robert and David, and his granddaughters, Kristen and Renee. So I'd like to acknowledge his passing of a 100-year-old Capitola resident who is well known and loved by many and convened to nice meetings in his honor and to send my thoughts and love to his family. So with that, we will move along to our consent calendar. These are items that will be enacted by one motion in the form listed on the agenda, and there will be no separate discussion on the items prior to the council vote unless a member of the city council requests specific items be discussed for a separate review. Is there any member of the council that would like to pull an item for separate review? Seeing none, do we have any member of the public that would like to pull an item from consent calendar for separate review? I don't see any hands and we don't have any emails with us in that. Great. I'll move the consent calendar. All second. All right, motion by council member Story, second by council member Botwork. Can we have a roll call vote please? Yes, council member Bertrand. Aye. Council member Botwork. Aye. Council member Story. Aye. Vice mayor Brooks. Aye. Mayor Peterson. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to move on to the business of the evening, starting with item 8a, receive an update on the city's pandemic response. Right. Mayor council. Second here, I am pulling up the slideshow. All right. That's showing up on people's screens. Great. So this is, I think, maybe the eighth update, ninth update we've done now on the COVID situation in Santa Cruz County. Our total case numbers are up to 1700. You can see the epidemiological curve there on the screen, which shows that we did see a spike in cases and probably mid to late July. The trend does seem to be that the case numbers are coming back down, which is great news. In addition, we're at 45 cases in capitol at this time. This is, if you haven't looked at it before, this is the indicators website page on the website, which shows the different indicators that the state looks as they consider whether a county is going on or off a monitoring list. The two indicators that we hit previously, which put us on a monitoring list with the total number of cases in 14 days, the cumulative number, and we remain over that indicator. And then in addition, it's with the number, and you can see it here, the percentage of cases that come back positive, and there's a threshold of 8%. So when more than 8% of your cases are coming back positive, that's a sign that it's more prevalent in the community. We have since gone back under that threshold, and we'll talk a little bit more about the monitoring list. And then these are the other indicators as well that attract when evaluating how we're doing. Statewide, you can see that there was also that case statewide, the spike in mid to late July. Case numbers statewide do seem to be coming back down. In addition, the deaths have been slightly trending lower. In general, it seems that the death rate seems to trail the cases by about a month, in my experience, when you look at these things over time. In general, Santa Cruz County remains one of the better counties in terms of the number of cases per capita. You can see there's only a few counties in the state of California with lower cases per capita than Santa Cruz County. This chart also shows that we're just about 20 days behind in terms of the per capita rate, the Santa Clara race. As I mentioned before, the 42 cases in Capitola that we were put on to the statewide monitoring list on July 27th. And then on the 14th, we came off the monitoring list. And the requirement from the state is that you have to remain off the monitoring list for 14 days before the restrictions will lift. That will be coming up tomorrow. The state has not published guidelines yet about what it exactly means to come off the list. So we're all very actively checking the state's website and communicating with them to try to get guidance about what's going to start happening as of this weekend. So the city issued an emergency order on August 6th that makes it an infraction rather than a misdemeanor for a violation of the countywide mask order. It gives our police department another enforcement tool that can be used to help ensure and gain compliance with the mask rules. The other jurisdictions in the county have done something very similar, created administrative citations. This essentially creates an option to issue $100 ticket rather than a full misdemeanor for a violation of the mask order. And on your agenda this evening is a resolution to ratify that emergency order should the council wish to do so. As has been widely reported in the press that earlier this month the county board of supervisors and the city of Santa Cruz have voted to close their beaches on Labor Day weekend. The closures would take effect for all three days over the weekend. The beach would, the ocean would remain open during the closure. And the orders that the city of Santa Cruz and the county have passed do open the sand from 4 to 8pm on both Saturday and Sunday late afternoon. We have prepared the exact same closure for the Capital City Council to consider. And if the council so chooses Director of Emergency Services that would be me. I will issue our sixth emergency order related to this and there's a resolution to ratify that order in your packet tonight. At this point most city facilities are open. We do require social distancing to have protocols to ensure that the public and staff members are protected. The closed facilities at this point are the community center, the historic museum, and then we have closed parking as council is aware for outdoor dining. So with that I'm available for questions. Thank you. Looks like Vice Mayor Brooks has her hand up and then I saw council member story. Thank you Mayor Peterson. I just have two questions. This is for our city manager. Do we anticipate seeing any other closures at this point? So I think if you're asking about closures for the beach, at this point there's been no regional discussions about any closures beyond Labor Day weekend. If we're talking about the businesses and economics, I really just don't know what will happen with both the virus and the orders from the state or the local health officer. The second question is in regards to the fines associated with the mask. Is there any way to restrict those dollars for other uses in the city like our community grants program or our dedicated children's fund or this CIA? Is that something we are able to do? So I think the technical answer is no, not really. The administrative citations would come in and they are their general fund. Restricted funds are usually for our associated voter approved tax measures and the voters essentially restrict them. The council certainly has the ability, you have the power of the budget and you can appropriate the funds however you seek it. Okay, and Samantha, if you have a different take on that, then I miss reading that or answered incorrectly, please chime in. That's correct. I mean the money on going to the general fund and the council directs expenditures from the general fund. So it just goes into one pot of money, but as to the technical answer, absolutely. We can't very well use it to create a separate fund, but we can make whatever expenditures the council directs from the general fund. Okay, thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you. Council Member Story? Yes, thank you, Mayor. My question goes to the proposed order on page 120 of the packet. And I'm just wondering what the difference really is between an administrative citation and an infraction and say being to carry the exact same monetary penalty. So that was my question. I'm hoping the city attorney can chime in. I think the question, as I understand it, are you asking between what it was before this order and what it is after? As I read the order, it says that it's based on the, for the math, lack of a math for the following penalties, depending on the determination of the issuing officer, which would be, A, an administrative citation, which then carries the fine and the following amounts, $100, $200, $500. So it seems to be an option by the issuing officer, but I'm just, I don't see a distinction between those two in terms of what the penalties are, and so why it would matter. I am going to lean on our city attorney on this. Sorry, I was unmuting myself. I'm looking at your meeting codes now, but for practical purposes, there may not be much difference. If the chief is on the call, perhaps he could step in and help here, too. But I'm looking at your meeting code, it could be, and I am no criminal law attorney, it could be that one is the criminal enforcement mechanism and one is the law enforcement mechanism. But I will, if you want to continue, I will look that up in your meeting codes right now. I had Mayor Peterson, Council, good evening, if I may, and I think we all understand this, the biggest difference between the previous citations of the health violations is it was a criminal citation. Neither an administrative site or an infraction are a criminal citation, so that's a clear difference that is probably beneficial to our officers and the public who feel uncomfortable going forward with enforcement. But our city attorney is correct for our purposes. There's virtually no difference between administrative site and infraction, and in fact the officers will be issuing infractions for violations. Some departments and cities have administrative citation programs in place to process an administrative site in a circumstance similar to this, which would introduce a level of appeal within the city. The only administrative citation program we currently have in process are the citations related to the animal violations. And so for the purposes of this violation, this meaning of violation, we will be issuing infractions for those people who are violating the code. Hope that answers your question. Thank you, Chief. Does that answer your question, Council Member Story? Well, I guess what I'm hearing is that the issuing officer will only be issuing infractions. So I'm going to share why it has that dual language seems to be a moot point, but I don't think that the overdrive is the order. But thanks for that explanation. Council Member Bertrand, you have your hand up. Is that for this item or for the previous item? Let's see the previous. I'll take it down. All right. I just have a question about the beach closures. It looks like they're indicating it will be closed 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Saturday and Sunday, where it will be open from 4 to 8. Does that mean it closes again at 8? And what is the reasoning behind not just closing it down altogether for the three days? No, you're correct is that it does close again at 8 o'clock at night on Saturday and Sunday nights. The reasoning behind it, because if this went ultimately to the county Santa Cruz first or the first one to approve it, my understanding was that there was some desire by the Board of Supervisors to have a degree of access for the community. This is really intended to dissuade people to travel here from far away, but they wanted to be able to allow the community to still get onto the sand at some point of the weekend. So it was a bit of a compromise is my understanding. Okay. And are we prepared for enforcement? We are prepared for enforcement. The Chief and I have had extensive conversations about it. I think we detailed some of those things in the staff report. We are prepared to get some digital message boards up beforehand to let people know about the closures coming and then when it is closed, that it is closed. They're not cheap to wrap, but it seems like it's worth two one week rentals to put on Park Avenue and Bay Avenue to help get the message out there. In addition, we're prepared to utilize extra help because our experiences is that we need to have staff present on the beach. Otherwise, the closure doesn't work. And then lastly, I would note the difference between this closure and what we had previously as the beach isn't open in the morning, which was really one of the huge challenges with enforcing it was we had to clear the beach, which is a big task to get everybody off the beach once they've already been on all morning. So in this case, we'll have staff officers or first alarm or someone there right from the beginning to make sure no one gets on the beach to begin with. Correct. Any additional questions from Council doesn't look like it. So with that, we will bring this item to public comment. Now we'll turn it over to Larry, our moderator, to let us know if there's any public comment on this item. Thank you, Mayor Peterson. I do not see any hands raised at this time. And we have no emails on this item. Okay. With that, we will close public comment. And I will bring it back to council for discussion and to vote. I have moved the recommended actions for item 8a. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Oh, let me go back to the panelists. Any further discussion from anyone on this? I see Council Member Bauchwerk has his hand up. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Brooks, if it suits you, I'm a little uncomfortable with the concept of the beach being open from 4 to 8, making it feel like that's going to prevent people from coming and utilizing the beach. I would like to make a friendly amendment that that window will be closed from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. So Vice Mayor Brooks, I think we're looking to see if you're accepting that friendly amendment. Council Member Bauchwerk, do you think it's from 6 to 8? Is that correct? Closing the beach. The beach would only be open for local people from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Can you tell me a little bit about why this is... I'm looking at the numbers that the city manager put up and it feels like we're trending in the right direction. And I think we can all look at the July numbers and see that we lost a little control there. I realize that it's awkward to close the beach, but I feel like the 4 o'clock window would still allow people to come and I don't believe it's going to prevent the over the hill access as we think. I think that the citizens of Capitola, which I'm mostly concerned about, they lost some access to the beach, but they don't want an infusion of people from over the hill. I believe if we allowed in that window from 6 to 8 p.m., we would be doing something that goes along with the fundamental beliefs. I believe that citizens of Capitola are looking forward to, especially on this weekend, when we're so close to continuing the trend of reducing our numbers. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bauchwerk. I'll go ahead and accept your friendly amendment. And I think the second was... Was that Council Member Bauchwerk? I'll accept it. Madam Mayor, I'll accept the amendment. That was Bertrand. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion and a second as amended. Any additional comments from Council? Seeing none, can we have a roll call vote, please? Yes, Council Member Bertrand. Aye. Council Member Bauchwerk. Aye. Council Member Story. Aye. Vice Mayor Brooks. Aye. Mayor Peterson. Aye. Thank you. Carries unanimously. We're going to move on to Item 8B, Discussion of the Lighting of the Village Palm Trees. I'll turn it over to staff. And Council Member Bauchwerk, you still have your hand up. If you could go ahead and take it down just so that when we come back to comment, I'll know who's... I was trying. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Public Works Director Jethberg here, trying to get my PowerPoint running. And there you go. Item behind it, the forest tonight is kind of a continued conversation of the village tree lights that are in the village right now. Some quick background. This will be the fourth time we've discussed this item at the City Council meeting. It all started back in 2018 when we hung the holiday lights provided by the BIA at that time, which were a rope light, a bright white LED light, a significant amount of community input was received. And we started having hearings that February of 2019 to decide whether to keep on what to do. In 2019, which is the most recent hearing we've had before the Council, the Council directed at that time an ad hoc committee, a palm tree lighting committee that had been put together to develop a plan to transition existing rope lights from palm trees to low voltage LED lights. That plan was due in March and it was actually submitted in March by the committee. But at that time was right when we went into the COVID-19 pandemic and we delayed consideration of that plan at that time. We were new to how the Council meetings were going to run and decided to continue it. Obviously, the pandemic has continued and so we are not having this hearing through Zoom. Anyway, getting back to the plan, the committee ad hoc committee plan had included hiring a firm to place low LED warm lights that cost of $14,000, plus some additional maintenance costs over the years on the palm trees. As part of the proposal, the committee had secured $11,000 in donations toward the project and requested assistance from the city of $6,000. Unfortunately, since March and with the COVID, those commitments that the committee had gotten have now been reduced to $3,000. And the committee effectively has withdrawn their proposal to move forward. So, aside we've seen before, the lights, rope lights you can see are the bright light and this was a trial with the Christmas light installer had installed on one of the palm trees. So you can see the difference between the two lights. The proposal was to go to these warm twinkling lights on all the trees. So without a budget at this point in the constraints on both the city budget, the BIA budget and other resources, the lighting plan as proposed is no longer practical. Really, then it doesn't give a lot of options. The two most practical options for the council to consider at this time are to keep the existing lights in place. Public works does have a store of the white light rope lights up at the corp yard from when they originally purchased. We could replace those strands that are not operating. The only other option that seems feasible at this point would be to remove all the lights at this time. That is my report and I'd be happy to answer any questions. All right. Are there any questions? Thank you, Steve. Are there any questions? I'm not seeing any questions. Seeing no questions, we will bring it to public comments on this item and I'll send it to our moderator. Looks like we have it. Oh, yes. I see a hand. Okay. Sorry. I will allow to talk. Karen. Good evening, everyone. Well, here we are again. I think really in a nutshell what I have to say is that things are in a very unusual state in the village. A lot of businesses are struggling. Some of the people who were on the committee and working going to work with the people who are going to put up the new lights aren't even in business any longer. The hoopla over the light does seem to have died down other than we're getting some comments about why can't the city, you know, make the repairs to the light. But I think it's become less of a inflammatory issue in the village. But the bottom line is if you take the lights down, the village will be dark. There's a lot of dark storefront. It makes it very challenging for businesses who may have a big empty dark space next to their business and may have only one street light somewhere on their block. So I would really hope that the city wouldn't wouldn't choose to take the lights down at this point. I don't know whether all the council members know, but we do have the city. The BIA has taken over the contract to clean the sidewalks, which we felt was the most important thing for our visitors and our residents who walk in the village all the time is to have the sidewalks clean. I know this is something that, you know, a long time ago we had the city had hoped the BIA would take over. We could never have the finances to do it. But now we're going to pour all of our village enhancement money into keeping the sidewalks clean. So that's the main reason why we have no budget to put any lights up. So if you take the lights down, the village will be dark for Christmas. So we're hoping that you won't be a grinch and you'll let us have our lights for Christmas. Thank you. Thank you. Looks like we have another hand up Larry. Yes. Rodney, you ready to talk? Yes. This is Rodney with Capitol Candy Company. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. So I think we can all agree that the lights make our village safer. All the restaurant employees that leave later have all agreed, have all complimented. I understand people's personal opinions of the lights have gotten in the way. And I think we need to put that all aside for now. It's all about what's best for our entire village and not our personal opinions. The lights have created safety. They've enhanced our quaint little village with a little nighttime sparkle. There's nothing against going with the yellow lights at this point. We all agree that if everybody will agree on the yellow lights, we're fine with it. But at this point, we have no budget for it. So to take away the lights at this point is ridiculous. It's unreasonable and unfair to us merchants. And I hope that everybody will put that personal opinion aside and think about the village in full for now. And hopefully in the future, we can afford to replace them and try out the yellow lights that the people that have been against the white lights will enjoy. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Larry, I'll turn it back over to you. I don't see anyone else's hands up, but I don't know if we have anyone on the phone or any email. I do not see any more hands up and I do not see any email. Okay. All right, with that, we will close public comment for this item. Bring it back to council. I see the council member bought to our and then council member Bertrand have their hands up. Thank you, Mary. I this issue has been with us going on. I'm going to take two and a half years. And what bothers me the most about it was that there seemed to be progress on this that saw due to lack of financing to replace the new life. What was clear in the beginning was that when when the city gave the VA the option to provide life, it was always like that were recommended or faithful. And when the change was made and the new lights were installed, it was a surprise to everybody. And that's what started this process. And what ended up coming out of that is that the lights were going to come down. And but there was going to be a committee and they were going to come up with a program. And that was going to be resolved and that wasn't resolved when it was supposed to be in October. It was pushed because of the holidays to say, let's just decide this in March. And then we all know that in March, COVID came and everything changed. But what happens is it becomes like any other program in the village that, you know, it was not followed through life. And what's happened now is that the lights have come into disarray. They have become the responsibility of the city, which is not the intent. And that's why it was supposed to be taken over to be a program by the VA. Because what we did when we passed COT tax was we made an allocation to fund the VA with $30,000 annually at their discretion with only a minor consideration that they re-invest some of the money into those enhancement. And even though we know that the COT numbers are down, they're probably still going to be coming in at approximately 15%. This is a fund that although one year or maybe a year and a half, they may show a slightly different revenue, this is an ongoing budget revenue that the BIA has for village enhancement. And I believe that there was a lot of procrastination about getting the lights done. And I believe that the way we get new lights put up that date with the appeal to the residents, the bill of merchants, everybody in the city is to take down the existing lights because they're not the ones that people want there. Put our heads together, get a program to go. The revenue will continue to come in and if the BIA will be motivated to get the new lights up ASAC, because if we allow these lights to linger, they become a burden and responsibility for the city. It's already being proposed that the city is going to come and hang the lights and make sure we care. And I think this program needs to be separate. That was the intent of giving that funding to the BIA. That was never the intent for the BIA screen sidewalk. That is our responsibility. We took that off the table because of our, we took about $2.7 million off the table because of COVID. I think the BIA should have been focused on getting the lights on because that was the priority. They opted to use the money for sidewalks because they don't understand. I believe this city has been very generous with the BIA because of COVID. We released 49 parking places and a revenue of approximately $2,000 per spot for six months, which is of over $100,000 worth of lost revenue to help them open business. We waived all fees for encroachment and for permits. I just think the BIA needs to follow through on the lights and make it a priority. And by taking the lights down, that will make them actually make it a priority and get it done. So with that, I'm going to make a motion to do as we said back in October of 2019. And that is to remove the lights until a new program is created. That's my motion. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay, hearing that motion dies for lack of a second. We'll continue conversation. I see Council Member Bertrand has a hand up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the merchants stepping forward to clean the sidewalks. I think that shows pride in the area for their doing business and will reflect well on the visitors to come here and see clean sidewalks. I think that's very critical for the merchants area. I'd like this issue to cease right now. So I'd like to make a motion that we accept option one. I move option one. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second discussion continues. Was that the end of your comments, Council Member Bertrand? I'm going to lower. I'm sorry? Yeah. Okay. Any additional comments from Council Members? Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Yes, Council Member Bertrand. Aye. Council Member Botsworth. No. Council Member Story. Aye. Vice Mayor Brooks. Aye. Vice Mayor Peterson. Aye. Motion carries four to one. All right. We're going to move on to Item 8C, BIA amended budget. May I enter, Jack? Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Mayor, before you begin this item, as I did before, I recused myself since I'm subject to this assessment. And therefore, I have a conflict, so I'm going to step out of this meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Story. We'll let you know when we're ready to have you come back. All right. Thanks, Chair, my screen with everyone. As we mentioned, this is the Capital of Village and Work Business Improvement Area Assessments for Fiscal Year 2021. By way of background, as you're all aware, in June of 2005, the BIA was formed. It was a business-based, often closed assessment district in which the assessments are paid by the businesses within the boundaries of the district for improvements and activities that support those businesses. And the assessment amounts are determined by business classification and number of full-time co-led employees. Businesses may make in-loop payments in the form of gift certificates for use of the BIA. And this year, only hotels, motels, and ends have the ability to issue the in-loop payments. And so public hearing is required under California State Law of Armed Municipal Code, and the BIA submits an annual plan and a budget for council approval for consideration and approval, which was actually done on June 25 of this year. We conducted a public hearing, and the annual assessments were approved at 25% less than the previous year and the impacts of COVID-19. The BIA is now requesting to utilize a portion of their existing fund balance that they built up over the last four or five years and reduce assessments to 50% of the prior year amounts. Should we note that there's no fiscal impact if this is approved? All services provided by the city are reimbursed by the BIA. And just as a reminder, the BIA budget, as previously mentioned, does include the restricted TOT. They get 50% of the restricted TOT that goes to local business groups. And for fiscal year 2021, as of right now, our budget is about 14,500 of restricted TOT revenue going to the BIA. I think they used a little bit of that for establishment of the outside dining, and as Karen mentioned earlier, the rest at this point is programmed into the sidewalk cleaning. So this is what the assessments looked like by business category and number of employees at 75% of what they were the prior year. If approved, then