 can click on the interpretation icon in Zoom. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Pablo, can you please restate this in Spanish? Para los que recién se unen a la reunión, interpretación en vivo al español está disponible. Los miembros que desean escuchar en español pueden unirse al canal. Para unirse, haga click en el icono de interpretación en la barra de herramientas de Zoom que ahora parece un globo terragio. Una vez, según al canal de español, se recomienda que apague el audio primario para que solo escuche la interpretación a la historia. Thank you, Pablo. All right, Madam City Clerk, could you please call the roll? Yes, thank you, Mayor. I will call the roll for Council first and then for the Planning Commission. Council Member Tibbets, Council Member Schwedhelm. Vera. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Council Member Tibbets, have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all Council Members are present with the exception of Council Member Tibbets. Okay, on with the Planning Commission, Commissioner Okrepke. Here. Commissioner Holton. Commissioner Holton. Commissioner Duggan. Here. Commissioner Charter. Here. Commissioner Cisco. Here. Vice Chair Peterson. Here. Chair Weeks. Here. Okay, let the record show that all Planning Commissioners are present with the exception of Commissioner Holton. All right, thank you, Stephanie. A warm welcome to our Planning Commissioners. We miss seeing you behind the dais, but perhaps we'll be there soon. It is certainly a little bit more room for us with everybody via Zoom. With that, I'll turn it over and see if the Chair of the Planning Commission, Ms. Weeks, if you have any opening comments before I turn it over to staff. Thank you, Mayor Rogers. I just want to say thank you for the welcome and it will be nice at some point when we can all be together again. Though it does tend to be a little crowded with 14 of us up there. So anyway, I'm looking forward to this presentation by staff. Thank you. Great, Ms. City Manager, if you could please. Item 3.1. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council. Item 3.1 is our 2050 General Plan Housing Element Update. This is a study session to review and provide input into the 2050 General Plan Housing Update. Claire Hartman, our Assistant City Manager will lead off the staff presentations. And I don't see the slides up to you. Okay, here they come. Well, good afternoon, Mayor, members of the Council and Chair Weeks and members of the Planning Commission. I'm excited to kick this one off. This is the housing element section of our General Plan Update. And this essentially is a kickoff. It's the very first beginning of our conversation for housing our current status, but more importantly where we're headed as a city, as a community and what our part is in the region for housing. So it's essentially the beginning of a conversation that will probably take place over at least the next 18 months as we start to look at not just the data, but collect input. So this is the very first step to collect input from the Council and from the Commission. Obviously we will be doing everything that we can to collect a broad range of input from our community. We'll be doing an analysis and we'll be looking at housing with layers and layers of new lenses that we will be approaching our General Plan Update with. So we'll be looking at our General Plan Update and the housing element with a lens of equity, social issues, environmental issues, economic issues and climate issues. So all of that feeds into how we're going to be approaching housing in the next housing cycle. We'll also be like taking a look at sort of again, our fit as a city in the region and the county and what is our role in reaching our housing needs. We will be providing just an overview today. Again, we wanna give you the general scope, the timeline, the initial data collection in terms of our housing needs. The issues that we've identified upfront that we'll be wrestling with as we try to approach those needs. I'll give you an update along the way of that. Our schedule and our next steps. Also, there's been a lot of state laws that have come down recently that will affect specifically our housing element. So we wanna touch on those items as well. And so today we have a really great team to walk through these slides with you. We have Amy Lyle, she's our supervising planner. She's the lead of Advanced Planning. She's heading up this project as well as Andy Guffson, our senior planner and Beatriz Guerra-Arnau. She's our equity and health planner. She's supported by our Kaiser grant and she's a big part of our housing element general plan update process. Presenting also with Amy Lyle will be Cynthia Walsh from PlaceWorks. They are the primary consultant that are supporting our, not just the housing element but the general plan update as well as Lucy Rowland from PlaceWorks. So with that, I know you have a lot to do today and we have a presentation here for you. So go ahead and kick it off to Amy Lyle. Thanks so much, Claire. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Chair Weeks, Council and Commission. So I'll be taking you through the first part of today's presentation. We can go ahead and go to the next slide please. So just giving you an overview of what's on our agenda for today. We did wanna go through what is in the housing element just kind of give you an overview of the contents that we're gonna touch on the regional housing needs allocation or arena process that's been underway for the last year or so. And then as Claire noted, we'll be walking through some of the new state law changes that are gonna impact our work. And then also our schedule for the housing element moving forward. Next slide. So just to give you a little bit of an overview, this, our housing element is part of our overall comprehensive general plan update. We are lucky enough to be updating the full general plan at the same time as this housing element. The housing element is one of a few elements that has state law requirements on the adoption deadlines and how often that they actually get updated. So for the housing element, its cycle is actually five years. So we will be doing another update of the housing element before we update the rest of the general plan. So this work is embedded into our update. So we did go through our visioning process of the general plan already. And the next time we'll be coming before you is with our general plan alternatives that will look at a different scenario for land use, housing, transportation and a couple of different ways. And we'll be vetting that with the community this winter over the next few months and then coming back to actually a joint session with the council and planning commission in March. So just wanted to note this is really part of this larger general plan process but today's focus is just on the housing element itself. So we are considered to be moving into the sixth cycle and we're closing out our fifth cycle. And so we'll walk through some of those components and what those requirements are. So the other thing that's interesting about the housing element is that it is required to be certified by the state. So we do have very specific deadlines around when we actually submit this to the state for review and certification and then it will actually come back for final adoption. And one of the major basis around the housing element and these deadlines is looking at our regional need or fair share of housing that we are being asked to accommodate within our jurisdiction. Next slide please. And then the other major component of the housing element is an inventory. So it will require us to look at all of the potential sites that we have. We have a current inventory under our current housing element. So we will be looking to see how much of that has been developed, what is left, what were the issues around why these vacant sites weren't developed or why sites are underutilized. So it'll be a real deep dive, very parcel specific on what we have available. And as we move through that process, it'll help us understand also if we need to rezone property for increased density in order to meet the number or the housing allocation that we've been assigned. And we will also be looking at our existing policies in the housing element and throughout the general plan and our permit process really looking for any impediments to development. And then our place of teams that they will be going through some of those other pieces that we'll be walking through. Next slide please. So just to touch on Rena, this is our regional housing needs assessment process. So this is a regional process. So basically California does have a mandate to local jurisdictions to produce and plan for a certain number of housing units. So that number came from the state to our association of Bay Area governments, which is our regional entity. And then they were charged with coming up with a methodology on how to distribute all of these units throughout our nine county Bay area. And so we did involve ourselves very closely with that process. It was complex. Claire actually attended some of those meetings in person. And so we did have local representation on this methodology committee. And it was primarily about what jurisdictions could absorb, but they looked at a variety of different demographics, environmental data, to make sure that there was some fairness around who's being asked to absorb how many units. And as part of that, because ABAC is undergoing that process, they are also charged with creating the plan Bay Area. So there's a regional planning document. And so there is a focus on our priority development areas or PDAs. I know some of you have heard of those terms as we've been developing specific plans, but we do have four PDAs within the city. And those are areas that we've identified locally for growth and that have been identified in this regional plan Bay Area document as well. So that is our North station area plan, our downtown area, Roseland, and also South Santa Rosa. So all of those areas do have specific plans except for South Santa Rosa and identify how we can achieve growth in those discrete areas. And so a lot of these housing discussions are gonna relate back to those PDAs and what we've done locally to plan for that growth. And next slide. So the regional housing needs allocation. So the arena is distributed not just with an overall number, but they actually break it down in the type of housing that we need to create. So it does look at income levels. So as you can see, most of the income levels or most of the numbers are associated with that above moderate, but there are mandates to create a certain amount of low income, very low income. And these are all based on the percentage of area media income. Next slide. And so I just wanted to show you how we've been doing and what's happening with our current cycle which started in 2015. This is through calendar year 2020 of last year. And as you can see, we are not meeting our current allocation. So not meeting our arena. And this is the case with a lot of jurisdictions around the state. There's a lot of debates on why or why not housing is occurring. And we have a particular interesting situation because we have been impacted by fires and a lot of our construction has been focused on rebuilding versus building those new units. So there's a lot of different facets and data behind why or why not things are happening. And a lot of jurisdictions, including ourselves have a lot of development that's in the pipeline that's entitled and the state has really been looking at other ways to help facilitate development beyond just the local permitting, but also how do we assess with financing, construction costs and things of that sort. Next slide. So coming from AIBA and the methodology committee, these are the draft arena numbers that have been allocated for our area county-wide. And so I just wanted to show this to give you the kind of the bigger picture of what's happening. We have been working collaboratively with all the cities in the county to work through the AIBA methodology process and to ascertain really how we're all going to be able to accomplish these numbers. And so all these jurisdictions are all working on the housing element at the same time. And so you've probably been seeing in the paper, the county and Windsor both appealed their numbers that were given to them through this process. And unfortunately those appeals did fail. So we do expect that these numbers will be finalized and we will be asked to write our housing element to produce 4,685 units. This is a slight decrease from our last cycle, which is a little bit uncommon as far as what's been happening throughout the Bay Area. The Ennecorporated County has seen a marked increase. There has been some conversation around the potential to share, read a numbers throughout jurisdictions. So that is something that we will be exploring as we start looking at our housing element and the inventory and moving forward. So with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Cynthia to walk through some more components of the state law and then also are some of the new legislation. Okay, Amy, Cynthia Walsh with Place Works. So now that we've discussed a little about what the arena is, we can talk about the steps we take to accommodate the arena. The state identifies what they call a default density and this density they see as appropriate to develop an affordable housing product. So each city and county is given a default density based off of the area's population. Santa Rosa falls into the metropolitan jurisdiction, which means HCD being housing and community development department sees 30 units of the acre as appropriate to accommodate the lower income housing need. So you can see other jurisdictions, the density is 2015 and 10, but for Santa Rosa we're looking at a product that allows for 30 units to the acre. Next slide. So as we prepare the six cycle sites analysis, we consider several different variables. We start with what was included in the fifth cycle housing element and we remove any sites that are no longer viable or sites that have been developed. We will then add in any additional available sites that were not included in the previous cycle. And as we're doing this, we will be focusing on sites that are larger than a half of an acre and smaller than 10 acres. We also look at both vacant and underutilized sites. An underutilized site is a site where there is more potential for development on that parcel. This could be a large lot with a single family home on it. We also look at projecting out accessory dwelling units, also called ADUs or second units or even granny flats and we will base those projections off of past ADU development, come up with a number there and project that out over the next eight years. And then last we will rely on tools that the Napa Sonoma Housing Collaborative is preparing to assist with meeting the regional housing needs allocation. Next slide. So if once we prepare our sites analysis, we determine that the city does need to identify additional land to accommodate a portion of the regional housing needs allocation. There are specific requirements for a rezone program that will need to be included. If the housing element is adopted and certified within the required timeframe, then the city has three years to accommodate those, to complete those reasons. There are specific requirements that go into the rezone program. The sites that we rezone are required to have a minimum density of 20 units to the acre. They must permit housing by right and each site must also have the capacity for at least 16 units. Next slide. Oh, sorry, to add to the past slide, I forgot to mention, we go back one more. I apologize. Recently, AB 1398 was passed and this changed the rezone timeframe if you do not adopt on time. So right now, like I mentioned, it's a three year timeframe that you have to complete those reasons. With AB 1398, if you do not adopt your housing element on time, it changes the rezone timeframe from completing within three years to completing within one year. So the reasons would need to be done by January 2024. Next slide. So as Amy mentioned, since the last housing element cycle, there have been several new laws that have passed and AB 72, this piggybacks on the last slide, AB 72 now gives HCD the power to enforce requirements so they can take away housing element compliance if you do not meet the required rezone timeframe. So either the three year timeframe or the one year timeframe, if you do not meet those, they can come and remove your compliance and you cannot receive compliance until you've completed those reasons. Next slide. AB 1397, this places new requirements on the sites inventory. There are stricter requirements for non-residential sites or underutilized sites, also on the size of the sites we're relying on, anything larger than 10 acres or smaller than a half of an acre. There's also a new requirement if you're relying on sites that you relied on from the past two cycles. So if a site was included in the fourth cycle housing element and the fifth cycle housing element, and we want to use that again in the sixth cycle housing element, there are additional requirements for those sites. And all of this, it doesn't mean that we cannot include any of these sites, it just means that we are required to do additional analysis to show that they are feasible for development. Next slide. SV 166, this is no net loss and this requires the city to maintain capacity to meet your arena throughout the planning period as sites are developed. So if a project comes in and you no longer at a different income level than you originally assumed and you no longer have sufficient capacity within that income group, then you have 180 days to identify a new site to ensure that you are maintaining your capacity throughout the planning period. Okay, next slide. AB 686, which is to affirmatively further fair housing. This is the big one for this cycle. So this is an entirely new section in the housing element and it requires the city to look at fair housing issues and to identify different strategies to address any barriers to fair housing. We will also include fair housing objectives in the city's housing programs. And as we prepare the sites inventory, we will look at these factors as we are identifying sites. Next slide. So the AB 686 analysis will also include several different maps. This is an example of one of the maps. This map shows the percentage of people of color within the city and the surrounding areas. And we will use these maps to complete our analysis in the housing element. So a few other maps that will also be included, we will be looking at poverty status, familial status, proximity to schools and jobs, overpayment, and then there are a few additional as well. Next slide. Also for AB 686, we will be looking at opportunity areas and these maps are prepared by tax credit and HCD. And opportunity areas are classified into different categories. So we have high or highest, moderate, and then we also have high segregation and poverty areas. And high opportunity means that the area has an abundance of jobs, access to good schools, and are away from any environmental hazards. Moderate resource areas, everything's gonna be slightly lower. And then high segregation and poverty, meaning 30% of the population is below the federal poverty line, and that the area is racially concentrated when compared to the county as a whole. Next slide. SB 35. So this creates a streamlined approval process for projects that meet a certain affordability level. Currently projects that include 10% low income units are eligible for this streamlining and the city has approved three by right projects to date under SB 35. Next slide. SB 330, the intent of this bill is to make the development review process faster and provide certainty to applicants. This locks in the development requirements, standards, and fees at the time a complete application is submitted. And the city has also received applications under SB 330. Next slide. I apologize, I know this is a lot. The Housing Accountability Act. So the Housing Accountability Act prohibits a local agency from disapproving or conditional approval in a manner that would make it infeasible for a project that included lower moderate income units to be prohibited there. And that also applies for emergency shelters. It also specifies that housing project cannot be denied unless it has met certain criteria. So specifically if the city has met the arena, made specific findings, if the site is zoned adjacent to an ag preserve site or if the project is inconsistent with zoning or the general plan land use designation. Next slide. Housing Accountability Act also only applies to residential developments or mixed use where at least two thirds of the square footage is residential. It does also apply to transitional and supportive housing and emergency shelters. As far as enforcement, there is a minimum fine of $10,000 per unit proposed in the development if non-compliance is determined by the court. Next slide. Last SB9, which is regarding housing development approvals, this bill, which is brand new, requires cities and counties to allow for ministerial consideration of duplexes and lot splitting in residential zones. Urban lot splits are allowed in urbanized areas and would allow up to two units per lot. Partials subject to urban lot splits must be located within a city or within the boundaries of either an urbanized area or an urban cluster. An urbanized area is an area with a population of 50,000 or more people and an urban urban cluster is an area that has at least 2,500 and less than 50,000. And we haven't yet, since SB9 is so brand new, we're not sure how that's going to play into meeting a portion of the arena. So we're still working out all of the details on that. Next slide. All right, so looking at our schedule, I apologize, the text on this slide is a little bit small. We kicked the housing element off in August. We are currently wrapping up our service provider interviews or consultations. And this is where we gather information about the needs of the underserved population through one-on-one interviews. Today we are here to provide an overview of the project and the new laws. And we are aiming to have an admin draft in January with a public review draft released in March. We will then submit the document to HCD for a 90-day review period and plan to go through the adoption hearing process in October and November. We would then submit the housing element to HCD again for a certification in December. And to note, at the bottom of the slide, you'll see AB 215. So this is also a brand new law and it changes the review times of the housing element. So you can see in the schedule that the public review draft is now required to be released for 30 days before we submit to HCD. Before AB 215, it was up to the city on how long we wanted the draft to be available, but now there is a set timeframe. So we've built in that 30 days there. AB 215 also changed the HCD review timeframe. It used to be a 60-day initial review, and now it's a 90-day review. And then last, the certification review time, that one flipped, so that one was 90 days and now it is 60 days. So a lot of changes there, but even with those revisions and the passing of this, we're still able to meet our due date of the January 31st deadline. Next slide. Cynthia, before you move on to the next slide, I just wanted to note that this schedule is very specific to the housing element, but there will also be touchpoints with the community on components that will be within the housing element. So we, through all our alternatives process that we'll be releasing in the next few weeks, we will be going to our community advisory committee, our technical advisory committee, and doing a full round of public workshops through the winter. And that will help to inform that admin drafts before that public draft comes out. And then in March, we will have it out for public review through March and April. So there will be touchpoints with the community on this that's kind of embedded within that larger general plan process. So I just wanted to note that. Thank you, Cynthia. No, thank you for doing that. I was actually going to pass this back over to you anyway. So. Sounds good. So with that, this was, oh, next slide, please. So this was a lot of information that's somewhat dense that we can certainly reply to questions or issues as you heard about them or speak further about any of these specifically. But this has been a very big challenge for a lot of jurisdictions to basically write and housing element with these new laws as these new laws change in the midst. So as Cynthia noted, there were a couple new pieces of legislation that were finalized after we created this presentation itself. So it's been a kind of a moving target working with the legislature and HCD on what we're going to be required to do and how fast and when those things will occur. But we're very flexible with this. Luckily, we do have a general plan update underway. We have the best consultants on our team to be able to help us navigate this. So if we need to speed up components of the housing element, we can and we do have that flexibility to be able to meet those state law requirements. So today's study session is really just educational opportunity to kind of kick this off before we go to our community advisory committee and the technical advisory committee. So with that, we're just recommending that you hear this report today and ask any questions or provide any feedback that you'd like. And also because I know we have the commission and council with us right now, I just wanted to note that our next item is relevant. So if the planning commission would like to continue to listen in, Beatrice will be providing that update on our equity priority work plan, which is also a really key component to our general plan process and the engagement. And as you saw from what Cynthia noted with our work on affirmatively furthering fair housing, a lot of the mapping will dovetail with the requirements under state law. And we do plan to exceed some of those state law requirements with what we want to do locally based on the community input that we've heard. So with that, we'll turn it back over to you, Mayor. And we're here if you have any questions. Great, thank you so much. So council and commission will do questions first, go to public comment and then come back for final thoughts. So if you have comments on this, go ahead and hold them until after public comment, but I'll turn it over to the chair to see if the planning commission has any questions for staff. Thank you. Are there any questions for staff at this time? Commissioner Kropke. Thank you, chair. Yeah, for Ms. Lyle on slide seven, do we have a comparison percentage-wide to what we're doing against the rest of the county as far as our progress? I don't have the tip of my fingers, but I can certainly get that to you. Awesome, I think that'd be great to see. And then I just wanted to confirm with Ms. Wall when you're doing the ADU projections, is there any way to exclude the ADUs built during fire rebuilds? Cause I think that is a unique scenario in which you have existing housing that was being rebuilt and having ADUs added during the rebuild versus ground up construction of new builds or ADUs being built on existing housing or wasn't there? Yeah, that's a great question. So that's obviously the fires that have happened. That's a kind of a newer thing for this housing element cycle. So we will be looking at the rebuild units separately from the new unit construction and that would play differently into our projections. Yes. Thank you very much. That's all for me. Any other questions from the commissioners? Okay, I have a couple and then I'll swing back to the commissioners in case you've come up with questions before we hear from the council and go to public comments. The current inventory that you talked about Ms. Lyle, does that include the Roseland area that was annexed or not? So that's a good question cause the annexation did occur after our housing element. So there was an adjustment made in our renum with the county at that time and then also to the housing element. But Claire, do you wanna, you were involved with that so I will give you an opportunity to reply. And thank you. The short answer is yes. We included the, there was an agreement with the county and how we were going to include them and that was accepted by the state. Thank you. Do, and I should know this, but I don't, do rebuilds count against our renum numbers? No, they do not. Okay. And what categories generally do ADUs fall under? What income categories? So generally, and Cindy, you can correct me but we have been counting those as moderate income. And just to add to that, as a part of the analysis for projecting them out, ABAC has completed an affordability study where they've gathered information from jurisdictions throughout the Bay Area and surrounding areas and have completed this analysis and they've provided kind of a percentage breakdown. So we can look at that percentage breakdown to project out our ADUs. So we can look at accommodating a little bit that's a lower moderate and above moderate. Thank you. And the last question for now is, you mentioned that there were, I think, three by right approval projects and I wondered if you knew off the top of your head what those were. That is a good question. We do have a website dedicated to by right housing. So I can provide that link to you and Claire might know the exact projects but one was a project in Bennett Valley and that was the most recent approval. There was also the mid-pen housing project at Highway 12 in Calistoga and then I believe the third one was the smart site location. Okay, thank you. I can look it up on the website. Thank you Amy. Coming back to the commissioners, are there any questions? Commissioner Sisko. Yeah, just a curious question. Under our building permit slide under 2020, there's a significant jump for the very low income units which is great and a jump for the low income units in the year before kind of close to what we had in 2018. What's an explanation for that? Talking about the slide that shows our current breakdown or building hard with cycle. 2015 it shows the numbers by year and then in 2020 we for very low, we go 83. Is that a total? Was that issued in 2020? It's serious about that. So those are building permits issued during that calendar year and so that would just represent those projects that were provided building permits that were constructed during that calendar year. But we don't have it. Commissioner Sisko. So to answer your question about why the big jump, it was a matter of timing. You know, a lot of these projects start in earlier years or they are entitled and vested and hang on until they get their, all their financing leveraged. And it was, you know, in 2020, it was just the sort of the sweet spot of maturing the financing for these affordable housing projects and state financing and federal financing had a huge part in moving these across the finish line. So yeah, actually it was a note I wanted to make is in the last couple of years, besides working on the rebuild internally and internally in our city, we've been working on a lot of affordable housing projects and we've reported out about that. That's been most of our projects and so that's kind of compounded our mandated timelines for those. And we really had to put a lot of staff on our affordable housing projects because we were getting so many that we've been chasing deadlines with them. Great, thanks for that. Commissioner Dagen. Yeah, hi, thank you. So I'm just curious with all these new state laws that have come forward, have they changed or increased penalties for not needing your numbers? Or like what frequently when we're giving these numbers we're far short of what we've been allocated and what happens when we don't need our numbers? So I can start that, but Cynthia I'd love for you to weigh in as well because she's been working with a lot of other jurisdictions but the housing element and as basic form is required to be certified by each local jurisdiction. So there are a lot of consequences if someone does not certify their housing element. So we would not be eligible, for instance, a lot of the transportation funding coming from the state and federal level. So certification is the first and foremost hurdle that every jurisdiction needs to have to show that we can create or have capacity to be able to build that many units. So over time as we accomplish those numbers if we are not meeting our rena numbers or allocation that is when some of these state laws kick in for instance SB 35, which means if you have at a project that meets those requirements at a certain level of affordability and on certain sites within our inventory they are by right. So we have no discretion in order to review that project. And so those, that's generally where a lot of the state laws are moving. So if a jurisdiction is not building enough housing that means someone can apply and move through in a ministerial process, meaning there's no discretion, no hearings, really no public involvement, which is another reason why in a couple of years ago we did adopt the objective design standards. So we do have in our code requirements for by right housing in the case where we do not have discretion. So that does look at a lot of those design factors and parking and all those components that we would normally want discretion over and work with the development on. But so that's kind of the main impact is that we just, we lose a lot of opportunity to have discretion over that housing as it comes forward. That is exactly what I would have said. Any other questions before I turn it over to Mayor Rogers, Vice Chair Peterson. Just to sort of build on Commissioner Duggan's question. So let's say, we comply with everything, rezone whatever we need to do, but the housing still doesn't get built. So to me, I don't know that things getting built by right is necessarily a penalty, but are we looking at other kinds of penalties, loss of funding or something if the housing, if we've done everything but the housing just, the developers aren't there, the housing isn't getting built? I think that's yet to be seen and the legislature's really been working more towards making sure that the planning is in place, the permit process is in place to be able to facilitate a large amount of housing. So for this next cycle in our area, as far as the Nine County region, there is a large number of units that local jurisdictions are being asked to build. And I think the jury's out right now on whether the jurisdictions will be able to build it and realize that. So there may be more ramifications coming down the line in the future, but it is, yeah, at this time, we're not sure if a lot of jurisdictions will be able to produce the housing. So that might sway what happens with the legislature in the future. Yeah, and to add to that, right now, all that the city is required to do is to have the zoning available on the ground at varying densities. So if the market is there, the development happens. Thank you. Commissioner Carter. Just a quick question on the schedule. It shows the Planning Commission and Council adoption hearings October, November. Can I assume that we'll have a session during the public draft review period in March and April? Yes, so there will be a joint session on our general plan alternatives. And then we will also be coming to you at the planning commission level with the housing element draft at that time. Good. So I think I don't see it in the other hands by my fellow commissioners. So I'll turn it back to you, Mayor Rogers. Thank you to the Planning Commission. Are there any questions from council members? We'll start with council member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. I have one question. Slide six in the needs allocation, at the very top, they refer to the extremely low income needs as an assumption. Given the difficulty in producing extremely low income housing and equating that also with or admitting the incredible importance of extremely low income housing, why do they leave it as an assumption when all of the rest of our very prescriptive and well articulated? Is any answer as to why they leave this important number as difficult as it is as an assumption? No, that's a really good question. I believe when they first, you know, when Rena first began, it was the four income categories. And since then they've realized how much the extremely low income is in need of housing. You know, that's the housing group that's on the verge of homelessness, but it is also the hardest to fund. So I think they're just trying to incorporate it in there somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually becomes its own category, but as of right now, we just assume that 50% of the very low need is assumed for extremely low. Okay, thank you. Council Member Tibbets. Thank you, Mayor. I apologize if I missed this, but was AB 602 on our list of things to have the Community Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Committee be reviewing? I didn't think I saw it. I saw Senate Bill 35, but I'm just curious if I could have missed it. And I bring it up. Yeah, sorry, 602 was not in the commission. Is that something that could be added? I recognize it's not directly pertaining to zoning, but a lot of the questions that I'm hearing from the Council on the Planning Commission right now have to do with the feasibility of meeting arena numbers. And as I understand 602, what that does is I think it just recently passed as well, but it requires jurisdictions to levy a fee-based system on price per square foot as opposed to just per unit. So a 200 square foot or 400 square foot unit will obviously and reasonably be less expensive in building a McMansion in Fountain Grove. And if I may, yeah, we're definitely gonna take a look at AB 602. We've already started to do that. It will be a concurrent effort with the housing element and it may proceed, our actions accordingly may proceed it, but we're definitely gonna follow up on AB 602. Okay, great, thank you. Vice Mayor? So I guess it's a question, kind of not a question, but the AB 686 and just thinking about that, the identifying housing sites, I'm not sure if we've even thought about maybe identifying housing units for elderly adults because from what I'm hearing in the community, it's very hard for them to gain access to the unit. So once they even see the unit, once they arrange for transportation or able to go see the site, the site is already taken off the market and is no longer available. So I'm assuming this would be looking at some, these sorts of things, but definitely looking out for our elderly population and they are looking for housing within our community and not having the same sort of access and mobility and things getting around to look at units as everyone else might have. Yeah, we will definitely be looking at seniors and persons with disability and mobility issues and things like that. So that will definitely be inserted in that analysis. And also just to follow up on that point is if you look at the demographics and the projections that we'll have in our community in 2050, which is our horizon year for the general plan update, the amount, the number of seniors will be growing substantially. So that is something even beyond housing and beyond this housing cycle that we're gonna be looking at as far as policies to be able to accommodate a more aging population and all of those facets that go into creating that for our community. Any other questions from council? So I'm a supporter of building housing, but more importantly, I'm a supporter of building housing where it's appropriate. We have a community that has been very supportive of community separators and urban growth boundaries, which to me as a policymaker means city center growth is what this community is supportive of. We see that the county is being offered almost 4,000 units of housing in Rena that they're gonna be required to build. The county is largely that unincorporated jurisdiction that would be counterintuitive to a community that is supportive of urban growth boundaries and community separators. Can you walk us through what the process would be if Santa Rosa wanted to take some of the Rena numbers away from the county to build more in the city and build less outside of the city limits? Thank you mayor. So that is something that we have been watching and the county did recently lose their appeal of their Rena numbers. So we are anticipating talking with the county and kind of exploring how and what that process would look like. And also we're working with AIBAG, Association of Various Governments, because they're the entity that put that methodology for how the Rena was distributed. Any agreement that we have would have to go through them as well and be adopted by AIBAG. But also the new legislation and state law provides a lot of limitations on being able to trade or exchange Rena. So we're gonna be exploring that as well to see what the possibilities are and what the options are. So we can come back to the council at some point in the near future and provide more detail on that. All right, I appreciate that. I know it cuts way against the typical grain when we talk about Rena numbers, but if there was a city in California that would be interested in having that conversation, I think it's Santa Rosa, as opposed to most of the other cities that try to avoid Rena numbers. And with that, we'll go to our public comment on this item. If you're interested in public comment, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. We'll start with Lisa, followed by Jen. Lisa, are you able to unmute? Yes, I did not have a question. I'm not sure how the hand got raised. My apologies. No worries, we'll move on to Jen. Okay, I think I'm unmuted. Yep, go ahead. All right, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers, council members and city staff. I'm Jen Close, Executive Director for Generation Housing where we advocate for more and more diverse and more affordable housing. First, thank you, Mayor Rogers, for raising the possibility of the city of Santa Rosa satisfying some of the county's main requirements through Cities that Are Growth, which is climate smart and can improve housing housing equity. We encourage the rest of the council to explore this idea. Second, you may or may not know that there is a new state pro-housing designation. If earned by local jurisdictions, it increases their eligibility for significant state grant funding, such as funding through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program from which the Rosalind Village Project received 25 million in 2020 and the infill infrastructure program, which awarded nearly $200 million to projects throughout the state in 2020. This is a tremendous opportunity to create policy that will advance the council's housing equity and climate goals and bring in money to help implement those policies. City of Santa Rosa's bold efforts to find creative policy solutions to the housing development log in after 2017 wildfires gave Santa Rosa a head start towards this designation. Generation Housing is working to evaluate the county's restrictions, current standings and developing pathways to that designation, but it also seems that the housing element process is a perfect opportunity for staff to perform that same pro-housing designation analysis and to codify a pathway toward the designation. The state is making unprecedented investments and housing and it's important that we don't leave any money on the table that can help us get desperately needed housing built. Thank you and as always, thank you for your service. Thank you, Jen. Jen, if there are any other hands for public comment, go ahead and hit that raise hand feature on Zoom. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and bring it back. Madam Deputy City Clerk, do we have any prerecorded? We do not, Mayor. All right, then we'll bring it back. Chair Weeks, if you want to handle comments from the Planning Commission. Thank you, Mayor Rogers. Any further comments from my fellow commissioners? Okay, I don't think, I don't see anybody raising their hand. And I just want to thank, I'll make a quick comment and just want to thank staff for their work on this and looking forward to seeing the graph. Thank you. Okay, and I will look for hands from council members to see if there are any comments. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. More of a question. Looking through the equity lens, are we looking for properties or amenities that can help with open space for these sites that we're currently considering or even contemplating? So open space is a component of the housing equation. And for instance, when our objective design standards, we do have a minimum amount of open space required. And so that is something that is kind of built into the pie. And is handled through a variety of different other policies within our general plan and our zoning. But yes, that is an aspect. Thank you. Council Member Fleming. Yes, I just wanted to share my support for developing housing that is city-centered. I appreciate all the work that goes into this. I do remain concerned about the high amount of housing units allocated to county areas. And I'm hopeful that we can work with them and really get, actually need our renails. I'd like to, when this comes around next time to see that the amount allocated that we have well exceeded that. So thank you. And I'm really excited about this. Great. And that was basically my comment along with my question as well. I know that there's an opportunity for us to do this. I know that cities can't give rena numbers to other cities and that makes sense from an equity lens. But I think in particular, when we talk to the public and how much they value their open spaces and the natural resources, which is why many people locate in this region, I think it makes sense for us to have that conversation. So hopefully staff can bring that to the council and to the planning commission sooner rather than later. I believe now that the appeal has been exhausted that there is that opportunity. And so we'll be looking forward to it in the next couple of months. Any other comments from council? All right, I just wanna say thank you to the planning commission for being here today and thank you for your continued service to the city. You are welcome to hang out and listen to the next couple of items, but otherwise we'll adjourn the special joint meeting and reconvene our normal council meeting with item 3.2. Mayor Rogers, the members of the city council, item 3.2 is our second study session item of the afternoon. The item before the council is the equity priority community's work plan. Beatrice Guerrero Ayuna will be presenting this item. She's a senior planner in our PED department. Good afternoon, city council, vice mayor, mayor. Staff who's watching the presentation and CAC members from the general plan update as well as any other residents who's interested in this item. Today we're presenting Santa Rosa equity priority communities and empowerment and outreach plan. This is focused on the general plan update too. And if we can go to the next slide, what we're gonna talk to you about this work plan is the objectives and goals that we have in this specific plan. As you know, we received a Kaiser grant, a healthy cities Kaiser grant and we are trying to identify Santa Rosa equity priority communities. This is how we call the communities that have been underrepresented and vulnerable in the past. And we wanted to provide a data focused approach and identify these communities and be very clear about the focus that we will be using to use our grant but also to identify the communities that meet our support in terms of empowerment as well as focusing our attention in terms of community outreach in this communities. The third point is gonna be the barriers that we have identified, not only in the planning department but in different departments that have been working on outreach. And we're gonna talk also about the strategies and activities for engagement that we have planned for the general plan update and we will show you our timeline. That is embedded on the general plan update timeline too. We can go to the next slide, please. And the next one, please. Thank you. The basic objective of this work plan is to inform, consult and provide opportunities to participate and empower every resident of Santa Rosa to be part of the decision making processes related specifically to the general plan that we know as Santa Rosa forward. And this work plan will focus specifically on vulnerable underrepresented and historically marginalized populations and not only populations but areas of the city that have a high or significant concentration of people who are low income or people of color. And we will show you exactly what we mean when we're talking about these communities. If we can go to the next slide, please. The goals of this specific work plan is to leverage our local networks. That means using the work of other organizations and the city and the county are doing to participate in existing community engagement efforts and go to where people are. The second one is identifying barriers to participation but not only identifying them but using them and figuring out how to get to people and how to break those barriers so that people can participate in a general plan update. Number three, we're trying to create opportunities for inclusive and equitable participation. Number four, we're trying to collaborate and inform general plan decision-making. This is our main purpose in the context of the general plan update. And number five, last but not least, build long-term capacity for city engagement. We wanna create and start building that trust that some communities have lost in not only with the city of Santa Rosa but with a lot of local state and county governments and we wanna create this long-term capacity around growth, development and community design conversations so that the community can start and continue participating during the general plan update process but also after we finish this general plan update process. If we can go to the next slide, please. And the next one. So as a definition for purposes of the Healthy City General Plan Update, we used three documents coming from the state of California and the California Health and Safety Code that provided us with a definition for vulnerable communities. The state executive order B3015, which is an equity checklist and the resiliency guidebook that provided us a definition of vulnerable populations. And with this, we identify the populations that exist in the city of Santa Rosa and we don't wanna call these groups vulnerable communities. Following Plan Bay Area 2050 guidelines and definition, we started using the word, the phrase equity priority populations because we wanna shift the attention of communities that have been vulnerable, underrepresented and marginalized to be our equity priority focus. So in this terms, we selected 10 groups that are part of this definitions that I just mentioned and we included low-income individuals and families, racial and ethnic groups experiencing disparate health outcomes. We included seniors, children, youth and young adults. These groups haven't usually not been participating on planning decisions and that's why we wanna include them on this outreach and be very mindful about their participation. Number four, individuals with disabilities. We know not only for the General Plan Update, but for many other engagement activities, these groups face larger challenges than the rest to participate. Number five, immigrants and refugees. Number six, outdoor workers and farm workers. Number seven, individuals who are limited English proficient. Number eight, on-house people. Number nine, LGBTQ plus communities and 10 individuals who are incarcerated and those who have been incarcerated. And I will bring in the next slides some more information about why are we selecting these groups and why are we proposing them as our equity priority populations for the outreach work plan. We can go to the next slide, please. Thank you so much. Just to clarify what I meant with Plan Bay Area equity priority areas. For them, equity priority communities are census tracks that have a significant concentration of underserved populations. They included households with low incomes, people of color and a combination of other six variables. And if we can go to the next slide, please. And they identified equity priority communities for the whole Bay Area. What we have, what we're doing with this work plan is we are identifying the equity priority communities and areas for Santa Rosa specifically. So I just wanna bring this slide because we have technical differences on how we identify these areas. And there's basically three differences. I mean, there's a lot of technical information, but I wanna tell you that first of all, we are using more updated information. They are using 2014, 2018 American Community Survey. The city of Santa Rosa is using 2015, 2019 American Community Survey information. So we're a little bit more updated. And in some cases we're even using census 2020 information. The second difference that we have is that we are using census groups, which are smaller areas. So we can actually focus very well on which are the communities that we wanna be prioritizing in terms of attention. And I think the third difference is that we are using our own parameters in terms of Sonoma County. We're not using the whole Bay Area. We're using the highest concentration in terms of Sonoma County of underserved populations. And this is how the methodology is different from Planned Bay Area. If we can go to the next slide, please. And this is the map of how we have been identifying Santa Rosa equity priority areas. This map was built with the help of the EIS team. And as you can see, the orange line defines the city limits, the city of Santa Rosa limits. We have blue areas, which are the areas with the highest concentration of people of color, which as you can see, are basically concentrated on the west side of the city and the south side of the city. And we are also identifying the areas with the highest concentration of low income communities, which is the yellow areas. And as you can see, there's a green layer and these areas identify are the intersection of both areas. So we're looking at equity priority areas, the intersection of the areas with the lowest income households and the highest percentage of people of color. If we can go to the next slide, please. And in terms of equity priority populations in the city of Santa Rosa, I am just providing a little bit of background on why are we including this equity priority populations on this outreach and empowerment work plan. First of all, racial and ethnic groups experiencing disparate health outcomes. More than 47% of Santa Rosa's population is part of a racial or ethnic minority group experiencing disparate health outcomes in California. This includes Hispanic or Latinx people, Asian people, black and African-American people, native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, as well as American Indian and Native Americans. And as you might know, the conditions in the places where some of the racial and ethnic minority groups leave learn, work and play, disproportionately affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes such as life expectancy, chronic diseases and COVID-19 infections. That is why we're focusing on this specific mapping because we know if we focus on this areas, we'll be reaching out people who are actually facing this challenges. So communities of color, unfortunately, are more likely to leave in areas with higher pollution, greater risks of flooding and more heat-absorbing surfaces. So that's why we're trying to be more mindful about focusing not only in terms of populations, but also on the areas that the city has this population sleeping. If we can go to the next slide, please. The second group that we're gonna talk about is low-income individuals and families. I'm showing on the right, Santa Rosa households distribution of income. This is a 2019 graphic. And we can say that 10.3% of Santa Rosa's residents live in poverty. This means they don't have the resources to fund an average adult consumption in one year. And as you can see, this is around less than $25,000 a year. You can see the poverty line on the graphic. And as you know, income not only defines educational attainment, but also housing stability and also home ownership, as well as financial security. And all this are social determinants of health. So that's why we're including this conversation into the outreach plan that we're presenting. If we can go to the next slide, please. The third group is children, youth and seniors. The city of Santa Rosa has a large population of these groups. 45% of the population are children and youth and 16.6% are seniors. And as you know, children and youth are especially vulnerable because of the impacts of built environment and climate change because of their growing bodies. But on the other side, we also have adults who are vulnerable to these changes, not only because of body composition, but also cognitive ability associated to aging and related to the conversation that we were having earlier in relationship to the general plan update and the housing element. This is also important to consider when we are thinking about outreach. If we can go to the next slide, please. Individuals with disability. I am showing a map on the right of the slide of the percentage of people with one or more disabilities in the city of Santa Rosa. That's how we can see some areas of the city have higher concentration of people with disabilities. But in the city as a general, 10.3% of the population leaves with one or more disabilities. So this is really important to keep in mind what we do planning, not only for housing, but also for community outreach and for communication with the rest of the public. And as you know, people with disabilities also have lower levels of health, but also higher effects of poverty, marginalization, discrimination and lack to other health and social services. If we can go to the next slide, please. Group number five for us is immigrants and refugees. And I think this is a particularly relevant conversation for me because I think in general, we don't talk about these groups very much. And 20.1% of the population of Santa Rosa was born outside of the US. And this is actually lower than the state of California. And this group includes not only documented, but undocumented immigrants as well as refugees. And Santa Rosa has more than 35,000 residents who belong to the group of immigrants. And this group is really important for our economy as well. 1.3% of the states, yeah, immigrants contributed about 1.3% of the states GDP every year. And however, this does not translate into equitable incomes for them. And for households headed by an immigrant, the per capita income is about $27,000 every year. And this is less than an overall per capita income in the state. And as you can see very close to the poverty level that we have in our city. So we have an estimate of 28,000 undocumented immigrants living and working in Sonoma County. We know a fair amount of them are also residents of the city of Santa Rosa. And for the households that are headed by an undocumented immigrant, the risk of exploitation and abuse is higher. And the per capita income is only around $16,000 annually. So just to mention also this important group, refugees resettled in Santa Rosa are an important group of people too. Since 2002, we can only track around a hundred of them, but they're coming from very different backgrounds and places, including Eritrea, Iraq, Liberia, Vietnam, and Burma, among many other countries. So just wanted to bring this to the conversation because I think when we're talking about language and English proficiency, it is relevant to keep in mind that we have a fair amount of population that comes from very different backgrounds and places. If we can go to the next slide please. How do workers and farm workers? This group is intersected with a few of the other groups that I mentioned, but just to bring this to the context of the city, in Sonoma County, we have more than 11,000 workers employed. And while many farm workers are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, none of them speak Spanish as their first language. So we have a fair amount of indigenous languages that are spoken in our county and in our city, including Maya Triqui, Misteco, and Chatino. This is an additional layer of hardship to communicate with indigenous immigrants that are sometimes undercounted and underrepresented and sometimes even incorrectly grouped into the Latinx or Hispanic category. If we can go to the next slide please. And I am gonna be a little bit briefered with this conversation because I know we have limited time, but I just wanna be mindful that all these groups are usually having hardships in terms of housing, but many other access to many other services that the different agencies and state agencies provide. So just to be mindful about the challenges that we have in terms not only of outreach, but other services provided by the city and the county. And number seven, we have individuals who are limited English profession. Santa Rosa has 32.2% of residents who speak other than English. And we have around 15 different languages spoken in the city. And more than 80% of the residents who speak other language actually speak Spanish. And a high percentage of them are limited English proficient. So this is a map on the right of limited English proficient Spanish speakers in Santa Rosa. So while we're doing this outreach, we're wanting to be mindful that there's areas in the city specifically where we might have to use Spanish as our main language to communicate because different areas of the city have different necessities of using other languages, specifically West Santa Rosa and Southeast Santa Rosa. If we can go to the next slide, please. On-house people is another group that we're mindful of in our equity priority populations. The city of Santa Rosa has a population of more than 1500 on-house people and almost 50% of them are on shelter. This means that they live in a public or private space that is not designed for sleeping and that includes cars, parks, abandoned buildings and other bus or transit stations. And I guess it's unnecessary to mention what are the challenges of this group of people but definitely unstable living conditions, poverty and housing scarcity and many other issues related to health in the case of homelessness. If we can go to the next slide, please. LGBTQ plus communities is a very interesting group in terms of the numbers that we have. I was unaware that Sonoma is ranked number two on the list of the US counties with the highest rate of same sex couples just after San Francisco with more than 12 couples for 1,000 households and a rate that is 56% graded than the US average, which I think it's a great thing because it talks about how progressive the city is. However, research suggests that LGBTQ plus people face health disparities and also that they have a poor rate that is higher than the average and definitely higher than cisgender straight people. So this just to be mindful about the average but also about the access to other services. If we can go to the next slide. Thank you. The last group, but not the least important is individuals who are incarcerated and those who have been incarcerated. As you might know, Sonoma County has six detention facilities. Five of them are located in the city of Santa Rosa with a population over 2,000 people. So this means that incarcerated people who live in isolation and lack of economic resources are also part of the population in the city of Santa Rosa and as research shows, formerly incarcerated people are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general residents. So this is an important thing to keep in mind and also that incarceration, actually disproportionately impacts lower income communities as well as communities of colors of color and people with disabilities creating a barrier to achieving health equity but not only that, I also access to other services. So this is why we included this group in the outreach work plan and into the equity priority populations. If we can go to the next slide, please. So for us, identifying these groups was the first item that we have in our agenda for this work plan, but then we wanted to talk about the barriers that we identify as a city, not only for the planning department that these groups actually identify. So the main barriers that we identify and this is not only for the planning department, we also talked to other departments who do outreach as well as the engagement department and as well as the equity officer and the team that does outreach around the city, which is part of mainly all the departments. And these were the main barriers that we identify for vulnerable communities to participate in planning meetings and dance surveys in the city of Santa Rosa. The first one is technical language, the one that we use for planning and government affairs. People want us to use language that is more accessible, even for English speakers. The second one is time limitations and physical location of meetings. We have to go to where people are. Sometimes it's really challenging for people to come to where we are. And this comes to the third barrier that we identified that is related to financial resources that are required to attend the events that we organize. First of all, transit fares, but also gas, baker services that people need to take on for getting their kids somewhat to help them while they attend the meetings. And also being mindful that there's a lot of jobs in the city that are actually teeth-based or that their salary depends on working hours, among others. So this excludes a fair amount of population to be able to participate in the decision-making processes that the city is putting out there. The third one is lack of cultural appropriateness of events and documents that we create. So I think this is an important conversation to have on how we organize events and how do we get closer to the community. The fifth one, but not less important, is English proficiency. As I showed you many of the groups that we have in the city identified as equity-prograted communities, don't speak English or don't speak English well. And we need to start shifting our conversation to see how we adapt to this communities and try to communicate in their own languages. Another barrier that we identified was lack of trust, not only in local government, but also in other levels of government. One of the main reasons is immigration status, but also discrimination based on the past and governance lack of response to their concerns. So this is something that we wanna keep in mind while we create community outreach, but also create methods to respond to community's concerns. And last but not least, much more during this pandemic times, digital institution and lack of technology savanness has been something that has challenged the residents to be part of the conversations that are going on through the city and throughout the city. And also when we're doing only online events, this has been a challenge. And I know we have spoken with the city council about this topic before. We can go to the next slide, please. Thank you. And so what we wanna do in terms of strategy and engagement activities, if we can go to the next slide, we have four main strategies for equity priorities, communities to be able to be empowered and participate on the general plan update. The first one is event collaboration. We've been speaking to different organizations. This includes even the county and the city departments inside the city of Santa Rosa, but also nonprofits, neighborhoods, business and other groups of residents. And we are trying to go to where they are. So we will be hosting events during the general plan update process. And we will try to focus on the groups of equity, where equity priority communities will be attending, or as you saw in the map, the areas specifically where we consider equity priority areas of the city. Second, we will be doing a targeted approach. This means we will be reaching out to specific equity priority groups. And we're already doing this work that have a small number of people and that require the city to be very intentional and very accommodating to reduce or eliminate barriers for them to be able to participate in the conversations that we're having about the general plan update. Basically this would look like meetings, focus groups and interviews. And this would be very specific and we will be asking them specifically how they want us to be reaching them. Number three is an equity grant program. We're creating and executing the grant program that can provide $500. We actually have updated the number, but this presentation was sent way before we had this conversation with the finance team and the community engagement team. It's actually $2,500 per project to organizations or residents working with any of the 10 equity priority groups identified in the city to promote the general plan update. And number four, the strategy would be adjustments to our community involvement strategy events. This means that within the workshops and the activities that we're doing in the general plan update, we will be making them more accessible so that equity priority communities can actually get access to them. This means having translations in Spanish on the workshops that we have, having specific Spanish meetings for Spanish speakers, providing paper surveys when we have people who actually are not that technologically savvy, creating additional meetings that actually accommodate schedules for communities who can come to the meetings that we have already scheduled, having additional residents and organizations to support us with the invitations and to communicating to the groups that actually don't have access to either social media or the media that we usually use to communicate with the community. And we can go to the next slide. In terms of event collaborations, I'm only including some of the organizations that we actually have been reaching out to and some that we're about to reach out to collaborate with them. In terms of, for example, the county, we're actually talking with them to be part of the clinics that they're projecting to have in schools for vaccination for kids in the next few months. So those are some of the groups that we actually have on the list, Latino service providers, vaccination fairs, the CODA Project, Muceres Unidas, Wired Farm, Riteses Collective, Lausanne, Mitote Park and Foot Trucks, North Bay Organizing Project, Sonoma County Pride and Rosalind CDI. These are some of the groups that we have worked in the past with and some of the ones that we're planning to reach out to. We can go to the next slide, please. In terms of the targeted approach that we're having, we're willing to reach out to specific equity priority groups. As I mentioned, one of the things that we want to do is focus groups and meetings and interviews with specific groups. And when we worked on this targeted approach, we were thinking about reaching out to these specific groups in a more meaningful way and in a more intentional way, because we know these are the groups that actually suffer the highest barriers to talk to government specifically. And so we want to do this for people with disabilities, immigrants and refugees, and outdoor and farm workers, people who were formerly incarcerated and Native American communities. We know these groups in the past have faced some additional barriers and we want to be mindful to include them on the conversations that we're having. And we're having also different approaches to advertise being and messaging through CD bus stations, CD buses and public libraries too. But as well, we want to do collaboration with school and the school district to join this conversation with teachers and superintendents. And we're also planning to do, getting to the community directly in places where people are already attending and places that people are already visiting, including grocery stores, food trucks, parts and other locations that we are identifying on the equity priority areas. We can go to the next slide please. Our equity grant program, our objective is to provide money to organizations and residents that will be working with this town vulnerable or equity priority groups that identify in the city and helping them have funding to do their own outreach project to help us with the general plan update. And as I mentioned before, these are the 10 groups that we will be focusing on and these are the groups that will be the target of our equity grant program. If we can go to the next slide please. We will be having adjustments to the CIS events as I mentioned before. And these are basically the changes that we'll be making and it'll be basically translation, Spanish speaking meetings specifically for Spanish speaking groups, additional meetings in other languages, paper surveys. We're actually thinking about creating our first multilingual meeting in not only Spanish but other languages and collaborating with residents and organizations from equity priority areas to support the events and the invitations for these meetings. If we can go to the next slide please. And I think it's the last one. So if we can go to the very last one. Yeah, that one please, thank you. This is our timeline right now. We're actually thinking about extending the equity priority communities outreach a little bit more toward February too. We're gonna have our meeting number three of alternatives as was mentioned in the previous presentation. And then we're gonna have our community advisory committee meeting, which will be for presenting alternatives but also equity priority work plan. And after this we will be having community equity priority community outreach as well as the formal outreach that we're thinking about with our events at number two. And we'll be going to city council and planning commission after this community outreach happens. Not only the community outreach for the city wide but also for equity priority communities. And I think this is the last slide of the presentation but if we can go to the next one thank you for the recommendation. This is what we've been working on in terms of equity priority communities and our empowerment and outreach plan. I don't know if there's any questions. We'll be very happy to respond. Thanks council for your hearing and for your feedback. Thank you so much for the presentation. I have one quick question before I get to other council members and it's on slide 13, it's more of a clarification. There's either a typo or a misunderstanding. It says 42.5% of the population are children and youth. I'm either misunderstanding what the definition of children and youth are or I'm misreading it. It's an, yeah, I think it's not well explained. The whole group of seniors and children and youth adds up to a 42% of the population. You're totally right. We added up both children youth including people from five to 24 years which is the definition of children and youth and adults over 64 include the population of seniors. Thanks for the clarification. And yes, I'm so sorry for the mistake and on the writing and that. Oh, no, this is all on me. I was just trying to make sure. So the definition for youth is 24 and below. That is correct. Great. Okay, thank you. Councilor, are there any other questions on the item? Council member Schwedhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you Beatrice for this presentation. I have a couple of questions just about the data sources. So if we can go to like slide 16, are the four bulleted items there just confirmation as to why outdoor workers and farm workers are part of a vulnerable community? Because my question was we talked about 11,000 workers in Sonoma County. My question would be how many of those are in Santa Rosa? Thanks for the question. I was actually also looking for that statistics but we don't have it. There's not a research study for the city of Santa Rosa and that would be a great item to have but we don't have those numbers. That's why I was using Sonoma County data because this is the closest that we have. And we assume that a lot of them are part of the city of Santa Rosa but we don't have an exact number. And we're very happy to start collaborating with other organizations that have this data. This was just the last updated information from the county that we were able to get. Because I agree that outdoor workers and farm workers are a vulnerable community. It's just not understanding the data. Another example on the slide to be a living wage. How is that defined? Since there has been some community conversation about that. And then the last bullet point, 2015 data housing is unaffordable for the majority of farm workers who pay up to 60% of GMI. I'd be interested how does that compare to the rest of our community? Because that is a common concern, not just with this vulnerable population. For sure, you're totally right. And we actually brought this information from the Sonoma County Department of Health Services. So they were the ones who created this parameters but you're totally right. And we can create this data across a whole group of populations. We just brought this as justification of why are we focusing on this specific communities? But yes, we can totally do that for our next, I guess, final presentation of this document and thanks for bringing that out. We can totally include that in our next presentation. Ultimately, it'll get around to my final question. But before I get to the final question on slide 20, I also had some questions. You said Sonoma County has six detention facilities, five of those within Santa Rosa. I mentioned, obviously we have the main adult detention facility and a juvenile hall facility. I'm a little surprised with population over 2,000 people because of COVID and the zero bail. My understanding, main adult detention went from about 1,100 folks down to 300 people. So do you know how accurate that 2,000 people is? No, the last report that we got from actually the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, which was the most reliable data set that we were able to identify is information from 2015. So they haven't updated any information recently. So there's probably more updated information, just not formal from the US Bureau of Statistics where we got the basic data that is comparable to the rest of the cities. But we can for sure request the information to, do you think the county could provide it with this information? We can definitely update it. Well, it definitely has been an impact. And again, it's gonna get down to our metrics for success. Cause some of the other questions too on the incarcerated one, you also talk about those that formerly been incarcerated, how and where do we identify those folks are? Which again, would lead to the metrics of our efforts outreaching to that group, which I'm not sure how well organized the formerly incarcerated are. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, thank you for bringing it up. Actually, that was the reason that we wanted to do specific focus groups because we know this is a population that will be very much harder to reach. And yes, we have a few groups of organized people. Actually, Senator Rosa Junior College has a program called Second Chance where they provide opportunities for young people to study. And we have been reaching out to them. And I think the important part of getting them into this conversation is not necessarily having the largest amount of people of formerly incarcerated people, but understanding the challenges that they face when it comes not only to community outreach, but when it comes to policy and specifically housing policy, because we know if this community is actually lead in the city of Santa Rosa, we are going to have additional challenges for them if we're not considering their needs into the housing part of policy. So that is the reason that we want to reach out to them. And you're totally right. We probably don't have a certain number. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that these are communities that have been underrepresented in the past and definitely discriminated. So we want to change that and at least do work to include them in the conversation, even if our numbers are not accurate yet. And we will do our best to get more updated numbers as you requested before. So on that same line, then my final question is what does success look like? And that's why I'm asking about some of the numbers. If we had farm workers, there's 11,000. We hope to reach 40% of them. And I'm just pulling these numbers out. But what does success look like? So we can actually look at the cost and investment, the return on the investment. So we do get those voices in there. Any thoughts on that? I really appreciate that question. We actually have defined with our consultant team metrics. And one of the things that we are requesting is to have not only data on income, but also data on racial and ethnic background of any type of survey that we create and any type of outreach that we create. In terms of this groups of where we don't have a very accurate way of tracking, what would be satisfied is, if at least we have one group of people who actually can provide meaningful responses or meaningful engagement with so that we can know what exactly in the city policies that are into the general plan update, we could change to actually provide an equity approach to the general plan update, if that makes any sense. So for us, there's a number approach that has to do with the age and the racial and ethnic background of people because that we can track and it's easy to ask. But on the other side, we have other variables like undocumented immigrants or people who have been formerly incarcerated, which are definitely harder groups to reach. And we actually want them to participate. It's not a goal outcome that we have for those specific populations. We actually want them just to be part of the decision making them be part of the groups who participate because they usually don't participate. So actually just their presence in some or any of the groups for us would be looking like success, if that makes any sense. Yeah, thank you for that. I really do appreciate the intentionality of all this being very specific and targeted. Thank you. Council Member Fleming. Thank you so much for taking the time to do such a thorough job with this. It's really fantastic to see. What strikes me is that there's so many opportunities for people to essentially qualify for more than one equity priority group, like with disabilities and being a senior or being a farm and outdoor worker and being undocumented immigrant. And so I think that it just underscores that while we may not have high numbers, there are certainly vulnerable populations and individuals and what makes them priority groups. My questions, I've got a few of them, apologize for the time takes up, but I was curious to know one about cultural appropriateness on slide 22. I was just wondering if you had a definition of what that looks like. Later on came a bunch of strategies which helped me get a sense of it, but how do you imagine cultural appropriateness being operationalized in this setting? Thanks for the question and thanks for the support in terms of the work that we've been doing. I think cultural appropriateness wouldn't be defined by me. I think we have to reach out to each group and ask them specifically how they wanna be having this conversation with us. And I will bring an example that we had with indigenous communities. They told us, or they told me specifically that they don't do meetings, public meetings, the way that we do, they actually gather with the community and have a conversation and they bring food to the table. And I know COVID related measures right now make it very difficult for what we're picturing, but they told us they don't do paper things they would like since they don't have reading language. For example, in the languages that I mentioned, they don't have read inversions of language so we can't translate surveys. So we actually have to do them in person and have a translator who would actually help us with the conversation and not a read inversion because we can't. And when we do, for example, communication to them, we have to do either videos or radio because if we do a posting or a survey or something that is written, it wouldn't get to them because they don't have a written language. And this is just a very specific example, but I think what would be for me cultural appropriate would be asking to the community how they wanna be approached and getting to them in the way that they want us to do the community outreach. Great, the fact that people are telling you that specifically what they need means you're doing something right. I've got a couple of questions about specifics on reaching a couple of populations. One is people who are currently incarcerated and the other is with children. Can you ask the question again? Yeah, my question is how do you propose to gather information or participation from individuals who are currently incarcerated and from children specifically, children younger than like maybe, I don't know if you intend to talk to children under high school age, but I could see it being easier with high school age children than the younger children. Yeah, I will start with the easiest one, which is children. And we're actually reaching out to the schools, professors and teachers. And we're also having a collaboration with the art coordinator in the city. So we're planning to have other type of spaces that actually can bring people together and not only have a public meeting or a survey or a very focused way of engaging people. We also are planning to have art as part of the conversation and have probably either painting, either murals. We haven't defined this, but we're working on that so that we have more attractive space for kids. And this includes kids under the age of high school. We are actually planning to reach out to middle school and if possible to younger kids. In terms of the community that is currently incarcerated, we haven't reached out to anyone in that specific group except for people who have been formally incarcerated. But yeah, we're planning to do it. I am not sure about that specific group, but I will let you know in our next report related to this work plan. Yeah, I would have been really surprised if you had a specific answer for how to deal with that. But there's a part of me that would have thought, maybe she does have an answer to that, so you're doing a great job. The last thing is on the topic of disabilities, I'm just one, it's a question comment, which is just wondering how you think about it in terms of people with psychiatric disabilities. A lot of this is about mobility and physical access, but just keeping in mind that there are people who have real challenges that go beyond the transportation and the simpler logistics. So I wish you luck and I look forward to it. And if you want to respond, feel free. We don't have to. Thanks, Council Member Fleming. Not that we have a strategy specifically for that. We actually have a strategy for people with ambulatory difficulties, which is movement, but we're aware that there's cognitive difficulties and hearing difficulties and vision difficulties, which are additional challenges. And actually our approach with this group is gonna be having conversations directly with them to know what exactly we need to do to get into a conversation with them. So not just a response, but a plan just of what we are planning to work on. Excellent, thank you. Vice Mayor. Would like to thank you very much for the presentation, very well done. I did have a question when we're looking at racial groups and we were looking at target groups. I, unless I missed it, did I see any groups that specifically were engaging African-American groups? What were those groups? Sorry. Yes, Vice Mayor. We actually have Black or African-American populations are actually part of the minorities experiencing disparate health outcomes. So yes, definitely one of our priorities too. So what were the groups when, on slide 25, when we specifically? Oh, you mean about the groups that we define there? No, we don't have them there yet, but these are some of the groups that we have been working with. I will definitely reach out to other groups. And actually our equity officer has been doing also that work. So there's a lot of organizations that are not here yet. And if you're willing to provide us names or groups that you want us to approach, I will be very happy to do that work and get close to them and talk directly. Okay, thank you. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. First and foremost, thank you Beatriz for this presentation. As stated before, very thorough and it's greatly appreciated. I love that on page 26, I now see grocery stores with trucks, parks and other locations. So I like that the range of outreach is definitely growing. In regards to, and I see that the planning commission definitely signed off on the recommendation. And I know that one of the issues that I've heard from my constituents is that notices in regards to meetings have been done in English. And I'm wondering if there's been any effort for the language areas where we see English being lack of proficiency. If we're actually looking at ways to send these notices in Spanish or in a bilingual form. We're working on that and we're actually identifying what the challenges are. And you saw the map on the language, English proficiency. We're working on creating a strategy of knowing how we can do that work because we know there's, we for sure want to do this. It's just that we also have challenges in terms of how many translations we would require and the timing that our translation services provide for all this work. So we're trying to do this in a way that can actually give us the right amount of resources to do it. But I think this conversation is not complete and at least for the planning department. But we will be very happy to bring you updates on what this would look like in the future. But we're definitely having that conversation inside. Well, I love it that the energy and process has begun as you are starting to identify those areas such as just demonstrated on that map. In regards to the incarcerated, one of the things that I found effective is to have communication with the detention facilities. They have groups within their structure that have access to Zoom. I tried it with the juvenile system and it worked great. Another place that I would love to see the communication being made are at halfway homes, which I believe we still have some here in San Rosa, if not mistaken, and also faith-based groups that focus their energy to the prior incarcerated. And I would definitely make that recommendation as venues for an attempt or efforts to be placed. And lastly, but not least, again, thank you for the efforts. And I love to see that energies are being placed to make those communications with the community. Now, I did want to speak on an event that we held last night. It was a span session only in regards to the site shows. We definitely saw some technical difficulties with the process, with the translation services. And I'm wondering, I know it just happened last night, but is there any advancement or efforts being put into better technology or assuring technology works for the Spanish sessions, and including all community engagement sessions, such as the one that was held last night? Thank you again, both of these. And to the rest of your team, and Gustavo Mendoza might be very apt individually to ask on how to make the communication to the incarcerated as he really assisted me in making that happen. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you. I'm sitting. I have a question. So I was a part of that meeting last night, and I think the meeting was supposed to be an hour, and it was an hour and a half. And I understood none of that meeting because I do not speak Spanish. And the translation services that I received were definitely not great nor up to par. So if that is anything that people are experiencing when we are having a meeting, that is like, that was not okay. So that is definitely something I think that we need to to look into. And also when we have those services, just not to take for granted, that they are working properly, but to have some sort of checks and balances with the services. Thanks for that feedback, Vice Mayor. We definitely have identified challenges. I think for both Spanish and English translation, and this is something that we would wanna take care of in all the meetings. And I don't think this is specifically for the planning department. I think this is a city-wide conversation that we might wanna have in terms of how we present our public meetings, any type of public meetings and how we want them to be approached in terms of not only having accessibility for translation, but also having the review of who's translating and if they're doing a good job or not. Because I think we probably don't have enough bilingual community in working for the city that can actually help us do that checking with the current staff that we have. And we should have more meetings in Spanish because it was definitely humbling and a great experience, although I missed a lot of the meeting. It was definitely a great experience in humbling. And I knew more Spanish words than I thought I knew because I was able to grab on to more words than I thought I knew. Yeah. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you once again, Mayor. And thank you for the comment of Vice Mayor Rogers. And I forgot to give credit to creditors too. I've spoken to a lot of friends throughout the state of California. And now that I'm elected official, what their experiences are. And I must give props to the city of Santa Rosa and to the people of Santa Rosa for really being leaders in what inclusion is. I know we have a long way to go, but I really need to commend the efforts that are being done so far. This should be commended. Thank you. Let's go ahead, go to public comment for this item. If you're interested in providing comment, go ahead, hit the raise hand feature. We'll start with Gregory. Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. I want to thank Beatrice from both Santa Rosa together, which met with her a few months ago at a community meeting with Victoria. And, and President-President, what is it? And this presentation tells us what she is doing. And I appreciate that because it's one of the best community education outreach presentations I've seen. Here to say though, is I sit on a 15 member committee that the county put together to do, you know, you know, we focus a lot on what the county wants for itself and what the community in the county's perception wants, but we haven't heard much from the city of Santa Rosa. And I know you have your own money, but, and I don't want to dissuade you from spending your own money on these things, but you really need to work with us at the county to try to do things that are very much overlapping. Translation is absolutely one of them. Data is absolutely one of them. And both of those were high priorities for the committee that I serve on. We recognize that we've got to deal with having a better data system, better metrics, a better outcome. And we've got to communicate better. And so I'm suggesting that the city of Santa Rosa direct the interest to come talk to the county and get involved with us as a staff member. And you know, some of the ideas she's kicking around about what you guys need, we can find. And I'm, you know, I'll sit here as one of those members who live in the city of Santa Rosa who are on the county board. You know, we know that there's no boundaries. There's no barriers that, you know, say you have one need and we have another and there's no overlap. We know there's overlap and we have to work together. So I'm, you know, volunteering is one member to make sure that you have a very easy time of trying to work with us. Next December 7th, the final report of the committee will come out and we'll be working on RFPs and trying to figure out how to put it out to the community. How to do exactly what Beatrice is saying. Get the communities to help empower all of us. And so we, I just, I'm excited. Thank you very much. Thank you, Gregory. It's the only hand that I see. Do we have any prerecorded voicemail public comments? We do not, Mayor. Okay, I'll bring it back to council to see if there's any last input or any additional comments. Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. I just, no questions. Just thanks, Beatrice, for a really impressive body of work on the priority communities. And just, I know that this will be forever evolving and the information will be refined and clarified that you and your team has done an amazing job, especially considering this is a first time effort. And it doesn't show that it's first time. This looks like you've been, well, you have been working on it for quite a while, but it is well worth the effort. And again, a really impressive presentation. And I appreciate all the effort that's going into this endeavor. Thank you very much. Any other comments, Council Members? I'll just echo the sentiments. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. I do hope you take Gregory up on his offer to meet and fund some of this work, which is what I heard from his public comment, which I know was not the only thing that he intended to say. But anytime we can find partners that are willing to put in money, I think we should definitely take advantage of that. I also heard a desire for the outreach groups to grow. I think that that's always a good thing for us to continue to do. And so I'm looking forward to how this project moves forward here from here on out. Thank you, Beatrice. Really appreciate you being here. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Council. Thanks, Mayor. And thanks, Vice Mayor. See you soon. All right, Mr. City Manager, let's do item 3.3. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 3.3 is our third study session of the afternoon. The item before the council is the Santa Rosa Creek flood study and FEMA map revision. Flannery banks are Stormwater and Creek's engineer and Jesse Oswald, our chief building official will join Betty Andrews, a principal engineer with environmental science associates to make the presentations this afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and council members. We are here to tell you about the Santa Rosa Creek flood study which will analyze inundation extents under various storm scenarios and how the city will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA to establish new and updated flood insurance rate maps or firms and flood insurance studies. Before we do that, it's important to discuss some local history and background about flood events in Santa Rosa in order to understand why the city is undertaking this project. Next slide. Santa Rosa Creek is one of the many creeks and possibly the most iconic creek in our beautiful city. It runs the width of the entire city, including through our downtown. However, this beauty and proximity come with potential flood risk to adjacent properties during large storm events. Understanding this risk and how to plan for it is the ultimate goal of this project. FEMA's flood plain maps currently do not include the majority of Santa Rosa Creek and its key tributaries. We do not have up-to-date information on where flooding will occur during a 1% annual chance flood event. As a consequence, this leaves property owners at risk and uninsured, leaves infrastructure vulnerable, leaves developers and planners unable to most effectively plan for and develop a thriving safe and resilient community and it leaves the city unable to develop the strongest emergency preparedness and mitigation plans with regards to flood events. The project is needed for improved protection and planning for preservation of life and safety as well as to be able to work on flood mitigation strategies for the city of Santa Rosa. Next slide. Santa Rosa Creek and its key tributaries have a history of flooding and actions to address potential floods. During the 1930s and 1950s, the city experienced major flooding, including the inundation of former Highway 101 South of Santa Rosa before the modern freeway was constructed as shown in the photo on the left. This location is now part of present day Santa Rosa Avenue. The Central Sonoma Watershed Project was developed by Sonoma Water in cooperation with the US Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, which is now known as the Natural Resource Conservation Service. The project included construction and shaping, straightening and stabilizing of waterways and four flood protection reservoirs to reduce flooding in the Santa Rosa area. The photo on the right shows an example of one of the creek reaches under construction within Santa Rosa, within Santa Rosa during this period. These facilities were built to carry 100 year flood events based on the amount of development, condition of the watershed and accepted engineering calculations at the time of the efforts, which was in the 1960s. Next slide. The four reservoirs that were constructed as part of the Central Sonoma Watershed Project are shown on this map. The four reservoirs constructed were Santa Rosa Creek Reservoir, more commonly known as Spring Lake, Matanzas Creek Reservoir, Heiner Creek Reservoir on Paulin Creek and Brush Creek Middle Fork Reservoir. Over time, flood risk has increased due to a variety of reasons. Most notably, development has increased in pervious surface areas considerably and climate models are projecting an increase in frequency, magnitudes, and or intensities of atmospheric rivers. At atmospheric rivers, as we recently experienced, are a narrow band of enhanced water vapor transport with increased potential precipitation amounts. In other words, it's essentially a river in the sky. Next slide. Given this risk, a number of efforts have been undertaken to understand the risk of flooding within the city of Santa Rosa. To understand those past efforts and be able to discuss this project, I wanna take a moment to walk through some basic terminology. The primary method to establishing a regional understanding of the effects of potential flood events, aid in the protection of health and safety, and better plan for flooding is to generate flood maps. So what is flood mapping? Flood mapping uses hydrologic analyses to determine how much flow will be generated by a particular storm event. Hydrologic analyses develop the creek flow rates using statistical rainfall and data from stream gauges. From the hydrologic analyses, we developed the hydraulic analyses and models using topographic information, creek channel geometry, and creek flows. The hydraulic models are used to determine where resulting floodwater will travel and how deep it will be. From the hydrology and hydraulics information, we are able to generate maps outlining the extents of flood impacts or inundation to adjacent properties. These maps are what we've referred to as flood hazard mapping. Next slide. Flood mapping generally focuses on a 1% annual chance of flood event, also known as the 100-year flood event. The 1% standard affects floodplain mapping, floodplain management, mitigation, urban planning, and flood insurance requirements. The term commonly used of 100-year flood can be very misleading as it is often understood to mean once in every 100 years. However, we can experience more than one 100-year flood in the same year or multiple years over the course of 100 years. Calculating the probability of a given flood event occurring does not determine the exact occurrence intervals. The various flood event sizes occur in an unpredictable and irregular manner. The purpose of identifying a certain year flood event is to compare the likelihood of occurrences of various flood events for the purposes of storm drain design and flood risk analysis. To avoid the potential confusion, we often prefer to refer to the event as a 1% annual chance of flood or a base flood event. Determining the frequency size of a storm takes into account many factors, including 24-hour rainfall totals, one-hour rain intensities, antecedent conditions. In other words, what were the conditions of the soil prior to the event? How full were the creeks and reservoirs? How much can the current landscape accommodate more water? These generally include items such as the water year-to-date precipitation amounts, precipitation immediately before the storm event, soil moisture levels, and anomalous positive water storage. With this in mind, we wanted to take a moment to provide and explain some information surrounding the October 24th, 2021 storm event. Next slide. We do know and were recently reminded that 1% annual chance storm events do occur. Within the city limits, we observed 24-hour rainfall totals ranging from 6.86 inches to 8.75 inches which coincide to a approximately 10-year up to an approximately 200-year storm event with additional data outlying both of these noted values. When we look at smaller time duration intensities, such as the one-hour intensities, we observed intensities closer to the 50% to 10% annual chance of occurrence or a two-year to 10-year storm event. However, even though the 24-hour rainfall totals were within the 1% range, the observed impacts were not those associated with the 1% annual chance of flood event. This was due to the state of the anesthetic conditions ahead of the start of the storm event. Key contributing factors to this include record-breaking drought conditions with low water levels in local reservoirs, ponds, and waterways, including the downstream constraint of Laguna de Santa Rosa, all providing water storage, buffering the chance of flooding. The storm came unusually early in the water year with very low precipitation in the days and weeks before the rain event. Additionally, the ground was dry and with the extended length of the event was able to infiltrate some of the precipitation into the soils and assist in reducing the amount of runoff. Because of these conditions prior to the storm event, we did not see the creek levels and flow rates associated with the 1% annual chance flood event. Recorded levels of Santa Rosa Creek at the Pearson Street Gauge and related flow rates during the storm event were closer to a 50% annual chance level or two-year event when compared with historical values with more typical rainy season antecedent conditions. For design and modeling purposes, the antecedent conditions used in the hydrologic and hydraulic models to develop the inundation maps are based on decades of available and observed data which incorporate conditions such as saturated soil moisture levels and more typical water levels in the reservoirs, creeks and Laguna de Santa Rosa. While perimeters around the October 24th, 2021 event will likely result in the data being an outlier set, the project team is still considering the data from the event and how it may benefit the modeling. Next slide. To return to the history of this project, a number of efforts have been made over the last 20 years to understand flood risks within the city, including work with the US Army Corps of Engineers and Sonoma Water. Because FEMA's current flood insurance rate maps or firms do not have up-to-date information or inundation extents for base flood events, the city teamed with Sonoma Water to begin the process of updating the flood models and inundation maps for Santa Rosa Creek and its key tributaries. Next slide. Under contract with the city in Sonoma Water, ESA developed initial draft models. The above map shows the inundation extents from the draft inundation map efforts with flood depths of 1.25 feet or greater within the study limits. Since the development of this initial model and draft maps newer and better information has become available that will help increase the accuracy of the flood extents. Next slide. The purpose of the current project is to update draft models and maps with new data and information to better predict where flooding will occur along Santa Rosa Creek and its key tributaries under rain events of various sizes and provide this information to FEMA so they can update their firms and flood insurance studies. Just as a side note, the firms are the maps that determine the properties that will likely be subject, that will be subject to the National Flood Insurance Program Regulations. Sonoma Water's contract with ESA includes updates to the draft models and maps with the new data in collaboration with the city. ESA is currently performing this as part of their work with Sonoma Water, with Sonoma Water's Central Sonoma Water Project. The new models will show new inundation thresholds for the 10-year, 50-year, 100-year, and 500-year flood events. The city's contract with ESA includes preparation of documents and submittals to FEMA for the FEMA's development of the firms and flood insurance studies. The Santa Rosa Creek Flood Study Project Team and our technical task force will continue to closely coordinate with Sonoma Water, Sonoma County, and other key stakeholders throughout the project, as well as pursue public outreach and support. Betty Andrews from ESA is here to walk us through the model and map updates. Thank you, can you hear me? Yes. Great, thank you. Not getting any signals back, so it was a little hard to tell. Thank you, Flannery. My name is Betty Andrews, as Flannery said. I have had the opportunity to work with the city in Sonoma Water on the modeling for Santa Rosa Creek. I am a Santa Rosa resident, so it's a great opportunity to participate in the management of a system that I am very close to. Our prior work on Santa Rosa Creek was completed in 2017. That work, which significantly refined the model previously developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, demonstrated that flood risk in the Santa Rosa Creek watershed was considerably greater than previously thought. It also identified some areas where additional effort was warranted, such as incorporating a better representation of the Prince Memorial Greenway, developing a better understanding of the Tansas Creek flows and expanding the simulated flood plain on the Southwest side of Santa Rosa. In the four years since 2017, the tubs fire devastated Santa Rosa, and that provided an opportunity and a need that Sonoma Water took advantage of to get a large number of additional rainfall, streamflow, and stage gauges added in the region. And that boost in data sources really represents an invaluable contribution to the model calibration and validation process, and therefore our ability to provide robust modeling results that we can be confident in. Additionally, Sonoma Water received grant funds to update some parts of the model, as Flannery just described. And in fact, an update to the modeling of the Tansas Creek watershed was just concluded as part of that effort, and additional refinements are underway. Next slide. Building on the model updates being completed under contract to Sonoma Water, we will be conducting the analyses required to update the FEMA regulatory flood plain mapping for the city. We will prepare materials for submittal to FEMA that document the development of the hydrology and hydraulics modeling on which updated modeling will be based. We will generate work maps that will provide the foundation for FEMA's draft updated flood insurance rate maps or firms for the city, which will be subject to review by the city and the community. And we will provide documentation to update FEMA's flood insurance study for the relevant portion of Sonoma County. Next slide. Like snowflakes, every rainfall event is different, and the same is true for every runoff event. Storms travel different pathways at different speeds. Sometimes they stall out. Sometimes they change direction. Some provide very consistent levels of rainfall over large areas. Others, like the October 24th bomb cyclone, had widely varying amounts of precipitation, even at adjacent rain gauges. Additionally, the same storm event will have different effects in different watersheds as runoff is affected by watershed size, shape, orientation, slope, and land cover. A short, intense burst of rainfall can overwhelm a small watershed while barely causing a blip in a large watershed. And importantly, actual events differ from design flood events. Modeling used to generate FEMA floodplain maps can provide an excellent representation of a particular storm of a given size, but it won't represent any actual storm. Still, it helps us to understand risk levels at different locations in the floodplain and inform good floodplain management as well as providing a basis for costing out flood insurance premiums. Next slide. I'm turning it back over to you, Flannery. Good afternoon. This is actually Jesse. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers. Vice Mayor Rogers and council members, Jesse Oswald, chief building official. So for the question would be asked, why are we doing this? Benefits to the community is a primary reason. Increasing property owner knowledge and awareness of the potential risks. This is one of our targets. Better informed decision-making for community development and planning. Improved planning for protection of infrastructure and floodplains and waterways. Improved protection and planning for preservation of life and safety and the ability to access funding and grant opportunities to address and mitigate flood risks. Next slide, please. So be clear that delineating a floodplain does not prohibit development within the floodplain itself. It just sets a specific set of standards for design to not negatively impact floodlands. What this triggers is typically the requirement for flood insurance if located within these areas. Costs for flood insurance throughout the national flood insurance program can have a wide range due to several different variable factors. They do not range typically from company to company or agent to agent. Staff's initial research found that NFIP flood insurance costs for a single family home is approximately $850 per year or it's $66 per month. With potentially a scaled onboarding cost, there is also pre-firm, which means before the flood map was established, subsidized rating systems for existing development properties that would qualify for that would initially be lower and or over time scale up to the standard rate for a property. And this is transferable to a new property only if that occurs. Some of the factors that weigh on a flood insurance rate are the flood risk or flood zone type of coverage purchased whether it be simply building, building in contents or additional measures to be covered by the policy. The deductible location of the structure design an age of the structure, location of the structure's contents and the flood type, meaning is it from a tributary overflow, a river overflow, storm surge or potentially just heavy rainfall. Distance to water source is a contributing factor to the rate. Total expected cost to rebuild is also a factor and submittal of an elevation certificate is also an element that comes into play. Some things that will potentially occur with change in the flood maps. There will be an increased demand on the design community or design professionals. Elevation certificates showing the exact elevation of structures within these areas will be needed to obtain insurance. And these are generally obtained from licensed land surveyors. There's anticipated to be a heavy increase in demand on an already highly in-demand professional community, specifically local surveyors that will make it a challenge to meet the expected demands requested by property owners and developers while properties are brought into compliance with insurance requirements. Under risk rating 2.0 equity in action, requirements for elevation certificates will no longer be required to purchase flood insurance. A property owner may still choose to provide an elevation certificate to their insurance agent to determine if the cost of the insurance can be lower. Elevation certificates will remain under the floodplain management building requirements for new development. All phases of implementing FEMA's risk rating 2.0 rating methodology will be implemented prior to the release of Santa Rosa's Creek's final flood maps. Increased restrictions on developments can occur. Municipal impacts through the in-depth hydrology and hydraulic analysis affected proposed developments not currently required to do an in-depth hydrologic and hydraulic design as part of the design process will need to produce such engineering documents and supply for review during the process of approval. Next slide, please. So to touch on the project schedule, the project team has somewhat control over this during the initial phases. So this next year to year and a half. So in quarter one, 2022 to quarter two, 2023, the team will be performing the model updates, submitting the model data and draft maps to FEMA. In 2023, FEMA will be reviewing mapping submittals, preparing preliminary firms and the flood insurance studies. During quarter four, 2023 to quarter three, 2025, we anticipate FEMA being able to release the preliminary firms and flood insurance studies and begin that and perform their due process period. These two scheduling items with FEMA, there is a lot of public outreach and review that takes place. And this is where the project team expects the most potential for creep in the schedule. And when the effective firms and flood insurance study would take place. On going throughout this whole process, the city is planning on performing community outreach with an increased focus ahead of the release of the preliminary firms and flood insurance study. And during FEMA's due process period. Next slide. So as far as community outreach goes, as Flannery indicated, we will be having community meetings throughout the process, including publishing of preliminary flood insurance rate maps and flood insurance studies. Meetings at the meetings, members of the public will be provided the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. Topics that we anticipate will include helping property owners identify which properties are likely to be subject to the insurance and floodplain management requirements, the likely cost or range of costs of flood insurance, pathways for property owners to purchase flood insurance. We anticipate holding public meetings in council districts most impacted by the floodplain. Discussions will continue at Waterways Advisory Committee meetings. We will hold other public meetings to meet the demand for information. FEMA's due process as Flannery touched on will also allow for opportunities for the public to comment on their process as well. Additional outreach and materials support is anticipated. City staff intend to build up additional resources likely to include the dedicated webpage, addressing the changes, FAQs and providing resources We will also be setting up a sign up to receive project updates portal feature along with the additional outreach. Next slide, please. But as mentioned on the previous slide, the city will can concentrate on public outreach on those districts most impacted by the flood mapping. This slide shows an overlay of city districts on the draft flood map. You can see from the map, the primary areas impacted are within districts seven and five as well as some properties in district two. Next slide, please. As discussed in the beginning of this presentation, a primary goal of the project is to allow the city to prepare for and better mitigate the potential for flooding in the city. Staff will use the findings to update city emergency operations, plans and procedures. City staff across multiple departments have already begun working on planning, recommendations and improvements to our emergency response based on the preliminary draft information available. The city will also be able to pursue mitigation strategies. One of the mitigation strategies currently being pursued by the city is the development of a storm drain master plan. With the recent procurement of recently awarded grant funds, the storm drain master plan project is now fully funded based on the engineering cost estimates. Stormwater and creeks team is working through proposal writing to head to request for proposals and bidding processes. The storm drain master plan will begin to identify potential measures to mitigate the potential flooding within the city along Santa Rosa Creek and its tributaries as well as a multitude of other storm drain and stormwater related concerns. The city will also be able to do better future project planning in regards to flood management. When the analysis models and maps are finalized and adopted, future project planning for mitigating flood impacts can incorporate multi-use facilities as much as possible, including park space, flood control, water quality and stormwater recharge of groundwater aquifers. With that, I would like to open this discussion back to council and feel to any questions council may have for us. Planetary Jesse, Betty, thank you all so much for your work on this council. Let's start with questions before we go to public comment. Seeing no questions, just a lot of shaking heads. Let's see if we have any public comments on this item. If you do go ahead, hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. We'll start with Jen. Am I there? Am I here? Go ahead. All right. Well, hello again, Mayor Rogers and Vice Mayor Rogers, council members and staff and Jen Close, Generation Housing Executive Director, where we advocate for more and more diverse and more affordable housing. I really appreciate all the work that went into this report. This is complicated stuff and there are clearly some legitimate concerns about flooding and how it could impact our downtown. I was surprised though, to see the report focus entirely on mitigation and preparation for flood and no discussion about potential ways to avoid flood altogether. We are aware that there, we're, Generation Housing is aware that there's been significant discussion in the past few years about a P3 project that would move City Hall away from the current site and into a high rise downtown and potentially relocate state offices currently housed in the outdated and underutilized state building, creating prime real estate for downtown housing and opening up the Santa Rosa Creek. Exposing the creek is a great idea as it would add beauty and life to our downtown, like the rivers do in Bend, Oregon, Austin, Texas, Boise, Idaho, and isn't it possible that exposing the creek and eliminating the pinch point created by diversion of its water into tunnels below City Hall could reduce if not eliminate the threat of flood. So we'd ask you to give this potential triple win serious consideration before accepting flood as unavoidable and inevitable. Also is a perfect example of how Santa Rosa's environmental housing and economic goals are inextricably linked. We urge a more holistic approach to planning the city's future, breaking out of departmental silos that result in examining risk management, resource management, economic development and housing construction and vacuums and instead working interdepartmentally for collaborative creative solutions. Thank you. And as always, thank you for your service. Thank you, Jen. That's the only hand that I see. Do we have any voicemail comments? We do not, Mayor. All right, we'll bring it back to council then for any additional comments. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Thank you very much for the presentation. I just wanted to say I'm very much a visual person and I would welcome a walkthrough of the creeks and how it would actually affect the housing because I am wondering like how it would affect our residential, our residents and also our businesses that may be near creeks. So yes, I would welcome a tour, a lovely tour, that would be great. Thank you. All right, thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other comments? Council Member Alvarez? Thank you, Mayor. I just heard a field trip. So if there is an invitation made to a field trip on the San Jose creeks, please invite me. I would love to be there. Thank you. All right, thank you again for all of your work and we'll be seeing this coming back up again before council in the near future. That council, we're going to go ahead and recess until four o'clock for our regular council meeting. We'll be back at that time. For those joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Pablo, can you please restate this in Spanish? Para los que recien, se unen a la reunión, la interpretación en vivo en español está disponible. Los miembros que desean escuchar en español pueden unirse al canal. Para unirse, haga clic en el icono de interpretación en la barra de herramientas de Zoom que ahora parece un globo terráqueo. Una vez se unan al canal de español, se recomienda que apague el audio primario para que solo escute la interpretación al español. Thank you, Pablo. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing? Welcome back to the meeting. Let's go ahead and take the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Tibbets. Here. Councilmember Schwedhelm. Here. Councilmember Sawyer. Here. Councilmember Fleming. Here. Councilmember Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present. Excellent. We'll start today. We have two proclamations. Councilmember Alvarez will start with proclamation for 6.1 for National Native American Heritage Month. Thank you, Mayor. It's with great honor that I present this proclamation from the city of Santa Rosa. Whereas indigenous American peoples, Hawaiian natives, and Alaska natives were the first to live on this land with the traditions and values inspiring ideas of self-governance and determination that are the framework of our country. And whereas the United States Congress passed the Senate Joint Resolution 172 in 1991, which authorizes and requests the President to proclaim November as Native American Heritage Month. And whereas, as stated by former President Barack Obama, we must acknowledge the unfortunate chapters of violence, discrimination, and deprivation against American Indians, as well as the effects and injustices that continue to be felt. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa recognizes the city is built upon Pomo, Miwak, and Wapo homelands, and that indigenous nations have lived upon this land since time immemorial, that the land itself carries historical trauma, and that racist policies and dominant cultural norms have aimed to strip tribes not only of land, but of culture, language, and family systems. And whereas many local tribes survived and banded together with other tribes from the region, such as the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, the Kashi'a Band of Pomo Indians of the Stewards Point Rancheria, the Federated Indians of Green Rancheria, and the Linn Band of Pomo Indians, and whereas, the non-profit organization Yakaama, which means our land, in the Pomo language was founded in 1971, and is situated on 125 acres of prime agricultural land in Western Sonoma County. And whereas, the mission of Yakaama is to support traditional native culture and values, to give native people the tools to become contributing members of their communities, and to improve educational opportunities and resources for American Indians, Hawaiian natives, and Alaska natives. And whereas, Yakaama is open to all tribes, members of Sonoma County, and the five surrounding counties in the region, offering a safe space for educational classes, cultural ceremonies, and events, and celebration of life. Now, therefore, it be resolved, our mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, Chris Rogers, and the city council, to hereby proclaim November, as the National Native American Heritage Month. Oh! Thank you, council member. We'll do a public comment on item 6.1 if there's anybody who would like to say a couple of words. Please go ahead and line up at the podium. Well, I'd like to thank you and the rest of the board for today. This is a big honor for our people. And so, and I like Eddie, I kind of ditto and really like what Eddie presented there because that is what we try to do for our community because sometimes we don't get to do much, but every little bit does help. So I really appreciate that, Eddie. And on behalf of our board, it is truly an honor to receive this award today because we've been putting in some work, you know? And sometimes it doesn't go over well. But it is truly our heart and our passion to do more for the native community. So again, I wanna thank you for giving us this award today. And even the founders that have laid their time and sweat and blood of 50 years ago, you know? I don't remember all their names, but there were several of them, about 12 or so, 12, 13. But I just wanna give them recognition as well today. And I'm gonna allow our former chair to come up and share some things with you again. My name's Bill Marbilli and I'm the former chair right now. Hi guys, my name is Maria Cardenas. I know most of you in this room, I actually have forced my way into some of your guys' lives via email and in person. And I'm so grateful for this proclamation today. It was a hard, hard way just to get here 50 years. And I just wanna say how thankful we are and how much our community has come together and recognizing us has given us motivation to keep fighting and moving forward. And we're still not done. And I wanna thank you guys. And I wanna thank everybody who's here, board members and former board members, our caretaker, Adrienne, who's been our caretaker for so long. And I'm really just grateful. Thank you. Wopila mayor, vice mayor, city council members. My Lakota name is Wechapi Lutawid, which means many stars woman. My American name is Madonna Rose Feather Cruz. And I just wanna say Wopila on behalf of all of our people. This is a long time coming. And when I hear equity, equity, equity, and when I hear equity, I wanna see someone hiring a native, hiring a native, hiring a black, hiring a Mexican, that's what equity is. I just wanna say thank you to all of you guys. Anybody else who'd like to make a couple comments? All right, then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna invite folks down. We'll actually take a photo with you with the proclamation if that works for everybody before we move on to 6.2, which is our second proclamation for the day. Thank you everybody for being here. So next we'll have item 6.2. It's our proclamation for a national apprenticeship week. We've got a couple of representatives here from some of our trades. We have the operating engineers. We have the carpenters. We have the electricians. If you guys wanna come on up and I'll have Council Member Fleming read the proclamation via Zoom, and then we'll present it to you and take some photos if you're interested as well. Actually, I'll let you make comments. If you wanna make comments first, then we'll take photos. So if you wanna queue up at the podium, that works well. And Council Member Fleming, go ahead and take it away. Thank you, Mayor. And I do apologize that I couldn't be there in person today. This is a proclamation that is close to my heart. So whereas National Apprenticeship Week is celebrating its seventh anniversary of raising awareness of the vital role apprenticeships provide in creating a qualified and highly skilled workforce in diverse industries in Santa Rosa and across the nation. And whereas advancement and wellbeing of the United States of America depends upon the continued development of skilled workers in their chosen fields. And whereas an ever-growing number of job creators and career seekers are discovering the benefits of apprenticeships unique learn while you earn model. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa recognizes that robust apprenticeship programs provide tangible value to both job creators and apprentices with the potential to increase productivity, improve diversity and an inclusion and reduce recruitment and training costs while providing a pathway to prosperous careers for job seekers. Now, therefore be it resolved that Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers and the city of Santa Rosa do hereby proclaim November 15th through November 21st, National Apprenticeship Week. All right, thank you. Mackin Taggart. Mayor, thank you very much. Council members, my name is John Mackin Taggart. I'm the business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 551. We are based here in Santa Rosa. Our apprenticeship program is based here in Santa Rosa. All of our apprentices are from the surrounding areas and a tremendous amount of our numbers are from the center of the city schools. The apprenticeship, we really appreciate you with this proclamation, recognizing the importance of apprenticeship. The apprenticeship lifts up those individuals who don't wanna go into the white-collar career. That gives them an avenue to live a blue-collar, middle-class life, especially the union trades. All of us up here have apprenticeship programs and any apprentice that makes it into our program, they're given the golden ticket. Basically, there's nothing between them and retirement, but them. So what we say to high schools and colleges is you get them to 18 or 22, we will take them to 62. And that way, they get to stay in the neighborhoods, growing their communities, and their kids get to go to the same schools they went to. They get to come home, talking about their teachers, knowing their parents, and then communities are built. That's what we believe is how strong communities are built. We really appreciate the proclamation you're making here today. Thank you, sir. Dan? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Miss Vice Mayor. Thanks for having us here today, and thank you for recognizing Apprenticeship Week and making it with this proclamation. And as my brothers-in-arms up here would probably agree with me, an apprenticeship isn't just a skills training device, it's also an opportunity for a better life, for a lot of the local residents here and surrounding counties as well. I know when I went through the apprenticeship, it's changed my life immensely for the better, and unions are also leading the way in diversifying the workforce. We've heard it for years from, we've probably heard it from financial planners left and right, diversify your portfolio, but we're taking that same vision and using it and directing it towards our workforce. What better way to have a stronger workforce out there than to diversify our workforce? Thank you. Mike? Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and fellow council members. Mike Pickens, operating engineers and district rep here for the runner park area in San Rosa. I would like to personally thank you on behalf of Mike Pickens as declared in this National Apprenticeship Week. Apprenticeships do a lot of things for people. You heard John talk about how it's a golden ticket, well, for me, it really was. Prior to walking into the Apprenticeers pre-apprenticeship program, I walked in there with the clothes on my back. I was living on the streets, doing a lot of very unscrupulous things. Really very rough life, very rough childhood, no future. I last on to the apprenticeship program and here I am 24 years later and I never looked back. Today, I own a house, I'm a tax-paying citizen. I have had medical for the last 24 years I never had to worry about. Thanks to a union apprenticeship program, a joint labor management apprenticeship program. So it really does offer the opportunity for our youth, whether they be disadvantaged, whether it be a kid who grew up on the farm or living up in another county where they don't have a whole lot of opportunity. It really is. What you get out of it, what you put into it is a great opportunity to shine light on the apprenticeships in the area and show the youth that there's another pathway, that if they don't feel college is right or school is right for them, then there is another path forward that can get you a great career to where you can retire with dignity and know that you're gonna have a steady paycheck for the rest of your life until you pass away It's a great opportunity and I really appreciate what you've done here. Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. Thank you gentlemen. Go ahead and come on down. We'll take a photo with the proclamation. All right, before we move on, we'll see if we have any public comment on our Zoom for items 6.1 and 6.2. And Madam Deputy City Clerk, I'm gonna ask you to run public comment for a moment. Thank you for those wishing to make a public comment on items 6.1 or 6.2. Please raise your hand via Zoom. If you are participating by telephone, please dial star nine. Mayor, I'm not seeing any hands being raised via Zoom and no one has approached the podium to make additional public comment. Okay, we'll go ahead and keep moving through the meeting. We'll move on to item number seven. That's our staff briefings. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, we have a COVID-19 update this afternoon. Sonoma County opens COVID-19 booster shots to all adults, 18 years and older to help avoid the winter surge, especially as people travel and gather indoors for the holidays. The broad expansion of booster eligibility aligns Sonoma County with the California Department of Public Health guidance released this week, which allows all adults seeking to strengthen their immune systems to get a booster in advance of the holiday season. Anyone in a high risk or higher risk group, including seniors 65 and older, people with underlying medical conditions, people who work in high risk settings and all Johnson and Johnson recipients are urged to get a booster shot as soon as possible. People seeking booster vaccination appointments should check first with their primary care providers and at pharmacies as vaccine supplies will be limited at the county's fixed and pop-up clinics. For information on about vaccine clinics and how to make appointments through the county's vaccine clinic webpage, visit socoemergency.org, forward slash vaccine or visit myturn.ca.gov. Children age five to 11 are now eligible to receive the Pfizer pediatric vaccine providing families with another tool to protect loved ones over the holidays. This week, the County of Sonoma in collaboration with the Sonoma County Office of Education and local health experts are offering a webinar focusing on questions and answers about the COVID-19 pediatric vaccines for children's ages five to 11. Tonight's webinar will be presented in English from five to 6 p.m. And again tomorrow night from four to 5 p.m. in Spanish. For webinar information, visit socoemergency.org, forward slash vaccine. As of yesterday, the County had 1,379 active COVID-19 cases and a total of 410 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Are there any questions on the COVID-19 update? Let's move on then. Go to our City Manager and City Attorney reports. Excuse me, Mayor, did you wanna take any public comment on the staff briefings? Good point, so I did not see any hands. I don't see anybody moving towards the podium here in the chambers. If you are interested, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. Seeing none, did we have any voicemail public comments? We did not, Mayor. Right, we'll keep moving. Mr. City Manager, do you wanna start with your report? No report this evening. Okay, Madam City Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I actually have two items I'd like to report on. The first is our monthly now report on settlements and active litigation. Again, we are giving this report monthly under the open government ordinance that will formally go into effect on January 1st. So in terms of litigation, in terms of settlements, we had no new settlements to report out this month. We, in terms of litigation, we have 29 cases still in our office, five receiverships, three of which rehabilitation of the properties are well underway and getting close to being finalized. We have 10 general litigation, three of which have been either resolved or are close to being resolved. We have six cases of personal injury or dangerous conditions, one of which has been resolved. Four police action cases, four rits of mandate. And of course, this is also all in addition to our other legal proceedings, weapons cases, pitches, code enforcement, dangerous animal cases and others. At this point, we have six of our pending litigation matters set for trial in the coming year. So we'll be looking forward to that trial, those trials. We have 10 new claims filed last month, two of which were personal injury claims, the remainder of which were filed in connection with the city's short-term rental ordinance that the council adopted a few weeks ago and we have those claims. So that is my report on litigation and settlements. The second item that I would like to report on, I want to let the council and the public know that tomorrow evening will be the first meeting of the city charter review committee. The committee is now fully appointed, everyone's in place. First meeting takes place tomorrow via Zoom, starting at 5 p.m. We'll be getting together for the first time, providing for some introductions and we have three scheduled items. We'll give an overview of the charter and of the charter review process. We'll give a very brief introduction to the Brown Act and the Public Records Act and then finally, the committee will start to work on discussing its work plan, how it's gonna move forward. So we wanna welcome the public to join that meeting. I think it's gonna be very interesting and exciting and we do look forward to this very important and engaging work that's ahead of us. Thank you, happy to answer any questions. All right, thank you so much. Are there any questions for the city attorney? Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. I see no hands on Zoom. I see no one moving towards the podium. Do we have any pre-recorded voice mails? We do not, Mayor. Okay, let's go on to item number nine then that is statements of abstention from council members. Does anybody have to abstain from any items tonight? Council member Schwedel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be abstaining from item 11.4, the special meeting as I was not present for that meeting. Okay, council member Tibbetts. I abstain from item 12.1. My organization is one of the applicants. If we have any public comment on item number nine, statements of abstention, seeing no hands and nobody moving to the podium. Did we have any voice mails? We did not, Mayor. All right, let's go on to mayors and council members' reports. Does anybody have anything to report out on at tonight's meeting? Vice Mayor? I would like to make an appointment to the board of community service and that will be Mr. Guido. Okay, good, I said that right. And then the second thing is I wanted to give a shout out to, and I hope I'm saying it to the right officer, but I wanted to give a shout out to one of our own, Anthony Scholarcio. Maybe badge number will be better, 585, number 585. If you can hear me, I want to give a shout out just for the way you are seen in the community interacting with our community. This is something that is very well done. And if I'm getting feedback, then I just want to pass it on and give it to you. Like we are so trying to build that relationship. And I just want to thank you for making it easier and we're getting one step closer. So thank you so much, Officer Anthony, for your time, your commitment to our community. Thank you. All right, council member Alvarez. And I heard he's a great dancer, by the way. Just throwing it out there. I also want to report out that last night we did have a Spanish session in regards to the Sideshow Epidemic, I almost say, that we're having here in the nation, not just in San Rosa, of course. And I wanted to thank the Hispanic community, the Latino community for really engaging and coming forward to share their ideas, their concerns with us. And if I could in Spanish, and I'll repeat in English, how important it is for our community to really speak up so they can be heard. Quiero agradecerle la comunidad hispana, Latina, por arrimarse a nosotros para dar sus ideas, sus pesares, sus inquietudes, porque es muy importante que ustedes se arrimen hacia nosotros para nosotros poder escucharlos, para poder entendirlos y poder salir con soluciones para que podamos resolver el problema que nos afecta como una comunidad. Gracias. Thank you. Council Member Svettel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just want to report out that we did have a Groundwater Sustainability Agency meeting on the 10th. In essence, as we heard, I think it was our last council meeting, the public comment period had opened and closed. And so Sonoma Water gave us some input as to what the community was saying and how it's going to be incorporated into that report. So I was very appreciative of their efforts, their outreach efforts, and also how this was not a state mandated thing to even respond back, but the Sonoma Water really is showing some transparency and everyone has been involved with that is very, very helpful. And I was able to last Thursday on Veterans Day, attend the Veterans Day flag ceremony at City Hall here. And I want to thank the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 223 for their efforts on Thursday. And lastly, last Sunday was the second of the two mayor awards. Again, just want to recognize some awesome contributors that are making Santa Rosa a better place to live, work, and play. And I really do want to recognize that mayor awards committee because over the two day period, they did an awesome job about making it COVID appropriate. And also how challenging and difficult it was to select those winners because there's a lot of great people in Santa Rosa doing great efforts and they did a wonderful job with recognizing those that received the awards. Thanks. All right, we'll go to public comment on council member reports. I see no hands. Do we have any voicemails? We did not, Mayor. Okay, let's go on then to item 11. We have four sets of minutes from October 6th, October 19th, October 20th, and October 29th. Were there any amendments to those minutes from council? Okay, let's go to public comment and see if the public had any changes to those minutes. And I see no hands. Do we receive any voicemails? We did not, Mayor. Great, we will show those four items approved as submitted without any objection. Mr. City Manager, let's go to the consent calendar. Mayor Rogers and members of the city council, we have four items on the consent calendar this afternoon, beginning with item 14, I'm sorry, 12.1, a resolution authorizing the submittal of two applications to the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development's Home Key Grant Program for the city to be a co-applicant in two projects. The first is Caritas in the amount not to exceed 11.36 million. And second is the St. Vincent de Paul Commons in an amount not to exceed 7.6 million. Item 12.2 is a resolution amending the fiscal year 2021-22 adopted budget to appropriate fund balance to establish a flexible spending account reserve. Item 12.3, a resolution for termination of a proclamation of local emergency due to the 2020 glass fire. Item 12.4 is an ordinance adoption, an ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa to amend the city zoning code, chapter 20-31, density bonus and other development incentives to be consistent with state government code section 65915, density bonuses and other incentives. File number REZ 21-003. Looking to see if we have any questions or comments from council members. Seeing no hands, let's take public comment on these items. You have a comment for any of our consent calendar items. Go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom or make your way towards the podium here in the chamber. Our first public comment will be from Erin. Hi council members, good evening. I just wanted to ask a clarifying question. I don't know if that's possible, but if they change the zoning code ordinance, is that to make it easier for projects to be moved through or what's the purpose of that? It's really important that zoning's upheld to protect the environment. So I just have concerns about changing zoning and giving away these density bonuses and seeing Sonoma County just be overrun with project after project after project, especially in Santa Rosa. So I do want to bring that to your attention and make sure that we are acting appropriately. I know that the state has their vision, but when we look at the state as a whole, there's lots of different areas to take into account. And if we're thinking Southern California, Orange County, Los Angeles compared to, let's say Santa Rosa, density bonuses could be detrimental to preserving our agricultural areas, our rural characteristics and our quality of life here. So I just would like some more clarification if possible on what that actually means. And then for item 12.1, what is the outcome of these things? Is this going to help the homeless problem in the area? Are we going to see any changes to all the encampments everywhere? How does that actually address the homeless issue? It says a lot of dollars coming to these things. I'm assuming these are tax dollars going towards these things. And it's great that we can provide additional supports and resources, but what's the actual timeline for that? What does that look like? Where are we going to go to get the people off the creeks, people off the streets? How is that really going to help the immediate need for the homeless issue? So I don't know if the council's allowed to give further clarification on what these will mean and how that works, but I'd appreciate some additional information from anybody on the floor. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else is interested in providing comment? Go ahead, hit the raise hand feature. And Erin will get you some answers in just a moment here when we finish up public comment. Let's check and see if we had any voicemail public comments on the consent calendar. We do not mayor. Okay. So as it pertains to item 12.4, that's the second reading of an ordinance that the council has previously seen. Those are largely technical to make sure that we are still in compliance with state law changes. As for item 12.1, if we have Megan, Megan, do you want to give a brief overview of those projects? Not going too far into it since this is the consent calendar and there's a lot of documentation with it as well, but I want to make sure that we are able to answer for Erin, sort of the top line questions that we're being asked. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of council. I'm happy to address the questions that were being asked. So these funds are being made available by the state of California's Department of Housing and Community Development. These are grant funds that if awarded would go towards these two projects. Keratoc Center is currently under construction and this is the site of the former family support center in downtown Santa Rosa. So if awarded funds, they would go towards the project that is already under construction and anticipated to begin serving homeless individuals in the next year. And the second project, St. Vincent's Commons, which is formerly the Goldcoin Motel is owned by St. Vincent de Paul. And if awarded the funds, they would be able to proceed rapidly with rehabbing the facility and turning that into 54 units that would provide permanent housing for homeless individuals. All parties that benefit from home key projects need to be referred through coordinated entry, which is a component of Dysenoma County Continuum of Care. If there's any additional questions, I'm happy to answer those. Okay, council, is there anything else? Great. So council member Tibbets has recused himself from 12.1, that's why his camera's gone. Vice Mayor, if you'd like to put a motion in. I actually had a point of clarification. 12.4 due because Tibbets wasn't here. Does he have to recuse from that one or no? Because he wasn't here for the first reading. I'm sorry, which council member was not here? Tibbets. The general rule is that if you were not here for the prior hearing, you should read the materials and listen to the tape so that you have all of the information regarding the proposed ordinance in order to vote on this final adoption. Okay. Okay, well, he didn't recuse, so. All right, so I would like to move 12.1 and waive for the reading of the text. I'll second. We have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from council member Alvarez. Would you please call the vote? Thank you. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Okay, that motion passes with five ayes with council member Fleming absent and council member Tibbets recusing. We have another motion. Yeah, does someone tell Jack to come back? I'd keep moving. Okay. I move items 12.2 through 12.4 and waive for the reading of the text. Second. We have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from council member Schwedhelm. I did wanna just call out all the great work that staff has been doing as we terminate the proclamation for a local emergency due to the 2020 glass fire. I know we have touched on it here from the desk briefly but it really is another milestone in terms of recovery and in terms of response. So I just wanna give a huge shout out to everybody who's been working so hard to bring people home from that disaster. And with that, let's call the vote. Council member Tibbets. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with council member Fleming absent. Okay. 445 will move on to item 14.1 just so that folks know sort of how the run of show is gonna be tonight. We're gonna take 14.1 and I assume that that will put us past five o'clock. That means that we will then come back and take our public hearings at that point. That'll be items 15.1 through 15.3 and then we'll come back after those with item 14.2. Since 14.2 is not an urgent public meeting along with it. We also will take a dinner break at some point in there. Item 13 is the non-agenda items matter that will be taken at five o'clock as well. Mr. City Manager, item 14.1 please. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 14.1 is a report item declaring racism, a public and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. Magali Telus, our Deputy Director of Community Engagement, will present the staff report on this item. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you all and the community to present the resolution to declare racism, a public health and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. I'd also like to take a moment to especially thank the community members representing Yakama who are a critical part of this resolution and to receive, they were here to receive today's proclamation. So today, Danielle Gardunio and myself will walk you all through the process of how we arrived here and how this resolution came about. And before we get started, I'd like to thank all the community members and groups who gifted us their time, energy and comments during the summer of 2020. When we began the community empowerment plan, we wanna recognize that community members were painfully triggered, trauma came to light and we began to have uncomfortable but necessary conversations in community about systemic racism. In the work that the Office of Community Engagement is committed to, we are invested in educating ourselves and the community about adverse community experiences as they pertain to race-based traumatic stress and using methodologies and strategies that are proven trauma and community-informed. We hope that this resolution is the beginning of galvanizing the importance of the ongoing work that we need to do to help our, as Beatriz Guerrero and I mentioned earlier, our equity-party populations feel seen, heard and validated. We also want to recognize those whose shoulders that we stand on and have come before us so that we're able to arrive at this point today. We wanna thank the NAACP, 100 Blackman, Sonoma County Lowrider Council. Thank you to the board members of YACA-AMA, the Kashiaban, Pomo Indians, Lakota Nation, RosenCBI, South Park CBI, Lampas, United Black Voices, the youth from Latino service providers and the countless individuals who took the time to meet with us. Antes de empezar, la oficina de participación comunitaria de la Ciudad de Santa Rosa quisiera darles las gracias por su tiempo, energía y comentarios durante el verano el año pasado cuando empezamos el plan comunitario de empodamiento. Estamos sumamente agradecidos por su participación y esperamos poder hacer los cambios que se necesitan para tener una ciudad que refleja toda la comunidad. Next slide please. So just some background on where we are and how we got here. On May 5th, the Office of Community Engagement staff presented the Community Empowerment Plan Report, which was formulated in response to the murder of George Floyd and the community outcry to recognize systemic racism. The city of Santa Rosa developed the Community Empowerment Plan with the vision of building a trusting and open relationship of respect between SRPD and the community. We held 18 listening sessions and with community groups and members, the community groups and members that were previously mentioned, a number of themes arose from the report, three of which I'd like to highlight very quickly. So one of the themes was community would like us to invest in community programs, in community programming and services, particularly for our black indigenous people of color communities. Some examples noted were supporting the Juneteenth celebration, Day Under the Oaks, Ya de los Muertos, et cetera. Secondly was asked was to address institutional racism, systemic racism and the culture of white supremacy. Thirdly, to uplift and celebrate Santa Rosa's black indigenous people of color community and the Office of Community Engagement has begun that process with the launch of Multicultural Roots Project, the Mary Lou Laurel Patrol Car and a few of the projects that we have in the works. In addition to the themes that were presented, there were seven recommendations that came directly from the community. And one of those was to declare racism as a public health crisis in Santa Rosa. During the May 5th presentation, council asked us to bring forward this declaration. Next slide, please. And so some further background on this, on the birth of the resolution was that on December 7th, 2020, the state legislature introduced Senate Bill 17. The proposed bill allows California to acknowledge the longstanding impacts of systemic racism and to declare racism as a public health crisis. The bill also states that California will approach laws and regulations with an anti-racist health and equity in all policies focused that seeks whether policies play a role in creating, maintaining or dismantling racist systems and secure adequate resources to address the crisis. So as you can see with some of the organizations mentioned here, if this is a local and national, you know, aligned resolution and some of the collective efforts that we see across agencies, across fields and across governmental systems coming together. So next I'd like to introduce Danielle Ganglino. Danielle. Thank you, Magali. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Madam Vice Mayor and council members. So next slide, please. So we are going to go into how we came up with the process for the resolution. Our amazing team of AmeriCorps VISTAs did a lot of research on existing resolutions from other jurisdictions here in California and also from around the United States. We specifically focused in on the jurisdictions here in California and found examples from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Napa, Long Beach, Indio, Oxnard, Palm Springs and others as well as counties including Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Sacramento County, Santa Barbara County, San Bernardino County and San Diego County among others. So in total, we reviewed 28 examples from California cities and counties while we were developing this resolution. In addition to that, we conducted research on national state and local data regarding how exposure to systemic racism impacts the health of people of color and communities of color. This data not only includes the number and percentages from multiple studies but it also includes the quantitative data or the stories from our own community members who participated in the listening session last summer. Next slide, please. So staff that participated, we formed an internal working group to review and make updates to the resolution once it was drafted from the research we did. And that includes our own community, engagement staff, our diversity, equity and equal employment officer, supervising planner from our advanced planning team and our equity and public health planner as well as again our AmeriCorps VISTAs and an intern which I will talk about in just a little bit. The working group again reviewed the draft provided updates on the additional data which took a couple of months to do. It was a lot of work. And then the C collaborative provided input and guidance to us as staff on the resolution particularly around the recommendation that action items that we have provided to you today. C collaborative will provide additional action items to the city to consider as they continue to work around diversity, inclusion and equity. Next slide, please. And just to provide you with a little bit of information about our next steps after we present this resolution to you, we are working with a graduate intern from the University of San Francisco whose name is also Magali, not to confuse all of us. But she is working with our department to develop an evaluation plan and tools to measure organizational changes made as a result of the adoption of this resolution as well as working with some of the recommendations that C collaborative will be coming up with and including working with their equity task force to conduct research on best practices around recommendations from the resolution and recommendations developed by the task force. In addition to that, she will be helping us develop a work plan and logic model and should hopefully have all of that done when her internship ends in May of 2022. So next slide, please. And with that, it is recommended by the Office of Community Engagement and the city council by resolution declare racism as a public health and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. We will take any questions that you might have now. Questions, council. Council member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. Question for Magali and then Neil. What do you foresee continuing to be the greatest obstacles that you face in regards to addressing racism in Santa Rosa? I would just, I'll just jump in, Danielle. I would definitely start out as we definitely need a lot of community education. When Dr. Sharon Washington gave us a presentation, I think the community felt and this was back in January essentially the tipping point of systemic racism. There was a great conversation that was happening in community about recognizing. So I think first we just really have to name things as they are. We have to acknowledge before we can move on to healing. So I think number one is really acknowledging where we stand and how we got here is going to be definitely number one. I think that's the biggest obstacle is getting the community education out to everyone. Danielle, I don't know if you wanna add to that. I would just say that as an organization, we have a lot of work to do internally around educating our own staff on how our organization has historically played a role in some of these system instructors that have impacted our communities of color. And how do we make that bridge between our staff and the community in a really meaningful and authentic way that addresses that as Magali was saying. And then moving forward, how do we move forward? We have a lot of work to do around figuring out how to move forward with our community given where we're currently at right now. And also an understanding that this takes a long time to make changes. It's not easy, it's not pretty sometimes and that it is a slow process that we will get there. And I just wanna quickly add that to Danielle's points. I think it's really important that we bring the community with us in this process. That is I think by far going to be the largest obstacle is and I'm so grateful that SEED Collaborative really holds a framework that brings community members in instead of calling people out because I think there are a lot of community members that wanna participate in these conversations and are having the difficult process of being vulnerable enough to say that they wanna participate. So there's kind of sort of a number of different things happening in community but there is definitely great movement and a lot of energy towards going in this direction. I've yet to find the magic wand but I continue to look for it. Should you happen to find such a thing? What would you fix and how would you go about fixing it? I appreciate that question and we have a lot of answers for that because we dream big here in the Office of Community Engagement and one of those dreams, many of those dreams is actually manifested through the one time monies, right? We put that ask out there in the universe and definitely translation. Translation is a huge step in the direction that we need to step into making sure that each department has an adequate budget for translation and also if we're talking magic wands, getting more bilingual, bicultural members to join the staff, right? And another one of those pieces is through internships. I remember being a young first generation student at Sonoma State and somebody came and talked to me about a city planners at the city of Santa Rosa and I had no idea that that was a position that what the role was and what a crucial role it is, right? So I think internships is another piece of it. The largest dream that we have is to be able to support community and culturally in events that celebrate culture and bring people in and make everyone, even if you're not part of that designated culture but you're part of a celebration, you're part of the conversation, bringing people in that way. I think it's important for government to take some space in that. And then definitely the accessibility to city staff. I know everyone is super crunched. Departments are doing above and beyond on a daily basis but I think if there are any opportunities to expand capacity in any way, shape, or form, I think and really bring into Madonna's point earlier folks from our more representative population, I should say, Daniel. Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing echoing what Madonna further cruise said earlier. We need to hire more people of color. We need to hire more Indigenous community members, more Latino community members, more Black community members, more Asian Pacific Islander community members. We need to have a staff that's representative of our community. We heard that repeatedly throughout the listening sessions last year and I think that is crucial to moving the needle here at the organization as we're moving forward on addressing systemic racism and institutional racism here. And then I just wanna add one more thing because opportunity came and I will take it. I think we really need to look at our systems on how we elevate the people of color that are currently here and working within government. I think we've seen unfortunately in other jurisdictions, what can come about when those systems are not, policies and practices are not in place. We have a lot of wonderful talent and how do we continue elevating folks like Beatriz is absolutely brilliant. I just, I can't say enough good things about her. That y'all is one of the hardest working people here and how do we elevate the folks in people of color, especially women of color and create pathways for leadership and growth and so I'll stop there because I have a lot. Well, I can't describe what the magic wand looks like but it sounds like it's gonna look like a unity and working together. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Spadault. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for this presentation. I just have a question for clarification and some of the stems from one of the sessions I attended in Sacramento at the League of California Cities where they talked about some of the jurisdictions that did make a similar resolution and then it ended there and I never wanted to be on that list. So on slide six, we talked about Office of Communicational Development and Evaluation Planning and Tools to Measure Organizational Changes. Where do action plans or implementation plans fit within this? That's what I'll go ahead, Diane. Sorry, great question. That is the work that Steve Collaborative is currently doing with the city, working on with several, I believe it's three equity task force, forces to develop those recommendations and those action plans. Magali, I don't know if I want to do anything out there but I do know for sure that that's the work that they're currently doing. And to the points that we've kind of mentioned, that's where we want to elevate Magali Lapke as the name of our intern. She is a local. She loves Santa Rosa. She's a grad student. And how do we integrate her in the process to, and this is something we've talked a seat about and they're definitely on board is bringing Magali Lapke into the process of evaluation and really holding us accountable for the things that we proposed. So if I'm clear, there will be a list of steps. Here's the actual action items that city council, city staff will be doing to try to move this conversation forward. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, that's our understanding from our conversation with Steve Collaborative and the equity work groups that they'd like to create who will then also be giving recommendations. So I for one would also, I know it'll be developed by May of 2022. I'd love to receive updates on a more regular basis because I don't think it's, let's just sail until we get May of 22nd. We're going to start. I think there's an ongoing, I think the office of community engagement is doing this but I would like more and more involvement with city council to any opportunity even just for updates so we can track this because this is very important for, I know this council, so thank you. Any other questions from council? Okay, let's go to public comment on this item. If you're interested in providing comment on item 14.1, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. We'll start with Evan and then we'll go to Shelby. Can you hear me? Go ahead. All right. Good, I guess eating out this point, council members, city staff, which if I'm not mistaken, I think this might be our most diverse council, which I would just like to point out comes with its inherent opportunities. My name's Evan Phillips. I'm a cis straight white male, which comes with all the known privileges and advantages. I'm also born and raised Santa Rosen who has come with the additional privileges of a life that has put me in very diverse circles across the community. I would never pretend to speak for the whole community anyway, but I do feel very comfortable voicing the sentiments of a large and broadly represented swath of this city and neighboring areas. As I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time as a member and a guest of many sub communities, which are often heavily concentrated and focused, at least in terms of like census type demographics. And as a 30 year plus resident in totality, having moved and come back a few times, my time in Santa Rosa has been out of two entirely different experiences based on where I've been or who I've been with. The way I've been treated is starkly different based on these things. And what I've been most easily able to identify as a factor to associate with the difference in how I've been treated is the ethnic and racial backgrounds of the company I keep. I mean, I have countless stories to make this sentiment feel a lot more than just anecdotal, which obviously don't have time for. But that said, I want to very actively voice my support and favor of this resolution. Racism is not unique to Santa Rosa by any means as it's interwoven to the fabric of a genocidal land built on the backs of slavery and exploitation, but it most certainly is a health crisis here in Santa Rosa. And we can't tackle that institutional racism overall. It's a massive undertaking. It has to be more than just a public talking point, but it does begin with communities like ours being very proactive in understanding the nuances and prevalence of racism and truly grasping how pervasive it is in ways that affect power. And I hope taking a step of this resolution leads to substantive changes beyond the performative steps, albeit many of those are being necessary, but also by letting the formal groundwork to create more legal structure for better equality, equity, and diverse inclusion is a real practice beyond just the concepts. And I know Santa Rosa can be a leader in making the world in the future better. The adoption of this resolution is merely an acknowledgement of how reality is. And I think it's a key step in order of moving things forward on how they should be. So I urge the council to please not adopt this resolution. And as was pointed out in some of the council questions, actually take the steps to make these things real life practicing. So thank you very much. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you, Evan. We'll go to Shelby. Hello, good evening council. Can you hear me? Hello. Please speak closer into your microphone, but we can hear you. Okay, perfect. Can you hear me now? Yes, go ahead. All right, very well. Thank you for your time this evening. I am new to the Santa Rosa area. I'm a Vallejo native who moved to Santa Rosa. Since I've been here, I've noticed a couple different things going on in our community that have to do with race. Being someone of black nationality, I can tell you that we only represent 2.6% of the actual environment here. I've been watching segregation happen in live time due to vaccinations, due to lack of vaccinations, and thereof. I'm continually perplexed at the idea that a couple words are gonna change the world. You've wanted us to act like Martin Luther King for so long and hold aside our Malcolm X feelings. This is the truth. The truth is that there is no equity to be found here because you have no real understanding of what equity means. You use that word consistently, but don't go ahead and actually understand it. It sounds good when you say it. It falls on us, the community, to look in the mirror at ourselves every single day and figure out what kind of person we're gonna be. The 66 point some odd percent of white individuals who live in this community are not to blame for their racism. The other individuals who are here are not to blame for this racism. The racism starts at us. You wanna start giving people things to work on and things to do. I talked to your black caucus and they wanted to teach black people in this community how to grow farms. That's one of their goals. Grow vegetables, this kind of stuff. We don't have land to grow it on. Let's talk about reparations. Let's talk about how every other race has been put in front of black people and we always come last. We don't have casinos. We don't have some talking point. We don't speak our own language. You want us to learn another European language to accommodate a group of individuals who that isn't even their natural language to speak Spanish but yet here we are. The European rule is taken over as usual. Let's see something actually happen besides a bunch of words. We can't keep singing we shall overcome from Washington to Abraham Lincoln. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Last hand that I see on Zoom. Is there anyone in the chamber who'd like to speak on this item? Okay. Do we have any voicemail public comments? We do not, mayor. Okay. I'll bring it back to the council. We have comments from council members on the item. Go ahead, vice mayor. I just wanted to thank the team for all your hard work. I know that it is not easy and it's definitely not easy to try to represent and encompass so many different people and viewpoints. But I think that you guys try really hard to do so and try not to forget any. And so for that I am very grateful. And although statistically I may be insignificant in Sonoma County because of my color, I know that your team does not forget black people. And so I definitely would like to thank you for that. And I do hear concerns. Many have thrown out the DEI equity inclusion all the words, but have not done very much to back it up. And I must say that I am very proud of this council and the leadership that we have. And this is one of the most diverse councils that we have had here. And with confidence, I really believe that we are willing and able to really back it up. So this is something that we really want and this is something that we're gonna go after in all the ways possible. And it's not just about race, but DEI is about so much more and we understand that. And I'm just very happy as a black woman to be sitting with some very incredible, well-rounded people and very knowledgeable staff. So that can make things happen. So thank you and your team and for the rest of the staff that are not on your team but that are listening and that are able to take our ideas, our passions and our hearts and manifest them into things that are oh so great in our community. Thank you, Vice Mayor. There are any other comments from council members? Okay, council member Alvarez, this is your item. Thank you, Mayor. Resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa declaring racism of human rights and public health crisis in Santa Rosa. Whereas racism is a system made out of structure, institution, policies, practices, norms and culture that assign value and determine opportunity based on the way people look and or the color of their skin. Resulting in conditions that unfairly advantage those with lighter skin and disadvantage of people of color, including black African-Americans, Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, indigenous or Native Americans, Asians or Pacific Islanders and others. And I will wave further reading of the text. Second. So we have a motion to approve from council member Alvarez with a second from council member Schwedhelm. Let's go ahead and call the vote. Council member Tibbetts. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Thank you. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with council member Fleming absent. All right, thank you so much to our team who I know have been working really hard on this. And it is a good opportunity for us to both reflect on where we've been, how far we've come in the last year in particular and where we need to go and how much work we still have to do. So thank you so much. I know it's been a team effort. Thank you all. Can I just say one really quick thing? Of course. I just want to say that we fully recognize the frustration in the community. And at the same time, we hold that this is a very historic moment. Again, you have two women of color, you know, speaking openly about systemic racism. You have Vice Mayor Rogers as a woman of color standing in a position of leadership. So although yes, we have a long road to go, I also want us to celebrate the fact, you know, where we've like how far we've made it, you know? So, and that is very significant for me as an immigrant kid who grew up in Fresno and has been embraced by this community. So I just, I really want to recognize the importance of holding those two realities. Yes, we have a long way to go. And yes, let's celebrate how far we've come. So I know some people may not appreciate that viewpoint but again, as an immigrant, we are hopeful people. Please don't send me hate mail about tokenizing immigrant people. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll take a step back to item 13, which is our public comment for non-agenda items. If you have an issue that you'd like to talk with the council about tonight that is not on our existing agenda, feel free to line up at the podium or hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. We'll start here in the chamber. Yes, good evening. My name is David Harris. I'm the resident here in San Rosa, 355 Gemma Circle. And I have spoken to this body before in the past and plan to keep doing so. But I've never found myself in this position where I rise to talk about really what I feel as a personal offense slight in the process that's gone on with the design of the 101 Overcrossing. You've heard me speak about this issue before. I have been since 2005 advocating for the building of that overcrossing. And to the point that came about when the JC was planning to build a parking structure that they priced at $22 million. In the end, it cost them 38 million according to the Bond Oversight Committee. And the alternative would have been to build an overcrossing and keep traffic off of Mendocino and on the west side for other uses, other parking. And so the economics of this or what gets my attention though. But in advocating for this, I came across a person in our community who said, I knew, I know from my days at Stanford, the architect to design the bridge at University in Berkeley over 80. And so I made contact back in 2005 with Stephen Grover, the architect, and had brought him up here and introduced him to the prospect of this. He has, however, in the last 10 years, had in his mind to produce a artistic one-of-a-kind bridge. And unfortunately, I would like to see us, that would be fine if fiscally it was a sound decision, but it is not fiscally sound to spend the money on designing a one-of-a-kind bridge when we have alternatives to do something that would be faster and less expensive. And the process that's gotten us to this point is that this overcrossing is the only project that the city of Santa Rosa has ever taken to design review. You know, just like the school board, they're not required. All the projects of the city aren't required. So Finley Center, all these things don't go to design review. This went to design review because it's architects who aren't charged with any fiscal responsibility and who say, oh, I like that. Well, that's fine, but I want you to be fully aware that, yes, they like the design. I have no objection to a pretty design, but it is not cost-effective and it is not easy to construct. Over 101, building a cable suspended, you have to go section by section and it will disrupt, take longer time because trust bridges are a commodity in the transportation business. There are multiple prefab manufacturers can bring one, swing it over there in one night and be done with the disruption of 101. And it's a fiscal question. Millions of dollars difference in time also. Thank you, sir. I see nobody else rising in the chambers. So we will go to our Zoom. We'll start with Erin, followed by Shelby. Good evening again, Council. I have two issues for this. The first one is a potential Brown Act violation of this meeting. As a resident of Roseland, I received notice of this meeting regarding some items on the agenda tonight. However, the notice states that the meeting was to start at 430 PM. However, this meeting began at 4 o'clock PM. That is a grave disservice to people that do not have internet access to be able to get an updated agenda or to be aware of meeting time changes, which is a Brown Act violation and should not avoid this entire meeting this evening for not being properly noticed within the Brown Act requirements. So I do ask that the city attorney take a look at that and confirm that this meeting is permitted to continue, knowing that one notice says 430 and then online says 4 o'clock. My second issue is regarding homeless encampment along Roseland Creek and the city's refusal to do anything about it. There is overwhelming amounts of trash and human fecal matter going into the creek. It's been brought to the city's attention numerous times. And again, nothing is being done about this. When the rains came, it became a safety issue for both those experiencing homelessness in the area being potentially washed into the creek and those in the surrounding neighborhood having to deal with the trash and human waste being washed into their yards. So again, it's a safety concern for both those encampments and for the residents. We hear gunshots every night and we're basically told by the police they can't do anything. The city council is choosing not to do anything. It's been brought up in planning meetings. So we are asking for a resolution on that issue as well. So those are my two public comments. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Erin, if you could forward me that public notice that you're talking about that says 430, that would be helpful. We always start at four o'clock with our regular council meeting and oftentimes start before that with study sessions and closed sessions. And that's all on the agenda. So I know the agenda that's been put out has said four o'clock consistently. But if you have a notice that says 430, if you can forward that to me, that'd be really helpful for us to take a look at. We'll go to Shelby, followed by Lorna. Hello, good evening again, council. Can you hear me? Yeah, if you could speak up just a little bit, it's a little faint to hear you. All right, is that better? That's great, thank you. Perfect. So I called in today to address the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. In the middle of this pandemic, we are having to face all kinds of obstacles and as colored people in this community where we don't trust our government and we don't support our government's decisions to utilize us as test subjects, many of us are being put in situations where we're losing our jobs, our homes, our livelihood to these terrible mandates that are racist. Now, we've already been over this tonight about racism, so we won't keep beating the horse that's already been beat to death. But any businesses that are practicing or participating in excluding members of our community based on their vaccination status should be held accountable and their doors should be shut. They're practicing segregation. They're practicing discrimination. Me as a Black person, I remember learning about different things in school, things that most people wouldn't learn about like we've had several Black presidents. We haven't had just one. I'm biracial. If I ran for president, I would be a Black president. I do plan on running for the city council, for district two, for Mr. Sawyer's position, and I'm going to make it my effort to work with individuals within the community to understand the difference of equity and equality. I come from a very proud family, one that worked their way up from nothing to get to the top. My aunt was the first Black CEO and woman of a major corporation. My uncle is the CEO of a major organization. My other uncle is the executive chef to Moscone Center in San Francisco. My last name is Pryor. I absolutely happen to be related to the former Mr. Richard Pryor. My family has a great heritage. With that heritage does come a lot, a lot of weight. I don't expect anyone to understand who's in a circumstance that doesn't make sense to them or they aren't a part of, but we're no longer asking for our freedoms. We will take them and we will utilize the declaration to do so. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll go to Lorna. Thank you. I wanted to just underscore Ms. Rheinberg's comments about the homeless encampment that I can actually view from my windows in my home. A year ago, I sent two complaints to code enforcement indicating that there are tents going up and I did not hear back from anybody. I have called the police. I have sent photographs to the council. It went from two tents to five tents. There's probably now a hundred people back there and I'm not exaggerating. Walking along that creek, I've found needles. There's human defecation happening. Every night we do hear gunshots and I have called the police several times and they do say they can't do anything about it. It's very disconcerting to me. Two nights ago, there was a flash explosion. I'm thinking that they were a propane tank. There's many propane tanks out there, there's barbecues and domestic violence. And I wanna know why the city cannot enforce code violations for health and safety reasons. It's absurd to me that this is going on for over a year and nothing's been done. And I feel like there's a discrimination piece in this because it's in Southwest Santa Rosa. So I implore the council to take a stronger look at how we can enforce code to have these people vacate. Also, I wanted to just point out that I have in front of me the notice of public hearing postcard that was sent in the mail to me to my home last week. And it's clearly says, as Ms. Reinberg said, that Tuesday, November 16th at or after 4.30 p.m. Thank you, and I appreciate any comments that you might be able to make about the homeless encampment and where we are in the process. Okay, thank you, Lorna and Dina. Can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Okay, greetings council. I am very happy to hear that my boyfriend was allowed in the council chamber to give a public comment this evening. We attempted to do so in Healdsburg yesterday. However, I'm sure you're already aware, unvaccinated individuals are not allowed into the council chambers. And in that regard, I am saddened and disheartened to hear that an amazing young woman, Ms. Skyler Palacios has been denied entrance to her own council chambers in which she sits on the council of Healdsburg. And then I wanted to mention, since you approved a resolution labeling racial discrimination as a public health crisis, I find it ironic since our current public health crisis, the pandemic is creating a racial divide within the county. The minorities in our county have the lowest vaccination rates and we are mistrustful of the government. We're being forced to do something we don't want to do. Well, no, everyone's telling us we have a choice, but do we really? We could be homeless. We can have no food to feed our families. There's a lot of things we could do. Apparently that's what choice means today. I also want to note, I've sent several emails to the council with no response. I have a lot of questions about COVID that I would like to have answered. I've been repeatedly told that I need to contact the health department. I did reach out to the California Department of Health. They informed me they have no answers for me. I have that in writing. Dr. Sundari Maze's office, they finally got back to me after two months. After we mentioned, we would be holding an in-person public forum where we will have questioned the answer with or without representation from the public health department. So anyways, I'm just a little frustrated about not being able to speak up and not being able to have questioned the answer and having the decisions made on our behalf. I will say, I'm ecstatic that the two minorities who sit on the council, Mr. Alvarez and Ms. Rogers have actually been willing to speak with us and have a discussion. I can't say the same for the rest of the council. Those are my comments this evening. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Adina. Seeing no other hands, we'll pull it back and see if we have any voicemail public comments. There were no voice message public comments received for item 13. Okay. Madam City Attorney, I think it sounds like with the postcards, it sounds to me, and let's see if we can confirm, was a notice of the public hearing which by city ordinance cannot start before five o'clock. So if it said at or after 4.30, is that adequate for our purposes of still hearing that item here today? Yes it is, and I would like to see a copy of the notice, but it did sound from the description that it was a notice of public hearing. Okay, thank you. I'll take a look, but you're exactly correct that if it does reference the public hearing that is coming a little bit later, that is adequate notice. Okay, let's go ahead and take a two minute recess and that you and I can take a look at it since apparently it's been emailed to us and then we'll come back. But it sounds like we should be ready to proceed unless something unexpected is in there. We'll be right back. Thank you. All right, let's bring it back. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you, Council Member Tibbetz. Here. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Member Fleming. All right, I'll kick it over to the city attorney. Yes, thank you. We did take a look at the notice. It is a notice of public hearing regarding item 15.1, the public hearing on Stony Point Flats Apartments Appeal. And indeed that public hearing was scheduled under our ordinance as the mayor pointed out, could not begin before 5 p.m. So the public hearing notice that identifies the timing as 430 or thereafter is adequate under the Brown Act. Thank you. Thank you. And we have forwarded it over to our clerk who can work with staff to make sure that that language is a little bit more precise moving forward since we do now have our sunshine ordinance in place that says that public hearings will happen as close to five o'clock as we can get for maximum public participation. But that, Mr. City Manager, take us away. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 15.1 is a public hearing regarding the Stony Point Flats Apartments Appeal. This is an appeal of the design review boards, September 2nd, 2021 decision to adopt an addendum to the certified Roseland area, Sebastopol Road specific plan environmental impact report, and approve a minor design review for Stony Point Plats, Stony Point Flats Apartments, a 50 unit multi-family affordable housing project located at 2268 Stony Point Road. Connor McKay, our city planner, and Andrew Tripple, our acting supervising planner will be presenting this item this evening. Right, and before we launch into the presentation, let's go ahead and start with council members ex parte communication disclosures. Council Member Schwethelm, would you like to start? Yeah, I don't have any. Okay, Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. I have received a number of emails, but no phone calls and nothing that is added to the information that was provided by staff. Okay, Council Member Tibbetts. I don't recall receiving any information or communications outside of what's in the staff report. All right, Council Member Alvarez. I have received emails and have made contact with residents as well as visited the site. Nothing further. And Vice Mayor? I don't recall getting anything added in emails. All right, and I received several emails from neighbors, walked the site and had a couple of phone calls with some of the neighbors who were concerned, but none of the information that was presented is not present within the available materials for the public. And with that, let's go ahead, get into the presentation. Thank you, Mayor Rogers and members of the council. Can everybody see me and hear me? Yes, loud and clear. Yep, we can see the presentation. Yes, I can see it. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Yeah, like the city manager said, my name is Connor McKay, city planner. I'm happy to be here this evening to present the Stony Point Flats Project Appeal located at 2268 Stony Point Road. Next slide, please. So the design review board approved this project and the project approval, the decision to approve this project was appealed. And this project description proposes to construct a new 50 unit affordable multifamily development on a 2.9 acre parcel with existing residential and agricultural development. The project includes the construction of bike storage, laundry facilities, tech center, fitness facilities and playground facilities. Solar panels will be installed on top of the two main residential structures, which will allow the project to operate at net zero energy in accordance with title 24. Next slide, please. So a bit of project history, concept design review was provided by the design review board in June of 2021. The Waterways Advisory Committee completed their review of this project in August. And finally, the design review board approved the project on September 2nd, 2021. I wanted to address one of the grounds for appeal here during this slide regarding alleged Brown Act violations related to noticing the agenda for each public hearing and public comments at the public hearings. So all project related noticing has been prepared in compliance with city code section 2066.02, notice of hearing. The project was also properly agendized prior to the design review board hearing and all public hearings were conducted in compliance with city code chapter 2066.040, hearing procedure. Staff has also complied with all Brown Act requirements throughout the review of this project. And next slide, please. So the project is located in the southwest quadrant of the city of Santa Rosa along Stony Point Road, a north to Rosalind Creek. Rosalind Creek is located adjacent to the project site to the south. Next slide, please. So to give some zoning code context for this project, the project is located in the R318 Zoning District, which allows for the operation or construction of multifamily residential development by right, meaning that no land use permit entitlement is required for the use. One of the grounds for appeal that was included with the appeal was that there are superior alternate building sites available. So the presence of superior alternate building sites does not affect staff's support for a project that complies with zoning code requirements and achieve city council goals related to housing and homelessness and affordable housing. Next slide, please. The slide shows the general plan land use designation. The site has a split general plan land use designation of low density residential and medium density residential, which allows for a maximum of 49 units at the project site. The project proposal includes the construction of 50 units, which requires a density bonus, which was approved by planning staff during the project review. Next slide, please. So because the proposal includes a unit that exceeds the density by one, it includes a residential density that exceeds the maximum residential density by one unit, an addendum to the Rosalind area, the basketball road specific plan EIR was prepared. And this addendum was supported by technical studies and reports, including traffic, which is a subject of the grounds for appeal for this project. The, excuse me, where am I? Here we go. The traffic analysis indicates that a significant, less than significant impact related to traffic would occur as a result of the proposed project with or without the construction of the U-turn that is mentioned at Parablasm Drive. However, the applicant, after further consultation with the public works department, has agreed to construct the U-turn as part of the proposed project. Further, traffic counts that support the technical preparation of the traffic study was, were conducted in 2019 prior to the coronavirus pandemic. So there was an accurate collection of traffic data at that time. And this methodology and analysis was reviewed and approved by the traffic division. Further, a grounds for appeal included in the appeal for this project asserts that city staff is relying on an inadequate and outdated EIR or environmental impact report. So the Rosalind area, Sebastopol Road specific plan EIR was adopted in 2016 and was prepared in accordance with California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA guidelines section 15132. The city prepared the Stony Point Flats addendum to analyze the impact of that one density bonus unit. This addendum was prepared pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act section 15164 addendum to EIR or negative declaration. Next slide, please. So the next few slides just show aerial rendering. So if the clerk could please just flip through the slides with a few seconds each, just so we can get a accurate description of what this building might look like. And then the slide will be the site plan. Yeah, so the site plan, here's what I wanted to discuss, the fencing that the applicant has agreed to construct as part of the project. As a result of conclusion with consultation with Sonoma Water, the applicant has agreed to install fencing along the Eastern and Southern property boundaries that are contiguous with Sonoma Water property. Part of this condition or another condition in addition to the construction of the fence would be to establish no trespassing signs at an appropriate spacing to increase site security. Next slide, please. So this slide shows the landscape plan. Here I will discuss the grounds for appeal related to inadequate protection of heritage trees. So the city's tree ordinance does establish a legal pathway for the removal of heritage trees. The applicant is proposing to mitigate the removal of 16 heritage trees by replanting 99 trees, including 29 oaks and two coast redwoods, which have a minimum of 24 inch box. Many of these trees will be planted along the Southern property boundary, which is near to Rose and Creek, as you can see on this slide. Next slide, please. Here we have a slide that demonstrates the existing FEMA floodplain designation at the project site. As you can see, the project is located within the 100 year floodplain. However, the applicant is in the process of consulting with FEMA to submit a modification to this designation that accounts for improvements that were made during the Stony Point Road improvements project that increase the site's ability to handle flood waters and stormwater. So, but regardless, if the FEMA change is not accepted, the project will introduce fill that will lift the project outside of the 100 year floodplain. Or alternatively, if FEMA does accept the modification, no fill would be required as part of the proposed project. One of the grounds for appeal is an inadequate or is an allegation of inadequate and false representations regarding the impact of building in a seasonal floodplain. I just wanna mention that city code chapter 1852, flood damage protection establishes a legal pathway for construction in the floodplain and the project has been conditioned to reduce such impacts. Next slide, please. So here is just a summary of all the grounds for appeal that I've touched on with the exception of that final one regarding inadequate time provided for public records requests to be processed and received prior to the DRB public hearing. And I wanted to respond to that by saying all requests for information filed pursuant to the Public Records Act have been complied with to the full extent of all applicable laws. Next slide, please. And with that, with the recommendation with planning and economic development department and the design review board recommended that the council by resolution by modified resolution which includes the addition of the two conditions that I mentioned early related to fencing and there's no trespassing signs on the fencing. I will read those conditions into the record when it is appropriate. So recommended the council by modified resolution deny the appeal and adopt the stony point flats addendum and approve minor design review to allow the construction of the stony point flats apartments project. And we have an experienced applicant team and city staff team that is available to answer any questions that the city council may have. Okay, let's go ahead and keep moving through the presentations and then we'll do questions from council at the end. We'll go with our chair of the design review board, Drew Waggle, Drew, if you wanna come up to the microphone and give your presentation. Can you hear me? Yep. Just make sure you eat the microphone so everybody can hear me. Yeah, it's been a while since we've been in the council chamber. So I don't remember that you do have to eat the microphone. So good evening, I'm Drew Waggle. I'm the chair of the city of Santa Rosa design review board and I'm an architect in town. So good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of the city council on September 2nd, 2021, the city of Santa Rosa design review board reviewed the Stony Point flats apartment project DR21023. The board generally liked the project as the applicant made changes between their concept design review presented on June 3rd, 2021 and the actual entitlement presentation. The changes made in brief summary were the removal of one building which included elements for the pool, a centrally located pool and other site elements to accommodate creating additional open space at the eastern edge of the parcel while not reducing the residential unit count is already proposed. During the DRB meeting, we went through a process to assist both the public and the board to understand what an EIR addendum is as it is an atypical item not usually seen by our board. The board reviewed the EIR addendum and passed the addendum unanimously. We also reviewed the design changes to the proposed project, provided comments and conditioned the project as we normally would including input from the public as applicable and board members. We then passed a unanimous resolution regarding the minor design review which included several conditions to improve the overall design of the project. All right, thank you. Are there any questions for the chair? I'm seeing no hands from council members on Zoom. Go ahead and go to the applicant presentation. We have Mr. Wood. You'll have 10 minutes followed by 10 minutes from the appellant. Mr. Wood has been promoted to panelist in order to make his