we reduced them to 50%. It basically is 2 thirds of those members up there, and we'll change to the amounts listed on the screen. The next recommendation is to conduct a public hearing this evening and adopt the proposed resolution, letting the revised fiscal year 2021 BIA assessments and accepting the revised budget. With that, I am available for questions. And I believe, as you all know, Karam is on the line, and I believe there's a few other members of the BIA that are also available for questions. Great. Thank you. Council members, do we have any questions? I don't see any hands up. So with that, we will go to public comment, and I'll turn it over to Larry. It looks like we have at least one hand up. Yes, I've got Karam. She can speak. Hi again. I think our treasurer, Devin, is also here available to answer any questions. It's pretty straightforward. Just a little further reduction. Clearly, we don't know what's coming next. We don't know. There's just so much uncertainty that we felt that the better option is to have the least additional impact on our members this year if possible. And the budget looks like it can handle that, and then we assume that next year we'll go back to the full assessment. But I'm here for any questions, and I think Devin is here as well. Thank you. Mr. Karam. Devin, you can talk if you want. Okay. Hi, I just wanted to make sure this is Devin. I own Capitola Reef, and I'm a board member and treasurer of the BIA. Just a couple of things I wanted to say real quick. In regards to the lowering of the assessment, it really is not going to have any fiscal impact on our budget because when COVID happened, we, you know, it took away almost an entire quarter of marketing that we normally would have used to market the village towards the oncoming summer. And also, so anyway, so it left us with more of a rollover amount than we've had in previous years. So actually, I think we're going to be able to spend more money on village enhancement and more money in other areas than we even have in the past, even though we're having that lowering of dues. So I'm just asking for the City Council to look at that and understand why we want to go in that direction. And if you have any questions, please feel free. Thank you, Devin. All right. Larry, do we, I don't see any other hands up. Do we have any emails or anyone on the phone? I do not see anybody and I do not see any emails on this item. Okay. All right. With that, we will close public comment on this item and bring it back to Council for discussion and to vote. Recommended action for item 80. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Brooks. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Council Member Bertrand. Panelist. Someone has their hand up. Oh, Jacques, was that it? You just put your hand up just a second. Correct. Okay. All right. Well, we have a motion and a second. Can I have a roll call vote, please? Aye. Council Member Batur. No. Council Member Story. Oh, Council Member Story. He's recused. I apologize. Vice Mayor Brooks. Aye. And Mayor Peterson. Aye. Motion carries three to one. And if we can get Council Member Story back with us. Welcome back. All right. We're going to move along to item 8D, an amendment to the inclusionary housing ordinance. And I'll turn it over to staff. Okay. Good evening, Mayor Peterson and Council. Just a quick technology check. Can you see my presentation on the screen and hear my voice? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. This evening we'll be discussing the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and policy questions related to updating the ordinance. So I'm first going to give you an overview of what affordable housing is. Then we'll go into exactly what our inclusionary housing ordinance includes. And then we'll discuss six policy items that we would like directions from the council on this evening. Affordable housing means housing that is deed restricted and residents must qualify to purchase a rent based on income levels. Under an IHO, inclusionary housing ordinance is referred to as an IHO. The affordable housing cost is typically based on the household's ability to make monthly payments necessary to obtain housing. For sale housing is considered affordable when a household pays no more than 35% of its gross monthly income for housing, including utilities. Area median income is another term you'll hear me say frequently. And we're talking about our IHO update. Area median income is the average income for a defined geographical area. Santa Cruz County, area median income, also known as AMI, per household size increased this year. This slide shows the current AMI per household size in Santa Cruz. The HCG lifts out households up to eight persons for simplicity in my slides. I'm just going up to four. They're not too busy. But what you're seeing on the slide is the Santa Cruz County AMI, so area median income, the average income. On this previous slide, it shows the AMI for Santa Cruz County. This term is frequently used in talking about affordable housing. There are different levels of income related to the area median income. Extremely low, very low, low and moderate income levels are based on percentages of AMI. These categories of income are set by the state and utilized to send rental rates and listing prices for affordable housing units. The categories are also utilized in identifying our regional housing needs assessment, RENA numbers that are issued to us through AMBAG. Now I'd like to explain the demand for affordable housing in Capitola. This table is from the city's housing element. The housing element is a required chapter of our general plan, which must be updated on a regular basis. The next housing element update will occur in 2023. This table is from the most recent 2015 to 2022 update. HUD released this data every five years, and this slide shows data from 2011. The income categories are listed on the far left column, and the number of households within each income category is in the center column. It is a good indicator of the demand of affordable housing in Capitola. In 2011, 58% of households were in income categories below moderate income levels. In 2019, these numbers were updated. So this is within our current general plan. This data represents the 2012 to 2016 data that is available. As you can see, the demand for affordable housing is still high with 43% of households below moderate income, but the demand has decreased from the 2011 data. So what is an inclusionary housing ordinance? An inclusionary housing ordinance is a local policy that either requires or encourages housing developers to include dedicated affordable housing as a component of any residential development. And IHO, your inclusionary housing ordinance, is one of the strongest tools available to cities for implementing affordable housing policies and creating new affordable units. Within the cities of Capitola, where our IHO is located in Chapter 18.02, it was originally adopted in 2004. The city's IHO was last updated in 2013, and now is a good time for the ordinance to be updated again as it's been seven years since we've done a thorough update of our IHO. Capitola's inclusionary housing ordinance applies to all development projects with either an addition of 50% or more of existing floor area, one or more new residential units, or condominium conversions. In the table, you can see the requirements for the different thresholds. Structural additions of 50% or more are required to pay an in-loop fee of $2.50 per square foot. New single-family homes and developments between one and six new residential units are required to pay an in-loop fee of $10 a square foot. Developments with seven or more units are required to deed restrict one out of every seven units or 15% of the units as a deed restricted affordable unit. The remainder, there's a remainder such as if there were eight units, so one last unit would have to pay an in-loop fee at $10 per square foot. Lastly, new residential units are required to pay an in-loop fee of $6 a square foot. The city has 402 affordable housing units. There are 12 inclusionary units that were required by the IHL. Also, we have 166 affordable apartments in which over a hundred are located at the Bay Avenue senior apartments across from Nob Hill. There are six units owned by Habitat for Humanity and not governed under the city. Also, 218 affordable mobile homes. Of the 12 inclusionary units, eight are located within the Capitola Beach Villas, two in Heritage Lane, one in Pearson Court, and the newest unit is located in TerraCorp behind Osh. Now that I've given you an overview of affordable housing and the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and the city's inventory of affordable units, I'm going to dive into policy questions which we have prepared for your discussion tonight. I plan to present the six policy questions, and once I've gone through each of the policy questions, I'll bring up this slide again. At that time, we'll move forward with questions from the Council prior to opening the public hearing, and then I'll, after the public hearing, when the Council is giving direction, I'll pull up this slide once more so that you have a summary in front of you and we'll get direction on each of the policy questions individually. Now let's jump into the first policy item. The first policy item, staff is asking City Council, should the city maintain the existing required percentages of affordable units at 15%? In general, inclusionary housing ordinances require a specific percentage of units in a new housing development to be affordable to a specific income level. You may recall this table from a previous slide. This table shows the thresholds and requirements of the IHO. When the development comes into the city with seven or more residential units, the IHO requires 15% of the new units to be feed restricted as affordable units. This table summarizes the on-site affordable housing production requirements from other local jurisdictions. I just want to make it clear that this is not the on-site requirements. It's not including all of their requirements for NLUCIs and otherwise. The City of Watsonville, as you can see, Gola, Scotts Valley, and the County of Santa Cruz all have the 15% requirement. The City of Watsonville requires 15% for seven to 50 units then increases the requirement to 20% for developments with more than 50 units. The City of Santa Cruz requires developments with five or more units to provide 20% of the new units as affordable units. Staff is asking Councils, should the city maintain the existing required percentage of the units at 15% and our recommendation this evening is to maintain the 15% inclusionary requirement. Now we'll go into policy number two. Should development of rental units be exempt from the IHO? Here again is the table which summarizes the city of Capitola's IHO. For this policy item, we are asking should development of rental units be exempt from the IHO? The City of Capitola currently requires rental housing development to pay an in-loop fee of $6 per square foot. The application of affordable housing requirements and in-loop fees for new rental housing development differ by jurisdiction, as shown in this table. Scotts Valley does not require, does not have a requirement. The County of Santa Cruz charges an in-loop fee of $2 per square foot and the City of Santa Cruz and Watsonville requires that 20% of new rental units be rented at affordable levels. Rental housing is generally one of the more affordable types of housing. Unfortunately, in our region, new rental units are already, are not being produced fast enough to keep up with the regional demand, in part because the market rents often do not produce enough return on investment to make development of new rental units appealing to most developers. Based on these factors, it may make sense to encourage more rental units by reducing the in-loop fee on most rental housing projects. This evening, staff is asking if development of rental units should be exempt from the IHO. If the City Council desires to continue requiring affordable housing production or the payment of in-loop fees in conjunction with new residential housing development, the IHO would need to be readopted into the municipal code, into the zoning code rather than Title 18. To comply with AB 1505, the 2017 law that authorizes inclusionary requirements to be imposed on new rental housing development projects. The zoning code update would also likely trigger a local coastal plan amendment before taking effect in portions of the city within the coastal zone. This option is shown as option one of maintaining the in-loop fee for rental units and then we also update our zoning code. Option two is to remove the in-loop fees for rental units. If this direction is taken and updates to the zoning code, it's not necessary. Within policy item number two, staff is recommending that we remove the in-loop fees for rental units to keep costs lower for producing rental units. For policy item number three, the question is, what should the city require of developers of large additions to existing homes and smaller developments that contain two to six units? Again, I have the table up on the slide. The city of Capitola currently requires additions of existing single-family residents that increase their existing floor area by more than 50% and developments with two to six new units to pay in affordable housing and in-loop fees. The in-loop fee is less for additions at $2.50 a square foot and compared to $10 a square foot for an entire new unit. The application of in-loop fees to developments with two to six units is the standard in the county of Santa Cruz, but the application of in-loop fees for new single-family development with only one unit or in addition to a single-family home differ by jurisdictions as shown in this table. The column outlined in orange shows the requirement for development for one for sale unit. The city of Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley do not have an in-loop requirement for one single unit. Both Watsonville and the county have an in-loop fee. In terms of additions, only the county requires an in-loop fee for an addition along with Capitola. In addition to the AB 1600 mitigation fee act, cities may charge impact fees to new developments that offset the impact's new development cause on public services. To comply with the mitigation fee act and the taking clause of the U.S. Constitution, there must be an essential nexus between the development and the impact that the fee seeks to mitigate the development fee must be roughly proportional to the development's impact. Before adopting an impact fee on development, the city must complete an exit study to determine what impact the development has on the city's affordable housing stock. The impact fee is then based on the step study. After preparing and adopting the study and imposing the fee, the city must prepare an annual report providing specific information about those fees. The nexus study must be updated periodically. In general, a nexus study costs around $35,000 and takes approximately two months to complete. The nexus study must be updated periodically. On average, the city currently receives approximately $50,000 per year in in-loop affordable housing fees from one unit single family project and additions greater than 50%. That figure varies year by year, depending on the number of projects the city processes. So within Policy Item 3, we're asking what should the city require of the larger additions and the smaller developments. That suggests that the city implements an affordable housing impact fee for single family development with only one unit or an addition to the single family home and required developments with two to six units to provide one affordable unit on site or pay an in-loop fee that varies based on the score for the adjusted proposed development. Now we'll move on to Policy Item 4. Should the city structure the IHO requirement to allow an option for developers to pay in-loop fees for the larger developments? As previously discussed, the city requires developers to provide on-site affordable housing for developments with seven or more units. The requirement is 15% of the total units must be de-restricted affordable. In this policy discussion, we are asking if the inclusionary housing ordinance should be updated to add an in-loop fee option to the on-site affordable housing requirement. In this slide, I compare the speed, effectiveness, and cost of on-site affordable housing development and in-loop fees. There are, of course, benefits and challenges to both. On-site affordable housing is faster with production occurring at the time of the development and results in affordable units distributed within development projects throughout the city. If the city were to add an alternative to allow a developer to pay an in-loop fee rather than develop on site, more funds would be available to the city to partner with nonprofits and developers on affordable housing projects. The benefit to having more funds available is that more funds could be leveraged to partner with developers and nonprofits to result in possibly a larger affordable housing project with more units. Also, larger affordable housing projects are typically managed by nonprofits and funded through state housing programs, so the ongoing administrative cost is typically lower from these larger projects. For policy item four, we are asking should the city restructure the IHL requirements to allow options for developers to pay in-loop fees for larger projects. That is recommending updating the IHO to allow this option. Policy item five is a discussion on consolidating all asset limitations in the IHO and increasing asset limitations for affordable senior units. The city adopted an asset limitation in the IHO in 2013 to ensure that applicants with high assets and therefore who do not likely need assistance to purchase housing even if they have lower annual income did not absorb the city's limited supply of affordable units. Only households which qualify as very low, low median or moderate income households and who meet the asset limitation of one and a half times the income limit are eligible to purchase affordable units. Likewise, in 2014 the city council adopted an administrative policy 3-16 implementing the asset limitations in the IHO to potential buyers of mobile homes in mobile home parks governed by affordable housing due restrictions within the city. The asset limit for mobile home parts in the administrative policy mirrors the asset limits in the IHO one and a half times the buyer's income with the addition of an exception of up to 500,000 in qualified retire accounts. Funds used to purchase an affordable housing unit are not counted as assets for purposes of determining eligibility. Even with the asset limitations in place the city continues to receive requests for exceptions from the asset restrictions from interested buyers with assets beyond the asset limit. Most requests for exceptions to the asset limitations are from senior 55 class buyers who are downsizing as part of their retirement plan. They combine the gains to fulfill their home with their retirement funds. Most prospective buyers have below one million in assets and the city has granted these requests. Two prospective buyers have had assets well in excess of a million dollars and those have been denied. That recommends that the IHO update be updated to explicitly apply to all asset limitations to all affordable housing in the city regardless of when it was constructed and to consolidate all eligible eligibility requirements to be included in the IHO rather than requiring applicants to consult multiple sources. In addition, staff is recommending that the city include an increase to the existing asset limit for affordable housing units that are designated senior housing 55 class from one and a half to three times the annual household limit and increase the $500,000 exception in qualified retirement accounts to one million. Increase annually according to the consumer price index. These increases would allow more seniors to qualify to purchase affordable senior units. The buyer's income will continue to be limited to the moderate household income identified in the previous table. This evening, staff is requesting direction from City Council on consolidating asset limits within the IHO and the staff recommended modifications to the asset limit. Lastly, staff is looking for direction on policy item number six. Should the city include additional alternatives to on-site production and in-lose use within the IHO. Many jurisdictions include alternatives to boost affordable housing production in additional requirements requiring on-site affordable units or in-lose use. Land dedications, off-site affordable housing production and the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing units subject to new affordability covenants are common alternatives compliance measures. The council may discuss these or other options and if the council desires to explore them further, staff will bring back more information during future meetings. If not want to incorporate other alternatives this time, council may direct staff to research additional alternatives during the 2023 housing element update. That concludes my presentation. Before you is the summary of the policy questions. I'm happy to answer any questions prior to going to public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's turn it over to council for any questions. The questions one at a time. Let's start with any council members that have questions on policy number one. I see council member story. Thank you, mayor. Katie, thanks for that update. I had a couple questions and the first one in one of your early slides you showed a change in the numbers I guess for low income and very low income housing. Did I understand that right? That it had dropped from when we had originally kept track of those numbers? Correct. So the demand has decreased from the 2011 numbers? Yeah, my question was do we have an understanding of why that demand has dropped? I I'm thinking due to either increase in salaries as well as people moving out for the event that somebody passes on and the home is resold during resales and also increases in payment in salaries. Is there a possibility that because affordability has just become so much more difficult that the extremely low and very low aren't even, they're not as much making an effort to reside in capitol. You know, there's a term called gentrification of when people cannot afford to live in a place where they get displaced but I think that is part of what you're probably seeing in those numbers and people that have not been able to afford to live in capitol until higher incomes moving in to those units. Well, thank you for that. My other question and this is relevant to policy number one and the 15 percent. I never said that there's no number one, it seems like we have very few inclusionary units in capitol 12, I think was the number you reported. But one of the and one of the threshold requirements is that only applies to developments that have seven plus units. And I'm just thinking, I mean capitol is mostly built out. Do we know how many opportunities there are that may accommodate seven plus units? And typically we see those redevelopments when a larger parcel is looking to possibly be subdivided. I don't have an exact number for you on that but you are right in that we are, we don't have very many vacant lots at this point so any of our larger lots will be a redevelopment project. And so if we really wanted to increase the number of inclusionary housing we either have to raise the percentage but staff is not recommending that or lower the number of units that it would apply to which I saw in comparison the city of Santa Cruz has lower inclusionary figures for lower numbers of units. Which we are recommending under a different policy is to require an inclusionary unit for more than one unit on the site as much as those two to require an inclusionary unit. We can talk about that when we get to policy number three. Yeah but you are the staff is recommending that we retain the inclusionary percentage at 15% but I think the staff will recommend that we keep it that it only applies when there's more than seven units. Correct. And I guess my question is it seems to me that that would be very I mean rarely used in capital any longer that we would have development but seven units or more. Is my sense correct or? You know with the new zoning code update I think we're going to keep in mind that we added mixed use to our community commercial zone and in the regional commercial area as well. So we may start seeing more applicants come in with mixed use projects than previously but you are correct and that was limited in land and most projects would be redevelopment projects in which there's already existing units that we would be able to implement. All right thank you. That's one of my questions for now. Can I just chime in very quickly to respond to the question you asked Sam and I think I think it's a very relevant one which is how many units is this inclusionary ordinance has been in effect for more than 15 years and we have 12 units and eight of them came from one project called the affordable housing unit. The affordable housing unit is either A, to have projects like the villas or maybe like the capital mall where there's a development agreement or B, we are able to accumulate housing trust funds and back in the day we used to have redevelopment funds to do this with where we can partner with a non-profit and then actually do these larger scale projects. There's too many units that are going to come out of these seven, eight, nine unit projects. It's just over the next ten years my guess is it's three or four more units. Thank you. Council Member Bertrand, you have questions about policy number one? Yeah in general the threshold of 15% and if we're actually trying to get more money to accumulate so we actually have a good chance to partner up to 20%. Just put that out there. Does anyone on staff have any experience with how City of Santa Cruz has gone on this? A little follow up on Sam's question which I haven't thought about asking this but it didn't seem unique that they have a different approach. They actually want more units depending on how many are actually being built. Those are the two questions I'm wondering about. What other communities around here have had in terms of their 20% inclusionary fee and in particular what Santa Cruz has had in their experience with requiring more inclusionary units for smaller development projects. I can tell you that they require 20%. I'm not sure what their overall numbers are at in terms of how many affordable units they have and how successful of them. Okay. I think just walking around the town I know there's a lot of rather large lots. You brought up zoning changes for multi-use homes and I think I'm quite tall but that whole tool belt area rather large lots you don't notice them because they're behind big walls. You muted yourself at the end there Council Member Bertrand can you repeat that question? Thank you. I believe we do have a number of rather large lots. I just mentioned on Capitol Road there's about two that I could pick up depending on how you count them and then in that toolbox area there's a number of rather fairly large. I don't think you can get the same amount as we did on 38th but maybe four or five or so. So one of the things to keep in mind Council Member Bertrand as the percentage of affordability requirements go up what it does is it increases the overall development costs for a project and so we have not done that kind of study where we analyze sort of the local real estate market and the development costs and figure out what the potential thresholds are. In general the reports I've seen are that 20% starts to become infeasible and it starts to drive projects and you have to charge more for the remaining units than you can get on the market and so they're not likely to be built. So that's one of the balancing acts with inclusionary is that you get some deed restricted units but then at the end of the day if you're going to build a project they need to be making up the cost somewhere else by getting more revenue off the other charging more for the other projects. So we didn't come with a difference and we're sort of recommending the 15% because it seems like that's been a number of workforce but that's just something to keep in mind. Okay. I think one of the one of the issues is how much the upfront costs are as you just mentioned if the fees are graduated in terms of when they're paid like within four years, five years or something like that the upfront cost is not as dramatic. I think there's ways we can deal with that but I agree with you. I don't quite understand what the balance is so we could do anything to make that balance a little bit more in the direction of creating affordable housing. I think that's a plus. Thank