presentation. The city clerk's office will advance slides at your direction, Mr. Wood. Thank you very much and thank you to the council for your time tonight and hearing about Stony Point Flats. Next slide please. Stony Point Flats is being brought to the city of Santa Rosa by the development team of Phoenix Development and Integrity Housing. We have previously partnered twice before on affordable housing projects in the Santa Rosa area. Most recently, having just recently last month moved the first residents into Dutton Flats apartments which is at the intersection of Dutton and Third. Next slide please. Joined tonight by our design team as well. Any technical questions for any of our team members will be directed towards them. I'm joined by Keith Labus of KTGY, our project architect. Dennis Dalby of Civil Design Consultants who is the civil engineer on the project. Justin Heacock of JJH Landscape Architects and our project environmental consultant, Dudek, joined with the members of Dudek, our Christine Bukisawa and Lori Menares. Next slide please. I will try not to retread over too much of Connor's presentation. I promise we did these in parallel. So there are some common lines of thinking here but I do wanna highlight the great community that we are looking to develop and bring to the city of Santa Rosa. The development site is 2.93 acres. I do wanna note that 0.9 acres of the land will continue to be unimproved and that will be towards the eastern edge of the property. We know that parking is always a concern whenever new development is being done. We are proposing to create 97 parking spaces which is nine more than the requirement. It's an effort that we've made from day one to over park this project. Really, it's just a way of showing hey, we're here for the entire community. We're looking to maximize the project here. The community will bring 50 new affordable homes to residents earning between 30 and 60% of the area median income and further enrichment will be brought to our residents through the offering of resident services programs which will be provided free of charge to our residents. Next slide please. As mentioned, the site is zoned for medium density, multifamily residential development. The project as presented is a permitted use given the current zoning standard. It's also been designed consistent with the general plan. The in place zoning does allow for 49 units. It actually is 49 and a fraction of a unit which under the zoning code rounds down to 49 units. The city does have a density bonus ordinance which allows affordable projects to apply for an increased density typically much greater than we are asking for. We are asking for one single additional unit and an interesting technicality of the ordinances here once the density bonus ordinance application has been filed, the fraction actually rounds up. So that gets us to our 50 units as proposed. The project has fallen under the Roseland Creek specific plan and specifically the environmental impact report associated with that specific plan. A study was conducted to determine the additional impact of the single additional unit which we are adding to the project via the density bonus. The study was memorialized as an addendum to the EIR and it was determined that the additional unit would have no detrimental environmental impact. Next slide please. On the site plan as we move from left to right Stony Point load is the left or the western boundary of the property. Building A will contain all of our indoor common area amenities that will have our leasing office, our clubhouse, a tech room, laundry facilities, fitness room, on the second floor of that building there will be two three bedroom apartments. As we move to the right coming out there will be a patio with barbecue grills and a gathering area for residents. We will then move into a playground and a sport court which we're currently looking at creating a little bit more of an inclusive play space out there more than just an athletic facility looking at ways that we can create some different types of outdoor activities in that space. As we continue down the property buildings B and C will be two identical three story walkup residential buildings. Each building will contain 24 apartment units. As we move past the edge of the improvements we will be leaving quite a bit of unimproved area and then as we move to the far eastern portion of the property we will be dedicating a strip of land to the city for the future North Point Parkway extension. Thank you. Along the way it was mentioned that we have made a number of changes. We've taken all of the input that we could from the design review board, the waterways advisory committee and our neighborhood comments as they have come in. The original project did span the entire parcel out of sensitivity for the neighbors lying to the east. We did bring the property back towards Sony Point Road to compress the design. Additionally, the edge of the property was further trimmed in order to preserve an additional wetland area. We are doing our best. We know that we are in an environmentally sensitive area. We wanna make every accommodation we can to that fact. The sites pervious versus impervious surface was continually brought up as a topic. The pervious surface or the amount of surface that will allow for the absorption of groundwater has been increased to nearly 60% of the parcel. This is in an effort to allow ground water absorption into the natural aquifers. The swimming pool was eliminated after the concern for the precious water resource was expressed. A landscape buffer has been added to the northern whereas we look the top property line in order to diffuse any headlight emissions transmitted from parked cars. The color palates of the buildings has been adjusted to create an aesthetic that is respectful both to the Santa Rosa community and the surrounding environment. And towards the eastern edge or away from Sony Point portion of the property, an interpretive garden has been added in order to incorporate part of our resident services program, program that will teach community members about the natural fauna in the area. Since our minor design review hearing as has been mentioned, a U-turn has been added at the intersection of Stony Point Road and Pear Blossom Drive. This has come at the suggestion of traffic of the design review board and the community and has been loudly heard. Fencing will also be added to the southern portion of the improvements for the property interfaces with Roseland Creek for the requirements coming from the Sonoma County Water Agency. I go through this list of changes and my hope is that it are feeling that we are here to be good neighbors and that we are here to create an asset for the community as heard. The design team has made every effort to incorporate comments made throughout the planning process. The culmination is the project seen today. As I thoroughly know, as you sit in your seats tonight, we cannot make every person happy, but we are certainly looking to create the best community we can for the city of Santa Rosa and for the Roseland neighborhood. Next slide, please. Elevations, this is coming off the Stony Point Road. I won't rehash to mention this because we did see it in Connor's presentation. One thing I will point out, and this is a rendering, but we're looking to divide the entrance here as a concern of traffic, making sure that cars pulling out on the Stony Point are not over the line or in the middle of the drive, creating a backup for cars looking to turn right into the property. Next slide, please. Elevations, as the property spans back. Next slide, please. More aerial elevations of the front portion of the property showing the community building, the outdoor recreation areas, and patios as they flow into the residential building. Next slide, please. Examples of our community space, we're looking to create a high quality community. I would hope that these examples here would show what we're looking to contribute. Next slide, please. Additional elevation of the residential building. Next slide, please. Our landscape plan, Justin Heacock, our landscape architect has incorporated a native plant pallet in all areas possible. The planting on the northern property line that we discussed as being a hedge in order to diffuse the headlight emissions will be planted with mature plants. These are not plants that we will be hoping in a year or two have reached sufficient height to diffuse headlights. These plants will be four feet in height at the time of their planting and planted at a spacing enough to knock down those headlight emissions. All right, thank you, sir. I'm gonna give you about 30 seconds to wrap up and then we do have to move on to the applicant's presentation. Sure, if we can move two slides forward, I'll hit on the floodplain real quick. We have found out the, one more slide forward, please. The floodplain, the 100-year floodplain level has been pulled down into the creek. We have already now filed a letter of map revision with FEMA in order to have that map revised. It will completely remove the property from the 100-year floodplain. And last slide I will touch on very briefly from a traffic standpoint, which is a hot topic. As I mentioned, we have the divided entrance coming, we have created an oversized parking space at the front of the property near the community office to accommodate any kind of delivery vehicles, whether it be Amazon, FedEx, USPS, UPS, in order to keep those vehicles from blocking traffic. And we have the, at the bottom there, we have the U-turn incorporated from Stony Point Road at Pear Blossom Drive. Thank you very much for the time. We're here to answer any questions that may come up. Great, thank you. Councilor, do you have any questions for the applicant? Council Member Alvarez. Thank you. In regards to the EIR, how recent was that EIR? I'm sorry. I would turn that question to city staff if Connor could help there. Thank you. Yeah, so the Roseland Areas Basketball Road specific plan EIR was adopted by council in 2016. And could you explain a little bit or elaborate on the legal U-turn and why it was implemented and if there's, and what safety measures are satisfied by implementing that U-turn? Phil, would you want to take that one? I would be happy to if Rob Sprinkle is on, he may be the most qualified. Promoting him now, one moment, please. Thank you. And council members, my name is Rob Sprinkle, traffic engineer at the City of Santa Rosa. Yeah, the U-turn does a couple of things for traffic. Where the driveway is located on Stony Point Road, there's only access to that driveway through northbound traffic. There was a suggestion at one point to install a median divide or a break in the median to provide for traffic to be able to turn left directly into that project. However, it's much too close to the intersection of North Point Parkway to allow for that and to continue to keep the existing northbound left in its existing location. So in consultation with our fire department and our traffic engineering division, we looked at the roadway and determined that providing a pocket for a southbound U-turn per blossom would be the most adequate way to address that, the entry for traffic that is heading in the southbound direction on Stony Point Road. This gives them a location to actually exit out of the stream of traffic so they can wait for a clearing in order to provide that U-turn operation. Thank you, sir. And we're projecting 50 units at this location and it's still the determination from our planning staff that the U-turn will be sufficient to allow the residents to use this U-turn while not increasing or drastically increasing the traffic on Stony Point Road. The daily traffic estimate estimated, I believe, is around 370 cars per day for the entire day. And typically what we do is we look at the A.M. and P.M. peak periods to see how many, how that will impact traffic. And it's far below our, it's, I believe it was in the 20s for the overall entry and exit out of that location. And I believe it was approximately 11 and maybe in the P.M. peak for the southbound U-turn movement. I have to check my notes, but not a substantial amount. But enough that we would want to not have them queue in Stony Point Road to make that U-turn. We want them to be in a turn pocket so they're not blocking traffic and in the way of flowing traffic. What is the normal number for a U-turn with the traffic number? And any given U-turn within the city? That's hard to, it's very much dependent upon the, what's in the area and what people are trying to access. We do have locations that prohibit U-turns throughout the city where we don't want people to make U-turns. So there isn't a specific number that there's X number of U-turns at a specific location. If I were to ask you in a residential area, would you have a better idea? And if you do, where exactly would that be? Again, it's kind of an ambiguous question and it depends on, I mean, in a residential neighborhood, you can have people making U-turns to access parking on their side of the street. They may go down the street making U-turns so they can park in front of their house. Other people may, you know, park in their driveway. So in a residential location, you're having different kind of traffic turning movements than you would on an arterial street such as Stony Point Road where we're proposing to have this U-turn pocket. Do you have, does any other residential area come to mind where there is a U-turn that traffic has to go through a U-turn to get to a multi-use family home? Or multi-use dwelling? I understand your question now. So we don't have a lot of location, well, further up Stony Point Road, I believe there are some locations. When we, and on Gernadale Road, we have locations as well where we have medians to have access control. And basically what we're doing when we're adding medians is we're trying to limit the number of locations that people are actually crossing the street and focusing those locations in more deliberate places so that those turning movements are focused and they're expected more than say another location like maybe on Hohen Avenue where you have driveways along the entire roadway where people are using that two-way left turn pocket to access every 40 to 50 feet, there's a driveway. So you have a lot less, you have a lot more un-predicted turning movements than you would add a location with a turning pocket. What is the approximate distance between Pearl Brossum and Hohen Avenue? Sorry to throw all these questions at you. And Hohen Avenue, I would say it's probably 250 feet and that's an estimate. Thank you, Rob, I do appreciate the amount of questions that you were able to answer, sir. I think my last question has to do with the flooding study. Could you elaborate a little bit more on the wetland designation that the property has and the explanation regarding FEMA? I didn't quite understand it in the presentation that if they did one thing or they didn't do another thing they were still a viable alternative. Yeah, so council member Alvarez, I'll take a first crack at it and fill if you'd like, you can follow up. So as the project was approved by the design review board the project proposes to introduce fill to the site to raise the elevation of the entire site out of that floodplain. And that would be accounting for no changes to the existing floodplain FEMA designation. However, the applicant is in the process of changing that designation. So if that designation was changed no fill would be required for the project to be located outside of the floodplain. But regardless, the project will be located outside of the floodplain, whether or not that FEMA designation has changed. Does that answer your question? It doesn't, thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. I did have a question about the U-turn. So to get to the property, if you were traveling south you would make the U-turn. There's gonna be a specific lane for the U-turn. Yeah, correct. Correct, that is what is being discussed is that the developer will be adding a U-turn pocket for that movement to take place. Okay, I travel that road all the time. And I'm just wondering, where is that room for that lane? And if there is room for that lane, then I wish there was room for another lane because 370 cars when you're actually traveling that road during real traffic time, it seems like a lot more than 370 cars. And I don't know when those cars were counted. And I think that's why people maybe are having some questions about traffic because if you travel that road, the 370 cars, maybe they're all traveling at the same time. Maybe that's what it is, I'm not sure. Maybe I misspoke, the 370 cars is the amount of cars per day that this project will add to Stony Point Road. Oh, and it will add, add, add. Stony Point Road currently has about between 25,000 and 30,000 cars a day. Okay, thank you. And then when people are coming out of the site, let's say if they want to go southbound, I'm going from the site to Petaluma. How do I make that maneuver? You'd have to turn right out of the site, go up to Giffen and make a U-turn or turn left onto North Point Parkway, go down North Point Parkway and make a U-turn. Okay, I think that was it. I'm just trying to see like how they're gonna, it seems like it's gonna create some traffic. It will create the necessity to make U-turns. However, there are no other access points from the site. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from council members? Council Member Alvarez? This is a general question for the City of Santa Rosa Planning Department. Are there any future plans to improve the Heron Avenue intersection with Stony Point? Would that, Rob, would that be you as well or perhaps Gabe? I'll answer that. Thank you. Sure. So the improvements that would be made at Stony Point and Heron would be further to the south. The plans are to have two northbound lanes entering the intersection. The north or in half of the intersection was improved with the Stony Point Lightning Project that was completed about two, three years ago. So there's some further improvement to the south of the intersection which will allow for a little bit more capacity through that intersection. However, the southbound direction and the westbound direction and eastbound direction are at their limits currently. Perfect. When is the most recent traffic study that was performed on this project? The traffic study that was for this project was completed, I believe, in August of this year. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Yep, let's go to the appellant's presentation. If you could try to keep it around 10 minutes, that'd be great, but I'm gonna give you equal time to the applicant. So we've got a little bit of a buffer there for you. Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Chris Rogers, Madam Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers, and City Council members. Tonight I am presenting on behalf of my wife, Erin Rheinberg, and the ad hoc community group, Friends of Roslyn Creek. There are several environmental and safety and legal concerns upon which this appeal is based, and my presentation will primarily focus on the latter two. Before we move forward to, I also want to put on the record that appellants are withdrawing the heritage tree appeal portion, seeing that the applicant has provided more than adequate remediation for the removal of the trees. Next slide. So the first issue that we have is the adequacy of the agenda, and we feel that it is a Brown Act violation because it does not properly identify the items that are being heard and adjudicated, and in accordance with the Brown Act. Next slide. If you look here, the notice, sorry, the agenda appears to show that only an addendum to the EIR is on the agenda. The Brown Act requires a description that is brief, but still adequate enough so that the public knows what is going on. Here, the design review minor designation that the city tries to state is an adequate representation of what is also going to be on the agenda isn't such. It's insufficient. It created such ambiguity even that members of the public primarily focused their comments on the EIR during the public comments because there was not even a designation prior to public comments that an EIR is not subject to public comments. It was stated after public comments had closed and therefore public comments were not adequately able to address all items that were supposedly listed. Even if you adopt and accept that items were properly noticed, I never mind, I already addressed that. Next slide, please. The traffic study seems to be inappropriate. We've got seven additional developments coming in at the same time as this one. Traffic is already pretty bad on Stony Point and while we appreciate that the design that the applicant is trying to address this with a turn pocket, the appellants are concerned that at any point in time, if cost prohibits it, the U-turn pocket will be removed and thus creating safety problems for people wanting to make illegal U-turns in order to access this properly. So we asked the city council and the design review board require and put a contingency on the approval of this project for the turn pocket to be implemented. It is our understanding that it is currently at the discretion of the applicant, whether or not this goes in and it is not a requirement. Next slide. As you can see, there is just no access from these pictures and you see traffic here in the morning. This is the intersection where the photographs are taken into the top left corner or top right corner. This is that giffin. This is when people are trying to get their kids to school. You can see how much traffic there is with people trying to get there. You see how backed up the U-turn lane already is. This is the same U-turn lane that staff and the applicant are suggesting people use in order to get southbound on Stony Point. You're talking another couple developments going in at the same time for people trying to go north or southbound and potentially clog up these lanes. Next slide, please. As you can see here, emails from the city staff are indicating that a pocket should be required and a U-turn at Pear Blossom suggested in order to alleviate any potential traffic issues and provide safe access for fire access and emergency responders to access this property. Currently, if the U-turn pocket is abandoned for any reason, your emergency personnel are gonna be required to go against traffic and travel at slower speeds, which is going to make it more difficult if emergency actions are needed to save residents of this place. Next slide. Additionally, city staff are concerned about overflow traffic affecting neighborhood roads, such as Burbank Avenue, which already has a high amount of traffic due to the location of several schools and several community parks that require access from this road. Next slide. So we just request that the U-turn be required in order for this project to move forward and that the developers required to fund the U-turn, if not entirely, at least in the majority, since it's going to be impacting the majority of the flow of traffic. Next slide. As stated previously and in our appeal, we believe that the EIR is inadequate. As five years old, many of the people who have conducted the EIR studies are no longer licensed. They have either lapsed or lost their license. And as shown at a recent city board council meeting for the park located off Burbank Avenue, there was an independent study that was conducted and it showed that the estimations and calculations for endangered species and other protected species was grossly and vastly undercounted in the city's plan. And we believe that it's possible that this is the same here and we request that a full comprehensive EIR be conducted, not simply just piggybacking off of a five-year-old study and an addendum that was just done ad hoc. Next slide, please. One more. We believe that there is an inadequate and false representations regarding the building in a seasonal wetland. Next slide, please. As you can see here, these are pictures that were taken around midday from the massive atmospheric river that occurred at the end of October. I see that this is about where the building will be built and you can see how flooded it is. And if you start putting in as much impermeable pavement that is going to be coming in, it's concerning that adjacent properties will be flooded as well as it'll impact the ability of Roseland Creek to actually handle the additional water that would have been absorbed by the ground instead of it's going into the river. Next slide, please. Again, here you see in the middle, here is around midday before the heaviest of the rain occurred in the end of October. The water is already pretty much at capacity for these culverts. So we request in order to ensure that these culverts are adequate that a proper sewer study is done. Our understanding is that a sewer study was completed but it was completed somewhat haphazardly. So we just would like a second look if possible for someone to conduct a more recent study that adequately accounts for the displacement of additional water from this location. Next slide, please. Additional, here are some additional pictures showing additional rain and just flooding that occurred over the last couple of rains we've had. Next slide. We appreciate that the city and the developers are going to be providing fencing around this location. It is a serious safety issue that could potentially lead to litigation not only for the developers, but for the city and the county as well. One thing that we request is that the city does require as recommended by Mr. McKay to require this as a condition of the approval today, but also that it is completely fenced around the entire border. Understanding right now is that the north border is still going to be open and it's still easy for someone to walk around the other side in order to bypass that and get into the creek and into the other flooded areas that are on the neighboring properties and on the undeveloped portion of this property itself. Furthermore, as the good neighbors that the developers claim they are, the shrubbery can die, walls cannot or fences cannot. And so in order to ensure the good neighbors and protection of the light, given the drought we are in, I think it's fair to request a fence be put up instead of shrubbery for borders in order to protect lighting and also to ensure and reduce liability for all parties involved. Next slide. Next slide. Sure. Sure. Next slide. Let's skip ahead a couple of times here. Skip ahead. Couple of slides. Skip ahead. I'll just keep going. The last thing I have to say is that we've provided multiple documents and even petitions to city council and to the board. And we, next slide. We were not, none of which were responded. Yet, here, special interest groups reach out to city council members and the mayor and they are received with meetings that we weren't afforded to at the same time all to move forward with this despite very valid concerns regarding safety, public safety, which are proven to be valid given the city's new requirements and the developer's own concessions in their own applications and the plan changes. I think that's it for me. Thank you for your time. Okay. The applicant has five minutes to respond to the presentation from the appellant. Thank you, and I will try to be brief as we go through this. In regards to traffic, we've pretty much dealt with the U-turn issue. We know that that is going to be a part of the project moving forward. I would note the traffic study did point out that traffic generated from the future community is consistent with the general plan. A lot of these claims are very unsubstantiated. There's no specifics offered. The EIR being outdated. The sewer study being haphazard. There's no specifics being offered here. What is wrong with any of these studies? Clearly, they have gone through planning. City staff has reviewed all of these studies. The city's internal studies are all up to date. We know that the city of Santa Rosa and the city staff does an outstanding job of staying on top of that stuff. I would touch on the flooding on the property that was standing groundwater. That water was gone by the next day per folks that we had out there walking the property. And we do have our civil engineer on the call if we want to talk about specifics with the box culvert. The box culvert, actually the rainfall recorded was adequate with a 50-year flood event. And actually looking at those pictures, it's proof that the box culverts in the additional capacity added to Rosalind Creek is performing just as it should. From the fencing standpoint, we have open space to the, mostly open space to the north of us, mostly open space to the east. We have Stony Point Road to the west. We are including the fencing on the southern portion of the property. At some point, I've been in affordable housing long enough at some point when we're getting drilled that we want the entire property fenced around, we start to ask the question, are we trying to keep people out or are we trying to keep people in? We have had a number of issues come up, public comments made over the course of the time that the real problem with this project is that it's affordable housing. We are doing our best to provide a safe community, a high quality community to the city of Santa Rosa and to folks that are in need of affordable housing. Thank you. Council, do we have any questions for the appellant or the response from the applicant? Okay, this is a public hearing. So go ahead and open the public hearing. If you're interested in speaking on the item, go ahead and either line up at the podium or hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. We'll go ahead and start on Zoom with Annette followed by Lorna. Thank you. I would like to thank the council and ask that you consider when giving permits for new housing developments that they get spread throughout the community and not all in lower income neighborhoods like South Park and Roseland. I just pulled a list of the lowest income housing in Santa Rosa, the 13 projects that all have the lowest housing and highest capacity of people at each location. And all 13 of them are either in Roseland, South Park or over by Dutton. And I think if we talk about equity in this community, that's one way you keep people down by making projects in their neighborhoods. And we need to spread this around and so that everybody gets a fair chance to live in a nice neighborhood. I think right now there's big development happening in South Park, a four story, very, very big building compared to anything else in the neighborhood. And that's three blocks from one direction, three blocks in another direction they're considering putting in a homeless camp facility. And we want to help the homeless as much as everybody else, but it's not fair to dump all of that in our neighborhood. And if you look at the map of where this is happening, it's not happening everywhere. It's happening in Roseland, it's happening in South Park. And we pay our taxes too and we deserve as much as anybody else gets. And I don't see this happening in nicer neighborhoods. So I would just like you to consider that and have the planning department be aware of it because they can make a difference and make a change to help right the situation that's been wrong for a long time. And this can help with equity in our community, which is something that's given a lot of talk, but not a lot of action. So that's what I'd like to say. Thank you very much. Thank you, Annette. We'll go to Lorna followed by Ryan. I just wanted to applaud Annette. I feel the same way that a lot of the development whether it's affordable housing or not is being conducted and constructed in Southwest Santa Rosa, really impacting the quality of life for current residents. I'd like to take issue with Mr. Woods comment that we want a fence to keep people out. That is absolutely untrue. I am a resident on the Northern side and I've asked for fencing to mitigate the car headlights as well as any parking lot headlights. My bedroom faces that. And I don't know if anybody has had the experience of cars glaring into their bedroom at night, but it's very disturbing to sleep. And if the good neighbor claim is worthy, I would ask that we actually put a fence there. As Mr. Weinberg said, shrubbery could possibly die. It may not be thick enough. I really requested that fencing be surrounded on all sides. And also I take issue with Mr. Woods assertion that a day later that parcel was dry. I actually have photographs that I can share with council showing that it's a pond. And it is two weeks later that my photographs have been taken. It's a very, very densely water bogged parcel. So I wanna know by bringing in a lot more soil or infill how much higher that structure will be. And if that would require another waiver for height density. The final thing is that, thank you Vice Chair Rogers in calling out the fact that having to go north or yeah, having to go north to go south will entail people possibly going through the Stoney Ranch subdivision of which I'm a resident. It's already impacted. There's children playing in the streets. It's not meant to be a thoroughfare. This could possibly create more accidents and potential problems with accidents and children's safety. So please consider the fact that people would have to go through that subdivision in order to turn around and go south on Stoney Point. I don't think that's been considered at all. I hope that these concerns I hope that these considerations are truly looked at and advanced with more discussion and dialogue. Thank you. Thank you, Lorna. We'll go to Ryan followed by Steven. Yeah, hello everybody. My name is Ryan Schwab. First off, thank you city council for hearing the appeal today. I will say I made public record requests related to this project and I was amazed at what internal correspondence I uncovered. Fencing is now only on the south side even though the entire property should be fenced for recommendations from the Waterway Advisory Committee members of the design review board and city staff for traffic, even if the turn pocket is installed it still is just a bandaid backup plan to slightly increase access to the project. The solid median running through Stoney Point still will only allow right turns in and right turns out of the property unsafe for this dense project. The project was originally supposed to rely on the North Point Parkway extension for additional access but this was abandoned midway through the design of the project. An assistant fire marshal previously advised that there should be a break in the median to allow for increased access to the property. This fire marshal unfortunately left their job and instead of abiding by his valuable advice the signal of the city and the developers to no longer require this break in the median. This is a treacherous stretch of Stoney Point which there will be severe issues with property access. The developer knew about these safety concerns for months and hasn't until recently agreed to address some evidence in the late correspondence that was uploaded last night to the city's portal. These are crucial items that should have been ironed out six months ago but the developer and the city tried to rush this project through as quickly as possible with little regard for community safety and community input. The developer hoped that none of the safety improvements came to fruition but finally felt pressured to do some of the improvements. This is not a fully honest developer that we want working in our city and suggest until they begin operating in good faith that this project and future projects are not endorsed or approved. I only have time to hit on the major issues but the ones advocating for this project have not seen how big of a red flag this project is in the litany of issues that remain outstanding. The shortcuts allowed for this project are ludicrous that attempted to put developer profit over resident safety. I implore city council to carefully review this project further for shortcuts that put us all in jeopardy and make common sense conditions of approval that we can all get behind. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. We'll go to Stephen. Hello. Go ahead. Okay. Hello, everybody. I just wanted to say an opinion up front that I think that this project has been affected by the COVID virus and having to do these Zoom meetings instead of getting the full breadth of the public opinion, the public did get a petition with over 150 signatures and but I honestly think that things would be a lot easier if we just couldn't meet out in the field and walk the site. I've been working with Eddie Alvarez on that but I'd be happy to meet with any of the city council members and just walk the site so you can see exactly what we're talking about. My major concern is how people exit this parcel going north. You're going to make a right, you're forced to make a right hand turn on the Stony Point Road and then the traffic per the traffic study, they say that you're going to be able to swing a U-turn at Giffin. Well, Giffin is right at the intersection of the Robert L. Stephen school and I have photographic evidence and videotape of the left hand turn pocket there getting completely queued up every morning and during pickup, which means if you add a single extra car to that street and ask and expect them to use that left hand turn lane during those peak hour times, you're going to stop traffic on Stony Point Road and I've tried to express this but I really feel like that a site visit would settle this matter. What I would recommend is that city council ask the city engineers or whoever did the traffic study to do another traffic study, a peer review traffic study, which means a second party, somebody who's not biased at all to the project, conduct the traffic study and take into account not only this project but all of the other projects simultaneously that are being developed on this road. It's not accurate to use a traffic study from 2019 and I don't believe that it was accurately updated in 2021 either. My time is running out so I'm just going to try and scurry along. The hydraulic study should be confirmed. The land is moved up and down and up and down. It's on a building pad, now it's not on a building pad. Well, that totally changes the hydraulics. The hydraulics are different if it's low on grade. I was out there when it rained that the exit pipe that this developer wants to connect to was two feet, at least underwater. It's possible the hydraulics still work with an underwater pipe but I think that that needs to be confirmed. I'd like a wall instead of a fence. I don't want to hear the car sounds, cars starting every morning and like the other lady said, headlights. And then I've got a couple of the things. Oh, shoot. Thank you, Stephen. We'll move on to Jen. Hi, good evening, sorry, coming by surprise. Mr. Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers, Council Member of the City staff. My name is Jen Close, Executive Director for Generation Housing where we advocate more and more diverse and more affordable housing. I want to start by following up on the early comments by neighbors who take issue with more affordable housing being built in South of Santa Rosa. The fact that we have such glaring inequities in neighborhoods that residents would define some as good neighborhoods and some as bad neighborhoods is a shameful truth. As an organization that brings a strong equity value to its work, we do want to acknowledge this truth and encourage this council to continue investing in our low resorts neighborhoods to begin to bridge these equity gaps. Now we encourage this council and all of our county's jurisdictions to enact policies that incentivize affordable, multifamily development in high resource areas. It is time that we reckon with the fact that housing policy not only created income and racial segregation, but continues to maintain it. That said, we desperately need housing, particularly affordable housing. The Stony Point Flats Affordable Housing Community must be built without further delay. It's designed, which offers one, two and three bedroom affordable multifamily rental units in addition to meaningful amenities such as a community center, half basketball court, playground, bike storage is exactly the type of housing your council has prioritized for Santa Rosa. It's noteworthy that the only tenant currently residing at the property that submitted a letter and support this project. In his remarks, he states that it's time for this property to be utilized for a higher and better use. These comments are not unique. The community by and large is incredibly supportive of building affordable housing, especially when it's well located, offering extended access to a bike pathway with easily accessible transit options, essential services and several parks. The project strongly aligns with council's housing and climate action goals. Generation housing's endorsement criteria is a robust rubric that flows from our guiding principles which include, among others, values of equity and environmental sustainability. The point system determines whether a project gets our endorsement and also at what level. Stony Point Flats gets our highest endorsement. Therefore, we strongly encourage the city council to deny this EIR appeal, especially given that your DRB unanimously approved the project with only minor project revisions. We urge the city staff to continue to partner with the project developers to ensure the fastest possible path to getting six in the ground. Thank you, and as always, thank you for your service. Thank you, Jen. I see no other hands on Zoom, so I'll go ahead and bring it to the chambers. We'll start with David Harris, followed by Chris. If mine's David Harris, I live at 355 Demos Circle and happy to speak on this topic of housing. Many of you know that I served on the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Rosa, actually, almost nine years. And so I want to support this project for constructing more affordable housing. But I have a, well, let me first comment about all this talk about traffic and Jen closely just mentioned the fact that there is alternative transportation available there and there's a bus route that comes out of Southwest Park and there is a bike path, but that infrastructure needs to be improved as fast as we can and it needs to be made known to the residents to move in there. So my request to the applicants for this project would be to be prepared to inform their potential occupants there about those alternatives. It is so close to the school that one would hope nobody is driving their children to school from a project that is that close. And I'm familiar with that area because I've been a member for more than 30 years at First United Methodist Church, the original location was on Montgomery Drive. In the late 1990s, the church purchased the eight acres at the corner there of Giffin and Stony Point. So I have been out there many, many times in this vicinity. And the other bit of lost history is the fact that when the church bought that property, it had a bunch of illegal units, chicken houses that had been converted to houses, which were destroyed. And the church is aware that they actually had a negative impact on available affordable housing, had made attempts through the city to have an encampment, attempt encampment there for the homeless, which did not get through the process here in the city. Homes for Sonoma made a proposal to put post fire housing there, which also did not make it through the city. So it's a bit frustrating for people who have tried to promote affordable housing there to have had these obstacles. And I don't know what the future holds, but we do need to keep working on alternative transportation alternatives so that this issue about cars doesn't remain so central to our discussions. However, it would be good if we did more of this affordable housing development as infill closer in. It is a long, that is not the best place for affordable housing, but I have made the observation in the 21, 22 capital improvement budget that what I understand to be, it's called in lieu development fees is being used in capital expenditures for sidewalks and light poles. And that does not seem to me to be appropriate use of the in lieu affordable housing fee. So I would like to get an answer on that question. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Hello, my name is Chris Stewart and I'm a nurse practitioner and the medical director of our Santa Rosa Community Health Brookwood campus. At Brookwood, we are dedicated to serving the health care needs of our homeless populations and our team does outreach clinics at three homeless shelter and service, homeless service sites. COVID has shown a light on the housing crisis in this region and while the county has done an absolutely remarkable job using creative solutions to meet the critical shelter needs that COVID unveiled, it is clear that in the interest of the greater health of our community, longer term affordable housing solutions like the Stony Point flats project are essential. Every day we care for folks whose health is negatively impacted by homelessness. We see folks staying intermittently in temporary shelters, couch surfing, living in vehicles or tragically staying on the streets. Many of our patients will frequent the emergency rooms due to illness and injury that result from homelessness. As we consider treatment options to improve their health, often the most impactful intervention is something we simply have no ability to provide. This project is one small but important step towards meeting the affordable housing needs of this community. Projects such as these can over time begin to improve the health of individuals and the health of the community. At Brookwood, the Brookwood team is strongly in support of the Stony Point flats project and hope you will move forward with it expeditiously. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. Is there anybody else in the chambers who would like to speak on this item? Let's see if there are any additional hands via Zoom. Again, this is a public hearing. So folks have an opportunity to speak. I see none. So let's go to our voicemail public comments. We gotta stop building. This is horrible. There cannot be no more buildings put in this area. What are you people thinking? There's no roads and there's way too much traffic. Please call me on the concerned citizen and all the neighbors are concerned. That concludes voice message public comments on this item. Okay, we will go ahead and close the public hearing. Bring it back to council. Council Member Sawyer, can you put a motion on the table for discussion? Sure. Just when you're asking for it, it my screen went dark, so just give me a second. I did that intentionally, John. I had it all queued up. Okay, introduce a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa denying an appeal and upholding the design review board's adoption of an addendum to the certified Roseland area, Sebastopol Road specific plan, environmental impact report, state clearinghouse number 2016012030, an approval of a minor design review for stony point flats apartments, a two and three story, 50 unit multifamily affordable housing project located at 2268 stony point roads, Santa Rosa APN number 125521-008, file number DR21-23, PRJ21-012 to waive further reading. Okay. We have a motion by Council Member Sawyer and a second from Council Member Tibbets. Do we have any additional questions for staff on the project? Council Member Alvarez. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the patience as well. In regards to the Southwest Quadrant, how many projects are coming in within the next five years that we know about? Thank you for that question. Unfortunately, I think right now, all we can really base our data on is applications that we have received or applications that we know that are in the pre-application phase. And I don't know that we have an accurate, I'm sorry. I don't know that we have a figure for that project number at this time. I'm not sure that we collect that type of data. We do not know how many applications are in process. That is a different question for sure. I'm really not asked the questions here. Yeah, I appreciate that. So we do know how many applications we have in process, but I'm not aware of any metrics that we could easily kind of just generate that number here, but maybe Andrew Triple can help get out with that. Council Member Alvarez, this is Senior Planner Andrew Triple. We do have several projects that are currently under review. One at 1910, Sevastopol Road, and then of course, the Dutton Meadow Project, which is located further down on Dutton Meadow off of, gosh, off of Belvedere, or Belvedere, I believe. And then of course, the Hearn Village, which is a small project located to the West of Stony Point Road near the Stony Point Flats Project. I think that while, as Connor said, we don't have the data about development potential in the next five years with the housing element update that is underway and that for which a study session was provided today, I believe that they would be able to pretty accurately predict development potential for at least five years out for the Southwest Planner. In regards to the applications that are, that have been submitted, is there a total of units that go along with them? Sure. So each application would have a unit count, a proposed unit count. Sometimes that fluctuates slightly through the review process. If a project would decide to add income restricted units and qualify for a density bonus, they might increase the unit count. But we would have that information, but it would take me a few minutes to pull those data. I would definitely appreciate that, Andrew, if you could pull that information forward. And in regards to the North Point Parkway design that was not used during this appeal process and apparently not during the application process, could you elaborate what it was and why that design did not move forward? If I'm correct in my assumption. Was that a roadway design that was proposed? I believe if I'm mistaken, it was part of a traffic study that I did see with a prior application, I believe, and it did deal with connecting the thoroughway or connecting North Point with Herne Avenue. Oh, the Future North Point Parkway. That's sure. Okay, so and perhaps Rob Sprinkle, if he's still available, he could participate in this response as well. So the Future North Point Parkway does travel west from the intersection of North Point Parkway with Stony Point Road, where it does head east rather, and then curves and head southward, eventually connecting with Herne Avenue. That still is a planned future extension of North Point Parkway. And the project is required to provide a right-of-way dedication for the purpose of the construction of that parkway. At some point in time in the future. So Rob, I'd love for you to provide more details on the plans for that parkway extension. Andrew, I think you did a pretty good job. I think I just point out that that parkway, as well as the rest of the circulation system, is something that was reviewed in detail and thoroughly as part of the Roseland and a specific plan that was done and completed in 2016. So all of the traffic that is being developed by these different subdivisions will be accommodated by the development of all this road infrastructure. Very well, thank you. And I heard the comment of development fees. Do we know if those fees are applied to any of these projects for capital improvements? Council Member Alvarez, this is Senior Planner Andrew Triple. And again, I'll ask Rob to follow up with details. I do know that the applicant did request consideration use of a portion of required capital facilities fee payment for the Stony Point Flats project to be used in lieu for construction of the U-turn median. And I understand that transportation public works did accept that proposal and that they did catch the amount that could be used for construction of that U-turn median. I believe that when the comment was made, it was referred to as an affordable housing incentive, but this was not a program, the affordable housing incentive. And to the question of the pellet in regards to mandating the pocket, it sounds like the fees are being dedicated to assure that that pocket is being introduced into the project. Would that be correct? Yes, that is correct. I believe that the estimated required capital facilities fees are around 300,000 for this project. And I understand that the estimate to construct the U-turn median is approximately 50,000. So the majority of those capital facilities fees would be paid into the city's project funds for construction of other capital projects, presumably along Stony Point Road and throughout the city. Only a small portion would be dedicated for construction of that U-turn. Two more, Mayor, if I may. The first one being the alternative routes for ingress and agress from the property to both Highway 12 and Highway 101. How many are there? The, do you want to take that? I think, yeah, if I'm understanding the question correctly, going into the, or I'll start with leaving the property, leaving the property, it's a right turn out only. And entering the property, it's a right turn in only. So your direction going to Highway 12 would be turning right, going out of the property on the Stony Point Road and heading north towards Highway 12. If you're coming from Highway 12 to the property, you would come down Stony Point Road, make a U-turn out, parable awesome, and then enter the property to the, making a right hand turn. Going to 101, you would again have to leave the property and turn right, or a turn out only. Go to Giffin, make a U-turn and then go down to Herne, turn left, over to Highway 101. And then coming from 101 would be Herne, and then turn right onto Stony Point Road, north to the property. Perfect. In my last question, were we able to come up with the numbers of the projected housing units from the additional applicants or from the applicants? Yeah, so at 1910, Sebastopol Road, which is up on the corner of Sebastopol and Stony Point Roads, there's, we currently do have pre-application for 56, units in a mixed use project. And then at 2149 Western Avenue, which would be on the west side of Stony Point Road, that is the Herne Veterans Village Project, which is a supportive housing project that would be for detached single family dwelling units on four parcels. And I believe that that is six bedrooms per single family dwelling unit. So 24 bedrooms of permanent supportive housing at that project. And then finally, the Dutton Avenue subdivision, which I am trying to open that document right now. Is 137 unit residential small lot subdivision at 2650 Dutton Avenue, which is going to them be quite a ways further south of the project. But that was responding to your question about my development in the southwest quadrant. So it's looking like over 200 units total? Yes, approximately. Thank you, I appreciate that. And Council Member, it might be helpful also, I don't know about proposed changes, but I have the data here from our study session a couple of weeks ago on, actually it's the redistricting one, the population shift over the last 10 years, which part of the city has actually grown the most? So how many of those units have been realized? District two surprisingly, which is Council Member Sawyer's with the Bennett Valley area grew by the most out of any of the districts, followed by the Vice Mayor's with District seven and then yours in third with District one. Thank you, Mayor. And that definitely is aligned with the construction that I've seen throughout the city of Santa Rosa, especially West Third West College on Cleveland Avenue. And it definitely speaks truth of how much the city of Santa Rosa is growing in its totality. Absolutely. Vice Mayor, questions? So I'm back at the Giffin with the whole U-turn thing. So have we looked at changing the light at Giffin for traffic? Because right now it's a left turn yield on flashing. And for someone that has to drop their kid off every day, every morning and pick their kid up during certain hours, I mean, it's already difficult, so we're adding more. And I know we were looking at low income units, but there's a lot of units that we're building on that corridor actually, because there's a 43, 47, a little bit city ventures is building. And then if you go down a little bit more, city ventures is building 100 and something more units. I mean, there's just a lot of development on Stony Point right there. So did we look at possibly changing that? And the reason why I asked is not only because I drive it, but because of safety and having people trying to hurry up and dodge in front of a car to try to make the U-turn or so I just think that if the light was structured in a way where people could safely do it, maybe it wouldn't be as bad. Sure, so the way the light functions currently is the first portion of the light, it does serve just a green arrow that you can turn on without any oncoming traffic. And that is, the attempt of that is to eliminate the queue of traffic that's standing there currently. And then once that time is up, then it goes to the flashing yellow arrow. So if people join that pocket afterwards after that initial queue is gone, that they have an opportunity if it is clear to make a U-turn or to make a turn either way. That light will resurface again once that time is done and then the through traffic is finished moving, it will serve that green again. Yeah, I don't know how stoplights work, but during peak hours, and especially when people are trying to transport the alternative forms of transportation, walking, biking and or driving, I don't know if that works and adding more cars, that are just using it for U-turn. So that's just throwing it out there may be a suggestion that during those drop off times, that we know the school is having that it be a turn, Turner the U-turn only to try to help with the traffic situation. I don't know if we can even look at that. It's definitely something we'll look at and we'll continue to monitor. We work with the schools a lot on traffic related issues and that's something that we definitely we'll keep in mind if this project moves forward. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from council? Carter I did want to ask a little bit about the Northern fence. That is many of the concerns that I've heard from folks have been accounted for so far in the project design, but the Northern fence, I have heard from a couple of constituents out there about the headlights coming into their homes. Is the shrubbery that is being proposed and I heard that it was mature shrubbery. Is that adequate to block the light from going into other people's homes? Or and it was also insinuated that other stopping points the design review board, the waterways committee that they had suggested that a fence or a wall should also be put there. Can you respond to that a little? Yeah, so there's no city policy that would require the fence at the Northern project boundary. So that's why it wasn't required as part of the project as staff was recommending approval. I do remember that there was a pretty mixed sentiment between the members of the waterways advisory committee and the design review board about general fencing. I'm not 100% sure if I'm remembering correctly about specifically the Northern fencing issue, but it was demonstrated to me by the applicant and the landscape architect that the shrubbery proposed in the Northern project boundary would be sufficient in height and density to shield from the car headlights from the parking lot to the Northern residential development. And is there any mechanism because what we'll be doing is basically having the neighbors asking the neighbors to take our word that that's what's gonna happen. If it turns out that there's a significant impact from the additional lights, is there recourse to come back to the table and have a fence put in? That is a good question. I believe so the project is required to comply with the light ordinance which prohibits outlighting or uplighting of lighting for like parking lot lighting and stuff like that. I imagine that it would apply to car headlights as well operationally. So if the project is not complying with the lighting ordinance and there are significant impacts occurring to the Northern residential development, I imagine that I'm thinking that that can be resolved with code enforcement, but if Andrew or someone else is able to clarify for that for me, that would be helpful. And I'm gonna kick it over and see if the city attorney also has any comments on this. Yes, there, I guess two avenues. One would be to craft the condition of approval. So that the hedge was installed and that if there were, would wanna have some sort of objective measurement in terms of the car lights that that a fencing could be required at that point or a Connor's correct. Also that the other alternative would be to rely on the light ordinance for any subsequent problems. I frankly am not off the top of my head. I don't know the contents of the light ordinance. So can't assure the council that that would resolve it, but and I would also invite Mr. Triple to weigh in if he has other thoughts or other options. Sure, thank you. I think that's correct that we could condition, of course we could condition the project just to require the fence in lieu of the shrubbery planting. And then also if there was a code enforcement complaint, then we could review that as part of the complaint and look at that solution. I believe that there was a code enforcement complaint code enforcement would go out and do some light measures and would be able to make that determination then as a result of the developed projects. So of course they wouldn't be responding to a complaint. So it's not as proactive as perhaps the council might want it to be, but we can certainly condition this resolution additionally to address this concern. And John, Council Member Sawyer, it's your motion. Would you be open to amending the motion to include language that clarifies that if the neighbors are seeing an impact from the headlights and from the lighting that code enforcement does have the ability to weigh in on it and find remediation for it? I would for two points. One is the light trespass hand, which I think is an issue of some of the neighbors. And oftentimes with infill development, traffic and quality of life issues like light trespass tend to rise to the surface. So, and not to mention the noise mitigation as well, shrubbery does not reduce noise and fencing can. So for two reasons, I would accept that amendment for a future consideration. And I also should clarify because I believe, and I don't want to have to do this multiple times, I believe there were also amendments that were suggested in the beginning that take into account some of the things such as the Southern fence in the staff's recommendation. And I just want to clarify that you were accepting those amendments or those changes as well in your motion. Yes. Okay. And Council Member Tibbets, you're the second. Are you comfortable with those additions or those clarifications? I'd like to ask a couple of questions if I may. Sure. So I guess I'll kick this one to Sue. Sue, so we're going to, I guess, make a condition of, I mean, how is this happening procedurally? Is this is going on the deed that the neighbors have the right to demand offense? And what consequence enforceability would, would code enforcement have? It's already been built. The, well, let me, I'm going to answer it in two ways. First is that if it were a code violation, then the code enforcement can compel remediation of that. I did though just receive very briefly a text, which I cannot see the entirety of it from Mr. Oswald. And I'd invite him to join the conversation that actually car lighting, vehicle lighting is enforced by CHP and would not be part of our code enforcement process. So that, that remedy with respect, at least to the car lights may not in fact be available. And thank you, Jesse, for joining in. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and everyone. But it gets tricky when we start wanting to impose enforcement onto code enforcement. Code enforcement's authority rests within violations of a property, physical violations. Operation of vehicles is not an enforceable action from the code enforcement division. It would potentially go down the path of a condition of approval being violated, which then ends up with at the lowest level an enforcement attempt from typically the director planning and economic development and then elevated through the city attorney potential to a civil action. So I just wanted to parlay some of that information on the actual authority of code enforcement. We have to have physical violations on the property that we can cite a property maintenance code or a building code. Thank you, Mr. Oswald. Could I ask the applicant then, I'm almost wondering if it's just easier to condition it now as opposed to creating a civil case down the road. But I think the flip side to that coin is that we're hearing from some folks tonight who want an offense. I'm sure there's folks in that neighborhood who might not want offense. So I'm having a hard time looking at 100% affordable project gift force in the mouth here. Sure, I think as we talk about this as offense and specific to light emissions, where a fence can mean a lot of things and a hedge can actually do a better job than some fence designs that knocking down lighting. Other fencing types could certainly do a better job. We would be open to ideas in order to satisfy that. Certainly we'd be willing to work with planning on exactly what that comes out to. A wrought iron fence certainly isn't going to stop headlights. In fact, it would allow much more light through. We would certainly be willing to look at doing, I'm trying to envision off the top of my head here what this looks like, but some sort of a solid vertical surface, maybe four feet in height in lieu of the shrubs, and it would certainly cover all of the parking spaces. We've got a very long property line there, a block wall as an example, running that entire property line. This is an affordable project with a very tight construction budget. We've got to be careful. We could look at something like a redwood fence, perhaps about four feet in height. We're on a very tight lot as well. We do not want to enclose the lot. We want our residents to feel like they're open and part of the community. Four feet in height is certainly reasonable. Certainly above the CHP's regulation on headlight height. So we would certainly be open to that fence being located in front of any of the parking stalls. All right, I appreciate you chiming in. I'm probably not going to be the second on this one. I just remember when I was in school, I took some urban planning classes, and my professor said that one of the worst things that we ever did as a society to build equity and create community was create walls and gates. And I just think that there's probably ways that we could do this, where we could condition it with shrubbery to dampen down the effects of light. But I think at the end of the day, what we're looking at is a partial infill project here that the city supposedly supports. 100% affordable project, which the city has said is our priority. And what we need to do is to the best of our ability, just condition it on behalf of the neighbors and then make a decision about whether we approve it or not. But I think that adding covenants essentially or stipulations to the deed is just kind of rife. It could be fraught with problems down the road. Vice Mayor. I'll second, John. So for clarity, the second is trying to figure out how allowing the project to move forward with shrubbery that is going to be dense and is going to block the lights, but also clarifying that if that is inadequate that the developer has to put in, I think what I heard was a four foot fence that will block the light. And Mayor, if I may, I apologize if I'm out of procedure here. It sounds as if the four foot fence in front of the parking would really be the, let's call it the cleaner way to condition this. So that there isn't a what if down the road, the development team would be in agreement with a four foot redwood fence that is in front of all parking on that Northern property line, that helps. Mayor, if I may interject, having a nice clean decision on that to allow us to move forward with this project would be preferable to me. Okay, so you're comfortable then with conditioning the project to have the four foot redwood fence to block the headlights from the parking. Yes, it does nothing for sound, but we're not dealing with sound. We're dealing with light and intrusion and I would be comfortable with a four foot redwood fence as a condition of approval on that elevation, on that side, on the side in question. I'll keep my second for that, John. I just didn't want a neighborhood dispute after this thing gets built. I think you're right. I think this is a much cleaner decision and I think something is predictable by the developer as well and the neighbors. Okay. And may I just ask clarification and that would be in lieu of the shrubbery along that property line or in addition? I was thinking that it was in lieu of, although if I may, the addition, although there is expense in irrigation depending on the nature of the plant material and maintenance, hedging, et cetera, it would probably be done depending on where it is. I'm not really sure if that would be an element. I'm having fencing softened by plant material is oftentimes advisable and encouraged but it would not be something I would be willing to condition. So the motion is to replace the hedging as a requirement and instead require the four foot redwood fencing just for clarity. Vice mayor. Yeah. If I'm looking at the landscape plan correctly, there's only one, two, three, four, five, six. There's like six trees. There's still one, two, three, four, five, six. There's still six trees like kinda is still in the parking lot. So we're not saying get rid of those ones. Only the six that would back up to the, where the fence is. Yeah, I understand it to mean the hedges. Yeah. So that, but they're still shrubber. I mean, they're still green. Yeah. Are there any other questions? Council Member Schwedhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. With this new requirement, does it have to go before any other body or can it all be approved today? Because I'm guessing that's rather lengthy fenced. My concern is that we're starting to do the sausage making live and we had a whole process worked out here. I get what the intent is, but now we're trying to solve a problem that might have some other bodies' feedback. So what can we approve here today that does not require DRB or any other body to approve it? I think we're getting into the design review board. Cass. Yes, on the appeal, you have the ability to condition the project as the council deems appropriate. Thank you. And I guess I'd have one more question for the developer. Does this still pencil out, given the requirements that we're doing here tonight? Yes, I believe it would. I can't do the math on that, unfortunately on the back of a napkin here, but I believe we will be able to make it work. I would respectfully request that the fencing condition be just at the head of the parking spaces in question, not the entire property line. That would certainly help. And it achieves the same goal as well. And that's how I heard council member Sawyer's motion is for the areas where there is parking for the fence, not the entire property line. Thank you. Yes. Any other questions? Council Member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. When considering that Stony Point is one of three streets that lead from San Rosa to Petaluma, my question would be, and the streets would be San Rosa Avenue, Petaluma Hill Road and Stony Point Road, unless mistaken, of these three streets, how many of them have a U-turn that leads to multi-family residency? I'm not sure I have an answer for you. I'm trying to think if there's any other locations along Stony Point that has that. I believe there are further to the north, where we added the medians. It's part of the Widening Project, however, further to the south. Without medians, we don't have that condition currently. Petaluma Hill Road doesn't have any medians and I believe that Stony Point, San Rosa Avenue does, but none that currently lead to a housing development. Thank you, sir. Any additional comments? Okay. Madam City Clerk, if you could please call the roll on the motion then. Thank you. Council Member Tibbets. Aye. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Vice Mayor Rogers. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with four ayes, with Council Member Alvarez and Vice Mayor Rogers voting no, and Council Member Fleming absent. Okay, thank you so much to our staff. Council Member Tibbets, did you have something additional to add? I did and my comment here, I don't intend it to be at all adversarial, but a couple of the public commenters mentioned something that I just wanted to inform if nothing else. And that was that all of the low income housing is being approved on the West side. And I just wanted to point out that what's been going on the East side lately is a lot of the same. We had the mid-pen development, we had the pep housing development, extremely low income. We also have two of the largest homeless service providers, social advocates for youth, I think it's 65 beds, and Los Guilicos Village plays right across the street from Oakmont of all places. And as well as a couple of group homes in Skyhawk for transitional age foster youth. So I just, I share that, I think that we're becoming victims of our own success to a degree of saying we want affordable housing, we want housing in this community. And we're starting to see it and we're starting to see a lot more of it. And as we do, it's going to be, I think a lot of folks might feel the need to reject it or question it. And I think we really have to keep our foot on the gas with it because we're finally starting to see some breakthroughs that may be meaningful, breakthroughs that people have worked hard for over the last four years. And it is being distributed from what I can tell relatively equally throughout the city. All right, thank you, Council Member. With that, we're going to take a quick dinner break. We'll come back at around eight o'clock. Let's go ahead, bring it back. Madam City Clerk, if you could please call the roll. Thank you. Council Member Tibbets. Council Member Schwed. Thank you. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Member Fleming. Okay, Madam, Mr. City Manager, let's do item 15.2. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 15.2 is a public hearing regarding modification of city code title 14, potable water and recycled water, modifying subsection B and deleting subsection G of section 14-04.010 definitions and modifying section 14-04.140 bills generally. Alan Alton, our Acting Chief Financial Officer, will be presenting the staff report on this item. Thank you. Mayor Rogers and members of the Council, this item brought to you by the Finance Department in Tenerosa Water, recommends changes to the center of the city code, which will assist us moving forward, moving toward more consistent billing cycle. Next slide, please. So the city bills customers in eight different cycles, which were basically eight sections of the city. Originally, the cycles were developed to accommodate manual meter reading. The schedule to read every meter in the city manually is very complex, produced, especially to accommodate weekends and holidays. The other purpose of the cycle is to assure accurate billing. The billing process after meters have been read require review of reports that provide exceptions, such as mysteries, abnormal water use, calculation checks to make sure the system is accurately calculating the bill and other control checks. This gives us time to complete the reviews and to do any necessary reread this in order to provide accurate billing. This is a time consuming process and having eight cycles provides us with adequate time to complete the billing check. Currently, billing reads, which are the reads at the beginning and end of a billing period can run from 28 to 35 days and did so to accommodate the schedule. With the completion of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project, or AMI, we will now be able to modify our billing periods because we do not have to manually read meters. Our first task post-AMI is to move billing periods to between 28 and 32 days and billing cycles each month, starting with cycle one and ending with cycle eight. While we can't get to the exact same length of time for each billing period due to February, which is a short month, in the holiday seasons where we have more days that the city are closed, we can now have more consistent periods. The minimum will be 28 days and the maximum 32, but most will fall between 30 and 31 days. This has been a request from our customers for years because they're concerned about having a 35-day cycle during surer cap setting in the winter. Next slide, please. So this slide just references the code sections that we proposed to change, and I'll go into that in more detail on the later slide. Next slide, please. So the reason for the change is to move toward a more consistent billing period. But in order to achieve this, starting in January, we will have to build cycle seven and eight, a 13th time in 2021. The code specifies that we can only bill 12 times a year. The extra billing will be within the billing parameters if not going below 28 days. The customers in these cycles will be billed at the beginning of December and at the very end of December. This will not create any adverse financial impacts. They will not be double billed. The bill is still within, again, the timeframe in using actual water usage that is passed through the meter. It just allows us this one-time opportunity to get on a monthly cycle. Next slide, please. So what are the advantages? As I referenced before, the surer cap setting has contained billing periods, excuse me, at 35 days. The customers have been requesting that we don't allow them to be that long. This will help us make that change. Also, I'd like to mention that customers now have a great tool available to them to track their own billing cycles and progression of water use in the WaterSmart portal. This portal allows customers to see their hourly usage data as well as set up customized notifications for when they go over an amount of use they specify. Next slide, please. So therefore, the modifications we're requesting is basically just to remove the wording in the code that identifies billing 12 times per year or that monthly is 12 times per year. Next slide. So with that, it's recommended by the Board of Public Utilities, the finance department in Santa Rosa water that the city council introduced an ordinance modifying title 14, potable and recycled water of the city code to modify the definition of billing period in section 14-04.010B, delete the definition of monthly in section 14-04.010G and modify section 14-04.140 to delete the wording 12 times per year and replace it with the requirement that the city will render bills monthly. And this is a public hearing. So at this point, we would request that the mayor open that here. Thank you, Mr. Alton. We'll see if there are any questions from council members. Seeing none, we will go ahead and open the public hearing. If you're interested in providing comment on this item, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. And I see no hands. Did we have any voice mail public comments? We did not, mayor. All right, I will go ahead and close the public hearing. Bring it back. Council members, could you put a motion on the table? Sure, I'd move an ordinance of the council, the city Santa Rosa mending sections 14-04.010 and 14-04.140 of title 14 of the Santa Rosa city could modifying definitions and provisions related to monthly water and sewer bills and waive for the reading in the text. All second. Motion from council member Schwedhelm with the second from council member Alvarez. Are there any additional discussion or comments? Council member Schwedhelm. I just want to make one comment. I know Alan mentioned that water smart portal. I use it myself. It's an awesome tool. I just encourage more of our water users to take a look at that because it gives you so much data about our own uses. So thank you Alan for mentioning that including the slide presentation. I appreciate that council member. It's a great tool. We look at it pretty much every single day and I'm very critical of how much water we use in my household as a result. So thank you for that. With that, madam clerk, if you could please call the vote. Yes. Council member Tibbetts. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six eyes with council member Fleming absent. Okay. Let's move on to item 15.3. Mayor Rogers and members of the city council. Item 15.3 is our third public hearing of the evening. The matter before the council is a Tefra public hearing and issuance of bonds by the California municipal finance authority in an aggregate amount, not to exceed $430 million for the Aurora Santa Rosa hospital and mental health facility located at 1265 through 1287 Fulton Road and 2598 Gernville Road. Angela Morgan, our program specialist too with our housing and community services department will present the staff report. Thank you and good evening council. The item before you today is the request to hold a public hearing and approve the issuance of bonds for the Aurora Santa Rosa hospital. Next slide please. Jurisdictions are required to hold a public hearing, receive public comment and approve bond issuance consistent with the tax equity and fiscal responsibility act of 1983 and internal revenue code. This action will not result in any fiscal impact to the general fund and the financial responsibility shall be of the borrower. In this case, the borrower shall be QCF1, Inc. And the sponsor is Quality Senior Housing Foundation, Inc. Next slide please. The project is an existing mental health facility located in Northwest Santa Rosa and more specifically at 1265 through 1287 Fulton Road and 2598 Gernville Road. The site is near shopping, food, veterinary hospital services, a bank, medical offices, gas stations and public schools. Next slide please. The existing facility includes 95 beds with plans to expand to its capacity of up to 144 beds shortly after acquisition financing. Its treatment facilities are available for both adolescents and adults. Next slide please. It is recommended by the Housing and Community Services Department that the council one conduct a public hearing under the requirements of the tax equity and fiscal responsibility act of 1983 and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as amended. And two, by resolution approve the issuance of tax-exempt 501C3 revenue bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority in an aggregate amount, not to exceed 400 and million, 430 million to finance the acquisition, construction, renovation and equipment of Aurora Santa Rosa Hospital, a mental health facility located at 1265 through 1287 Fulton Road and 2598 Gernville Road in Santa Rosa. Next slide please. This does conclude the presentation for this item. In addition to city staff, we do have Travis Cooper from California Municipal Finance Authority who is the issuer of the bonds. And in addition, we have Rob Tyler. Travis Gibbs and Stan Braiding as members of the team and are also available to answer any questions that you may have. All right, council, do we have any questions? All right, I will open the public hearing. If anybody's interested in speaking on this item, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. Seeing none, let's see if we have any voicemail public comments. We do not, Mayor. Okay, and seeing no hands nor anybody in the chamber, we'll close the public hearing, bring it back. Council Member Alvarez, I believe this is your motion. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to introduce the resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa, approving the issuance of revenue bonds in an aggregate amount, not to exceed 430 million by the California Municipal Finance Authority for Aurora Santa Rosa Hospital and Mental Health Facility located at 1265 through 1287 Fulham Road and 2598 Gernville Road. For the benefit of QCF slash I Incorporated, a 501 C3 non-profit healthcare organization in accordance with section 147 F of the internal revenue code and the joint exercise of powers agreement relating to said authority. And I'll wait for the reading of the text. Second. Motion by Council Member Alvarez. I'm going to give the second to Council Member Sawyer. Any comments? Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Hi, Angela. So is it Aurora or Santa Rosa behavioral health asking from a mental health clinician in the community? Because you guys use it interchangeably depending on what you're asking for or what you're presenting. So I get confused. Thank you, Vice Mayor Rogers for the question. It is currently operating as a behavioral healthcare hospital but it is Aurora Santa Rosa Hospital is the project for the proposed project. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, let's call the vote. Council Member Tibbets. Aye. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with Council Member Fleming absent. Okay, Mr. City Manager, let's go on to item 14.2. Mayor Rogers and members of the Council, item 14.2 is a report item on the Parks Measure Priority Plan update. Jen Santos, our Deputy Director Parks. Jeff Tibbets, our Interim Director for Recreation. And Jeremy Gundy, our Deputy Director of Field Services from our Transportation and Public Works Department. We'll be presenting the staff report. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and Vice Mayor Rogers, members of the Council. I'm Jen Santos, Deputy Director for Parks. And I have with me Jeff Tibbets, Interim Director for Recreation and Jeremy Gundy, Deputy Director for Field Services evening. And we'll be giving you an update on the Priority Plan for Measure M, known as the Parks Measure for inclusion of funds received in years three through 10. Next slide, please. And so I'll just give you a little bit of a background here. I know there's those of you on Council and maybe members of the community that would need a little bit of an update here. So again, this is a tax measure that was passed by the community in 2018 with 72.6% support. It's an eighth of a cent sales tax lasting for 10 years. And we started collecting tax from April 1st of 2019 and we stopped collecting tax in March 31st, 2029. It provides dedicated funds to the county in which the city receives approximately $1.9 million annually for park and recreation uses and needs. There's also a baseline commitment which requires the city to use the funds for supplement to what we do or enhancement to what we do rather than to supplant our historical general fund contributions. And we also report to a fiscal oversight committee approximately quarterly every year. And the actual, the annual update was tonight at the same, about the same time as this week. Next slide, please. And so we've been doing quite a bit of community outreach to understand the interests from the community on where their priorities might lie. We started off with a recommendation from the Board of Community Services in 2019 to approve a priority plan, which council did approve in 2019 of September 2019 that allows the first two years worth of funds received from this measure to be used to fund the gap in fire recover we have for park projects that are recovering from the fire damage from the 2017 wildfires. It also provides funding for the condition assessment we're having in our parks right now which is an assessment of all parks and landscapes city wide and provide a priority condition report. And that assessment is due in January 2022. The first priority plan also approved a robust community outreach to find out where the community's interests would be in spending in years three through 10. And so that's what we've been embarking on doing. We started our first community meeting on February 27, 2020, right before the pandemic. And so you'll see we picked it up again in December of 2020, having an all sports meeting because we're receiving a tremendous amount of interest from the sporting community. And so that went out to all of our folks that are registered in some sort of sports program throughout our city. And we attracted quite a bit of folks at that. We also followed up with three additional meetings in March and we're splitting those meetings between the quadrants in the city. The city right now collects park development impact fees in four quadrants. And the four quadrants can be thought of as if you take Highway 101 and Highway 12 it creates four quadrants in the city. So we really want to make sure that we're getting deep into the community. Next slide, please. We also had a citywide community meeting in April of this year. So just in case, since we started in 2020 there was anybody else that wanted to participate. We had one of those. We also had a citywide meeting conducted the primary language of Spanish. And I wanted to give a shout out to our partners on the land paths that helped us tremendously with that meeting and getting the right people to that meeting and making sure we had a good outreach. I'll take us back just a step to April, 2021. We had quite a bit of information and data collected from our community meetings at that point. So we felt it was necessary to go to the Board of Community Services and receive some initial feedback from them on the data that we had received at that point. And part of the strategies that came out of that were part of the data resulted in a high request for park maintenance, as well as park amenities, park improvements, capital projects, so to speak. And so with that, the Board asked us to come back to them with a more refined plan with all of the data which we did in September of this year, most recently. And so this is where at the Board of Community Services they received a very thorough and lengthy presentation regarding all the data we had received to date from all of the citywide outreach we had conducted. We also had after each of these meetings, online surveys available for once, just in case people didn't get a chance to participate. And so we discussed the parks measures categories and there was a strategy recommended by the Board that looked at grouping categories, like categories together. And so we'll discuss that priority strategy coming up. Next slide, please. And so we're just gonna take another look at what is actually, what can we do with these funds? These, the language on this slide is directly taken from the tax measure. So here you can see grouped together the parks for all uses that relate to maintenance and fuel reduction. And again, the language is straight from the tax measure to maintain parks and recreation facilities to ensure safe, clean, accessible visitor experiences and decreasing future fire risks by a removal of fuel loads and invasive plants on city-owned park spaces. So you could see some examples there on the slides of a trail that's splitting some tree work and some volunteers removing invasive plants. And so this is what we are looking at as maintenance categories. Those two things would have to do with maintenance. Next slide, please. And so here we've grouped the parks for all measure uses that are directly related to anything that would result in a capital project. So this, again, this is the exact language from the tax measure for your reference. And I won't read it at all, but essentially, if you look at the words we're improving and developing, we're creating, expanding, we're planning, developing bypassing trails, improving trails along waterways and repair areas. Quite a wide range of uses allowed for capital projects, but we've grouped them here for you so you can see how they're listed in the tax measure exactly. And so you can see some of our, our place to play playground went in not too long ago, a few years ago. Next slide, please. And so we have another category left and that is the recreation category. And this is again, the exact language from the tax measure providing recreation, education, health programs for the community. And we've given you some images there of what we mean by recreation. We have quite a few recreation, very successful recreation programs in the city. And so again, just a reminder for all of these uses, this is looking at enhancement, recreation, capital projects and maintenance. Next slide, please. And so here's just the raw data from our meetings. Again, we engaged the community in a robust outreach effort to try to collect as many responses as we could to our surveys. We had a wide variety of questions to allow folks to give us their input with open-ended questions as well as direct survey, check the box type surveys. And at the end of each survey, we asked this question, how would you like to see your measure and funding prioritized? And here's the results of all of our meetings that we've had to date. And if you look on the left, the category to the left improved park amenities came out with the largest request with the highest prioritized category and followed shortly behind by maintaining parks at 21%. And then followed by that by creating expanding parks, 13.3% and planning and developing bike paths at 10.4%, decreasing future fire risk around 10.2%, improving water waiver period trails 9.3% and providing programs came in seventh ranked at 7.2%. And this is the information that was really discussed and talked about a lot at the Board of Community Services meeting about how to prioritize the funds we have, the funds we have left. And so let me just go ahead and skip to the next slide and we'll show you this in another way before I go on into the strategies that this is the same exact information presented in a different way. Everybody sees things differently and some people are like the charts, other people like pie charts. It's the same thing where you're looking at improving park amenities at 28.4%, maintaining parks 21%. And while the community did prioritize things, they're really telling us they would like everything with these funds, of course, naturally, we would too. But when it comes down to priorities, this is where we're looking at really improving what we have is a big request as well as maintenance, another big request. Let's go to the next slide, please. And so we worked with the Board of Community Services over two meetings after we've collected all of the feedback from the community thus far. And we worked with the Board of Community Services to develop a strategy for how to spend the remaining funds we're gonna receive in years three through 10. Of course, that's an estimate of how much funds we could receive, it's all dependent on how well the tax measure does. But we discussed a strategy to prioritize the park's measure funds based on community feedback entirely and we received a lot of positive feedback at our first meeting with the Board of Community Services to pursue options that included grouping of the park's measure categories together that we're like. So maintenance in one category, capital projects in another and recreation in another category. And so we came back to the Board of Community Services in September of this year, like I mentioned earlier. And again, they received a very thorough review thanks to the Board of Community Services for hanging in there with that presentation. And we presented options regarding different ways of grouping the categories together and different ways of looking at the percentages. And when we went through all of that, we also took into consideration the feedback we received not just from the raw survey data where people are checking boxes on their priorities but also the open-ended questions where they can tell us what their priorities were. And when we looked at all of those priorities, we really heard a high request for things to do with maintaining what we have. And so we took that into consideration when we looked at how to strategize about funding the last three, years three through 10 of the measure M funds will receive. And we looked at grouping capital project categories together and we looked at grouping maintenance categories together and then the recreation categories together that really makes sense to how we would approach going out to the community to implement projects related to these. And we looked at the written words about please take care of what you have and we increased the amount of funding going to maintenance a little bit, a little over 40% or at 40% and we looked at capital improvement categories, reducing that just a tiny bit from the raw data to about 50% and the recreation category to about 10%. And we're also doing that because we're working with funds that are projected and it's not known exactly how the tax measure will do over the coming years. So we really are just looking at approximate numbers. And if you take into account that really when we're looking at, we have about $14 million left subtracting what has already been allocated and approved by council for funding from this, we have about $14 million left. So when we're looking at that money, we can also come up with approximate numbers here. And so you can put an approximate number of approximately $7 million would be, would go towards capital improvement categories and approximately 5.5 million funds could be appropriate for maintenance type projects and decreasing future fire risk and approximately 1.4 million for the recreation category. Again, all of these are approximate because it is a tax measure but we are looking at ways of providing ourselves with an outlet for moving forward rapidly, especially the capital projects. And each of us, each of us here tonight are going to go through and present information on capital projects, maintenance and recreation, the recreation category very quickly. I know it's very late and I appreciate your time. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Jeremy Gandhi to talk about the maintenance portion of the categories. Good evening, I'm not sure if I'm on the screen yet or if we're still promoting me or. We can hear you. Okay, that's a good start. We can see you as well, go ahead. Okay, now I'm getting a good echo here. Good evening, Mayor Rogers, members of the council, Jeremy Gandhi, W director of field services and transportation and public works. So tonight I'll just briefly review some of the maintenance items that we're looking at. Obviously we're still waiting for the parks condition assessment report to come back. I'm hoping to get that January, February, 2022. And that'll give us a real good overview and a comprehensive list of the different items throughout our city parks that are in need of additional maintenance. As we look at that, that condition assessment, we're also keeping in mind that we're trying to equally represent all seven districts throughout the community and provide the support equally throughout. So some of the things that we're looking at are, so some of the potential maintenance improvements involve the current landscape contract that we have. So some enhancements to that contract could possibly include additional lead management throughout the parks, the landscape medians and our roadside landscape park parcels that we have. Also, we're looking at reducing fire loads, fuel reduction throughout the open space and additional parks. We know we have quite a few invasive species that have started to take over. So we're looking at some enhancements to that. This is just to clarify, let's be on the fire department's weed abatement program. So working in conjunction with them so we don't duplicate efforts, but that's another area that we're looking at. We have a pretty extensive repair project that needs to take place at Howard Park at the tennis court. So we're looking at possibly including that and using Measure M funding to make those repairs. And then we're also looking at upgrading the lighting out at Galvin Park. We recently upgraded to Howard Park tennis court lights and we're looking at trying to continue along that path and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become more efficient as far as our electricity suits throughout our park system. And so some of the lighting out at the tennis courts at Galvin are in need of upgrades and that also help reduce future repair costs too. So we're also looking at our sports fields throughout the city, soccer fields, softball fields, baseball fields. We're looking at different ways to improve drainage, do some irrigation improvements, possibly do some enhancements to the dugouts and the backstops to make it more appealing for the players. And then looking at our playgrounds, some of the material below the playgrounds, such as the wood chips and fiber material, we're looking at making improvements there to kind of modernize some of those areas. And then another area that we're looking at, especially in light of the recent drought and looking into the future and trying to reduce water usage throughout the parks, we'd like to look at making some substantial improvements to our irrigation system, whether those be repairing old systems, trying newer, more efficient sprinkler heads. And then also looking at upgrading our controller systems to newer technology. So those are just some of the things that we're looking at, like you said, we're really awaiting those results of the parks condition assessment that's occurring right now. And so once we have that list, we'll have a better idea. Next slide, please. So at this time, I'd like to turn it back over to Deputy Director Santos, and she'll cover the capital project priorities. Thanks, Jeremy. And so for the capital projects, I just wanted to throw these items up here for you to look at. These are the exact, again, these are the exact tax measure language items for capital projects. And they're listed in the order that we received them from the community's interests, the community's priorities. So when we start to look at what capital projects we can do, we will certainly look at prioritizing, improving and developing athletic fields and playgrounds, restrooms, picnic areas, visitor amenities. This is very consistent with what we've heard at many of our community meetings, and we're out with the cab and doing different public engagement opportunities. We hear this frequently from especially regarding athletic fields and the playgrounds. Creating and expanding parks, trails, bikeways, public art and recreational and historical facilities will be our secondary priority with planning and developed bike paths and trails with connections to schools, community spaces and regional trails will be the third priority and improving the trails along waterways and repair areas to benefit fish, wildlife and habitat and water quality, again, is a fourth priority. They're all very high priorities for us, but we have a larger quest for countless capital projects. So we do need to prioritize and this is our guide. This is what we'll be using. Next slide, please. And so we thought this might be beneficial to talk about capital projects in general. What is a capital project for parks? And what are we looking at there and talk about common costs compared to the amount of funding we'll be receiving? So a new project just by reference would be something like Coffee Park where we lost 100% of Coffee Park pretty much in the wildfires and that's a new project that we build at park. We also installed Finale Park as a brand new park a few years back as well as Bear Park. This is a brand new project that we consider new projects. Deferred maintenance projects, when they get larger and out of the realm of maintenance repair, we start to look at deferred maintenance as pool resurfacing, entire tennis court resurfacing or repair. We have major cracks at Howard Park that need to be replaced entirely. So that's a huge capital project. Dan facing at Howard Park, we need to reface the Dan there. So those are deferred maintenance projects that are again outside the realm of day to day maintenance but they're also a little less than a brand new project. We also do a lot of amenity replacements and amenity can be a new train, a new playground, new picnic tables at Doyle. There's lots of things. Anything that you see in a park is an amenity. And so we also worked with the Board of Community Services and the community to talk about what are the common costs of these things that we're seeing? And the numbers I have have not been obtained for our recent increase in construction inflation. We've seen a dramatic increase in the cost for construction of projects. And so we've kept our estimates very minimal because again, we'll be doing these in the future not right this time. So what we've found, what we've utilized for playground replacements is about $447,000 for a taut lot and about $846,000 for replacement of a five to 12 year old playground. It takes anywhere from one and a half to two and a half million dollars for a lighted artificial sports field to install that. A dog park recently, about $471,000. And so just a little information for you to have when you're looking at the funds we'll be receiving. And acquisition is really kind of up in the air, but we recently paid in 2018 about $1.2 million for a little over two acres in Roseland. And our monument signs are about $25,000 a piece. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of perspective of capital projects, the costs and what we consider a capital project. And like Jeremy said, one of the things that we're really waiting on is that deferred condition, the deferred maintenance condition assessment assessment of our parks. It's going to provide us with the priority list of projects as well. So we're really looking forward to that. Meanwhile, I'm gonna turn it over to Jeff Tibbets to talk about recreation. Next slide please. Thank you, Jen. Good evening, council. So Jeff Tibbets, NRMW director for recreation. Our strategy with the 10% allocation for recreation is just pretty straightforward. So I'll keep it short and sweet here for you with the slide. Numbers there show you again, this is the final eight years of the plan. So the estimation is around $173,000 a year. Looking at it as a six year plan is $230,000 a year. The reason I show the six year plan there is that's what recreation is proposing to do with the funding received to offer programming to the community and a few reasons there why. The first one and the elephant that is still in the room is COVID and across the county, we meet on a regular basis with recreation divisions across the county. The fact is we have offered programming through COVID. It is incredibly challenging. It is still incredibly challenging. We're constantly dealing with how do we market things? Adjustments we've had to do, we've had to create thousands of barcodes over the last year for programs that used to be drop-in. So that's staff time and administration to do the things that we used to do much easier. So amongst the COVID uncertainty, the idea of still trying to build back to where we were and also now throwing on additional programming, it's just not really feasible with where our staffing situation is and the requirements that we're still trying to address. The other one is sales tax uncertainty. Again, this is a sales tax measure, as we know with other sales tax that we've had in the city that fluctuates. And when you open a program that has a specific budget, if that's a sales tax drop, we wanna have a little bit of that cushion of having built it up for a couple of years and having that room that one year's drop in sales tax doesn't mean that we're closing the doors on programs. So it gives us a little bit of that flexibility. The other one is community outreach. So while a lot of community outreach was done to bring the 50-40-10 plan before you this evening, it was really overview outreach to the community. And so now having these budgets to go back to the community and what does 10% going towards programming mean? Is it senior programs? Is it community events? Is it youth programs? So getting more of that information. The other piece with that community outreach is the preparation for that. What does that information give us? And also knowing that we need to plan on the staffing side of, again, the 173,000 for eight years or the 230,000 looking at six years, what can we try to offer the community without having to bring in a lot of additional permanent staff? Because as soon as we do that, that budget is gonna be very low in terms of what we're actually able to put towards the program. So having some time to prepare and strategize as staff of what can we bring on and offer to the community under our current structure so that as much benefit is going directly to the community with new programming. That wraps up the proposal of the three areas. So I will pass back to Jen to cover the next steps. Thanks, Jeff. So you've heard about the strategy this evening that we received from the Board of Community Services and you've also heard from us that we're very much anticipating the Completed Park Condition Assessment in January, February, especially to help us with understanding the specific capital needs in the city as well as the maintenance needs, the priorities. And we're looking essentially for our next steps to receive that assessment and then develop specific projects and plans for our next community engagement round, which will be a smaller community engagement, more focused to re-engage with the community early in spring of 2022. And we're really looking to receive community feedback and priorities for specific capital projects, maintenance enhancements and recreational programming like we've mentioned tonight. We're really looking to again, have these things in place and re-engage with the community, let them know what we've heard from the Board of Community Services as well as counsel. Excellent, please. And so if we're able to keep to our schedule and receive that and re-engage with the community early in 2022, we would look to implement our first capital projects pending an appropriate amount of funding from Measure M in early summer of 2022. And we would hope to have a updated maintenance program for enhancements at that time and a updated recreational programming enhancement strategy at that point. As Jeff mentioned, we're really looking at a six year program so that we can strategize about how to make that really meaningful going forward to the community versus jumping in and spending the funds for recreation right away. We plan to come back to the Board of Community Services annually with an update for Measure M on where we're at, what we've been doing and what we plan to do next with each of these categories. We also plan to come back to counsel for approval of projects and strategies during the annual budget process. And if needed, if we need to update the priority plan again, we'll come back to the council again. We plan to keep the community updated as much as possible at all of our outreach events as well as we have a dedicated Measure M website on the Recreation of Parks website for this project. So we'll be keeping the community updated regularly on that site. We also meet quarterly with the Citizens Oversight Committee who's reviewing for our financial standpoint. Are we meeting, does it meet the goals of the maintenance of efforts and does it align with the tax measures intentions? So next slide, please. So therefore we're recommending the Transportation and Public Works Department and the Planning and Economic Development Department that counsel by resolution approve the Parks Measure Priority Plan update for Parks Measure Funds received in years three through 10. And I'll just add in here that we're looking at that strategy again so that we have that so we can go back out and meet with our community and finalize our plans. And next slide, please. And I just wanted to add that we also have with us tonight, I believe our Chair of the Board of Community Services, Carol Cuant is available if we have any questions for the Board of Community Services. And that concludes our presentation, thank you. All right, thank you so much, Director. Thank you, Jeff and Jeremy and Carol and the entire Board of Community Services for all of your work. Director, I did have one question. I was hoping you could expand a little bit and talk about what type of an equity filter did we put on the responses that we received to our survey? Because it strikes me that if you live in an area that has nice parks, you probably want the parks to be maintained. But if you live in an area that doesn't have very many parks, you probably want parks built. Did we look at it through an equity lens? Well, a few of the things we did are when we outreached with our community partners, we met with the Community Advisory Board to receive feedback on how we should be engaging with the community to have the interests of those folks that don't typically participate in meetings and those folks that maybe don't have the nicest parks or whatever could participate. We also met with the Violence Prevention Partnership Group and Santa Rosa together. And we partnered all across the city with agencies that reach deep into each community. And this was on a quite quadrant basis. And we did this because this is how we collect funds in the city. We collect it by quadrant. And so our intention to go forward is to look at it from a quadrant base and make sure that there's equity in those quadrants for playgrounds and things like that. We're looking at maybe a medium-sized capital project. And when you're looking at a sports field, that's something that can be city-wide. It's serving the entire city. We really have our sports field spread out all over the city. So we're not looking to exclude one area from the other, but we have been focusing mostly on MLK Park as an option for building one of our sports fields as well as a place to play and some on the East side because we know there's a heavy interest in that. So we're looking at filtering it out that way throughout the city. And again, working with our community partners to make sure that we're reaching deep into the neighborhoods. And then I'll turn it to Jeff and Jeremy if they want to add anything about recognition and maintenance. I'll just time in real quick, if I might. It's just a good point to think about. We had a lot of discussions, the three of us, about how the different funds are gonna be spent. And we're really working together collaboratively. And one of the things that most often folks don't realize is the money that's spent towards capital improvement projects throughout the parks to build new park amenities. It's actually positively impacts our park maintenance program having those newer amenities obviously results in less maintenance in the earlier years. So that allows us to reshift our focus towards some of the things that do need more attention some of the older items throughout our parks. So I just wanna mention that it is a collaborative effort between building new things and maintaining what we have. So just wanted to add that. Thank you. I really appreciate that answer. Thank you. Councilor, are there any additional questions about the plan? Council Member Svettel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Jim, for the presentation and Jeff and Jeremy. Jenny, you'd mentioned first two years went for, you know, basically build up the parks that are heard from the fire. I didn't hear a dollar amount. How much money have we received and or is it meeting the expectation of 1.9 million? Right now, the tax measure is exceeding the expectation a little bit. And so we're receiving about $2 million a year. And so right now we have about $4,1,112,000 in the received from the tax measure so far. And so we anticipated this and we anticipated the first two years would collect approximately $4 million. So we're right on target. Okay, and then can you also share a little bit more on like slide 15? I have a question about the approval of the projects and what role Council does or doesn't play in that. On slide 15, it talks about developed specific projects and plans for community engagement. At what point would feedback from the Council be solicited? So we'll be looking at bringing back an updated priority plan with those projects early in summer of 2022. And the Board of Committee services as well as the Council should have plenty of opportunities to chime in on which projects. That we reach the right projects that we reach the right communities before we strike out on implementation. So we're looking at early summer to come back to the Council. That's for capital projects. We're really looking for from Jeremy's team and from just team for updated plans at that point. And I guess for me, my comfort zone is I would hate for staff to do a lot of in-depth work on some specific projects. And Council wanted to go in a different direction. So it's that time in the feedback. And I'm specifically thinking about we're having a conversation on November 30th about one-time monies. And I'm really interested in potentially some transformational projects, right? Which may not be spread throughout the city, but if we can make a huge impact, leveraging a variety of different funding sources, including some of the dollars that we're talking about on number 30th. I would just like to have a voice in that if that we do try to leverage different funding sources and potentially even including measure M that you're able to hear what we're kind of interested in. We'll see how the discussion goes on the 30th, but just kind of planting the seed. Thanks. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. On slide eight and nine, where we have the pie chart as well as the bar graphs, it spoke of improvements or improving park amenities. On slide 12, I do see that you have a couple listed, athletic fields, among others. And I'm wondering if there was any other improvements that the community was asking for, and specifically sidewalks or crosswalks? Well, one of the things that, some of the folks that have participated in this had specific recommendations for projects, but we weren't necessarily at this time collecting feedback for specific projects. We really wanted to understand what was the big picture. And so that's what we're hoping to update today. But we did have the biggest request was for sports, specifically sports fields. I don't recall anything in particular for a crosswalk coming up, but that's what we're hoping to do with this next round of community engagement is to drill down and find out what those projects are that are really important to the community and make sure that we're providing that equitably across the city. The thank you as always for the great job. Any other questions from Council? All right, let's go to public comment on this item. If you're interested in speaking, hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. Seeing no hands. Do we have any prerecorded voicemail public comments? We did not, Mayor. Okay, we'll bring it back to Council. Council Member Swethelm, this is your item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd move a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa, approving the parks measure priority plan update and waive further in the text. Second. It's a motion from Council Member Swethelm and a second from Council Member Tibbets. Any other comments? Go for it, Vice Mayor. Is there any interest in the future to have it not broken down in quadrants, but to have the city broken down in districts? Districts as far as parks are concerned and how we break it down? Jen? I mean, we can certainly add that as a layer on there. The parks have been historically looked at from a quadrant basis, so we can absolutely add on the district layer to show by district what we are looking at. Apparently when we get into a sports field type scenario, there might be, you know, not every district would end up with a sports field necessarily, but I think that that's a great recommendation to add that layer on top of there. I was just asking just because when we look at like equity and now like historically, we weren't in districts. And so something might be close, but not close enough, even though it's in my quadrant. And so that's the only reason why I, but then district lines change too. So I don't know. It was just a lens that I was wondering if we had ever looked at changing to make it equitable. So we currently collect those fees by quadrant and I believe it would require a change in the ordinance and the way that we collect and record those. That's possible to do. As Jen was saying, we can provide an overlay map that shows districts and where proposed projects would be located within those districts. We can also provide a map that shows qualified census tracks and income levels within the city. I think all of that data is helpful in guiding and deciding where we place amenities, where we do our maintenance, where we build future projects. Vice Mayor Rogers, if I might add. So our maintenance team has actually redrawn our lines for our operations. And we are looking at maintenance district wide throughout all seven districts and our new city works data management program that we are in the process of unveiling will also allow us to track the maintenance costs and the types of work that we're performing throughout all seven districts. So from the maintenance aspect, we are able to do that and we're currently working on that. But that's different from the quadrants and the way that the money is collected. What do you have for me, Jeff? Obviously our recreation facilities are where they are not too much control on our end on that right now. I have actually, I've had some conversations with Sakura Shields on how we do that. And we are actually looking at some ways to try to expand across the city who we're offering programs to by who we're offering programs through. So we're actually working on a campaign to try to recruit some additional contract instructors to provide some different programming that may target but that data is a little harder for us to get because when people sign up for recreation we generally don't collect that much data that would give us that information to share. I will say as far as our recreation is concerned when looking at recreation, especially for the summer it was particularly in my district in district one geared towards low income. And so for people that didn't fit into that category it was difficult to find services. They were worse, it wasn't as many but then we didn't meet criteria for the low income. So we just couldn't get services. Very good point. Thank you. All right, council. Any other questions, comments? We have a motion and a second. Let's call the vote. Council Member Tivitz. Aye. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with council member Fleming absent. All right, thank you so much to the team. We appreciate all the good work and I wanna emphasize again, thank you to our board of community services who have been working hand in hand as well in the outreach efforts that they've made along with our staff. We'll keep moving through our agenda. We have no written communications. We do have one more opportunity for public comment for non-agenda items. If you'd like to make a comment about something that was not on tonight's council agenda, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. Seeing none, we will adjourn. Thank you everybody.