you. Thank you Council Member Bertrand. Any questions about policy number one? Seeing none, are there any Council questions? Oh, Vice Mayor Brooks. That's fine. So my question is in your recommendation is to main stat as well and you've showed us the amounts of inclusionary housing but you haven't shown us where we are with arena numbers. Where are we with meeting arena numbers currently? The second part of that question is to Jacques and Sam's point is that it looks like if we're not meeting arena numbers then we're not doing a good job in building additional affordable housing. And so this question on policy one actually does the problem for the story point really does correlate to policy question number four. Those two things hand in hand about whether we should include an in-loop fee or not. So my question specifically again is where do we stand with our current arena numbers and how many projects have we seen come and go because they couldn't meet the 15% threshold at this point or was it that they didn't build because we just didn't have space. So that's where I'm kind of getting hung up on so when we make this kind of policy question you know I don't know where the blame goes for say if it's our percentage or if it's just because we don't have space. Okay so first I'll hit upon the arena numbers. On our arena numbers we have not come close to meeting our arena numbers. For above moderate income we're meeting those numbers. So our redevelopment of new single family homes we meet the arena numbers we've almost met the number for above moderate income. So let's share market rate housing. In terms of meeting arena numbers when it's broken down into low and affordability rates we have produced in the last arena cycle one new unit at Tarrant Court. So we're not meaning we're not close to meeting our arena numbers in that aspect. But in the second question about the you know what examples of projects that have come through and why haven't we met those. We actually had one density bonus application come through it was approved. But in the end it didn't pencil for the developer and they ended up reselling it and on that site built three units rather than the seven unit projects that would have given us through the density bonus actually there's ten units total between the two properties affordable units out of that project it didn't pencil out and so that's where there's this definite we've got to find that happy medium between what our requirements are so that developers can come in and build the affordable units and it's not too much of a cost burden. There's another point I'd like to chime in on this is that I think at this stage there's only about 13 cities around the state that are meeting the obligations and a large part of that is due to the fact that the redevelopment agencies no longer exist redevelopment agencies used to provide housing set aside funds that cities would use to provide that kind of capital seed money to build these important projects at those lower income levels it's very hard to see a very low or low income project very low income projects you really need to have those projects your IHO is never going to get it for you by itself you need a program like the Bay Avenue senior project where we use the million dollars of redevelopment agency funds seed money that was able to leverage I think was like 40 million other dollars to renovate the Bay Avenue senior site at the units and get it all done so so in a sense the key to meeting arena at this point is having a pot of money so you can get the very low projects done but at the same time also then seeing the market rate projects that come along and help with the moderate income and the higher affordability levels I hope that helps yeah thank you I will add some comments to your point city manager later when it comments time so that's all I have for questions for policy one thank you thank you any additional council questions from policy one okay we'll move on to questions on policy two we're just sick questions right now we'll come back for comments after we go to public comments but just questions policy two seeing not any questions on policy three seeing not any questions on policy four okay policy five questions okay and finally any questions on policy six by player brook yeah I just need some more explanation about policy six it just seems like a broad open-ended what do you want to do with alternative sort of thing I just needed some more clarification on that so for this policy question we're asking should we come back with other alternatives right now within our IHL it's limited to on-site production and in the city if you'd like we can come back with more information on land dedication from IHL this is land dedication off-site affordable housing so when a development happens they're not required to build it on-site but there's an option to build it off-site which is tricky here in Papatola because as we've talked about there's not much land available for either land dedication or off-site development you typically would find that in a less urban area in which there's plenty of land to be developed for the tool and one that could apply to Papatola is the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing units so a developer buying existing units and then rehabbing them and restricting them as affordable units that one could be utilized possibly in Papatola because of the amount of development we do now could use updating so that was just a question of would you like us to come back with more information on that and I also outlined in my presentation that the next time that we're updating the housing element in in a couple of years we could also dig deeper into that during the housing element update bringing more information on this option if you'd rather not bring it into this update currently I think Council Member Story had his hand up and then we'll go back to Council Member Bertrand. Thank you Mayor. I actually had a question about policy member 2 I just didn't I wasn't able to chime in fast enough so if I may I'd like to ask the staff recommendation on policy 2 that we eliminate the in-loop fees for rental housing and my question was is how much are we talking about that the city would lose in in-loop fees if we were to do that and I guess I know you can't project what housing may be built over the next five years but if we had implemented this over the last five years or how much would we have lost in in-loop fees? I think that the city has permitted a rental housing project since the I don't believe that there's been a rental housing project that's been built since the IHO to the best of my knowledge. Katie, can you help me out? Yeah, I can. I can chime in on this one. I think the only rental housing project that we've seen is one on Capitola Avenue those are not condominiumized and then one across the street from City Hall which was two units above a commercial well, just a few parts there but that yeah, we have not since those are the two that have seen come through the city in my seven plus years here. Katie, do you have a guess on that that's been how much the in-loop fees were for those two projects? Um, so the in-loop fees for the I'm not sure if the overall footage was, but I would estimate somewhere for the four flex approximately $4,000 per piece at $6 per flex. Thank you. We'll go next to Council Member Bertrand and then after that we'll go to Council Member Botsworth. Yeah, I have a question about two but I guess the agreement with the mall would be separate than this if we struck the fees. That's correct. The mall will be undergoing a development agreement with the mall and it wouldn't be subject to the there would be an agreement by first affordable housing. I'd like to come back later the questions talk about six. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Botsworth. Council Member Bertrand asked my exact question. I didn't want to establish something in policy two that would affect the mall but Katie answered that. Thank you. All right. Council Member Bertrand you said you had another question about policy six. Yes, I did. I'm very encouraged that this was put up because I think there's a lot that we need to think about to as that brought up. We're not meeting our requirements and yes the state may be deficient also but maybe you can think of ways to solve these problems in different ways. In a way this is a question Katie because you deal with permits between and ask tell me if I'm wrong and give me a sense of how wrong I am or how right I am that most of our permits are single homes we're doing improvements we're doing upgrades we're tearing it down building something much better from standpoint I guess and so in a sense the second question is our fees whether they're 15% or we raise them up to 20% will generate money to help us leverage as Jamie mentioned we need to have some way to generate money to leverage and over time we could accumulate a pot of funds so we could actually accomplish a project with Mercy Housing, South City Housing South County Housing or something else like that so those are my two questions so building up our fees would help definitely in leveraging for future projects and I I didn't catch the first question the first question was I don't have an overall sense of what kind of permits we're giving out but it's my sense that we're doing a lot of single family homes improvements, construction you know an old house that is clearly falling apart they're rebuilding it that kind of thing so I just want to get a sense there and if that's the case then our major way to raise money and that was the second question is whatever in-loop fees we charge them correct so as the city manager mentioned earlier the majority of our development has been to single family homes and forefell projects so as you're when we look at our in-loop fee and where the money has come from it's been just that the development of single family homes and additions makes up over 95% it's not higher of our in-loop things that we've taken in at the city's level so it's not from we don't have very many multi-family projects that come through the city and we definitely have very few rental projects that come through the city so I'll follow up question if I may so do you think taking away the fees from rentals etc would start stealing things in a different way maybe that would be good well the reason why we were suggesting taking away the rental fee is so that developers may be more entitled to produce rental housing rental housing is definitely actually possible as a really healthy mix within our within the type of housing we have in our community we're about 50% rental and 50% ownership we haven't had new rental applications or development projects come in in the last decade very minimal so we were thinking by possibly removing that in looping for rental maybe it would be more interesting for developers to come in with rental projects which are definitely in a more affordable option for market rate versus more affordable than buying a condominium or a home so it's definitely a necessary part of the housing ladder any additional council questions on any of these six policy questions the only one Council Member Bertrand do you have your hand up again yes I do sorry so I was talking about six I'm glad staff put this in and I do support the idea that we have some concerted effort to try to come up with options one that came to mind is the difficulty in managing restricted units low income units that we've made possible through our zoning codes and our policies and a way to deal with that I think which might have additional benefits is to create a land trust for capital and so that agency would manage these and we might be able to get funds from other directions to support the acquisition which was sort of mentioned in the presentation acquisition of land and put that in the land trust and then they would take care of all the paperwork and manage that so that indeed our policy of trying to provide low income housing and our policy to make it easy for people to afford homes in capital which as you said helps create a balanced community and I totally support a balanced community so if we come up with options with that discussion in six I wouldn't want to wait till the upgrade I'm sorry to interrupt you I just want to confirm that this is the time for questions do you have a question? I know I know okay so there's no more questions? no more questions I just want to go to public comment I just want to make sure that we're aware now is the time for questions only okay and I'm seeing no additional questions from the council members so without we're going to bring this to public comment and then we'll come back for additional comments from council I'm going to turn it over to Larry Mayor Peterson I have a couple of hands at this point so first is David Biasi he could be able to unmute and speak is that better, does that work? are you able to hear me? we can do it okay great well thank you very much good evening Madam Mayor and Council I want to thank you all for your hard work on our behalf as you face what must be innumerable problems as you struggle through the COVID crisis I live in Loma Vista States which is a 55 plus development on Clare Street and we sent you 91 letters and signed petition signatures on this topic of asset limit I would like to encourage the council to please read the letter from our attorney where she explains in great detail not only the legal basis that controls the regulatory agreement which has been in force for years between Loma Vista and the city but it's also the controlling document between the city and us and has always been however listening to the staff earlier I think there is some substantial misunderstanding that I think could be clarified by reading our attorney comments giving the history and legal basis that they are basing the position that we have it appears that staff is recommending the city no longer honor the asset limit for new buyers in our park that we agreed to with the city through our regulatory agreement and I mentioned through this stance before the city came to us before and wanted to do something we had a meeting in the park and 90% of the people we had over half the park show up and 90% of the people said no to the state so this is just part two we visited the legal and binding regulatory agreement is still in place it still stands it is bilateral took many months between you and us reviewed by your legal council by our legal council we have acted on it and we had to write multiple letters to the city because they often go off the ranch and try to impose things unilaterally that they are not legally entitled to try because they are bound by the regulatory agreement so I want to thank you again and I highly encourage you to read the letter from the attorney so you get a 360 view based on the law and the other citation she included in the document. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now we have Karen you can unmute and speak now. Hi city council I am talking on number 5 and I am a senior and I am not in a senior park I am in Turner Lane and I am having little difficulties with my health and I was hoping that I would not put a restriction on 55 and over parks. That is my question. Thank you Karen. Do we have any additional public comment on this item? I have two e-mails and I will try to get those shared and read online. Larry it looks like if I am not misunderstanding it looks like two of those are from the same e-mail address so we are only addressing the one. I will take a look and see. I am going to read this one aloud. Hello mayor and council members I am Rhonda Trimble and I live in Loma Vista Estates. My husband and I moved into our home in 2004. When we bought into Loma Vista we understood there were restrictions placed on homeowners and the agreement made in 2000 between the city of Capitola and Loma Vista homeowners association. The city specified certain regulations and the association agreed to follow them. In 2004 when the city wanted to make a change in the agreement and the association agreed to the change. It was mutually beneficial. Now the city wants to make changes to the contract without the agreement of the association by using an IHO the city presented proposed changes several years ago. The homeowners listened to the city's request and understood it did not benefit them. We even had an election so the city could clearly understand that the homeowners were overwhelmingly opposed to the changes in the agreement. Now, because current negotiations are not producing the outcome the city desires, the city is trying to split through an item in the IHO ordinance that affects the regulatory agreement they have with Loma Vista. This is a sneaky way to circumvent legal process. The change in how assets are counted for potential buyers is not beneficial for the residents in Loma Vista. Our homes currently sell at lower prices compared to other residents owned parks in the city. This is because of the regulatory agreement. New restrictions on potential buyers will only cause a reduction in buyers for our homes. That will cause a loss of value for current homeowners. When our park was bought by the residents the city of Loma was happy to help. It granted us money, with conditions in the form of the regulatory agreement to assist in the sale. The regulatory agreement states in section 6.9 amendments flash this agreement may be amended only by a written instrument executed by all the parties here too or their successors in title and duly recorded in the real property records of the county of Santa Cruz, California. In the first amendment section 3 states, full force in effect. Except as set forth in this first amendment the regulatory agreement has not been amended and is in full force in effect. Mayor and city council members I urge you to reject policy item number five as part of the IHO. Respectfully submitted. Rhonda Trimble. Let me see if the other one is from the same email address. It is not from someone else. In my apologies. No, that's fine. I'm sorry. I tried to get the right one this time, sorry. Wife and I have lived at Loma Vista Estates mobile home park for 16 years. Loma Vista is a senior park. We've enjoyed living in a resident owned park where our members manage the park and decide upon the rent. The concept is, we all own our homes and we rent our spaces. Our rent is about $400 per month which includes a park mortgage payment of $164 per member. We are all volunteers, no employees. Loma Vista is a solid community where neighbors help their neighbors. Every election politicians walk our park. We have about 125 residents. The politicians tell us that we are heavy voters. I'm sure that has nothing to do with our waste lines. Council members, we have a contract with the city and we have performed under that contract for 20 years. What possible benefit could the city receive by ignoring our contract? What would motivate the city to damage our property values? I'd sure like to know the answer to those questions. Thank you and good evening. Those of the two comments. Thank you so much for those who offered public comment both via zoom and in email. I will bring it back to council for discussion and guidance on moving forward. Does anyone have any comment? Any hand raised? Maybe a moment of thought among the council members? Council Member Botlarf. Thank you. I just wanted to make a comment. Kind of goes across the line on a lot of the issues. I know something came up about the reading of numbers and there was also something about additional alternatives and there was a lot of discussion about our city being built out and not having a lot of property to develop on. I think what we need to really look at a lot of these I know we need to do this this policy is definitely updated and we need to make sure that we give our best effort at doing that but fundamentally how I see capital moving forward is there's two opportunities reading numbers are something that I think as the city manager mentioned most cities don't catch up but keep in mind that should the mall be a productive product that we engage in we will not only meet but we will exceed our reading numbers with the potential development there for years to come and the other option is that the way I see us meeting reading numbers regardless of the mall and programs with ADU this is really the new way that we actually address affordable housing and provide opportunities to meet the numbers provide the housing and actually assist homeowners some of them the ability to stay in their home so I'm not too concerned about whether we have the parcels to develop or how we're going to allocate money I don't want to create a burden in policies or something for the city to manage because I think moving forward that's going to be the future of how we meet our state reading numbers thank you vice mayor brook thank you I think it's my responsibility to ensure that we do our best in creating inclusionary housing within our community and it's my responsibility to familiarize myself on where we are currently with the units we have and it's also my responsibility to create policy that will be beneficial long term and inclusionary housing means to create housing throughout an entire community to be able to live in a board to live here from young families to retirees and so forth so I feel like that's my responsibility to really be thoughtful about the policy we create as well as to even though it maybe works for our staff it's the job and the task of our staff to to look at this so I just have a quick question Katie do I want to go one by one on each policy and kind of where some general direction is that what you'd like that would be helpful I'm going to look to the mayor if you want to go through each policy mayor in this direction or have each council member go through each policy for let's go through each of the policy items one at a time and then as we go through if any of the council members have comments they can make them at that time Peter do you want me to continue with policy one then please okay so just for policy one I agree with staff recommendations in meeting the percentage however I'd like for us to look at the options of reducing the seven to something less so I saw option like five or something like that as noted there's not many places for complexes of seven plus our city manager mentioned that you know there's an option to pay and lose fees that we'll get to in policy four but what I want to say about that is that ideally all of these policies that we make decisions on today my goal would be that we ensure that we build housing now there's a need for housing now and to thank on collecting money for us to put aside to do to build other projects in the near future I don't know how likely that is and maybe that's something that's to come back to on really what those partnerships and looks like for us should we create in lose fees as an option so that would be just my direction for policy one thank you Vice Mayor Brook I think Council Member Bertrand how do you think we'll go to Council Member Bossler thank you Merrick I think Jerry go along with that I think Sam brought this stuff in terms of what City of Santa Cruz does instead of having the limit of seven divided up so that we get housing for smaller projects that are inclusionary another way to look at it and I'm thinking staff could when they come back to present some options based on this discussion not necessarily a definite direction at this point but another option would be to give the developers some leeway in how they meet the requirements and one perhaps way to do that is in the inclusionary units they don't have to be as large as the ones on the project right now so the one on 38 if they considered something that had several inclusionary units that were a smaller square footage would cost the developer a lot less but they could have built maybe two or three that is an option so the idea that just talked about and also try to come up with options that meet our requirements to get inclusionary housing and the one I just mentioned was lower square footage units I'm not sure I have units rather than the fees but if we're going to collect the fees maybe in a further discussion we could increase that amount to 20% those are my comments on one Thank you councilmember Bertrand is there any other, oh councilmember Watsworth to the question does the city maintain the existing required percentage at 15% my answer is yes Thank you Alright any other council discussion on policy items one Katie do you feel that you have I guess since we're not technically voting tonight it says we're just providing direction do you feel like you have direction on policy items one I'm wondering if councilmember Storing would like to provide any feedback with their support for maintaining at 15% Yes I support retaining it at 15% currently however I also support giving the development the option of paying in the fees and thereby reducing the number of units that that would apply to similar to what the city of Santa Cruz has done and I because if you don't do that it ends up being more than 10% if you don't allow them the option of providing in the fees and and I understand yeah it's better to have housing now than to have to wait but I think that one thing if you have sufficient fees they can't be leveraged to benefit I think major large projects all at one felt so that's what the Bay Avenue senior housing project was that was and so and I believe trying to find a sweet spot of providing kind of incentives to the developer make giving them option of how they want to do it a life-less job mentioned about them maybe then have the option of building more smaller units and I think having that providing that kind of flexibility and moving us forward being able to encourage developers to build more units and capital and so I think so yeah I'm small and that's the main percent the number of units and I think that also means giving the option of fines and so I hope that questions. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Bosworth, do you have your hand up for additional comments on policy item one? I'm going to take it down right now. Sorry about that. No, don't worry. Okay, we're going to move on then to policy question number two. Should developments of rental units be exempt from the IHO? Will you councilmember have comments on this item? Councilmember Bosworth? Yes, they should be exempt. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Story, and then we'll go to Councilmember Tran. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, you're almost with so few rental units being developed in capitalists, you know, over the past several years. It's almost a new point. However, one thing I've never said what the city of Salinas has done for rental units is they have a couple of levels. I think it's five dollars a square foot, but down to two dollars a square foot. Here, the developer is willing to accept some of the vouchers within their project. And I'd say that if we're going to be eliminating or reducing the rental fees, that there'd be some sort of trade-off that they'd be willing to accept the Section 8 housing or other Section 9 housing that we may be able to provide in using whatever end-of-the-season they have, or what the rental assistance fees are coming at. So that's just, you know, a trade-off that I'd like to see on that item. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Story. Councilmember Bertrand? Yeah, thank you. I had a problem with reducing the fees to zero. In general, I feel when a development happens in any community, there's going to be an impact. And in this case, it's a housing development and their impact should help us solve our problems. Their particular project won't do it, but an accumulation of everyone's fees will help continue that. So I think we should have a little more discussion on those points. I would like to keep the fees in place. But Sam had me thinking that if we lower the fee, I don't want to get rid of it, but if we lower the fee and there's something we get out of it that's a benefit, then maybe that's worth discussion. So when staff comes back, maybe there could be some examples like Salinas and other areas around here. And, you know, if that's the way we could get some leverage out of lowering these fees, then I would support the city going in a different direction. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bertrand. Back to Claire Brooks. Yeah, thank you. So I appreciate staff attaching the MDAC white paper to our staff report. It touches on this item pretty significantly. And so therefore, I'm in favor of removing rental units. They should be in fact from the IHO. I would like to see more information further on what Council Member Story is referring to at our next meeting. Thank you. Great. Thank you guys, Claire Brooks. Katie, do you feel that you have general consensus from the Council on policy too? I do. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Hi there. Thank you too. Let me just kind of chime in for a second here. It might be helpful to hear your perspective on this item. I know I missed it if you did give us your feedback. No, I haven't. I typically just kind of stay quiet if what I was going to say has already been said. But, yeah, no, I agree. The development of the rental unit, having them exempt from the IHO, I think, as the MDAC white paper mentioned, exempting them provides the opportunity for additional development of rental units that otherwise, as mentioned in the examples from staff, might not be built or might not be built with as many units as they would have if they have to pay these kind of fees. So I'm in agreement with my fellow Council Members on this. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And just a reminder to those watching and listening to Council tonight is there will not be a vote on this. We are providing guidance to staff and staff will return with a first reading and a future meeting. So policy number three, what is the guidance who would like to give the staff on what the city should require of developers of large additions to existing home and smaller one to six unit development? And if we can go back the suggestion from staff, the staff recommendation was to implement impact fees for single family development and development to two to six units. Is that correct? Am I reading that correctly? That's correct. I'm pulling up this slide to show you our staff recommendation on this. That's great. Thank you. So our staff recommendation here was to implement an affordable housing impact fee for single family development with only one unit or in addition to a single family home and then require developments of two to six units to provide one affordable unit or pay the endless fee based on the percentage of the by player brook. Okay with moving forward on implementing the next study to determine what impact development has on the city affordable housing stock. I mean favor of that but to kind of go back to policy number one as we examine and kitty please jump in if I was making two things but since we've just asked for information to come back regarding status plus unit for a different number, I don't know that the staff recommendation would go with coincide. So I'm fine with going moving forward with the next study and then looking at our options thereafter regarding this unit. Thank you Vice Mayor Brooks. I believe and I apologize I didn't see who's hand went up first. I believe it was Council Member Story and then Council Member Bertrand. Thank you Mayor. Yeah and I agree with Councilwoman Brooks about doing the next study. I think we should look at in those days for the two to six unit development because those are done by developers and so and I think that does have an impact upon our ability to provide affordable housing. I'm more reluctant to apply an end to the fee to a single you know family development or in addition to a single family home but I think that impacts a lot of local residents and maybe trying to expand or upgrade their homes and they just add more costs. I would want to see what those additional costs are going to be for residents and I also you know one I guess one observation I've seen concerning the single family residents I mean you know people who are coming in and developing second homes and vacation homes and taking those that housing stock out of our local market I think does impact our availability of the housing stock and therefore the price development. But I would be curious about whether we're able to even process and distinguish for the single family development between you know local owner occupied development and other developments which are for vacation homes on air D&B or even for rarely used second homes. So those are my thoughts on that subject. Do you want to see if staff has any answer to that council member's story on if we can differentiate between owner occupied and vacation homes? I think if they're coming back to us I would just maybe put that out there and have them. I would like to maybe see an analysis of that but I mean if they want to you know kind of dismiss it out of hand and I'm fine with that as well but but I would if that's the case I wouldn't want to see if there's going to be impact either in those things and single family development. I certainly want to see what those costs would be to the local residents. All right maybe that's something you can bring back. Yeah we can I can bring back more information on that. Awesome thank you. Council Member Bertrand you're still needed Council Member Bertrand. Doc are you still with us or did you freeze? Oh no there you are still muted there you go. Okay so I generally support the staff recommendation here and again I'd like to support in new communities because you know I think that contributes in the long run to helping our community solve problems. You know I think the Bay Area some of the cities in the Bay Area have ordinances that deal with assessing communities to vacation homes and stuff like that because again vacation homes take away from you know vibrant communities the people aren't here that much not on an everyday basis. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Bussard if you have comments? Yeah I am basically I'm supportive of the nexus of a plan to establish an in vaccine. I think that the nexus report should give us an insight into how we are affected by either an addition or a single family dwelling and what that report gives us and how we can face that theme. With regard to the development I'm okay with a in-lucid for 2 to 6. I'm not really interested in providing a unit I think that we're better off using the in-lucid to create a plan to do a bigger project and to have one easy type of development and I'm not I'm not taking position to oppose a patient rental or how people choose to use their property. I think we're getting on the very you know ground when we start making restrictions on assessing communities to look at their patient rental and how that affects you know our property. I think that some people who are buying second homes and who have built these properties the property is a sense of a new arrangement generating a whole lot more money for a revenue for the student capital and I just dare ask to be some conscious recognition of what necessary revenues for the revenue city within my coming. Thank you Council Member Bussard. I am also in favor of the nexus study I would be interested however in hearing a little bit more on the concept of the difference between the fees for single-family homes that are owner-occupied and those that are essentially vacation homes or vacation rentals. Is there any other comments on policy item 3? All right seeing none. Katie was it on on number three? Yes. Okay. All right so we're moving on to number four should the city structure the IHO should the city structure the IHO requirements to allow an auction for developers to pay in Lindsay and Katie would you mind pulling up the staff recommendations slide for this just for a reminder? Yeah thank you. So we are we are recommending that the city adopt an option for developers to pay in Lindsay so this is when there's one unit out of seven is required or we'd add an option to pay in Lindsay and we'll recommend an option be added. Okay. Don't move on to work. I support policy for staff recommendations. Great thank you. Vice Mayor Brooks. Yeah at this point I'm not in favor of creating an in-loose fee so I'd like staff to come back with what those in-loose fees would be and and some options around that. Thank you. Thank you guys Mayor Brooks. Yeah I'd be happy to learn more about what those fees would be. Council Member Story, Council Member Trond, any comments on policy 4? I think you both captured my comments. Okay. Yes and I believe you guys have as well. I would be interested in seeing how much those fees can be so we know what we're maybe approving. Thank you. Thank you. All right so Katie sounds like we're just looking for additional information on this one. Okay. Yes. Moving on, policy 5. Does the city council support staff recommended modifications to the asset limit and it sounds like I mean it doesn't sound like we need to see the staff recommendation because it's mentioned in policy 5 if we support staff recommendation modifications or not. I believe Vice Mayor Brooks had her hand up first and then we'll go to Council Member Botchworth. Yeah at this point I'm unsure about the direction that staff is giving. I just have a question if you guys could come back with it. You may have mentioned in the staff report about the consumer price index and I'm just wondering how you got to that and if you could break that in this noble home park. Thank you guys Mayor Brooks. Council Member Botchworth? Thank you Mayor. Yeah with regard to this item I support staff recommendations to the asset limits modifications and increase them. I want to keep in mind that you know my main concern on this topic is that I am trying to do whatever I can to make sure that we provide affordable housing and affordable community units in this community. That's what my decision is based on on this topic. So I'm trying to be as flexible as I can to allow people to get into those units and I think that I will be okay with increasing that limit to final commenters. Thank you Council Member Botchworth. I certainly echo your desire to ensure that we can get affordable housing throughout the city. Council Member Betron, Council Member Story, any additional? Oh Council Member Betron you have your hand up. I support the sentiment that Ed has voiced capital for a long time if I may stray has been very supportive of noble homes and recognizes that the noble homes that we have a large percentage of rental and home ownership actually through that option and it makes this area very affordable to people who otherwise would not be able to live in a community that's wonderful as ours and I say that with complete sincerity this is a program that we should help and I think also raising limits in terms of access limits is in recognition of the fact that you know people now have been able to save and support you know retirement these are generally for communities that are older 55 and older and you know they've been responsible and I recognize that and now they're able to you know get into a place that meets their needs as they age and that's what we've done and I think a lot of other people have done that too. So I'm simple to general sentiment here especially at that point in time thank you. Thank you. Council Member Bauchner do you have your hand up again? I do not thank you. Any additional comments on policy item five? Nope okay yeah and you have a general guide? I think so. Mayor Peterson can you were you in support of Council Member Bauchner's comment? Yes okay thank you. Thank you. Okay moving on to the last one policy item six. Does the city include additional alternatives to onsite production and in lieu fees within the IHO? So essentially the staff recommendation here is we either direct staff to bring back information during a future meeting on additional alternatives for the IHO or postpone research on additional alternatives until the next housing element update in 2023. We'll go to Council Member Baton and then Vice Mayor Brooks. Yeah I think it was a great deal of thought and time to prepare staff to come up with some great recommendations and policy discussion points. I'll just go back to something that Ed mentioned earlier and you know I think that now that we have a great AGU ordinance this is probably going to be one of the better ways for us to expand housing. I'm not too I mean I would like more rental housing but I don't see that happening here but I do see because I see it all over my neighborhood and when I walk the city I see people building eight years and trying to basically provide for all the relatives or even make the rent a little bit easier for them in terms of the houses that they own and I think that's our future in many respects. It will create a neighborhood that well that's none the less. I think when we try to find ways to spend our money that we accumulate to the needs that we've added to development this might be a way to this might be a way to help support expanding our housing base by helping residents do eight years and I also mentioned earlier trying to create a housing land trust may be a way to help manage the time necessary to keep the rentals and all that sort of straight so that we're following our policy but I really do support the fact that staff came up with this idea and I think there's probably a lot of potential here and as Jamie said we don't have older mechanisms we're going to have to think of new mechanisms to solve our real problem which is to provide affordable housing to people in these communities so that because I've said before it's a balanced community and I think overall we'll be much happier when we have a balanced community and do all that it takes to create a balanced community. Thank you very much. So Councillor Riton are you agreeing with which part of the staff recommendation are you supporting if either? Well to me this is an overall thing and it could go many different directions but I want to see alternatives and like I just closed with we have to figure out different ways to solve a very real problem to meet affordable housing and in general I support trying to create a balanced community and I feel that's a much healthier place for people to live and raise kids and to retire. So you would like to see those alternatives brought back in a future meeting or postponed until 2023? Oh no I thought I said at the beginning I think it should come back definitely I don't want to wait for 2023 but what I was trying to suggest when I first started talking is we need an effort to make this to be a good presentation and a good choice of policy discussion points for us. I wouldn't want it back in a week or two weeks but you know maybe like before to six months you know it's going to take some time to develop something. Alright Vice Mayor Brooks. Yeah it's like for staff to come back with information on additional alternatives sooner than later so I'm in agreement with Councilmember Batran. Katie you specifically mentioned options for key restrictions and developers fees. I'm not sure how that correlates with their current IHO altogether but if you could bring back some of those alternatives in the future at a future meeting and also what I'd like to see is you could patch the white paper from Mbapp in our in our packets today and would be great to see where the city stands in correlation to those recommendations so as you bring back to other policies it'd be nice to see how that relates and how well we're doing so then that that may alter our decisions on percentages of in-loop fees and so forth and I do like Jacques's recommendation of looking into a land trust if we do decide to add in-loop fees if we need to see what some of those options are and if there's space for that or yeah just some of those alternatives thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Batran. Thank you Mayor. With regard to policy I think that I'm I'm leaning towards that we need to postpone this for 2023. I think staff this project I show it itself and all the questions and the options that we've got in the previous five policies is overwhelming staff considering especially right now with COVID that department community development is down more important so I'm thinking that this is not essential this one component does not make a great good policy and if I think the other ones are more definite so I was leaning towards post-colonialism for the 2020. Thank you Councilmember Batran. Councilmember Story do you have any additional comments on this policy item? Yeah thank you thank you Mayor. I kind of shared a sentiment of Councilman's forethought that I mean yeah this is many significant issues and it may be better to put it off until the housing element renewal. With that said I am interested in having an update at the next meeting about how we're doing with our ABU permitting and our and our density wellness law that we was state law and that we implemented some years back and then the affordable housing overlay. I'd like to get a sense of how successful those policy initiatives have been or not and then you know maybe we could look at tweaking those without too much staff effort at that point and try to make them maybe even more successful so those are my thoughts. Thank you Councilmember Story. In regard to my thoughts on this is it possible essentially to do both? Can we have information brought back to us at a future meeting and then also in 2023 revisit this again or is it one or the other? No that's possible but I do when we included this item I think we were trying to toss out some ideas that we teamed other jurisdictions that maybe there were some interest in the council and considering like the alternate the land dedication and some of these things if what we're talking about is looking at establishing I think Councilmember Bertrand called it a land trust it sounds to me like it's sort of a separate government entity that maybe manages affordable housing that's a really big question and I mean I think bifurcating that from the housing that started the inclusionary update would probably be wise so so I just don't think that we're going to be able to address all of these different questions that have come up in the context of the IHO unless we really want to say the IHO is going to be six months out so I think my recommendation is let's identify maybe there's some cool policy things you want to focus on over the next year or two three years because housing elements trying to keep it a little bit more narrow or understand that the IHO is going to be a bigger thing and it's going to you know we're just going to put it on a different timeline and that's okay too if council wants to in that direction okay thank you okay I think we've got three council members with their hands up so let's go ahead and wrap up with our final comments on policy item six right at the end here it's been about an hour and a half on this item alone so let's um get our final thoughts in and then we'll we'll move along uh council member Bertrand um yeah falling from Sam and then Jamie touching it a little bit more I think and a lot of discussions this is a perfect example there are things that we should probably act on very easily or it's not easily sooner than later and um so I support looking at the problems from that perspective um land trust could take a little bit of effort it's not a separate government entity it would be a non-profit but that would be perhaps a longer term thing and as Sam said well maybe there's some programs that we have on board right now and they need to be tweaked because you're not performing as we wish they performed so maybe that's something we could look at in a more closer time frame those are my comments thank you Vice Mayor Brooks you have final final comments Vice Mayor Brooks oh sorry I paused there um I apologize for that um so I just feel like she kind of got stuck into this I'll be like it was a strict question to the manager so if there are options that we kind of made reference to those could just be burnt back that would be my ask um in relation to what you were talking about Jamie or those other things that seem more feasible to include with the current um update so that's what I'd like to see thank you all right um Katie do you feel like you have guidance on this or is it clear yeah I I think I'm hearing is the conversation got very broad for a moment there I was talking about including things that are outside of the IHR so I just want to be clear that this question is really asking about alternatives to producing on-site housing and and some of the larger questions about a land trust that really is not um there's something we can definitely come back to and have conversations or about that separately in the future but as Zillia I want to set the expectations that we're going to bring that alternative to the on-site and in Lucy and those alternatives would include um items such as land dedication so if a similar developing a project they could opt to do to um dedicate lands to city like I said it probably won't use that often at least a number of lands um off-site affordable housing production and uh a couple acquisition and rehabilitation in just a few minutes so we can bring I'm hearing but would like us to bring forth options but um I just want to keep this uh within the limits of what could be within an IHR I understand there's also a desire to have an update on permits that is uh we can do that but it is separate from the IHR of the 80s but um we just updated our ordinance on that and yes we have had um movement on 80s and we can bring back discussion on that to them to be bonus law also separate from the IHR update um but we can bring back information but that won't impact the IHR update to be clear so thank you thank you so much Kady and all the staff has worked on this and uh council members everyone that provide a public comment thank you very much uh as I mentioned previously there's no vote on this item council's just providing guidance to staff uh so we are going to move on along uh to item 80 um adopted resolution declaring an emergency condition for pain pertaining to the same lightning complex fire okay bear with me for a second here while I pull up the PowerPoint I'm sorry don't worry okay this should okay we'll do this from here so on August 16th there was a very uncommon lightning storm struck the county as well as all of Northern California resulting in the multiple fires being started between the 16th and the 18th a lot of those fires ended up merging back in the um in the redwood forest between Santa Cruz and San Matata counties and then due to the fires spread um on August 19th Santa Cruz County declared a local emergency in August between August 19th and the 21st the communities of Bonneville and Boulder Creek and Lomond Delta and Scott Valley and the UC SC campus were all evacuated on August 19th um this Santa Cruz county made a mutual aid request of other local jurisdictions in the county and then on August 20th um as emergency services director I declared a local emergency based on the regional conditions and the need for mutual aid uh our emergency response and our support has been four officers uh each split between two two-hour shifts two 12-hour shifts uh daily uh we initially were looking at opening the jbc community center as an actuation shelter however with the coded restrictions and the need for social distancing we really determined that the number of um people that could be accommodated there versus larger sites it just didn't make sense to put the put the resources into staffing and setting up um jbc community centers so the county EOC decided they were going to focus on larger houses today we had 81,000 acres of burned um the fires being reported as 21 contained there's 635 structures so far reported destroyed was one death um the good news is that I think many of you may have heard Scott Valley has been allowed to be populated as of about three o'clock this afternoon so the recommendation this evening is for the council to adopt a resolution declaring emergency condition um uh continues to exist and continue the uh local emergency and I guess the one point I didn't make is that the reason for the local emergency has to do with obviously the mutual labor providing and the conditions county-wide but also to ensure that we can be reimbursed for our part in the overall emergency response and without any further questions. Council members are there any questions for city manager Goldstein? I am seeing none so with that we will open public comment on this item. Turn over to Larry to let us know if there's any public comment. I do not see any hand written, hand printed, any e-mails on this item. Okay with that we'll close public comment bring it back to council uh for discussion and a vote. I'll move to staff recommendation. Motion by council member Story do we have a second? Council member Bertrand I think you're trying to state what you're muted. I can see your your lips moving but no sound. All questions and motions. Okay uh uh uh motion by council member Story seconded by council member Bottor. Um okay but can we get a roll call vote please? Yes council member Bertrand I think our uh city clerk might be muted. I'm not sure. I apologize council member Bertrand. Give it a thumbs up. Okay great. Council member Votorf. Hi. Council member Story. Hi. Vice Mayor Brooks. Hi. And mayor Peterson. Thank you. Okay. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Um. Mayor? Yes. It appears that there's someone on the attendees who wanted to speak. There's a hand back. So I don't know. Yeah I didn't see any hands up when I called for public comment. Um. It was late. Yeah. We're now okay. Okay let's um let's go ahead and re-open for this one public comment uh and then we'll move to our final item. Hi good evening folks this is Leah Samuel's Executive Director of Human Care Alliance. Thanks for being here so late. I just one more thinking about um emergency, requiring emergency and such. I just hope you'll keep in mind when you revisit your budget that once again as we face an emergency the non-profits whose uh grant funding was cut are on the front line helping your neighbors. This isn't a community service it's direct essential safety and health services. We're asking that you consider when you look at the budget moving forward moving from funding from non-essential programs and indirect funding to support these heroes. How FIRE has recognized how impressive our community response by by local non-profits has been. Many of the non-profits that you were assisting are those social justice leaders want to see getting priority light police for public safety. I know some of you protest and organize for social justice. This is a way to be a leader and make the change that you are trying to ask for. Thank you. Thank you. All right with that we will re-close public comment and go on to our final item um HF delegation of a voting excuse me designation of a voting delegate and alternate for the 2020 League of California City's annual conference. Is there a staff report on this or is it pretty straightforward sounds like what it is? It's pretty straightforward. We need to designate a delegate. The conference is October 7th through 9th. Normally it requires a council member to go. This will be a virtual conference. The delegate is the person who can vote on behalf of the city on the different League initiatives and League policy positions. Okay great. Any questions? Okay is there any question on this item? Let's go back to panel. Seeing none. Oh council member Botsworth question. Is there anyone of the council is planning on attending this virtual conference? I'm planning on attending. Does it? All right let's bring it to public comment on this item. Carried over to Larry. I do not see any hands raised and we check the email and I do not see any emails on the phone. All right we'll bring it back to council for discussion and the vote. I am planning on attending virtually as I attended the person before. I think I was our our deli at last last year. I can't even remember what year it is anymore because last year feels like last week and last week feels like last year so. I hope we nominate the mayor. All right thank you. We have a motion and a second for the voting delegate. We also need an alternate. Anyone interested? Motion to nominate the vice mayor. Did I see council member Bertrand since he was attending? I withdraw my motion. A vice mayor drove to the light to amend it. It's the second to amend it to a council member there. Yes that's fine. Okay so we have a motion and a second for myself as the voting delegate and a motion and a second for council member Bertrand as the alternate for the 2020 League of California City's annual conference. Can we have do we need a vote on both of those motions? You can do it together. Okay let's do a vote on those two motions. Thank you council member Bertrand. He's giving a thumbs up again because I think he's got some um okay that's wonderful. Council member Botthorff, council member Story, vice mayor Brooks, and mayor Peterson. Council member Botthorff you have your hand up. Do you have a comment? I have my hand up all night by mistake. I've been a nuisance and I apologize okay. I'm just making sure you want to have like the last word on this or something. You have the last word. Okay. All right with that we have come to the end of tonight's agenda. Thank you so much to staff for all of your hard work on all of the staff reports and recommendations for this evening. Thank you for all of you who have joined us for the last several hours to provide public comment. As always and especially now more than ever please take care of yourselves and take care of each other and we'll see you next time. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good evening. Thank you all.